My Husband's Wife Read Online Free Page A

her shoulders excitedly. ‘I’d love to see it.’
    ‘If she’s not around, I’ll try and get some photos on my phone. I find it quite amazing how one person can have so much, all that space. Mind you, if we weren’t constantly shelling out for kids and what not, we might be able to have a swimming pool.’
    ‘Where would you put it, exactly? In the front room? The back garden’s just big enough for my washing line!’
    ‘Good point, think we’ll leave it. I’d only keep falling in every time I went to reach for the remote control.’ He smiled.
    ‘How’d she get so much money?’
    ‘Apparently she and a couple of others started a smallish company that got floated on the stock exchange and she got millions.’
    ‘What’s she like?’
    Phil exhaled. ‘Don’t know how to describe her really. I’ve not spoken to her much. She looks like one of them women who spends a lot of time in the hairdresser’s – you know, bouffy hair and nails all painted, and loads of make-up. The kind of woman you could never snog or you’d end up with a mouth covered in lipstick.’ He puckered his lips theatrically and leaned in towards her. Rosie backed away, holding up her palms, unwilling to kiss him before she had cleaned her teeth.
    ‘Oi! I should think you wouldn’t want to snog anyone!’ She laughed.
    ‘I don’t want to snog anyone but you, Rosie, you know that.’ He pecked her cheek despite her protestations. ‘But I’ll say this about her: for all her fake nails and teeth, she gets things done. Got half the contractors in Devon running around like ants at her command, and that takes some doing.’ He gave a nod of approval.
    ‘What was her company, then, that she put on the stock exchange?’
    Phil shrugged. ‘Something to do with computers, I think. I don’t know.’
    Rosie laughed. ‘Well, I know you don’t know, you can’t even work the satnav!’
    ‘I tell you what, love, I’ll have it programmed for the Red Barn quicker than you can say sesame and soy dressing if you keep making me eat this.’ He waved the lunchbox in her direction before placing it in his tool bag. ‘I could murder one of their breakfasts.’
    ‘Can I come to the Red Barn?’ Naomi waltzed into the little kitchen, in her uniform and ready for school. Thankfully, her face was glitter-free.
    ‘No. And I’m not really going, I’m only teasing Mummy.’ He winked. ‘But if I went, I would definitely take you with me. Have a good day, my girlies, and I’ll see you all tonight. Hopefully it will be less eventful than last night.’
    ‘Bye, Daddy!’ Leona sloped down the stairs.
    ‘Bye, darling. I was just saying, try not to shove anything up your nose today.’
    ‘What about my finger?’ She stared at her dad as she held her index finger in the air.
    Phil scratched his head. ‘Your finger is okay, as long as there’s nothing on the end of it.’ He kissed her head and shut the front door behind him.
    ‘Daddy was just telling me, he’s working on a big house that’s got two swimming pools in it! Can you imagine that?’
    Naomi considered this as she hopscotched around the kitchen floor. ‘What’s the point of having two? You can only swim in one at a time.’
    ‘Don’t know, Nay, and I don’t think it’s anything that I am going to have to worry about. Not in this lifetime.’

2
    Rosie had a favourite place to sit. It was a wooden bench on the headland overlooking Combesgate Beach, set back from the cliff edge. If she stretched her neck, she could see from one bay to the next, watch the tide rolling in and spot the weather long before it arrived. She thought of it as her bench. They had history that seat and her, and she had to admit, if ever she arrived to find someone sitting on it, she felt ridiculously aggrieved.
    According to her dad, her mum had liked to sit and think on the same bench. Apparently they’d done some of their courting there too, which made it extra special to Rosie. When she was younger, she