A Winter's Wedding by Sharon Owens Page B

a buttoned-up overcoat and smart brogues, looked right and left and then hurried towards the nearest Tube station. And Arabella was only ten paces behind him. She’d been sitting on a bench for over an hour, pretending to read Heat magazine. David walked very quickly. But Arabella was able to keep up quite easily in her comfy pumps – she was practically skipping along the footpath. Someone from a building site whistled loudly at her, but she barely had time to smile and wave back at them before she remembered she was supposed to be following her husband home from work. David got on a train going in the other direction from where they lived, sat down and took a novel out of his new briefcase. Arabella got on too, and sat a few seats away from him.
    She watched David out of the corner of her eye. He looked happy, she thought. The worry lines around his ice-blue eyes had faded slightly and he was a few pounds heavier. So he must be eating well – wherever he was – she decided. His hair was nicely cut in a new style. Actually, he looked a bit sexy now. The hunted look had gone from his face. Arabella felt a bit sick again. David clearly hadn’t been pining for her the way she had been pining for him.
    Twenty minutes passed without anything out of the ordinary happening. But then David suddenly closed his novel, jumped up and sprang out of the train just as the doors were closing. Arabella dropped her bag in her hurry to get off the train. By the time she’d retrieved it, the doors had closed again and she was swept on towards the next station. She cursed David under her breath all the way back to her own stop. Next time she’d be ready, she vowed.
    And so the following week, she did it again. She was still disguised as a humble cleaning lady, but this time she wore a garish red headscarf, a baggy trench coat with no belt on it, and black leggings. She stood right by the door so that when David left the train, she did too. She followed him all the way along several suburban streets until he came to a row of expensive-looking houses near the river. There were eight homes in the development, all with a garage at ground level and a big sitting-room window on the first floor. Each window opened out on to a small balcony. The lights in David’s house were on already and the curtains were drawn. Perhaps he had set the lights on a timer, she thought to herself. David took a key from his pocket, glanced right and left again and then went quickly inside. Arabella punched the air triumphantly. So she had discovered her husband’s secret bachelor pad. Result! But what could she do now? she wondered. Should she ring the bell and confront him? As Arabella stood in the dimly lit street, trying to make up her mind, she heard the swishing sound of a sliding door opening. She looked up. David was standing on the balcony, sipping a small glass of wine. He’d taken off his coat and was wearing a heavy-knit cardigan. Arabella crept towards a nearby tree and stood there as quietly as she could, trying to look as if she were waiting for a lift or something. With any luck he wouldn’t look down and discover her.
    A minute later, a woman joined David on the balcony – a tall, beautiful woman who couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years of age. And by the looks of it she was six months pregnant. Her pregnancy bump was neat and round and comfortable-looking. She was wearing a floaty black dress, black opaque tights and flat-heeled biker boots. Her skin was radiant and glowing. Her hair was a long rippling sheet of raven black. She looked like a goddess. She couldn’t be with David, could she? This couldn’t be happening. Arabella held her breath.
    The couple on the balcony kissed tenderly.
    ‘I must be dreaming,’ Arabella whispered.
    Somehow, against all the odds, Arabella’s bad-tempered, workaholic husband had managed to secure the affections of a much younger woman and move with her into this trendy glass box of a house. Was