BooksBarbecue
Back The Game
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. NOW
  4. One
  5. BEFORE
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. NOW
  26. Twenty-One
  27. BEFORE
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. NOW
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. BEFORE
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. Forty-Two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. NOW
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. Fifty-Three
  63. Fifty-Four
  64. Fifty-Five
  65. AFTER
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Acknowledgements
  68. About the Author

‘I’ve been talking to her, you know,’ John said, winding the rope closer to him and pulling Natasha closer. He angled the light so it illuminated her face. ‘She used you. She wanted to find us and that’s why she was with you. She thought she could find us through someone in the police and maybe that’s true. She knows what you’ve been doing and what you were prepared to do for her and she doesn’t care. I bet you think you’ll save her and all of this will be over. Then you can ride off into the sunset with a beautiful young thing on your arm. You don’t care she’s so much younger than you and that your entire relationship so far is based on her giving you sex and that’s it – you want her, so you’ll have her. She’ll come running to you because you’ve saved her life. Is that right?’

‘Let her go, John…’

‘Tell the truth,’ John replied, his shout echoing around the empty park. ‘You think she’ll fall for you, just as you’ve fallen for her. It’s wrong. You’re wrong. She doesn’t like you. You repulse her. No matter what you’ve done for her, she thinks you’re just a weird bloke, who even though he’s good-looking, is smarmy with it. She’s thought that from the beginning. She was playing with you. Just so she could get what she wanted.’

‘That… that doesn’t mean anything,’ Mark said, but he could feel something building inside him. A feeling of betrayal, of jealousy.

‘Of course it does. I can see it written all over your face. The only reason you have ruined your career, your life, in the past twenty-four hours, is for her. And she doesn’t even care.’

‘That’s not why I did it.’

‘And this isn’t even the first time,’ John said, his voice dripping with a mixture of pleading and derision. ‘This is what these types of people do. They bleed us dry. I mean, look at you. You have everything, but you’re still the same person you always were.’

‘We can talk about this…’

‘Tell him, Natasha. Tell him you don’t want him and never would.’

Mark opened his mouth to talk, but Natasha raised her head to look at him. Her eyes were glassy and she was shivering against an unseen wind. Her body was shaking, even as she tried to look at him.

‘He’s… he was just a way for me to find you and stop you,’ Natasha said, her voice stilted and breathless. She sounded unfocused, seemingly out of it, but was somehow still standing. ‘I was only with him to get what I wanted.’