What a mess everything was. She’d thought that having Richard arrested would make her feel better, and in a way it did. At least she wasn’t waiting for him to find her any more. Though now she was wondering how swiftly he would manage to have the charge changed to one of assault. On him by Greg, of course.

By the time Josh had arrived at the lochan, it was Greg beating on Richard, with Richard’s assault on her not obvious. If Richard wove a different story . . . and he was eloquent and experienced enough to do that . . .

She shook her head to try and dispel such thoughts, but still they persisted. Greg had no real idea how powerful Richard was in his own world. Both powerful and calculating.

She placed her hands on her still-flat stomach. Even now, she couldn’t believe that the beginnings of life trembled in there . . . but for how long?

She’d told Greg how she’d prevented Richard from punching her in the stomach when he had her in the shed. What she hadn’t explained was what had so incensed Richard that he’d tried to drown her.

She began to relive all those moments from her opening of the shed door to find a man dressed ready to hunt. The way he’d been examining Greg’s rifle rack. The instant the figure had turned and how long it had taken for her to realize who it was.

After which her terror had caused time to slow down almost to a standstill, her every movement an effort.

There had been so many other times like that with Richard, when she’d known what would happen next and had tried to circumnavigate it.

The first time was as fresh now as ever. It was the beginning of a slow and steady realization of who Richard really was under the carefully contrived exterior. The moment when sexual games became a torturous reality. When consent no longer mattered. It never had, she eventually understood. It had only been necessary at the beginning to lull her into his fabricated fantasy.

She had learned from the best, and initially, at least, had played the same game with Greg.

Which had brought her to this point.

She had saved herself a beating because Richard had been pleased about the pregnancy. It was something he’d wanted for a long time. He’d even allowed himself to believe it was his child she carried.

That belief had got her to the car without a beating.

Then, seeing the smoke and flames of the distant fire, she’d remembered . . . that the man he’d defended had burned both his wife and children alive, because she’d been having an affair. Even though the children were his own.