Love Is a Secret Read Online Free PDF

the keyboard without looking up at her screen. ‘ Are you a selfish mum? We could put it up for conference.’
    It wasn’t bad, Caroline conceded. She and Zelda worked well as a team, which Diana, always astute, had spotted when Caroline had asked to go part-time and Zelda had got pregnant with Aurora. It had been Diana who had persuaded the powers-that-be that Zelda and Caroline should job-share. The result was that between them they edited the Parenting and Health pages for Beautiful You magazine. Caroline worked Mondays and Tuesdays, Zelda worked Wednesdays and Fridays, and they both came in on Thursdays for conference when the whole team thrashed out ideas for the next issue.
    ‘Ready, everyone?’ Diana put her head round the door of her office.
    ‘Bloody hell! She’s early,’ muttered Zelda.
    Caroline tried Roger’s mobile. No reply. Zelda lived in Kingston. She’d know. ‘Your mum’s in Wembley, isn’t she?’
    ‘Yup. Why?’
    ‘How long does it take you to get there?’
    ‘Half an hour, maybe. Forty minutes. Come on – everyone else has gone in. Got your notes?’
    She had. Organisation might not be her forte at home but work was different.
    ‘Caroline, switch off your phone now . We’ve got to go in!’
    Maybe, thought Caroline, studying Diana furtively as the editor dissected the beauty editor’s ideas on non-surgical face lifts, it was easier not to be married. Diana was a single mum, an elegant,  contented one. She had a younger boyfriend in advertising with whom she didn’t live, and a nine-year-old son at an expensive private day school in London. She was always impeccably groomed with her hair cut in a spiky black style, and her clothes were generally from East. She had enough empathy with her staff to understand when things went wrong – not that she knew anything about Roger – and enough grit to demand action when it was needed.
    Marriage would probably destroy her.
    ‘Right. Moving on to Parenting.’ Diana’s nails – French-manicured – drummed on the pad in front of her. ‘I want to get more relationship-y. This page is beginning to focus too much on the poor-little-me side of parenting. Don’t you think, Zelda?’
    ‘Depends how you see it, really.’ Zelda glanced nervously across the pale beech conference table at Caroline. ‘Actually, we’ve got a great idea here. Are mums becoming selfish? ’
    Diana pursed her impeccably lined lips. ‘Exactly what I don’t want. Anyway, Just For You did something similar last month. I want to help readers get through the impossible stuff that happens in their lives.’
    ‘Like bad sex,’ ventured the girl from Practicals. A titter ran round the table.
    Caroline cleared her throat. ‘What about How to rewire your dead marriage? ’ The What Mums Know discussion topic – she’d spotted it after her laptop had unfrozen itself on the train – had ironic potential.
    ‘I fancy Infidelity ,’ mused Diana.
    Caroline’s mouth dried. ‘What angle were you thinking of?’
    ‘Did you see that new survey about marriage? No?’ Her eyes narrowed with disapproval. ‘Pity. One in four couples who have experienced infidelity are now trying again to make their relationship work compared with one in seven five years ago. I want you to find me three case histories who’ll come clean. Yes, Zelda, identified with pics. Women who can say that their husband had an affair but are prepared to start again.’
    ‘Men, too?’ demanded Zelda, sharply.
    ‘If you can get one.’
    ‘I know this isn’t my area,’ drawled the beauty editor, ‘but nowadays that just doesn’t happen. My brother-in-law had an affair and my sister threw him out of the house before he could pack his iPad. Any self-respecting woman would do the same.’
    ‘Not according to the marriage expert quoted in the survey.’
    Diana’s fingers were drumming again. ‘What do you think, Caroline?’
    ‘I think it’s going to be tough to find people who’ll be identified,’