Free The Venus Trap by Louise Voss Page B

meant to be a temporary base for me and Megan after the divorce, and one good thing about this situation is that now I am definitely going to move. I don’t want to spend another night longer than I have to here, and I don’t want Megan back here now that Claudio has sullied it for us with his sweaty hands and crazy delusions.
    I wait five minutes and then go and stand by the boarded-up window, take a massive deep breath, and scream as loudly as I can, for as long as I can. I imagine a little huddle of concerned bystanders congregating in someone’s back garden and it helps. They’ll be listening intently: ‘Did you hear that? That’s a woman screaming. Doesn’t sound good to me. Shall we ring the police?’
    ‘Yes, let’s. Better safe than sorry . . .’
    After a few minutes my throat is raw and my ears are ringing. I pause for breath and listen hard for the sound of sirens. But there is nothing. I try screaming ‘FIRE!’—I heard once that this brings people faster than if you just shout for help because there’s more of a potential threat to their own safety and possessions. Still nothing.
    ‘Richard,’ I scream instead in desperation. ‘Help me! Richard!’
    I will him to appear as if by magic in my bedroom. I feel his warm arms around me, and his lips against my ear, whispering soothing words.
    ‘Oh thank God you’re here! I knew you’d come!’
    When I find myself saying the words out loud, I think that perhaps I have gone completely mad.
    Richard is the man I loved more deeply than I’ve ever loved anybody else. But not more passionately. There have only been two men in my life I’ve loved with real passion, one of whom was John. That all ended in tears, and no-one else came close to inspiring that intensity of feeling in me, until I met Sean.
    Sean is the reason that Richard and I didn’t get back together. Sean is the reason I’m on my own now. Sean is the reason that I can’t believe I will ever love anybody again. I sit down on the bed, exhausted and upset and beyond caring at the bitter, melodramatic turn my thoughts have taken. The vision of Richard has vanished from my mind, and I feel consumed with resentment for Sean. If I’d never met him, I wouldn’t be in this situation now. If he materialised in my room right now I think I’d slap him.
    I think of Richard rubbing my back when I was ill, and before I know it I’m crying again.
    Even before Claudio weaselled his way onto the scene, this was not how I wanted my life to be.
    When I get out of here, I’m going to have to do something to change things. I can’t go on like this. I don’t like this person I have turned into: she is not me. All I want is a family again. Security, stability, a future. I made a mistake and I want to put it right in any way I can, given that going back is not an option. Not too much to ask—is it?

Chapter Ten
Day 2
    I met Sean two years ago, soon after Stephanie and I started renting an office together. Steph and I have been friends for years; she used to be my neighbour until she moved in with her glamorous footballer boyfriend. Since we’re both freelance we decided that it would make sense to share an office—tax deductible and fewer distractions than working from home. Once we moved in, we then decided we spent far too much time sitting around eating croissants and gossiping and that we should both join the gym next door. We also thought that it would be a good way for her to meet a new man, since the men in our shared office complex were no great shakes, and she’d recently had another bust-up with the glamorous footballer boyfriend, who unfortunately loved himself as much as she loved him.
    She had very exacting standards, being a sports journalist (her half of the office was full of books with titles like Bestie, Foggy, Hizzy, Cloughie and Deano ) and thus accustomed to dealing with the more physically perfect of the male species. My first thought on clapping eyes on Sean was, honestly, that