Trust Me

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Sara was in the kitchen of her 1970s house. The kitchen wasn’t 1970s – it was very modern, with lots of stainless steel, small tiles and low-level lighting. She stirred her Bolognese with one hand and held a glass of Australian shiraz in a Dartington glass in the other. Andy Williams was playing in the background on her wireless speaker system. She imagined the man of her dreams behind her, kissing the back of her neck. He would guide her glass to the worktop and wrap his arms around her waist. She would dance into his embrace and turn around to see his eyes. He would have such kind eyes. It would be the first thing she had noticed about him. They would dance together and he would turn off the lights. Sara’s head was teeming with romantic ideas but then she remembered she was on her own. She emptied the glass into her mouth and poured some more.

She didn’t need the fancy gifts or the luxurious hotels. What she wanted was someone who would dance with her in the kitchen. If she could escape from Christian she felt that she could be capable of love very soon. She couldn’t wait to dance again and again at dinnertime in the kitchen, to wake up together, to snuggle on the sofa together and watch films. She couldn’t wait to have affection on tap. She never had that with Christian.

Christian did everything perfectly in the beginning. But like a true narcissist, once he had hooked her in, the affection and romance dissipated and she quickly became a s*x object. The dramatic change in his behaviour left her confused and desperate to fix it. She believed she was somehow to blame. He made her feel as if it was her fault.

In the beginning, he was in touch constantly. They exchanged messages all day long. He would find time to see her most days. He would stay over. They would sit up talking until two in the morning. He showered her with gifts. He told her he loved everything about her. He talked about what their future would look like. He said he couldn’t wait to introduce her to his friends and how jealous they would all be. He booked hotel stay after hotel stay. Every time, he would tell her to have a spa treatment. He took her to fine dining restaurants and they would share their food. When a relative died and she sent him a text, he cleared his diary and went to be with her for the day. When she had a cold, he turned up with a thoughtful gift bag of medicine, sweets and magazines from the supermarket.

It was like no relationship she had ever experienced but suddenly, almost overnight, he changed. It was around about the time she fell in love with him. He became distant, less affectionate and less available. When she questioned him, he became nasty and would gaslight her. He would criticise her, tell her how spoilt she was and make her question herself. He was chipping away at her, knocking down her confidence. And it was working. She was a very good feed for a narcissist like him. A sumptuous meal for his manipulative appetite.

When she looked back, she realised that she had been happy for only a few months of their short relationship. The rest of the time she had spent questioning herself, always trying to please him and surrendering to his every wish. The compromise always had to come from her. It was exhausting and every time she got close to throwing the towel in, he would revert back to being the Christian she had first met. But only for a short while.

The manipulation and control had been slow but well planned-out and gradually she was going from a vibrant woman to a blank canvas. She was empty. She was sad. She began to develop a depression. Sara’s friends saw her deteriorate and begged for her to end it. She knew they were right but every time she built up the courage to end it, he would revert back to phase one and brainwash her into staying. She must have tried to end it with him 10 times but every time he would tell her she was crazy and overreacting and that they were great together. She would tell him she was starved of affection and romance, he promised to deliver and a week later she would be at rock bottom again.

Last week she ended it. In her mind, it was over. She knew he would keep trying to worm his way back in for another feed of her energy like the vampire that he was but as long as she didn’t have to see him, she could stand her ground.

George came into her life at the right time. She had never been short of offers but she had not been able to make the jump all the while Christian had his claws in her. She had been on dates that friends had arranged and she would have a nice time and then Christian would go back to phase one and again she would want him and only him. He was like h****n and she was fighting what seemed like a hopeless battle. She was convinced if he stayed away from her, she could move on successfully – and soon.

She met George at the doctor’s surgery. She had made an appointment to ask her doctor if he could recommend a therapist who could help her break away from an abusive, controlling relationship. As she was making her way into the building, she spotted a handsome man trying to help an elderly lady out of his car. She went over and asked if she could help. The lady gratefully took their arms and she walked between the two of them into the building.

That lady went on to confide in Sara that her son George needed a woman like her in his life and that he had been single for too long. George looked tolerantly embarrassed as she told Sara she didn’t want George to leave it as long as she had to have a family of his own. Sara didn’t pry but she did seem rather old to have a son of George’s age. She must be in her eighties, Sara thought.

George was attractive. He was tall with sandy coloured hair and pale blue eyes. If a beach could look like a person, it would be him. He looked like family, togetherness, fun and lifelong memories, if a person could look like that.

Agewise, he seemed to be in his early forties. It was his kind eyes that she noticed and the abundance of wrinkles around them when he smiled. He must smile a lot, she thought to herself and it was as if a knot she didn’t know she had unravelled in her stomach. She wanted to know more about him. She didn’t love Christian any more. The fact that she was attracted to George and was intrigued by him was confirmation of that.

Things took off with George quicker than Sara had expected. She had attempted to date men recently but was always drawn back to Christian. She was fully aware of who he was yet she was trapped in his web. They would argue, she would ask for space and in that time, she felt happy and genuinely believed she could move on but Christian would never give her space for long. A day or two, maximum. One text from him, one more wisecrack would have her smiling again and any spark she thought she had with anyone else would quickly be extinguished. She knew it was a trap. She knew she was a game to Christian but she also knew she didn’t have the strength to leave. She had hoped that, with time, one more act of complete humiliation would be enough for her to end it all. She was not happy to admit it but what she needed was for someone to sweep her off her feet.

