Amanda Brooke - The Affair - The shocking, gripping story of a schoolgirl and a scandal

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

Copyright © Amanda Valentine 2016

Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Diane Kerpan/Arcangel (main image); Shutterstock.com(texture and apple)

Amanda Valentine 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 e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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.

Source ISBN: 9780008116552

Ebook Edition © November 2016 ISBN: 9780008116569

Version 2016-10-13

For Jessica Valentine, who made the task of bringing up a teenager surprisingly easy

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Scarlett

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Scarlett

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Scarlett

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Scarlett

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Scarlett

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Scarlett

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Scarlett

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Scarlett

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Scarlett

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Scarlett

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Scarlett

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Scarlett

Chapter 25

Scarlett

Chapter 26

Scarlett

Chapter 27

Scarlett

Chapter 28

Scarlett

Chapter 29

Scarlett

Chapter 30

Scarlett

Chapter 31

Scarlett

Acknowledgements

Questions & Answers

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Amanda Brooke

About the Publisher

You might as well know from the start, I’m not going to tell on him and I don’t care how much trouble I get in. It’s not like it could get any worse than it already is. Well, actually, it probably could get a whole lot worse, which is why I’m not doing it.

I can’t. Don’t ask me why, I just can’t.

It’s so unfair.

Monday, 22 February 2016

Nina sat alone at the breakfast bar as the sun began its slow ascent over the quiet Cheshire town of Sedgefield. The watery light had an ominous red tinge as it crept into the darkened kitchen of the pretty townhouse she shared with her husband and two teenage children. By rights, she should be unloading stock at the shop by now after an early morning trip to the flower market, but Nina was still in her dressing gown, her blonde hair pulled back in a butterfly clip, her face unwashed and her blue eyes dull and empty.

Nina had inherited a strong work ethic from her father, along with the family floristry business, and it had been going against everything he had taught her when she phoned her assistant Janet to say she wouldn’t be in. There were a handful of orders that Janet would do her best to complete from the slim pickings what would be left at the market by the time she got there, but Nina had told her not to worry and to turn down new business if she needed to. In truth, Nina didn’t care, and she had no idea when that situation might change. She wondered what her parents would make of the sorry mess she was in. She was almost glad they weren’t around to see it.

Ever since Scarlett had dropped her bombshell on Saturday night, Nina had been in a state of shock, and more than twenty-four hours later, she was still struggling to work out how she was meant to react. It didn’t help of course that Scarlett had barricaded herself in her bedroom. Nina had tried to reason with her, she had spoken gently to coax the truth out of her daughter, and when that had failed, she had yelled and made threats, only to be met with equal success.

With nothing except the most meagre of information to go on, Nina had no option but to sift through the minutiae of her life and question everything she had thought to be true. The returning answers were ones she didn’t want to hear, but she couldn’t ignore them, not any more, not when her fifteen-year-old daughter was pregnant.

And of all the questions she had, there was one that scared Nina most. Who the hell was the baby’s father?

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Nina pulled up outside the house and paused for a moment to savour the new life she was slowly adjusting to. Something both marvellous and momentous had happened over the summer holidays: Nina Carrington was no more. The ever so slightly bitter divorcée who had brought up two children singlehandedly, vowing never to be financially or emotionally dependent on any man ever again, was no more. She blamed the Welshman.

She had met Bryn Thomas at a New Year’s Eve party thrown by one of Sedgefield’s most renowned citizens who happened to be Nina’s best friend and confidante. Sarah Tavistock and her husband Miles knew how to throw a good party and Sarah had high hopes every year of finding a suitable candidate for the vacancy in Nina’s life.

Yet despite Sarah’s valiant efforts, for the previous eight years Nina had been left feeling distinctly underwhelmed. It was going to take someone exceptional to persuade her to forsake the independent life she had become accustomed to, and, to everyone’s surprise, that someone had been the taxi driver who had dropped her off at the party.

Within six months, Nina couldn’t imagine life without her Welshman and by August, Nina Carrington had officially moved out, making room for Nina Thomas, the forty-two-year-old, newly married wife of Bryn. Nina’s second husband was a year younger than her, and as far removed from her first husband as she could hope. Where Adam Carrington had been a smooth operator, Bryn was quietly charming. He was attentive, he was eager to please, and he was gentle in spite of his muscular frame. Bryn did his best to keep in shape despite a job renowned for late nights fuelled by junk food, but he was by no means vain, which was perfect because Nina hadn’t been looking for an Adonis. She had been looking for someone who wasn’t expecting to be noticed, and when she had found him, the speed of their relationship had surprised them both, as it had her family and friends.

When Nina Thomas put her key in the front door, she pitied her former self, who would have been about to step quietly into an empty house. It was Liam and Scarlett’s first day back at school and Nina would normally be the first one home during term-time. What wasn’t normal, or at least not yet, was coming home to the aroma of home baking.