The Wife – Part One
For fans of Doctor Foster and The Affair. A chilling new four-part series. Michael and Ellie are that couple. The ones who have it all. Success, charm, trust…but no relationship is perfect and the events of the past cast a shadow over their charmed life together. When lecturer Michael starts to mentor a new student, Ellie fears that history is repeating itself. As paranoia takes its ugly hold, it’s clear some things just can’t be forgotten…or forgiven.
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017
Copyright © M L Roberts 2017
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
M L Roberts asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008259860
Version: 2017-08-09
Table of Contents
For my husband. His constant support has been everything.
Sometimes you look at people and you think their life is perfect. You envy them, what they have, what you assume they have. The perfect marriage, perfect careers, perfect home. They have it all, or that’s how it seems to those on the outside. But sometimes, behind those closed doors of that seemingly perfect home, secrets live in the shadows, just waiting to reveal themselves. Secrets that make that perfect life more fragile and fractured than anyone could imagine. Secrets that cast a darkness over everything, even when the sun is shining.
I had secrets.
And my life wasn’t perfect, even when I thought it was.
We all had secrets.
We all told lies.
We all had a darkness that blocked out the sun.
No … my life wasn’t perfect …
‘Come on, Michael. Dance with me.’
‘When was the last time you saw me dance, Ellie?’
I lean back against the wall, the edge of my mouth twisting up into a smirk. ‘Our wedding.’
‘Almost fourteen years ago.’
I put down my gin and tonic and reach out and grab him by his belt, pulling him towards me, smiling as my mouth almost touches his. ‘But they’re playing our song.’
‘We have a song now?’ He arches an eyebrow and gives me the kind of grin that made me fall for him in the first place, all those years ago.
‘For a supposedly intelligent man you can be such a dick sometimes.’
He laughs, a low, husky laugh and I close my eyes as he kisses me, just a small kiss, his lips barely graze mine, but it’s enough. ‘We don’t have a song, Ellie,’ he whispers.
I let go of him and pick up my drink, taking another sip as my eyes scan the room. I’m not the biggest fan of Michael’s work gatherings, but as one of the university’s leading professors, a respected academic and head of the English Studies Department, it’s my duty, I suppose, to be by his side at these events. And I’m used to them now. In the beginning I’d always felt slightly out of place, as if I didn’t belong in this world. I never went to university, I wasn’t born into a family with those kind of aspirations. My family was nothing like Michael’s. My family was a mess, but I was determined not to go down the route everyone expected me to take. I was determined to become successful against all the odds, and so far I’ve been very lucky. I’ve achieved that success.
Michael leans back against the wall next me and I turn to face him. ‘We do, actually. We have a song. You just never remember what it is.’
He frowns and I look into his eyes and I can tell he genuinely wants to remember what that song is, but he can’t. And it doesn’t matter anyway, not really. I just like bringing it up, watching him squirm slightly as he tries his hardest to recall something that, in his world, isn’t all that important.
‘Liam’ll dance with me.’ I smile, and Michael returns it.
‘Any of the men in this room would dance with you, Ellie. You’re like a breath of fresh air around here.’
‘You’re hardly stuffy professor material yourself … Oh, hang on, there he is … Liam!’ I wave frantically across the room at Liam – Dr Liam Kennedy BS, MSc, PhD, to give him his full title, although, there are probably half a dozen letters I’ve missed off there – one of our closest friends and a visiting lecturer here at the university.
He turns to acknowledge me, throwing me a wide smile before he takes a drink from the tray of a passing waiter and makes his way over to us. ‘He still won’t dance with you, huh?’
