Every photo looked suspicious now. Times when he and Reggie had gone fishing on the boat for weekends seemed to be mocking her. She had a terrible feeling that Liam was telling her the truth about exactly what he had seen. This was something so far removed from her realm of experience that she didn’t know what on earth she was supposed to do. She felt sick when she thought of them together, him and Reggie like man and wife. Or, more precisely, man and man. She knew what those kind of people got up to, everyone did. But she would never, in a million years, have believed it of the man she had married, the man who’d professed to love her for all these years.

She felt the hot sting of tears and was determined not to cry again. She knew this was something she could never tell another living soul. Imagine her mother if she heard something like this? Or her father. Not that he would believe a word of it. Even Gerry, who was the first to say that Reggie, her big, handsome brother Reggie, had no interest in women, wouldn’t believe it. This was one time Sharon was completely on her own; she would have to find the solution for herself.

She looked up at the crucifix on the wall in the hallway. It was beautiful, made of carved oak with the body of Christ fashioned in solid silver, His eyes raised to the heavens as He died for the sins of the world. She wondered if a prayer would help, but she knew it wouldn’t. Nothing could help because she still didn’t know what the fuck she was supposed to do. Lenny would deny it; he had no choice in the matter. That was something she knew for sure – he would not sit down and pour his heart out to the woman he had married and given two children, beg her forgiveness and say it would never happen again. That wasn’t Lenny’s style, she knew that much. Lenny would accuse her of all sorts, be outraged and on his dignity. He would feel she had impugned his reputation and, of course, he would want to know who she had told her suspicions to. She felt that she could pick up a knife and stick it through his cheating, filthy black heart. But she would not do that either.

She wandered into her front room, the room that they were so proud of with its grey walls and deep-red furnishings and she poured herself a generous helping of brandy. Somehow she had a feeling that wine wasn’t going to do it for her tonight.

Chapter Seventy-Four