Read Online Tess Stimson - The Adultery Club by The Adultery Club - Free Book Online

list,
    thanks to their star cookery writer - a household name
    with his own TV show and flatware range - eloping to
    Guatemala with his sous-chef and huge advance; and
    without delivering his much-delayed, and increasingly
    urgently needed, manuscript.
    Serendipity really is very much underrated. My mother
    always said it was better to be born lucky than clever,
    ‘although,’ she’d add serenely, ‘it does help to be both.’
    At twenty-two, I had a three-book contract, and then a
    small guest spot on a brand new satellite channel followed,
    and when my first book reached number one in The Times bestseller list there was even talk of my own TV
    show in a year or two. I was the Hot New Thing and
    everything was going absolutely swimmingly and then I
    met Trace and for a while nothing else mattered. It was
    wonderful, it was beyond imagining; and then of course
    it all collapsed into the darkest, most dreadful mess. It
    was Kit who pulled me out and told me I would get over
    it and forced me to get back to work when I just wanted
    to crawl into bed and never come out again, my heart
    shrivelling with misery against my ribs.
    And then, of course, I found Nicholas.
    I hover on the restaurant threshold, shifting my bag
    to the other shoulder as I look for him, anticipating that
    familiar lurch when I spot his clean, chiselled features even
    now, after twelve years - that same strange jolt
    of knowing I experienced the first moment I saw him,
    in Covent Garden: that absolutely electric certainty,
    beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he was The One.
     
    Dear Nicholas, so tall and fine and honourable; so sexy
    and carnal and unaware.
    It’s such a relief to be inside, out of the cold. Where is Nicholas? The train from Salisbury was freezing, and the cab from Paddington Station wasn’t much better. I can’t
    imagine why Louise ever left California.
    A waitress thrusts a glass of white wine at me, mumbling
    something about my shoes. Where can Nicholas
    have got to? The train was a bit delayed, thankfully, or I’d
    never have caught it; but it wasn’t that late, he can’t have
    left yet. He must be here somewhere. Unless I’ve got the
    name of the restaurant wrong, of course. It wouldn’t be
    the first time.
    I scrabble in my bag for the envelope I wrote the
    restaurant down on, scattering half the contents across
    the floor. The waitress is still pressing her glass of wine
    at me so I have no choice but to take it; still fumbling
    through my bag, I end up spilling most of the wine down
    myself. Thank God nothing shows on this dress and after
    three babies it’s seen far worse. For heaven’s sake, where
    is Nicholas? Oh, Lord, that wasn’t a clean tissue-‘Your shoes the girl hisses again.
    I finally look down and discover that Kit has, quite
    deliberately, let me walk out of the house in my pink
    towelling slippers. He is an absolute swine. I will hang
    him by the neck until he is near death and then cut him
    down and eviscerate him whilst he is still conscious before
    burning his intestines in front of him … or no, I will
    allow him to babysit Metheny at his house.
    I can’t bear to let this stunning girl - clearly not a
    waitress after all; her shoes are far too expensive and far
     
    too high - see how mortified I am. She is so pretty and
    smart and clean, and I’m already well aware that she’s
    written me off as barely a fingertip away from senile
    dementia.
    I summon an insouciant smile. ‘Oh, yes. Well, at least
    the rain hasn’t ruined them.’
    I shove the slippers nonchalantly into my bag as if I do
    this all the time. Which, of course, I do. Not wear pink
    towelling slippers to retirement parties in London, this is
    a landmark snafu even for me; but get caught in the crush
    as my two worlds - nurturing earth mother and career
    wife - collide.
    Although there is less of the career thing now, of
    course, which is absolutely natural when you have three
    children, absolutely to be expected; somehow the