Over the next few days, Debbie had a ball, she went through the pretence of having her breakfast before going upstairs to her office, making Sam think she was still working and as soon as he left for work, she was driving to beauty spas, having massages, getting her nails done, going for fancy lunches and of course, shopping for shoes and clothes. If Sam had looked in the boot of Debbie’s car, he would have seen more high brand clothing items than a reality TV star owns.

She nearly got caught out once, when a girlfriend of hers, asked in front of Sam, “How on earth did you afford those Gucci shoes? They are super expensive.” Debbie managed to mumble that she had found them in a charity shop and they were her bargain of the century, which seemed to satisfy Sam.

But, shopping all day and getting your hair and nails done, turns out, can be quite boring and so Debbie found herself staying indoors and sat at her computer. She started playing online games like bingo and Candy Crush, but that too, became boring and one day, she happened to see an advert for online dating and still feeling hurt and betrayed by Sam’s work affair, she signed up for one.

She found it fun to write her little bio at the top and she had had a photo professionally done, so she used that one as her profile picture. She filled in her likes and dislikes and what she looks for in a man and it wasn’t long before she was getting virtual ‘winks’ from some men and messages from others. She looked through the messages, quickly being able to delete the lewd ones, the weird ones and the nerdy ones, until she had a core of men she was chatting to. There were a couple that Debbie particularly liked, one was called Tim and the other was called Samir, both she felt a certain connectivity with.

All was going smoothly with Tim, until he let it slip that he was married and Debbie couldn’t do that to somebody else, she knew how it felt to be betrayed by someone. So Samir was the one that she turned her attention to. They messaged each other first thing in the morning and again in the late afternoon, which suited Debbie as she didn’t want to be messaging when Sam was around.  Once he had told her he was an investment banker and so one day, she cheekily asked for some advice, which he freely gave her, she invested and made a little bit of money.

This had carried on for a while, sometimes she would make money and sometimes she would lose it, but to Debbie it was all part of the mating ritual, she would love to meet him sometime, but they hadn’t gotten to that point yet.

One day, Samir messaged Debbie stating: “I have a hot tip, but it does require quite a bit of money to make it worth your while.” Debbie was excited, she was loving the risk involved with trading and readily agreed saying, “Just let me know how much and I’ll put the money up for you,” and she gave a little gasp when the reply came back: “£800,000.” “That’s all I have left from the million I won,” she thought, “But I trust Samir, he’s not let me down before,” so she agreed to this and sent the money to Samir.

A few days passed and she heard no word from Samir, no word on how her investment was doing or even a message from Samir, full stop. For the first time Debbie was nervous, what if it was a scam? But Samir could never have known that she had a lot of money, as she had never told him, he was probably just sorting the deal out. So, she waited another few days, still nothing then she was dealt another blow, Sam left her.

It was out of the blue, he got up for work as usual, he got dressed in his suit and tie as normal, picked up his computer bag and said, “I’m off.” “Okay darling,” she had said, “See you tonight.” “No, I’m off, I’m leaving you,” and that was it, he was gone. Debbie was shell-shocked, what had she done? How could he leave her, especially after what he’d done?

Debbie turned her attention to the money, she tried tracking Samir down on the dating site, but he had completely disappeared, no profile, nothing. She looked on Facebook, no account that she could see, Twitter, Instagram, nothing, it was as though he never existed. Her money never appeared in her account and she never heard from Samir again.