Husband Stay (Husband #2) Read online

  HUSBAND STAY

  Book 2: Husband Series

  By

  Louise Cusack

  Cover design © Hang Le byhangle.com

  Title: Husband Stay

  Copyright © 2016 by Louise Cusack

  All rights reserved. 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, downloaded, 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 the publisher

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty-Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Acknowledgement

  About the Author

  Coming Soon

  Praise for the Author:

  “Hold onto your panties! Husband Sit by Louise Cusack is sexy and titillating from page one. But it’s more than that. It’s also funny and has a surprisingly deep emotional core that sneaks up on you. It’s utterly unique.” ~Amy Andrews, award-winning, USA Today best-selling author

  “Crazytown. I loved it.” ~ NY Times & USA Today Best Seller Kylie Scott, Stage Dive series

  “Just as you think you can predict what will happen, Cusack throws up surprise after surprise - guaranteeing that you will be picking up the next book, almost before you have finished the first. This is addictive storytelling.” ~DoubleDay Book Club

  CHAPTER ONE

  For the first time I could remember, I felt nervous about being onstage. Not the sort of nerves that give you an edge and makes you shine. This was nerves like I’d never had before—sick, churning, in danger of vomiting, nerves. I wanted to press my sweaty palms against my stomach to try and soothe it, but instead I wiped them on the sides of my black satin sheath as I waited for the intro music to begin so I could mount the stage.

  My condition was completely understandable. I hadn’t sung in six months. In fact, I hadn’t gone out at all if I could help it. So I felt awkward in high heels, and when the music finally began I tottered to the microphone instead of strutting. New shoes had been a crazy idea, but I was desperate to show the club owner Bernie that I was the same ‘Indian diva’ who’d pulled the crowds before I found out my husband was a cheating bastard.

  As a result, I was overdressed and under-prepared. I hadn’t even practiced, because I knew my voice would be there for me. It had been every day for thirty years since I’d won a pre-school singing competition. For some reason I’d never understood, the gods had tapped me with the singing wand, and I took that completely for granted.

  Unfortunately, in my pre-occupation with big hair and sexy curves, I’d completely forgotten that my usual set started with All by myself, a love-gone-wrong classic. Since I’d left Danny I couldn’t bear to hear it, let alone sing it. So when the opening bars swelled, instead of slowing my breathing as I normally did, recognition and fear made me choke like a deer in the headlights, staring out across the intimate lamp lit tables to the retro seventies bar on the back wall.

  All I could think was I’m about to bomb. This is it. The end of my singing career.

  I couldn’t even swallow, my throat was so tight.

  Then, for some reason, out of nowhere, I suddenly imagined my girlfriend Jill standing in front of me, and as clear as day I heard her saying Danny took fifteen years of your life and you’ve nothing to show for it except singing in the club twice a week. Are you going to let him take that away from you too? Bastard!

  A welcomed surge of adrenalin coursed through my veins, and as the music swelled, I realized I wasn’t going to let him destroy my career. He’d sidelined my dream of motherhood. He wasn’t having my love of singing as well! So I pushed back my shoulders and raised the microphone to my lips. I was a professional. I could do this.

  And I managed the opening lines without faltering. I was starting to feel as if I’d be okay, right up until I hit the chorus All by myself, where my voice wobbled into nothing. I had to repeat the line, but I couldn’t breathe. Instead of singing to the back of the room as I always did, pretending the barman was my audience, my world contracted, and in that moment I saw movement at the front of the stage and it distracted me further.

  A drunk in an oversized cowboy hat stumbled out of his front-row table where he’d been sitting alone—no surprise there. The backing track carried on without me as he staggered forward to slump over the front of my stage. Tendrils of apprehension raced through me. Was he going to vomit? His shoulders rose and I was immediately reminded of Mixie, coughing up a fur ball.

  I took a tentative step back, and tried to catch up with the song, but just as I was wavering, “I’m so unhappy. What’ll I do…” a harsh guttural sound cut across me and a projectile stream of disgusting something splattered the club’s small stage.

  I vainly tried to hold the note as I skittered backwards so his regurgitation wouldn’t land on the silver sling-backs Jill had given me to wear as her bridesmaid—shoes I shouldn’t have taken out of the box. But my six-inch heel caught a lump in the carpet which the landlord must have thrown—not nailed—across the stage. I lost my balance and went flying backwards, straight back on my tailbone and then my wrist, unable to stop my legs flinging up and both shoes flying off.

  The club wasn’t packed, but there had to be at least fifty people who saw beneath my dress to the pink G-string I’d bought to cheer myself up. The thin strip of fabric would have been highlighted in the harsh spotlight. I was mortified, and wrenched my knees together before I tried to scrabble upright.

