Trust Me - Sheryl Browne Page 0,58

sneered at, were they? She’d imagined her husband would be attracted to Natasha – other men in the village certainly were – but her eighteen-year-old son? She felt the floor shift beneath her.

Twenty-Three

‘So, what’s the occasion?’ Millie asked, once they’d ordered.

‘No occasion,’ Emily answered, smiling her thanks to the waitress had who delivered their drinks. ‘There doesn’t have to be a reason for us all to have a nice meal out together, does there?’

‘Right.’ Millie pulled her Coke towards her, a pensive frown on her face as she twirled the glass around. ‘So we’re having this nice meal together, without Dad, because …?’

Emily felt the heat rush to her cheeks. She felt wrong-footed, defensive already. She was sure that if her marriage really was irreparable, Millie and Ben would blame her. She would rather that, though, than for their relationship with their father to be irretrievably damaged. Whatever he’d done, was doing, or might not even be doing – she didn’t know any more – she wouldn’t run him down in their eyes. She couldn’t. He’d been the best father a man could be to both of them.

‘We know that you and Dad have been having problems,’ Millie went on, looking guardedly at her. ‘We’re not stupid.’

‘Or deaf,’ Ben muttered pointedly.

‘You might as well level with us, Mum,’ Millie said. ‘Just …’ she faltered, her eyes flicking down and back, ‘spare us the we love you, but … chat, yes?’

Emily’s heart grew impossibly heavy. She’d been about to say something exactly along those lines, and had no idea where to start now they’d made it obvious they weren’t going to accept anything less than honesty. Bracing herself, she took a breath. ‘We have been having problems, yes. I know you overheard some of it, and I’m sorry you had to. I was upset. I—’

‘Are you splitting up?’ Ben asked bluntly. The look in his cool blue eyes was so dark and intense that Emily’s heart faltered, her instinct to shield him rushing to the fore, as it had so many years ago. She would die to protect him, protect them both. But she couldn’t protect them from this.

‘I’m not sure,’ she answered quietly. She wished now that she’d had this conversation at home. Had she really expected that she could deliver the news to her children that their parents’ marriage was falling apart and they would just say ‘okay’ and then tuck into their meals? She should have been focusing on them through all of this, their feelings. She should never have tackled Jake with Ben and Millie in danger of overhearing. She was already worried about Millie, who so often lately needed treating with kid gloves. She was no less worried about Ben, though, who seemed to be a riot of conflicted emotion. She was sure she sensed an anger under the surface that truly frightened her.

‘Has he cheated on you?’ Millie got succinctly to the point.

Emily had no idea how to answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied hesitantly. ‘I thought he had. There was an email sent to him. I—’

‘Like the letters being sent out?’ Millie interrupted, her eyes growing wide.

Emily looked at her, surprised.

‘I called into the newsagent’s on the way home,’ Millie explained. ‘Fran was in there.’

Emily sighed inwardly. So the drums had started beating. ‘Yes,’ she admitted, ‘but not as destructive as those.’

‘Sounds pretty fucking destructive to me,’ Ben growled, shocking her. ‘So has he cheated on you or hasn’t he?’ he asked, levelling his gaze unnervingly on hers.

‘I honestly don’t know, Ben.’ Emily reached for his hand. ‘It’s more complicated than that.’

‘I can’t see what’s so complicated.’ He drew his hand away. ‘You asked him, right?’

‘You know she did.’ Millie sighed. ‘We heard.’

‘And he denied it?’ Ben pushed.

‘Of course he did.’ There was a bitter edge to Millie’s voice. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

She was judging her father, Emily realised, angry with him because of accusations she’d made, which might be groundless. Oh, how she wished now that she had buried her head in the sand. But could she really have sat back and done nothing but wait for the day her husband might come home to announce he was leaving?

‘Have you ever cheated on him?’ Ben asked, catching her completely unawares.

It was an innocent question – he wanted to know whether his father might have had just cause – but still Emily’s stomach lurched. ‘No,’ she managed, past the parched lump in her throat. It wasn’t a lie. To cheat on someone was to make a