Free The Blackmail Pregnancy by Melanie Milburne

their short marriage alone. There’d been family picnics or barbecues, or other outings that somehow required each and everyone to attend. Cara hadn’t been prepared for such a frenetic lifestyle and had retreated even further into her shell. She’d felt trapped by Byron’s desire to start a family and had argued heatedly and repeatedly with him over her use of contraceptives.
    She’d left him soon after a particularly vicious row. She still cringed to think of the names they’d thrown at each other. She’d been unwell for weeks, not having picked up properly after a bad bout of flu, and her temper had been frayed beyond the limit by yet another demand for their attendance at a family gathering. Cara had packed her bags and caught the first train to the city, desperate for some breathing space.
    Later that day she’d seen Byron in a café with Megan, his childhood sweetheart, the young woman everyone had previously expected him to marry. Megan had obviously been crying and Byron’s arm had been around her shaking shoulders, his head bent close to hers. Cara hadn’t needed to see any more. Something deep inside her had closed up, as if a door that had been prised apart earlier had finally snapped shut, never to be reopened.
    She had caught the next available flight to Sydney and within a week had filed for divorce. She had known he’d come after her, so had covered her tracks until eventually he’d given up. Her lawyer had at one point laid professional interests aside and tried to get her to rethink her actions, but her mind had already been made up. She didn’t belong in the Rockcliffe family; she never had. She’d been foolish to think the clash of their backgrounds wouldn’t have some sort of effect.
    Her mother had gloated over the dissolution of her marriage. Cara hadn’t seen her manipulation until it had been too late to escape. The pattern of years had disguised its power over her. It pained her to think of her gullibility, to see the way her mother had so skilfully achieved her own selfish ends, destroying her daughter’s life in the process.
    Quite by accident Cara had discovered she was pregnant. She had no longer been able to ignore her general malaise, and a routine check-up had uncovered that she was close to six months pregnant. Her mother had been furious. She obviously hadn’t wanted Cara to return to Byron and had railed at her to get rid of it, before her life was ruined as hers had been by Cara’s birth.
    Cara had been in such a low state emotionally that she’d lost concentration whilst driving with her mother to an appointment with a family planning advisor. A car running a red light had slammed into her mother’s side of the car. Her mother had been seriously injured, needing months of rehabilitation, and Cara had lost the baby. Her own rehabilitation had been postponed while she dealt with the increasing demands of her mother. She’d been well and truly caught in her mother’s trap and there had been no way out.
    Every day for the next four years Edna Gillem had berated her daughter for ruining her life, ending her marriage and taking away her every chance at happiness. Cara had been exposed to her mother’s vitriol all her life, but somehow her guard had been down further than usual after the loss of her baby. Her mother’s hatred had injured her in a place no one had ever been able to reach before. Without even being aware of it she had slipped into the role of her mother’s slave, juggling her ever-increasing demands with her own study commitments.
    She would never know how she’d got through those years. Somehow she had, but the legacy they had left had marked her for life. She felt damaged. Her mother had spent years trying to destroy her self-esteem and finally she had.
    Cara had privately buried the tiny body that hadn’t had a chance at life. She’d had her daughter’s name engraved on a headstone she’d paid for with money from the divorce settlement. She’d told