CHRISTMAS Secrets

THE STORY SO FAR: Maggie’s hopes for the perfect Christmas are overshadowed by her worries about her husband, John, who’s become increasingly distant and has started working late. He claims his long hours are to help finance their plans to build an extension for her dad, Charlie, who’s now living with them. But then Maggie discovers a woman’s address in his pocket. Suspicious of John’s intentions, she angrily rips it up, hoping against hope that there’s been some mistake and John isn’t really having an affair. With Christmas just around the corner, Maggie decides not to confront John yet so as not to ruin the big day. Instead, she tells herself there’s probably an innocent explanation, after all. Then as she’s late-night Christmas shopping and John is supposedly working late, Maggie catches sight of him in a restaurant with a beautiful young blonde.

Maggie had no idea how she managed to get home from her late-night shopping trip. Afterwards, she had no recollection of driving back, so consumed was her brain with the terrible image of her husband, John, sitting in that restaurant gazing into the eyes of another woman.

When she got home, she was relieved to discover that everyone had already gone to bed. She couldn’t possibly have faced them. She dropped everything and flopped onto the settee. There could only be one explanation for John’s eagerness to ‘work late’, his restless nights and grumpy behaviour, the note in his pocket with Crystal’s address andhaving an affair. Her John, the father of her children. The man who’d told her only months ago that he loved her more than ever. The lying cheat.