  But when I pushed down on my wrist…pain.

  No wait. Agony. It radiated up my elbow and into my shoulder like a wrenching cord of molten barbed wire. I yelped in distress and pulled my hand up to my chest to protect it. Five seconds later the sound technician Ralph jumped up onto the small stage and grabbed my wrist, wrenching me to my feet.

  Then I screamed.

  Something was seriously wrong, and as agony combined with the threat of passing out, all I could do was slump against Ralph’s thankfully substantial frame and gasp, “I’m hurt. Call an ambulance,” tucking the wrist against my midriff like a broken wing.

  The pain was so bad, in fact, that it over-rode embarrassment. I could hear pandemonium behind me where the cowboy was still puking and people were making sounds of disgust. A few heartless patrons
were slow-clapping in appreciation of the drama, laughing as if my act had been karaoke gone wrong.

  But this was my career.

  Or at least it had been, before Danny had ruined my confidence.

  Tonight’s debacle certainly hadn’t helped.

  “Don’t worry, Angela,” Ralph said, as he tucked me under his arm and led me barefoot down the carpeted stairs. “I’ll get Bertie to look at it.”

  He took me behind the stage and into the dressing room. I was grateful for his help, but I had to say, “It’s not a sprain. Something’s broken.”

  He held my bare shoulders and eased me onto one of the stackable plastic chairs with my back to the medicine cabinet that doubled as a booze stash and makeup mirror.

  The pain was getting worse and I blinked back tears, suddenly remembering, “My shoes!”

  He stared at me with what could have been disbelief, as if a woman couldn’t be in mortal pain and worried about her footwear at the same time.

  “They’re expensive. Please get them for me.”

  He sighed and turned away, saying “Sure,” before he lumbered out, a ginger-haired yeti in his techie uniform of black Tee-shirt and jeans.

  “Please,” I whispered again, knowing Jill would kill me if I lost them. I’d kill me. I should have saved them to wear at her wedding, but this was my first night back and I’d wanted to feel good about myself. That meant new shoes, even if Jill expected me to wear them for the first time in a bridesmaid’s dress.

  It had never occurred to me that anything would happen to them.

  Anything being vomit.

  But I wasn’t going out after them. The more time passed, the more my wrist hurt. What had started as a sharp pain quickly morphed into a sharp ache that throbbed through my body and felt like it was rattling my brain with each thump. I wanted to stand up and go looking for a phone, but I was terrified that I’d faint. I really needed a doctor.

  Finally, the club owner Bertie came in, smelling of cheap aftershave and cigarettes. He put his nicotine-stained fingers on my shoulders, and although I normally tolerated his groping—within limits—this time I shook him off in revulsion. Pain had obviously erased my ‘good manners’ program.

  “Angie, baby,” he said, as if we were in a seventies video clip. He was old enough to remember them. “Fat boy says you’re hurt.”

  “I think I’ve broken my wrist. Could you call an ambulance?” I said this through gritted teeth. My face felt cold and I was growing dizzier by the second. My lips were tingling. Was I in shock?

  Bertie smiled at me, which was confusing given the circumstances. “Already rang one for the puker. He’s collapsed. They can check you over when they come, but I think you’ll be fine.”

  Outrage blew away the cobwebs of my fuzziness. “Why does he get an ambulance?” I glared at Bertie, who I suddenly noticed was looking shifty. “Is this about your insurance?” Maybe he didn’t have Workers Compensation cover. “I don’t care about that. I’ve got my own health cover.”

  “Probably just sprained,” he said and winked at me. “Nothing to worry about.”

  That only infuriated me more. Unfortunately, a wave of nausea hit me then and I stumbled away from him to the disgusting toilet adjoining the dressing room, unfortunately bumping my elbow on the way.

  That sent shockwaves of pain into my wrist and I barely got the toilet lid up before my mango korma dinner came back up my throat and spurted out in a totally unladylike fashion. Even while I was vomiting, I was appalled with myself. And when I’d finished, the sour taste in my mouth wouldn’t wash out no matter how many times I tried. Even worse, the floor of the toilet room was sticky under my bare feet, and that grossed me out totally.

  I’d made a point of never using the ‘facilities’ attached to the dressing room, and now I felt completely validated for having refused. Employees weren’t supposed to use the patrons’ toilets—which weren’t the Hilton either—but they were a quantum leap from this germ pit.

  I stumbled back into the dressing room and found it populated by Bertie, Ralph, and a female paramedic.

  “Here she is.” Bertie pointed, as though the paramedic wasn’t capable of working out that I was the patient. Then he turned to Ralph and snapped, “Back to work,” before stalking out.

