Free The Broken by Tamar Cohen Page B

too.
    ‘I just wish things could go back to how they were before.’ He sighed, uncomfortably aware he was sounding a bit like his own four-year-old daughter.
    As if on cue, from the hallway came the sound of Lily’s panicked voice. ‘Mummy! Daddy!’
    Glad of the distraction, he strode off into her room. Nudging open the door with its pink gingham letter ‘L’ interwoven with yellow and white daisies, he was thrown off guard by finding September sitting perched on the top of Lily’s duvet, gazing at him impassively, while a just-woken Lily, eyes still wild and confused from sleep, cowered at the other end, rubbing her arm.
    ‘’Tember woke me up,’ she gulped. ‘She pinched me.’
    September continued gazing levelly at him. ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ she said, by way of explanation. ‘Don’t like your bedroom.’
    ‘But you shouldn’t have woken Lily up, should you, September? And you shouldn’t have pinched her. That wasn’t kind, was it?’
    ‘ You ’re not kind,’ said September, her voice rising dangerously. ‘You’re mean and I don’t like you!’ Her face crumpled in on itself and she started crying.
    ‘What the hell is going on in here?’
    Josh had no idea how Sasha could have got in so suddenly. He hadn’t been gone for more than a few seconds but here she was, appearing out of nowhere and sweeping past him into Lily’s room, kneeling by the bed so her sobbing child could throw herself into her arms.
    ‘It’s all right, darling girl. Mummy’s here now.’
    For a second or two there was just the sound of September’s noisy sobs, punctuated by soft sniffs from Lily and whines from Toby outside the bedroom door. Then, still with her back to him, Sasha said, in a cold, hard voice Josh hadn’t heard before, ‘I’d prefer you not to bully my daughter when I’m not here, thank you very much, Josh. Can’t you see how fragile she is?’
    Josh stopped himself just in time before he said something he would regret, remembering only after he’d stalked out of the door that he hadn’t said goodnight to Lily.
    ‘I’ve bloody well had enough,’ he hissed at Hannah when he got back to the living room and saw her sitting at the table. ‘This has got to stop. Do you know what she just said? She said—’
    ‘I’m sorry. Oh God, Josh, I’m so sorry.’
    Sasha had come up behind him and now flung her arms around his neck, draping herself over his back so he had the uncomfortable sensation of wearing her, like a coat. He felt her chest rising and falling rapidly and his heart sank as he realized she must be crying.
    ‘What happened, Sasha?’
    Hannah had got up from her chair and was gazing at her friend with a look of such concern that Josh felt immediately ashamed. That in turn made him irritated at having been made to feel bad, so he was relieved when Sasha finally slid off him and into a heap on the floor.
    ‘He was with her .’ The words sounded as if they’d been squeezed out of her.
    Hannah gasped. ‘No! With Sienna? But he promised us—’
    Sasha’s narrowed eyes flashed back pin-pricks of reflected light. ‘He promised you? What about me ? What about what he promised me ? I’m his fucking wife!’
    ‘Oh God, I know. Sorry, Sasha. That must have been so awful. Tell me what happened.’
    Sasha put her head in her hands. ‘It was a nightmare. I drove past where Shelly said she’d seen him, but there were too many people around for me to get a good look through the window, so I parked around the corner. Then I walked back and looked in the window, and there they were. The two of them. Oh shit. Oh fucking shit. This is all so fucked up.’
    ‘But how did you know it was her?’ Josh felt he ought at least to try to mount a defence of his absent friend. ‘I mean, it could have been any one of the women Dan works with every day.’
    Sasha’s head whipped up suddenly. ‘Yes, it could . . . except that he was sticking his tongue down her throat.’
    Hannah’s hand flew to her mouth.