Read Goodnight, Beautiful: A Novel for Free Online

to worry about me and that maybe, just maybe, he might one day hurtme. Physically. He never would. I knew that, but none of those at the table did.
    “You haven’t answered the question, Stephie dear—when are we going to hear the patter of little Wacken feet?” Vince pressed. “How long are we going to have to wait?”
    All eyes were on me by then; even the head-dippers were focused on me.
    I’d known most of these people since we were eighteen or nineteen, but we were not close. The reason we had all got on for so many years was because our friendships were impressively shallow. We enjoyed our time together, but I wouldn’t call any of the people sitting around the table during a crisis. After the crisis had passed, to tell them what could be a then-funny anecdote, yes.
During
, when one of them had to take charge and offer comfort, never.
    I opened my mouth to repeat that we’d maybe never have children, to put a firmness into the words that would shut Vince up and would tell the rest of them that they had to end this interrogation.
    “You can hear the patter of tiny Wacken feet whenever you want,” Mal said for me. “I’ve already got a child.”
    Everyone at the table drew back; a couple of people gasped quietly. Internally, I gasped, too. Out of everyone there, I was the most jolted: I
never
thought he’d say that.
    “A son,” Mal continued, seemingly oblivious to the horror he had unleashed. Even Vince, cocky, mouthy Vince, was stunned to silence.
    Carole found her voice first. “Was this from a previous relationship?” she asked, keeping her shock in check. She raised her hand, brushed a brown lock from her face as she looked to Mal for his answer. A tremulous silence settled as everyonelooked to him for an answer.
Lie
, I pleaded telepathically with him across the table.
Please lie. For me, lie.
    “He’s coming up to eight,” Mal said. “He’s called Leo, in case you’re interested. He’s got black hair, brown eyes. He likes the green Teen League Fighter superhero the best and he plays
Star Wars
on the PlayStation all the time.” Was that pride in his voice? He was proud.
Proud.
He hadn’t told me these trivial details and we had agreed … Now, he was revealing unknown secrets to our friends. And he was
proud.
    All eyes shifted back to me. Truly horrified as they were. My husband had cheated on me, had impregnated another woman while cheating and was so unabashed about it. Even vacant Frankie was agog: her eyes wide and incredulous, her mouth hanging open as her gaze swung between Mal and me, trying to work out who to stare at.
    I gathered my senses together, inhaled and exhaled a few times before I attempted to speak. “It’s not as simple as Mal is making out.” I began the damage limitation process. “Someone very close to us desperately wanted a baby. It was heartbreaking. Mal loved her so much he’d do anything for her. And he agreed to father her child.” The absolute truth.
    Mal stared at me across the table. His eyes were a piercing glare, slicing me open, cutting me apart, trying to expose the way I was lying without lying.
    “Do you still see the child and mother?” Frankie asked. Frankie, who would previously have been smiling benignly and playing with her hair, was fully engaged and asking questions.
    Mal’s glare intensified, I could feel it on my skin so I didn’t look at him. He was daring me to misdirect my way out of that question. He was accusing me, too. Accusing me because we both knew I was guilty. Of course I was.
    “No,” I said. “She moved away before the baby was born. Went to live on the coast, rarely comes to London. We never see them.”
    His chair made no sound as he pushed it back. He made no sound as he dropped his cream napkin on his half-eaten meal. Poor Carole had probably spent hours hand-making the pastry for the salmon en croute, scrubbing the new potatoes, baking the goat’s-cheese-and-chili-topped vegetables. And Mal had hardly touched