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Back The Other Husband Save as PDF
Chapters (67)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. PROLOGUE
  4. PART ONE
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. PART TWO
  23. EIGHTEEN
  24. NINETEEN
  25. TWENTY
  26. TWENTY-ONE
  27. TWENTY-TWO
  28. TWENTY-THREE
  29. TWENTY-FOUR
  30. TWENTY-FIVE
  31. TWENTY-SIX
  32. TWENTY-SEVEN
  33. TWENTY-EIGHT
  34. TWENTY-NINE
  35. PART THREE
  36. THIRTY
  37. THIRTY-ONE
  38. THIRTY-TWO
  39. THIRTY-THREE
  40. THIRTY-FOUR
  41. THIRTY-FIVE
  42. THIRTY-SIX
  43. THIRTY-SEVEN
  44. THIRTY-EIGHT
  45. THIRTY-NINE
  46. PART FOUR
  47. FORTY
  48. FORTY-ONE
  49. FORTY-TWO
  50. FORTY-THREE
  51. FORTY-FOUR
  52. FORTY-FIVE
  53. FORTY-SIX
  54. FORTY-SEVEN
  55. FORTY-EIGHT
  56. FORTY-NINE
  57. FIFTY
  58. FIFTY-ONE
  59. FIFTY-TWO
  60. FIFTY-THREE
  61. FIFTY-FOUR
  62. EPILOGUE
  63. Mailing list
  64. A Letter from Kathryn
  65. Acknowledgements
  66. About the Author
  67. Also by Kathryn Croft

She hasn’t heard her name for a long time and it’s incongruous now, in this room. It doesn’t belong. Mark’s wife has always been a faceless person, an outline with no shading. She couldn’t have functioned if it had been any other way. They’d met soon after Mark had left Abby, not long before she’d met Rob in that bar. And even when Mark had turned up on her doorstep, saying he’d made a mistake, she’d shut the door on him, knowing that he was involved with someone else, tears blinding her once he couldn’t see her face.

‘I was scared… You wouldn’t go anywhere near me while I was with her, so I… maybe I didn’t believe you really wanted me. Especially after the way I’d ended our relationship. And then Cassie told me she was pregnant. It was that same night. I was ready to tell her, I swear. But then she told me that.’

‘You… you have a child?’

‘No. No. Cassie had an early miscarriage, and then, well she wanted to try again, and we did, but it never happened. And I’m glad it didn’t. It would have been the wrong thing for everyone.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before? When we met up after Mum died? You had every chance.’ Until recently in the car that night, it was the last time she’d seen him. A time she’s not proud of and wishes she could erase.

‘Because you told me you loved Rob and that you didn’t feel the same way about me any more. Remember that? There didn’t seem any point. And it’s not like we were doing much talking. Remember?’

She does. She’d just lost her mum and she felt angry with everyone, full of rage at the world. When Mark had messaged her begging to meet up, she’d almost done it to hurt herself, to inflict more pain to numb the wound her mum’s death had left. ‘I’m not proud of that,’ she says.

‘And this?’ He lifts the sheet where they both lie naked underneath. ‘What’s this?’

‘This is different.’ And it is, because this time she knows her marriage is over, and that she needs to set Rob free, for his sake even more than hers.

Thinking of Rob now forces her to think of Greg, and Sienna too. The three of them are intertwined now, and there is no way to unravel one from the other.

She kisses Mark’s chest, slides her hand along it. She is safe now.

And he will never need to know what she’s done.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Sienna

‘How are you really doing?’ Holly asks. ‘And don’t give me any of that I’m fine stuff. It’s okay not to be – it’s only been three weeks.’