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Back One Mistake Save as PDF
Chapters (56)
  1. Books by Rona Halsall
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Three weeks later
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  43. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  44. Chapter Forty
  45. Ten days later
  46. Chapter Forty-One
  47. Seven months later
  48. Love You Gone
  49. Hear More from Rona
  50. A Letter from Rona
  51. Books by Rona Halsall
  52. Her Mother’s Lies
  53. The Honeymoon
  54. Keep You Safe
  55. Acknowledgements
  56. *

Just like Mum, she thought. Matt wasn’t far wrong with that. He’d thrown it at her as an insult, the worst insult he could think of. He’d never had a good opinion of Sara’s mother. But Sara understood now what had happened in her mum’s life. It hadn’t been wilful neglect; it was a struggle for survival.

She dragged herself to her feet. I have to get through this. I have to be there for my kids.

Hailey will know what to do, she thought as she trudged back to her car. She turned for a last look at the house, and there was Ezra, his face at the lounge window. He was crying, banging on the glass, wanting to be with her. She couldn’t bear it, and turned back, desperate to comfort him, but although she rang and rang at the doorbell, hammered on the door, nobody answered, and when she looked again at the window, Ezra had gone and the curtains were closed.

There was no choice but to leave. Her presence was causing too much upset for her children, and it wasn’t doing anyone any good. She’d made enough of a scene, a couple of the neighbours opening their doors to see what all the noise was about. Head bowed, she slunk back to her car and sat in the driver’s seat, looking at the house. All the curtains at the front were closed now, blocking her out. Banished from my own home.

She started the car and drove up to the moors, stopping in the car park, which only had a couple of other cars in it. She should have gone back to work, but she was in no fit state, her mind numb with the completeness of her family’s rejection of her. Except Ezra. He’d wanted her, and that thought broke her heart even more.

There was so much that she didn’t understand, forces at work that had done this to her. Somebody was behind it all. Somebody had organised for her to be drugged, for those men to have access to her unconscious body. Did they pay for the pleasure? It was possible, and the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. And still she couldn’t escape the idea that the only person who might have been able to arrange everything was James.