Kate Field - The Man I Fell In Love With

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Kate Field 2019

Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2019

Cover illustrations © Shutterstock

Kate Field asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © February 2019; ISBN: 9780008317805

Version: 2018-11-29

To Stephen – because it would be rude not to

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Published by AVON A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019 Copyright © Kate Field 2019 Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2019 Cover illustrations © Shutterstock Kate Field asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © February 2019; ISBN: 9780008317805 Version: 2018-11-29

Dedication To Stephen – because it would be rude not to

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Acknowledgments

About the Author

About the Publisher

Spotlights swept over the hotel ballroom, illuminating a magical party scene. Christmas decorations twinkled with glittery brilliance; ladies in their finest gowns mingled with men in gorgeous black tie, cheeks flushed by wine and conviviality; and by the side of the stage, in a space unexpectedly lifted from the shadows, my husband held hands with another man.

‘Who’s that with Leo?’ my friend Daisy whispered. Daisy had a figure friends would call petite, and enemies dumpy; she must have had a more limited view than I did. ‘I quite like that sexy bald look. He’s divine.’

But he wasn’t. He was real – horribly, unquestionably real. Those fingers entwined with Leo’s were made of skin and flesh, blood and bone, just like mine. And though their fingers dropped apart as the beam of light settled on the stage and pooled over the edges to where they stood, it was too late. I had seen. Most of the guests, expecting nothing more interesting than a display of luxury raffle prizes, would have seen. Friends, family, colleagues, and fellow school parents were all here tonight, attending this charity dinner at my instigation. Every corner of our lives cracked apart with this one swift blow.

‘Mary?’ Daisy said, as I became aware of a rustle of whispers, of curious gazes landing on me; humiliation scorched my skin. ‘What’s going on?’

I couldn’t reply. I looked at Leo, and Leo looked at me, the rest of the room forgotten. This man had been my best friend for twenty-five years, ever since the glorious summer day when the Black family had moved in next door. He had joined thirteen-year-old me as I sat on our front wall watching the removal men, desperately hoping that tucked away amongst the chairs, tables and white goods, they might produce a girl to end my lonely days. There had been no girl; but as Leo had consoled me by emptying a new tube of Fruit Pastilles to find my favourite green one, I had known there would be no more loneliness.

He had become my boyfriend when I was fifteen; my husband when I was twenty; the father of my children when I was twenty-one and twenty-three. So what was he now, when I was thirty-eight? I had a split second to decide, but it was enough. I read the terror, the anxiety and the appeal on his face, and there could only be one answer. He was what he had always been – my dearest friend – and that could never change, whoever’s hand he held.

I stepped forward on legs that felt like stiff pegs, and met Leo halfway. I drank in every detail of his face – white and frozen above the deep black of his dinner jacket, but still a face I knew better than my own – and then leaned past him and kissed the cheek of the stranger who had held Leo’s hand – the hand that had belonged to me, and my children, for so long. Exclusively, I had thought.

‘How marvellous to see you,’ I said, borrowing my mother-in-law’s favourite word, as if I could borrow her sangfroid too, and with it bury the overwhelming terror of being a public spectacle that I had inherited from my own mother. ‘You’re just in time for the raffle! Daisy, do you have any tickets left for …’ And here my brightness wobbled. Who was he? Leo and I shared everything, including our friends. How could he know someone well enough to link his flesh with theirs, without me even knowing their name?

‘Lovely to meet you,’ the man said. ‘I’m Clark.’ He held out a ten-pound note to Daisy. ‘I’ll take some tickets.’

‘Leo?’ Daisy asked. He glanced at me, blinking rapidly in his best dotty professor way, as if the complexities of buying raffle tickets were beyond him. I had seen that expression a thousand times; how could he be so familiar and so unfamiliar all at once?

‘Don’t we already have some, Mary? Did I see some pinned to the fridge?’

‘Yes, I bought some last week.’ They had been stuck on the fridge next to photos of our children, photos of us, and invitations to things we were supposed to be doing together. My heart wept at this casual reminder that though his hand may have so recently been linked with Clark’s, his whole life was linked with mine. ‘But you can get some more.’