Page 94 of The Half Sister

‘Whathas Lauren got to do with it?’ Kate asks again, her voice rising.

Rose fixes her with a stare. ‘Iwasn’t the one who was pregnant.Shewas.’

36

Lauren

‘Do you feel guilty?’ Justin asks, caressing Lauren’s hair as she lies on his chest.

It had felt as if the twenty-two years that stood between them last being together and now had evaporated into thin air. It was as if she was sixteen again, with the same hopes and aspirations of an unknown life before her. She’d lost herself in the idea that they could run away together, live somewhere on a remote island, where no one could find them. His question brings her back to earth with a bump.

‘Guilty? No. Scared? Yes,’ she says truthfully.

‘Scared?’ asks Justin, tipping her chin up to face him. ‘Of what?’

‘Of what I’ve done and what it means.’

‘Whatdoesit mean?’ he asks.

She props herself up on her elbow, exposing her breast, and hurriedly pulls at the sheet to cover herself up. Justin gently takes it away again.

‘It means that I’m an unfaithful wife and a selfish mother. It means that I’m no better than the husband I’ve grown to hate.’

She bats away the threat of tears. She will not play the victim. This was her decision, and she needs to take ownership of it.

‘Has he cheated on you?’ asks Justin, tracing his finger down the side of her face.

‘I don’t know,’ she says honestly. ‘But if he has, that’s not why I hate him.’

‘Does he treat you badly?’

She nods. ‘He’s not happy and he takes it out on me.’

‘Physically?’

‘Sometimes, but the emotional abuse is just as hard to take. But I won’t let him break me because I have the children to think about – they’re my world.’

‘Would you leave him?’ asks Justin earnestly.

She falls back onto the pillow and sighs. ‘If I was brave enough, but it would break the kids’ hearts and I don’t think I could ever do that to them.’

‘I thought that staying with my wife until my youngest left high school was the best thing to do,’ says Justin. ‘But in reality, it just prolonged the agony for all of us. The boys have both since told me that they wished we’d called it a day well before we did, to spare them all the arguments and uncomfortable silences.’

‘They sound like sensible kids,’ says Lauren.

‘They are,’ smiles Justin. ‘I’m very lucky.’

Lauren sits up and swings her legs onto the floor. ‘I should go. I need to get home before Simon does.’

Justin trails a finger down her spine, making her whole body tingle. ‘Where does he think you are?’

‘He doesn’t know I’ve gone anywhere. He’s working in town tonight on a shop fit and I’m hoping that he’ll be none the wiser when he comes in.’

‘Maybe he’s not where he saysheis either,’ says Justin with raised eyebrows.

Lauren quickly steps into her jumpsuit, not wanting Justin to see any more of her than he has already.

‘Do you not think I’ve seen it all?’ he asks, as if reading her mind.

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