  I used my good arm to grab Ralph’s as he turned. “My shoes?”

  He shrugged. “Gone.”

  “Oh my god.” I slumped into the plastic chair. Jill was going to kill me. Aside of which, how the hell was I going to get home with bare feet? The club was carpeted, but outside on the street there could be broken glass or anything. I hadn’t gone barefoot outdoors for twenty years—since I was a teenager.

  The paramedic distracted me by crouching in front of me. “Hi. I’m Sally. They said your name’s Angela.” She was lean like a whippet, with cropped blonde hair, pointy features and slim shanks. A world away from my dark hair and ‘Beyoncé curves’ as Jill called them.

  I nodded. “Angela Lata. I have health insurance.”

  She smiled as if that was none of her business and I was telling her too much, but in my confused state, I was likely to say anything. “So.” She raised an eyebrow. “Arm?

  I tried not to be annoyed. She did look competent. “Broken I think.” I held out my wrist.

  “How did it happen?”

  I told her as succinctly as I could. She nodded and held my arm gently at the elbow. “Is that why you were vomiting? Pain?”

  I nodded again, wishing I had mints or some toothpaste.

  “Worse than childbirth, eh?” She cracked a smile, then let me go to rifle through her kit.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said shortly, and the grief that had swelled with the song, tightened my throat again. Damn Danny. The one thing I’d wanted from him was the one thing he’d made sure I could never have. Cheating had been bad enough. But a vasectomy was taking cruelty to a whole new level. I still couldn’t comprehend the betrayal in that, when he knew I was desperate for a baby.

  Not that I’d ever told him how frantic I was getting, nor even my three closest friends. People thought Danny and I were a ‘cute couple’, and I had loved him as my husband and the prospective father to my children. But there’d never been passion. Ours had been as close to an arranged marriage as you could find in Australia—arranged by our Mumbai-born parents who’d been thrilled that their grandchildren would be Indian and not mixed-race.

  I’d always doted on Danny, but I’d never missed him when he was away. And though I hated going through a divorce, I certainly didn’t want him back. What I did want back was the twenty years I’d wasted on him: five years of dating and fifteen years of marriage, with no children to show for it. I was probably still fertile at thirty-five, but the clock was ticking.

  Loudly.

  My mother had often called her children the great loves of her life and I wanted that. I didn’t expect to love a man that way. But surely I deserved a child.

  “Here.” The paramedic put a pill in my good hand. “Take this.”

  I swallowed it dry. “I’d like to go to hospital.” Focusing on my immediate problems was a good way to distract myself. I wanted to keep to that plan and not dwell on the fact that my first night back at the club had gone horribly wrong and my tentative independent future was collapsing before my eyes.

  “Sure. You’ll need to ride up front with me. Zac will be in the back with our other patient.”

  I pulled a face. “I don’t want to be anywhere near him. It’s his fault I did this.” I raised my wrist.

  “I’ll keep you apart.” She sounded as though she was worried I’d punch him. Luckily for him, I wasn’t the violent type.

  Poisoning, I could consider…

  Sally, however, didn’t give me the opportunity. She was right beside me all the way, helping me retrieve my handbag from my locker and even going with me to check around the stage but no, my shoes were gone. Someone said Nice undies behind me and I gritted my teeth.

  Sa
lly just patted my shoulder and said, “Ignore the bastards,” before ushering me quickly through the club, walking beside my damaged arm so no one would bump me.

  Then we were out into the cool night air and I was picking my way barefoot across the sidewalk, which thankfully had no broken glass as I’d imagined. Once she’d settled me into the front seat of the nice warm ambulance with the seatbelt carefully fastened, she went back in to help her partner with the drunk.

  I didn’t want to watch, but couldn’t help myself glancing in the side mirror as they wheeled him out of the club on a stretcher. He looked so still, he had to be unconscious, and without the cowboy hat, I could see he had short cropped, dark hair and some sort of moustache-beard arrangement.

  I shuddered again. One thing I could be grateful for was Danny’s fastidious grooming routines. I abhorred facial hair, and men with three-day growths looked scruffy, rather than sexy to me. Just another reason to dislike this overgrown party-boy and his drunken behavior. Serve him right if he had alcohol poisoning.

  I kept my gaze stubbornly ahead as the back doors opened. The ambulance wriggled around as they loaded him in, then the back doors slammed shut and a few seconds later Sally jumped into the driver’s seat. She snatched up the radio and rattled off some jargon that I wasn’t really listening to, because I was unable to help myself looking over my shoulder to the stretcher behind me.

  The second paramedic was cutting the drunk’s tee-shirt open, and while Sally started the engine and took us out into traffic, I watched the male paramedic stick monitor tags over the drunk’s chest.