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Back The Marriage Trap: A completely addictive psychological thriller
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

Diana didn’t move when he stepped towards her, his hands outstretched, desperate to feel her hands in his, to be held by the woman who was the one constant in his life. She just kept right on looking at him, right down into the depths of his soul.

Robert glanced away. Closing his eyes, he was assaulted by harsh memories of the day of Sarah’s death, one he would never forget: Diana turning from the phone, her face distraught, her eyes awash with tears. ‘I have to be with my mother,’ she’d said. ‘Please, Robert…’

‘I know.’ He’d nodded, his heart sinking. Bloody woman, he’d thought. Could she have chosen a more inconvenient time to die? ‘Of course you do.’ He heard himself saying it, his voice sympathetic, his irritation immense, knowing he would stand little to no chance of getting his tender for a huge contract in.

A tight band of tension tightening between his temples, he’d been sweating profusely in the stifling heat of the long summer, playing childminder while he attempted to work from home. Nausea – he felt it again – swilled around in his belly from the vast amount of brandy he’d consumed at the golf club the night before, the whisky he’d imbibed before lunch. The children – he heard them, above the distracting whine of the lawnmowers. The neighbour’s unruly kids too, screeching and screaming right outside his study window. The phone ringing incessantly: his new secretary, pissing about at the office rather than getting her arse over to the house, where he needed her.

Utterly fucking useless.

The children, their noise escalating – unacceptable, raucous shrieking – grating against the inside of his skull. His rage, building steadily inside him.

Sarah calling him a miserable bastard as he strode into the garden, bawling at them to keep the noise down. This from the mouth of an eight-year-old child? His temper had exploded. He hadn’t meant to do it. It was if a switch had flicked inside him.

Picturing the shock on Sarah’s face when he’d lashed out, her hand clutched to her cheek as she backed away from him, falling as she did, Robert felt afresh his shame and deep, deep remorse. His horror, when he’d realised what he’d done. He heard it now, the sickening crack as her head made contact with the garden path. His heart had stopped beating as she lay there, unmoving. When her eyes had finally fluttered open, and he’d been able to breathe again, she’d looked at him as if he were some kind of monster.