‘Maybe you’re right, but do you know something, Cynthia? No one in the world could ever give you what you want, because it would never be enough. You want, want, want, and then when you get it you lose all interest in it, and you start wanting something else. Well, now you know the score, I’ll have me dinner.’

He had never spoken to her like that, not once since she had set her cap at him, and she knew then and there that she would make sure he never spoke to her like it again. But she was trapped, trapped in this house, with his kid, and with his name. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she had a terrible feeling she was pregnant again.

Chapter Four

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Cynthia! Cheer up, girl.’

Mary Callahan looked at the hard, set face in front of her and suppressed the urge to shake her daughter. Where she had got this one from she didn’t know. Cynthia looked down her nose at everyone around her, had done since she could sit up on her own.

Gabby, bless her heart, was the antithesis of her mother. She looked like a little angel with her halo of blond hair and huge blue eyes. She was a gorgeous, loving little girl, but Mary knew that the poor child would not get that love returned from her own mother. Mary had accepted years ago that her daughter was capable of a lot of things, but love wasn’t one of them. And as for that poor sap she had snared, and who she still had by the nuts . . . Mary wasn’t an advocate of violence against women, but if ever a man should slap his old woman, poor Jimmy was that man. Cynthia rode him like a devil, and he let her, the poor bastard.

Mary glanced around her home; it was scruffy, granted, but it was clean enough. She was of the belief that a home was to be lived in, not just admired by fucking strangers. Unlike her daughter’s gaff. She acted like fucking royalty was due round any minute. Cynthia’s house was like the fucking library, you felt like you had to whisper, creep around it, as if noise of any kind was against the law.

She inwardly shook her head in sadness; her daughter would never know a really happy day in her life, she wasn’t built for joy. Still, that didn’t mean little Gabriella shouldn’t be happy. Not if Mary had any say in the matter, especially on Christmas Day. Turning to her granddaughter, she said cheerfully, ‘Come on, Gabby, let’s see what Santa left for you, shall we?’

The little girl ran to her nervously, worried as always that her mother would stop her in her tracks, give her a lecture about how little girls should behave.