Past Secrets by Cathy Kelly Page A

afternoon, giving her time to pack as well as to negotiate with the library for emergency leave. When she’d booked it, she knew there was only one more big task left: to go home and say goodbye to Grey.
    Goodbye Grey, I’m going and we’re selling up so you’ll have to take your jail bait somewhere else from now on. No, too bitter.
    Bye, Grey, I’m going home to Dublin for a while to think. You cheating son of a bitch. Again, too bitter.
    Maybe she ought to stick at Goodbye, Grey.
    When she got back to the apartment, Grey and the remains of a That meal were both in the living-room area. Maggie didn’t feel even mildly hungry.
    The words ‘You lying, cheating bastard’ ran round in her head like a washing machine on final spin.
    ‘Hello,’ she said. See, not bitter.
    ‘Honey.’ Grey leapt off the couch and went to touch her, but the frozen look in Maggie’s eyes stopped him. They stood several feet apart, staring at each other, misery on both their faces.
    ‘I am so sorry,’ Grey said, and he sounded it.
    He honestly was sorry. But sorry that he’d had sex with a stunning blonde student or sorry he’d been caught? Bastard.
    ‘I love you. You might not believe that, but I do.’
    Then why did you do it?’ Maggie asked. She hadn’t meant to ask anything, had meant to tell him bluntly she was going home for a while. But the question had shot out of her mouth before she could stop it.
    Grey’s gaze didn’t falter, she had to give him that. ‘I don’t know,’ he said dismally. ‘She was there, I could have her … it sounds dumb, but I still love you, Maggie. You’re different, special.’
    The spinning washing machine still kept rattling out ‘lying, cheating bastard’ as Maggie struggled to make sense of Grey’s words. Her heart was broken and this was his sticking plaster?
     
    ‘She was there? Is that your only excuse, Grey? She was bloody well there? If I’m so special, why would you even want to make love with someone else whether she was there or not? If I’m so special, then you wouldn’t want to look crossways at another woman, never mind screw one in our bed. IN OUR BED!’
    He looked taken aback at this. Maggie was not a shouter.
    ‘It wasn’t making love, it was sex. It’s not what you and I have. That’s …’
    ‘Don’t tell me,’ she snapped, ‘special.’ Infidelity must have a previously undetected side effect of robbing people of their linguistic skills. Even Grey. She had never known Grey to run out of words before.
    ‘I’m not explaining it correctly,’ he began.
    ‘Oh yes, you are, and it still doesn’t make sense. You’re the one who says he’s logical, I’m supposed to be the klutzy one who forgets her bank card numbers and can’t program her mobile phone.’ Maggie knew her voice was rising but she couldn’t help it. If Grey was tongue-tied, her word power was on 110 per cent. ‘So how can you come up with such an illogical explanation? If I’m so different and special, you shouldn’t want sex or love with anyone other than me. Simple. QED. That’s what I thought I was getting when we moved in together: fidelity, monogamy, no threesomes. Did I miss the briefing where you said we’d sleep with other people? Or were you just lying through your teeth when you said that I was the sort of woman you wanted, not a pneumatic blonde like all your previous girlfriends?’
    ‘I wasn’t lying and I do believe in fidelity, really,’ Grey said helplessly. He sat on the edge of the armchair, running a hand through his hair. He had such long, sensitive fingers, like a pianist, fingers that could elicit a ready response from Maggie. He still looked handsome and desirable, with sexily rumpled hair as if he’d been so lost in his books he had forgotten to comb it. Maggie, who spent all her time surrounded by books, had always found this combination of brains and beauty utterly captivating. She could totally understand Ms Peachy Skin wanting to sleep with him. Grey