The Husband's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

were all working long hours.
    Liam had been quieter than usual while he was eating his dinner. He was a dreamy, reflective little boy; he’d never been a chatterbox, but there had been something so grown-up and sad about the way he mechanically speared each piece of sausage with his fork and dunked it in the tomato sauce.
    “Did you play with Marcus today?” Tess had asked.
    “Nah,” said Liam. “Today’s Monday.”
    “So what?”
    But he’d closed down and refused to say another word about it, and Tess had felt rage fill her heart. She needed to talk to his teacher again. She had the strongest feeling that her child was in an abusive relationship and nobody could see it. The school playground was like a battlefield.
    That’s what had been on Tess’s mind when Will had asked her if she’d come downstairs: her mother’s ankle and Marcus.
    Will and Felicity were sitting at the meeting table waiting for her. Before Tess joined them, she collected all the coffee mugs that were sitting around the office. Felicity had a habit of making herself fresh cups of coffee that she never finished. Tess put the mugs in a row on the meeting table and said, as she sat down, “New record, Felicity.
Five
half-drunk cups.”
    Felicity hadn’t said anything. She looked oddly at Tess, as if she felt
really
bad about the coffee cups, and then Will made his extraordinary announcement.
    “Tess, I don’t know how to say this,” he said. “But Felicity and I have fallen in love.”
    “Very funny.” Tess had grouped the coffee cups together and smiled. “Hilarious.”
    But it seemed it wasn’t a joke.
    Now she studied her hands on the honey-gold pine of the desk. Her pale, blue-veined, knuckly hands. An ex-boyfriend had once told her that he was in love with her hands. Will had a lot of trouble getting the wedding ring over her knuckle at their wedding. Their guests had laughed softly. Will had pretended to exhale with relief once he got it on, while he secretly caressed her hand.
    Tess looked up and saw Will and Felicity exchange covert worried glances.
    “So it’s true love, is it?” said Tess. “You’re
soul mates
, are you?”
    A nerve throbbed in Will’s cheek. Felicity tugged at her hair.
    Yes.
That’s what they were both thinking.
Yes, it is true love. Yes, we are soul mates.
    “When exactly did this start?” she asked. “When did these feelings between you develop?”
    “That doesn’t matter,” said Will hurriedly.
    “It matters to
me
!” Tess’s voice rose.
    “I guess, I’m not sure, maybe, about six months ago?” mumbled Felicity, looking at the desk.
    “So when you started to lose weight,” said Tess.
    Felicity shrugged.
    Tess said to Will, “Funny that you never looked twice at her when she was fat.”
    The bitter taste of nastiness flooded her mouth. How long since she’d let herself say something that was purely nasty? Not since she was a teenager.
    She had never called Felicity fat. Never said a critical word about her weight.
    “Tess, please . . .” said Will, without any censure in his voice, just a soft, desperate pleading.
    “It’s fine,” said Felicity. “I deserve it. We deserve it.”
    She lifted her chin and looked at Tess with naked, brave humility.
    So Tess was going to be allowed to kick and scratch as much as she wanted. They were just going to sit there and take it for as long as it took. They weren’t going to fight back. Will and Felicity were fundamentally good. She knew this. They were good people, and that’s why they were going to be so
nice
about this, so understanding and accepting of Tess’s rage, so that in the end
Tess
would be the bad person, not them. They hadn’t actually slept together, they hadn’t betrayed her. They’d fallen in love! It wasn’t an ordinary grubby little affair. It was fate. Predestined. Nobody could think that badly of them.
    It was genius.
    “Why didn’t you tell me on your own?” Tess tried to lock eyes with Will, as if the