Page 52 of Confessions of a Christmasholic

And while their exploits would be a funny story told over the water cooler and in whispered sniggers in the hallway, she couldn’t forget that people’s lives had been turned upside down and inside out tonight.

‘It was a shit show.’ Gus finished her sentence.

That was one way to put it. Especially for those involved. And a nasty surprise just before Christmas.

Sutton tucked her hand into the crook of Gus’s elbow. ‘What you did for Alice was nice. I presume you called the taxi to take her home.’

‘Yeah.’ She felt the tension in his arm. He was the human equivalent of a vibrating rod. ‘My wife died in a car crash.’

She looked up at his stonelike profile. ‘I know, Gus,’ she gently replied. Where was he going with this?

‘It happened just outside Manchester. We passed the site of her crash coming in.’ Oh, she’d wished he’d said something. Not because she was a ghoul and wanted to see where it happened, but because driving past the place where his wife died had to be hard for him. She could’ve touched his knee, held his hand…

Even tough guys could use some emotional support now and then.

‘She was on a buying trip, getting some last-minute things for the shop. She had a blowout, and she overcorrected. Her car flipped and hit the barrier on the motorway. She died instantly.’

Okay. This was the most he’d said about Kate, and she wondered why he was bringing up his dead wife to his short-term lover. Because that was all she was, all shecouldbe…

Gus answered her unspoken question. ‘She wasn’t alone. Her passenger survived the crash and was taken to hospital.’

She stopped abruptly and looked up at him. ‘Was she okay?’

Gus’s smile held no warmth. ‘He. They’d been talking and emailing for months, having what I would call an emotional affair for months. They’d met a couple of times for coffee and a drink. He finally persuaded her into spending a few nights with him in Manchester.’

Sutton winced and squeezed his arm in sympathy.Shit. Damn. Fuckity fuck.

‘I thought her spending so much time on the computer and her phone was normal. She needed the time to get her shop up and running. Moira and I picked up the slack with the twins, and I thought life would settle down after the shop opened. That our sex life, ourlives, would get back to normal.’

Sutton didn’t know what to say so she kept quiet. What did you say on hearing so much pain in someone’s voice?

Gus kept his hands in his coat pockets, his stoic expression not changing. ‘That scene tonight, earlier, brought it all back. I know what Alice is going through. I easily recall the shock and disbelief.’

There was still so much she didn’t know. He might not tell her, but she wouldn’t know if she didn’t ask. ‘Was the man badly hurt?’

‘Broken thigh and pelvis.’

Sutton considered asking whether he was just a friend or a colleague, checking whether Gus got it wrong. But he’d never accuse his dead wife of being unfaithful without proof.

‘How did you find out?’

‘That she was shagging someone else? A policeman gave me her phone, and he told me he took a call from her B&B, asking what time they’d be returning because they needed to do some maintenance in the room. I went there to collect her bag and found his luggage too. The double bed, the torn condom wrappers in the rubbish bin, the ‘I’ve never been fucked like you fucked me last night’ message written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror were all pretty big clues.’

Sutton grimaced, imagining him reading that soul-destroying message, and then packing up his dead, unfaithful wife’s possessions. ‘Did you leave his stuff there?’

He shook his head. ‘I grabbed his stuff and dropped his bag off at the hospital,’ he continued, rubbing the back of his neck.

Sutton winced. ‘Did you confront him?’

‘I was hell-bent on it. I planned on breaking his other fucking leg, and his head. But when I got there, his wife was outside his room, crying. She was so damn thankful he was alive. And she was also pregnant. Not too far along.

‘What a prince.’

‘I left his stuff at the nurses’ station and walked away. I decided not to tell her, and after not telling her, it was easy not to tell anyone.’ He caught her surprise and lifted his shoulders in a quick, what-was-I-supposed-to-do shrug.

‘What good would it do to tell Moira her dead daughter was having an affair? And if I told one person in the village, everyone would know by sunset. The villagers loved Kate, they’d known her since she was a child, and they were gutted enough by her death. My kids were tiny, but I knew somebody would tell them, at some point, that their mum died in a car accident with her lover. I don’t want them finding out about that, ever. So I kept it a secret.’

Sutton bit her bottom lip. He’d told no one, and he’d carried this heavy-as-hell burden for three years? Man, that was weighty luggage to lug around. And on top of that, he had to pretend his wife was the sweet, lovely, family-orientated woman everyone believed her to be. ‘Holy shit, Gus.’

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