The Husband's Secret(112)

            Damn it. Will had been right too. Liam did need to change schools.

            Tess’s eyes filled with tears, and she felt suddenly ashamed.

            Why the shame? she wondered as she pulled a tissue from her bag and blew her nose. Because her husband had fallen in love with someone else? Because she wasn’t lovable enough, or sexy enough, or something enough, to keep her child’s father satisfied?

            Or was she actually ashamed about last night? Because she’d found a selfish way to make the pain disappear? Because right now she was longing to see Connor again—or, more specifically, to sleep with him again, to have his tongue, his body, his hands obliterate the memory of Will and Felicity sitting on either side of her, telling her their horrible secret? She remembered the feel of the length of her spine being flattened against the floorboards in Connor’s hallway. He was fucking her, but really he was fucking them.

            There was a burst of sweet feminine laughter from the row of pretty, chatty mothers sitting alongside Tess. Mothers who had proper married sex with their husbands in the marital bed. Mothers who were not thinking the word “fuck” while they were watching their children’s Easter Hat Parade. Tess was ashamed because she wasn’t behaving like a selfless mother should.

            Or perhaps she was ashamed because deep down she wasn’t that ashamed at all.

            “Thank you so much for joining us today, mums and dads, grandmas and grandpas! That concludes our Easter Hat Parade!” said the school principal into the microphone. She tilted her head to one side and waggled her fingers around an imaginary carrot stick like Bugs Bunny. “That’s all, folks!”

            “What do you want to do this afternoon?” asked Lucy as everyone applauded and laughed.

            “There are a few things I need at the shops.” Tess stood and stretched and looked down at her mother in her wheelchair. She could feel Connor’s eyes on her from the opposite side of the yard.

            New lingerie was what she needed. Extremely expensive lingerie that her husband would never see.





FORTY-ONE


            Happy Easter!” said Trudy to Rachel as they packed up the office that afternoon. “Here, I got you a little something.”

            “Oh!” said Rachel, touched and annoyed, because it hadn’t occurred to her to get a present for Trudy. There had never been any exchanging of gifts with the old school principal. They’d rarely exchanged pleasantries.

            Trudy handed over a charming little basket filled with a variety of delicious and expensive-looking eggs. It looked like the sort of thing Rachel’s daughter-in-law would buy her: expensive, elegant and just right.

            “Thank you so much, Trudy. I didn’t . . .” She waved her hand to indicate her absence of a gift.

            “No, no.” Trudy waved back to indicate it wasn’t necessary. She’d stayed in her bunny suit for the entire day and looked, Rachel thought, perfectly ridiculous. “I just want you to know how much I appreciate the work you do, Rachel. You carry this whole office, and you let me be . . . me.” She lifted one of her rabbit ears out of her eyes and gave Rachel a level look. “I’ve had some secretaries who found my working approach somewhat unusual.”

            I bet they did, thought Rachel.

            “You make it all about the children,” said Rachel. “That’s who we’re here for.”

            “Well, you have a lovely Easter break,” said Trudy. “Enjoy some time with that scrumptious grandson of yours.”

            “I will,” said Rachel. “Are you . . . going away?”

            Trudy didn’t have a husband or children or any interests that Rachel knew of outside of the school. There were never any phone calls of a personal nature. It was hard to imagine how she’d be spending the Easter break.