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Five Unforgivable Things
Vivien Brown
One family torn apart by secrets and betrayals. Perfect for fans of Sue Fortin.Over twenty years ago, Kate’s dream came true. After years of struggling, she was finally pregnant after pioneering IVF. But the dream came at a cost. Neither Kate nor her husband, Dan, could have known the price that they would have to pay to fulfil their cherished wish of having their own family.Now, years later, their daughter Natalie is getting married and she’s fulfilling her own dream of marrying her childhood sweetheart. Natalie knows she won’t be like most brides in her wheelchair, but it’s the fact her father won’t be there to walk her down the aisle that breaks her heart.Her siblings, Ollie, Beth and Jenny, gather around Natalie, but it isn’t just their father who is missing from their lives… as the secrets that have fractured the family rise to the surface, can they learn to forgive each other before it’s too late?
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2018
Copyright © Vivien Brown 2018
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
Vivien Brown 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.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008252144
Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008252151
Version 2018-05-16
For all the babies we have longed for, loved or lost
Table of Contents
Cover (#u32c1ea9b-1113-5a45-b0c1-0aacb003d712)
Title Page (#u1c5e33e6-ff82-5441-99f6-ddb0939a1883)
Copyright (#ubd3c88dc-7b2f-5080-abd3-d99fbbdbfbbd)
Dedication (#u6f1962ce-79b2-5445-bcd6-c9d973a77ea2)
Prologue (#uaf6ec36d-729e-593d-870c-fa5810f7f771)
Number One (#ue867be4a-0db3-5349-916a-8a8446142c1e)
Chapter 1 (#ud14517ef-85ce-5133-acd7-8281e2002804)
Chapter 2 (#ud4df364f-5ceb-5cdc-b2c0-20f4f3aea18a)
Chapter 3 (#u74334d48-3d0e-522d-8a43-efb86f074c53)
Chapter 4 (#u07f15862-fa32-5db5-ae33-629a2de3726d)
Chapter 5 (#u3e168dc6-0d70-576b-aa47-824f783c40f1)
Chapter 6 (#ua181f168-a6f4-50aa-bf46-f04b028dacc3)
Chapter 7 (#u683119ed-a480-5ea9-9fe9-36d2172f80a9)
Chapter 8 (#ubf8352bd-9d5f-59b8-b17e-066bfea727a6)
Chapter 9 (#u12e006a7-ac0c-51a7-a6aa-cc9733e4f561)
Number Two (#u261c505a-7ccf-534c-a467-91eb08cf932b)
Chapter 10 (#uddd103a8-630d-5065-ad97-0cfbb3373d0b)
Chapter 11 (#uc774fffd-e24d-5204-a353-a3dfb1e109be)
Chapter 12 (#ue5ad131d-cb67-5016-bbfd-5be091b45b24)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Number Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)
Number Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 42 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 43 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 44 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 45 (#litres_trial_promo)
Number Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 46 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 47 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 48 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 49 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ua0910954-c034-5457-8b5f-cd445787c3a3)
Kate
Idon’t know why I’m talking to you. It’s not as if you can do anything to help, or undo what’s already been done. You will listen, though. I know that much. You’ll listen and you’ll let me talk, let me work things out for myself, just as you always have. You don’t tell me what to do, the way Dan does, or tries to, even now.
Dan and me. We were happy once. For a long time, we were happy, when it was just the two of us, loving and laughing, living in the moment, just enjoying being young. And being together. It seemed enough back then; more than enough. But it wasn’t. Not in the end. Dan wanted more, and when it came down to the now-or-never moment, so did I. A baby, a family, a happy-ever-after.
But it wasn’t what we got.
One last throw of the dice, that was what we were offered. A once-in-a-lifetime chance, with six numbers on it, and it could have landed on any one of them, or none of them at all. We both knew that. It all came down to luck, in the end. And to nature. Maybe even fate. Like most things in life, if you don’t take control of them, if you take your eye off the ball…
I did all right for a while, dealt with all the bad stuff the best I could. There are ways, you see. Tricks I learned, disguises I plastered across my face, masks I hid behind. Ways to get from day to day, coping, managing, putting one foot in front of the other. Ways to go forward, when all you really want to do is go back. Not thinking too hard. Or trying not to think at all. Being grateful for what you have, instead of dwelling on what you’ve lost. Keeping busy. Well, that one was easy enough. Sleep, when you can get it, which wasn’t so easy at all. Pills…
If there is one thing you’ve taught me, it’s that pain fades, dampens into something less raw. And so do memories, if you let them. But I can’t forget the mistakes. Everyone makes them, I suppose. But, for us, there were just too many. Things we did. Things we didn’t do, but should have. Things we did wrong.
Oh, it wasn’t just Dan. It was me too. I admit that. In fact, it was me who started it. Me who told the lie that set everything in motion, like a runaway train it’s impossible to stop. Yes, we made mistakes. Big ones. Mistakes that can’t be undone. Mistakes it’s almost impossible to get back from, no matter how much you wish you could.
Moments in our lives, when the things one of us chose to do would alter everything for both of us, alter the course of our marriage. And they did. They altered it, almost irrevocably. And very nearly broke us.
Five unforgivable things.
NUMBER ONE (#ua0910954-c034-5457-8b5f-cd445787c3a3)
Chapter 1 (#ua0910954-c034-5457-8b5f-cd445787c3a3)
Kate, 1976
