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Back The Marriage Trap: A completely addictive psychological thriller Save as PDF
Chapters (60)
  1. Cover
  2. Books by Sheryl Browne
  3. Dedication
  4. KARLA
  5. One
  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. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Thirty-Four
  39. Thirty-Five
  40. Thirty-Six
  41. Thirty-Seven
  42. Thirty-Eight
  43. Thirty-Nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-One
  46. Forty-Two
  47. Forty-Three
  48. Forty-Four
  49. Forty-Five
  50. Forty-Six
  51. Forty-Seven
  52. Forty-Eight
  53. Epilogue
  54. The Affair
  55. Hear more from Sheryl
  56. Books by Sheryl Browne
  57. A Letter from Sheryl
  58. The Babysitter
  59. The Second Wife
  60. Acknowledgements

On the hall floor? Because she’d drunk too much, Jason deduced, feeling her pain, her utter bewilderment. He wished he could communicate that much to her. That he felt it, too. That he always would.

‘Did you not recognise me?’ Karla added, with a heart-wrenching smile.

Jason swallowed. He guessed she was referring to her hair, which she’d worn sweeping her shoulders not so long ago. Jason tried not to recall the soft, silky feel of it, how he’d never been able to resist twining it around his hands as they made sweet love together. Now it was short, and dyed a striking auburn. It suited her face. She had beautiful bone structure, high cheekbones; she was perfect. He couldn’t help feeling that this new look just wasn’t her though.

Karla’s fingers went to the nape of her neck. ‘It’s temporary, the hair colour – comb in and wash out,’ she said, as if reading his mind. She’d always been pretty shrewd at that.

‘I gathered.’ Jason’s mouth twitched into a smile. ‘It’s run a bit.’ He nodded towards her neck; resisted reaching to wipe the tell-tale drip of watery auburn away.

‘Ah.’ Karla touched her fingers to it. ‘I went walking in the rain,’ she said. Noting the immense sadness in her eyes, Jason looked away. He had to. His mind had immediately gone to Jessie and the comment she’d made about romantic walks in the rain.

Looking back to Karla, his gaze strayed to her hand, now resting at the soft hollow of her neck. Her ring finger was bare, he noticed. He simply couldn’t allow his mind to go there. ‘You broke a nail,’ he said throatily.

Her expression surprised, Karla turned the back of her hand towards her face, going slightly cross-eyed as she examined it. ‘Oh,’ she said, and shrugged. ‘Not to worry. It’s just another little piece of me.’

Jason drew in a breath. It stopped short of his chest. ‘You need to lie down,’ he said, carefully threading an arm around her.

‘There are many pieces, you know, that make up the whole of me,’ Karla went on, allowing him to ease her to her feet.

‘I know.’ Jason nodded. He did know. The carefree side of her, the woman who would let go of her worries and mesmerise people on the dance floor – she’d lost that part of herself because of him.

‘Does she have nice hair?’ Karla asked him, as he attempted to help her towards the stairs.

‘Who?’ he asked.

‘Jessie, your girlfriend.’

Jason stopped walking.

‘I like her belly button piercing.’

Jesus. Jason’s heart dropped like a stone.

Thirty-Five

KARLA