Karen lay in her bed, arms behind her head, and basked in the glory of the night before. Not only had everyone raved about everything that came out of the kitchen, the bar takings had been excellent as well. Quite a few of the people who were staying in the hotel had congregated there before they went up to their rooms, so the roving licensee had done very well, as had Mr Patel with his percentage of the takings.

      The mix-up of the rings drama had actually turned into a triumph, although Michelle and Tony had experienced a couple of minutes of distraught, guilty panic when they discovered their mistake after they returned to the kitchen while Laura was trying to sort it out. When Laura brought the desserts back to the kitchen, Karen decided that having two proposals so close to each other might spoil the moment for everyone involved, so removed the ring from the chocolate soufflé, took it out of the plastic box, and put it back in the ring box she’d left on the shelf by the sink.

     ‘Tell the guy at table eleven that you think it best that he gives his girlfriend the ring himself,’ she told Laura. ‘I’m sure he’ll just be grateful he’s still got it to give her after she tried to swap her desert. He doesn’t have to know it was actually the wrong ring anyway. Can you imagine how that could have played out? God, it doesn’t bear thinking about!’

     Karen was absolutely right. Not only did the guy at table eleven look relieved when Laura beckoned him out to the hall and gave him back the ring outside the gent’s toilets, he insisted on tipping her twenty pounds for averting the disaster he thought his girlfriend had nearly caused.

     After the girl at table nine burst into elated tears when she found the engagement ring inside the hidden box in her soufflé, Tanya, at table eleven, had looked on with a sad and envious smile. That is, until her boyfriend got down on one knee and produced the retrieved solitaire from his pocket.

     Yes, the evening had been an unmitigated success in every respect, and even Mr Patel looked delighted as the diners complimented him on their meal before they left, or went up to bed. It was only one night, but Karen felt confident it was just the first of many successful events she could arrange at the hotel.

     Although she knew she ought to get up, Karen allowed herself a lie-in until nine o’clock. Before she got dressed, she hopped on the scales for the first time in three days, and punched the air when she did. It might have taken over four months to get there, but she’d at last reached her target weight by losing forty pounds.

     Having nothing else to do until she logged on to the chat line at eleven-thirty, Karen decided it was time for a little retail therapy. Because she’d been trying to save her money, she’d hardly spent a penny on new clothes, apart from the few things she’d bought at the Salvation Army. But she desperately needed some new underwear because she’d gone down two cup sizes, and her knickers kept falling down. The seven hundred and fifty pounds she’d made the night before was still needed to hopefully take on the mortgage as soon as possible, but she reckoned she deserved a treat after all her hard work. With a spring in her step she hadn’t felt in years, she got her car out of the garage, and went into town.

      
    
When the estate agent called Mark to say a couple from Yorkshire wanted to view the house before they returned home that afternoon, he offered to show them round himself. He presumed Karen must be working because he tried ringing the house several times to no avail. At twelve-thirty on the dot, Mr and Mrs Rose arrived, just after Mark pulled up in the immaculate, tarmac driveway.

     As they walked around the house, the couple seemed really impressed. It was fairly tidy, with the exception of a few clothes scattered about in Tony’s room, but that was only to be expected, him being a typical boy. The kitchen, which had been such a hive of activity for the two days before Saint Valentine's while Karen cooked up a storm, shone like a new pin.  The den, where the kids had a habit of leaving it like a war zone after an evening watching TV, didn’t have an empty crisp packet or dirty mug to be found. Unbeknown to Mark, Michelle and Tony had gone straight to bed when they got back from the hotel because they had to go to work in the morning.

     Mark was just about to open the master bedroom door to show the couple around, when he was stopped in his tracks by the sounds on the other side. There was no question about it; Karen was having an orgasm more tumultuous than any she’d ever had with him.

     The couple's jaws dropped, and without saying a word, they turned tail and made their way to the front door as quickly and quietly as they could. All Mark could do was follow them back outside, after he shut the front door behind him.

     ‘I’m so sorry…’ the woman said to Mark as she and her husband nearly fell over themselves as they got back into their car. She had no idea he'd been separated for over a year, so assumed what was going on behind the bedroom door had surprised Mark, just as much as it had surprised them.  ‘Perhaps we can come back at a more convenient time...’

     ‘I’m sorry too,’ Mark told her with a sad, apologetic smile, before they drove off and left him standing alone in the driveway…