The Seduction Game by Sara Craven Page B

rejected the meal she’d cooked and went out, for the first time not asking her to go with him.
    And it was the small hours when he returned, sliding into bed beside her without noticing, apparently, that she’d been lying awake, waiting for him and worrying.
    She told herself it was just disappointment. That he’d feel different—more optimistic—the following day. And then maybe she’d stop feeling that she was standing on the edge of some precipice—where all it would take would be one breath of wind to carry her over the brink and down to destruction.
    But I was wrong, Tara thought now, staring into the darkness. Because the precipice was real, and it was there—waiting for me.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    S HE didn’t want to do this, she thought. She didn’t want to remember. But the images were there, burning in her brain. Everything Jack had said. Everything he’d done.
    For three years she’d fought to keep them at bay. Now the cupboard was open, and the skeletons were crowding upon her.
    Nothing had ever been the same again after Jack failed to get the job, although she had done her best to persuade herself otherwise.
    She’d tried to talk to him about it. ‘Jack—I did try—really.’
    The dark eyes were bottomless wells of indifference. ‘Not hard enough, obviously.’
    He hardly spent any time in the flat He was out nearly every evening, and when he joined her in bed he reeked of cigarettes and alcohol. Sometimes she even thought she detected the hint of a woman’s scent on his skin. Opium, she thought. Something she never used. And then silently berated herself for being paranoid.
    What she could not pretend was that Jack still wanted her sexually. Whereas once he’d been unable to keep his hands off her, now he seemed to be doing his best to avoid all physical contact with her. And when, bewildered and unhappy, she tried to make a few shy overtures of her own, he turned on her almost brutally.
    ‘For God’s sake, Tara, I’m under enough stress right now without you hassling me for sex. Give it a rest, will you?’
    If he’d struck her in the face she could not have been more shocked. She never tried again.
    And self-censure wasn’t all she had to bear. Her immediate boss, Leo Southern, called her into his office and gave her a stinging dressing-down over her recent attitude to her work. ‘Sloppy’ was one word he used. And ‘ineffectual’.
    ‘When you joined us, Tara, you were keen—you were hot.’ He threw himself back in his chair and surveyed her, his mouth compressed. ‘Now half the time you don’t seem to be on the same planet. You’d better pull yourself together, and damned quickly.’
    He saw the panicked look in her eyes, and his tone softened marginally. ‘Listen, take the rest of the day off. Do that exercise we sometimes give new clients. List your goals, and the positive and negative factors that affect them. Then work out how to eliminate the negative, however painful. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
    She didn’t argue. She knew she was being given one last chance, and that she’d already blotted her copybook by bringing her private life into office hours.
    As she travelled back on the underground she knew she had to get things sorted out with Jack. Her job was precious to her. She couldn’t afford to jeopardise it. And she couldn’t lose Jack either. She had to fight for both of them.
    She would begin by telling him how much she loved him, she thought. Offer to do anything that would change their life back to the way it had been. After all, there was no place for pride in love.
    And Jack’s pride had been hurt too, she realised sombrely. Perhaps he thought she wouldn’t want him any more, now that he’d failed. She needed to show him how wrong he was. How much faith she had in him.
    We should get married, she thought. Face the world united. I can talk him round. I must.
    As she approached the apartment block she glanced up, and saw with shock that one of their windows