How do you catch a big fish? You reel it in very slowly and gently.
At the start, he seemed to understand everything about me. He loved me for who I was. This had never happened before, not with my parents.
I was the grown-up in that house, took care of my mother, fixed things, made her cheer up when she fell into the hole of depression. It was my duty. Since I’d been able to toddle and bring a tissue to a crying woman.
Now, staring into my own daughter’s little smiling face, I realised that my mother had raised me to meet her own needs.
So that when he came around, I thought he loved me. My experience of love was so very flawed.
I saw none of the red flags.
Others had never understood him.
Marta, his first wife, was a bitch.
That should have been the first red flag.
I sailed past all the flags until it was too late.
Now, when it was terrifying, I wondered how I was going to get out of it alive.
Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know.
Nobody would believe me.
Nobody. It was the simplest crime. None of the people who thought they were our friends would believe it for a second.
Because he was a shape-shifter. Not the nice kind, the kind that shifted from one type of decency to another.
No, he was the dangerous kind. Society never noticed them. They were predators and they could kill.
They certainly knew how to destroy women, that was for sure.
Chapter Thirty-One
Keera sees Rose gives India and Dan a knowing look as they walk onto the terrace.
‘Told you,’ she hears Dan mutter.
But India, grinning broadly, doesn’t care.
So what’s happened there then? Keera knows Rose won’t mind. It’s not rehab. If India and Dan were here for sex addiction that might be different, but they’re not.
India beams at Keera, who grins back, and raises a hand.
‘Rose, I need …’ she pauses. It’s hard to say this out loud.
She’s been told that nobody needs to know she’s a member of Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous but, here, she has to say something. These people have heard some of her deepest secrets.
‘I need an NA or AA meeting,’ she says. ‘I’ve done some online ones but I need an in-person one.’
Yolande had told her that it would be grounding for her to meet people in person.
‘There’s a meeting in Corfu Town, an English-speakingone, but it’s six fifteen tonight and I know we have evening meditation.’
Rose springs into action.
‘Of course, Keera, we want to support you in working on staying clean and sober. Now, someone should go with you. We’ll book a taxi and someone will stay with you until you go into your meeting and meet you then afterwards—’