George came in to her life like the spring after winter. The world was in colour again. It had very much been black and white before now. Bleak, even. The bare trees and bitterly cold temperatures resonated with her mindset.

With George, it happened organically. The flowers began to bloom and she could feel the dormant Sara being resurrected.

After swapping numbers in the doctor’s surgery that day, he did everything the right way. He didn’t make too much contact, just enough. He invited her out to dinner. They arranged a time and a place and that was that. They didn’t speak again until they met, four days later.

Christian had been in her bed that morning so she was on the brink of cancelling the date. Her mind was torn and conflicted because she had only ever been a one-man woman. But, after Christian had finished taking what he wanted, he slapped her arse and told her to make him a coffee. When he left, he kissed her briefly and told on her on the doorstep he would be away on business for the next 10 days. It hadn’t escaped her that it was half term. She exploded and they had a furious argument. She had told him so many times that he made her feel as if she was only good for s*x and that she had had enough. He told her that he had had enough of her never being happy and she told him to leave and not come back. He said no one would ever make her happy and called her an ungrateful b***h.

It was the best thing he could have said. Once again, he had made it painfully obvious to her that he wanted only one thing from her. And so she decided she must go on the date, even if it never amounted to anything. It proved there was another life outside of Christian and his world of false promises.

She met George in a cosy, backstreet Italian restaurant. She wasn’t nervous. She was too drained and lacking in self-esteem to care if this went anywhere or not. She was just glad she had actually managed to go through with a date this time, rather than cancelling, as she had done with most of her previous offers.

As she walked into the restaurant, she immediately spotted George sitting contently on his own. He was much better-looking than she had remembered as she gazed at him sitting there with an air of confidence about him. Not arrogance, but a steely, manly yet comfortable demeanour. She felt warm and the knot inside her stomach began to unravel some more.

George blushed perfectly when she walked into the restaurant and stood to greet her. He wanted to take her coat, not just because that’s what he thought should happen but because something immediately made him want to look after her. The waiter took her coat and gestured to the table where George was standing. She looked him up and down. All six feet four inches of him. He was exactly the type of man she was attracted to. Tall, broad, well-dressed and with kind eyes and a smile that suggested he was nervous. A smile that said he didn’t do this very often – which was a great comfort to her.

They ordered a bottle of red wine and Sara began asking him all about himself. She was surprised to learn that George was a detective in the Hampshire Constabulary. She hadn’t given much thought to what his job could be but she hadn’t thought of the police. She knew he was someone with authority by the way he held his council and knowing that he was on the right side of the law reassured her further. She was in the presence of a man with integrity. As her fondness for him grew by the minute, she was also wondering what on earth had kept her with Christian for so long. They didn’t share a single value in common. He was every parent’s worst nightmare. Why couldn’t I see that before?

It was George’s turn to ask about her. After asking the usual, unassuming questions, Sara was caught dead in her tracks when he asked her something she hadn’t prepared for.

“How long have you been single?”

The heat rose to her cheeks as she thought about the best way to answer his direct question. Her mind took her back to images of her and Christian n***d in bed together earlier that day. As she quickly raced through possible answers in her head, she remembered what he did for a living and decided she had no choice.

“I am very newly single.”

She raised her eyes away from her plate and met his, feeling ashamed. She took a sip of her wine and exhaled.

George placed his hand on top of hers.

“It’s OK if you don’t want to talk about it now but I am looking for someone who is single. If that isn’t you, let’s enjoy our dinner and leave it there.”

Sara knew she would be mad to miss out on this. It needed to be explored further and she had 10 days of Christian being “on business” to get to know George.

“I am single. Really, I am. I’m sorry, it’s just that you came along unexpectedly and I don’t normally jump from one thing to the next. I am a believer in fate, though, so I am happy to be here. I’m happy we are having dinner together and although I’ve only had my starter, I already know I would like to see you again.”

George squeezed her hand this time, smiled and blushed. She could tell she would have the ability to hurt this man and she was not prepared to do that. For the next 10 days, she was single and she would deal with Christian when she saw him – whenever that might be.

She deserved a life with someone who wanted her completely and so she had to see if she could have that with George.

The pair talked and talked and had more wine than they should have. They hadn’t realised they were the last ones in the restaurant and ended up laughing as they left at how long they had been in there and how the staff must have been desperate for them to get out.

Sara got in a taxi. George had offered to accompany her but she said no. She really needed to take her time. She was sure he was a gentleman but her home was her safe place and she didn’t want him having her address just yet. Policeman or no policeman. You never know who the nutters are these days, she thought. That way, there would be no chance of bunches of flowers arriving and surprise visits.

She didn’t want anything to scare her off because this was the closest she had got to escaping Christian’s web. Her own thought process shocked her and revealed the extent of Christian’s a***e. Never before would she have laid out a slow, step-by-step guide in her mind to dating but she was so nervous now. Nervous about giving her heart away again. And whoever got it this time, she hoped would be the last.

She had promised him a text when she got back to let him know she was safe and he said that was good enough. He pulled her in by the waist to kiss her on the cheek but she turned and kissed him on the mouth. He put one hand on the back of her head and she leaned in to him. It wasn’t wild and passionate. It was nice. It was soft. It was gentle. It was enough. It was just perfect.