‘Oh, but I can, Chrissie. You are just a fuck – a good fuck, I’ll give you that – but that is it, lady. I have a beautiful wife and I will never leave her for a skank like you.’

Chrissie could hear the viciousness in his voice now and she was hurt. She really thought this was it for her. She believed she had hit the jackpot.

‘You can’t talk to me like this! I love you, Ray.’

He grabbed her arms as she went to fight him, and pinned her to the bed.

‘I think I’m pregnant, Ray. You have to look after me now.’

Ray registered her words, but he could not believe what he was hearing. Was she really that fucking stupid? Chrissie thought he was going to fuck her again and tell her what she wanted to hear. Instead he put his face close to hers and said nastily, ‘I would not love you or allow you to have my child if you were the last fucking female on earth, Chrissie. You are a fuck, pure and simple. My wife is getting on a bit, I admit that, but she is worth a million of you. You’re a whore, and that is all you will ever be to me or any man you take up with. Get over it.’

Chrissie knew then that she had lost not just the battle but the whole war. ‘Get out.’

Ray Donovan held her down and fucked her once again before he got up and, as he dressed, he said quietly, ‘I will go. No man in his right mind would even consider you as a mate of any kind. You were born to be a mistress, darling.’

Chrissie had been putting it about since she was sixteen years old, and this was not the first time a married man had said as much to her. She felt an enormous anger welling up inside her and she shouted, ‘Well, let’s see how your precious wife feels when I tell her what we have been up to the last few months, shall we?’

That was when the beating started, which was what she liked, if she was honest – at least it proved they cared. But when he grabbed her throat and started to squeeze, it dawned on her that she had picked on the wrong man this time.