Jesus Christ, what had got into him? He rarely expressed any regret or remorse. He perceived them as weaknesses – and Nathan was never weak.

‘Can we pretend then, just for tonight, that we are those people we were when we first met?’ he asked her. ‘We’ll stay upstairs. In our flat. In our bed, and pretend that we’re young again?’

If only it were that simple, Nathan, she thought. Before she could answer him, he was kissing her. Softly at first, and then urgently. As though they were long-lost lovers, who’d finally been reunited after years apart. She could taste the whisky he’d been drinking, smell his expensive aftershave, and feel the scratch of his beard on her skin. He pulled her skirt up to her waist and pushed her back onto the table.

‘I love this skirt on you, Grace,’ he groaned.

If only to make the whole situation more bearable, she tried to pretend. She tried to remember how it had felt to love him with everything she had, when he was the Nathan she had met a lifetime ago. He smelled good. He always did. His lips were still as soft as she remembered. He’d once made her the happiest woman alive and she couldn’t bear to be without him.

He made it easy to remember those people they were when he was in one of his good moods. Those two young lovers, who thought all they needed was each other. How blind and naive they were. But she would never forget. She couldn’t. Her skin crawled where it once burned. Her eyes closed in anguish now rather than pleasure. She let him do what he needed to. She needed him to think that she still loved him; still wanted him.

Grace had come to terms with the fact that she would never escape Nathan Conlon. That he would always be a part of her life, a part of her. Ever since she met him he’d had an unnatural hold over her. Her happiness, her misery, had been his to determine. There was a certain sense of relief that came with accepting your fate, with realizing your role in life. So, she didn’t fight it anymore. She didn’t fight him anymore. She let him do what he needed to do. She told him what he wanted to hear. Because it was easier to be with him than against him. Then he would never see it coming.

Chapter Seventy-One

It was dark when Grace pulled into Nudge Richard’s scrapyard. She shuddered as she stepped out of her car. These places gave her the creeps even in daylight hours.

The Portakabin door opened and Nudge’s distinctive silhouette appeared in the doorway, the light from inside shining behind him.

‘Hello, Grace, love,’ he called. ‘Come on up, I’ve just put the kettle on.’