Save Her, Abigail Osborne [ebook reader for surface pro txt] 📗

broken in every sense of the word. Her hair was bedraggled where she had clawed it at it. She was hunched over and looked like she might shatter at the lightest touch. Her face was white and gaunt, revealing what blusher, foundation and concealer had been hiding. A faint yellow bruise dappled her cheek. Where was her Sophie?

Images of Greg’s fist pounding into Sophie’s side arose in her mind and she realised, This is the real Sophie. When Sophie reached the bed, Flora stood and wrapped her in her arms. She held her so tightly, wishing she could just hug all the pain away. They had to fix this. Flora never wanted to see Sophie like this again. At Flora’s touch Sophie broke down. Her body could no longer hold itself up and Flora took the weight of her friend, holding her upright. Her cries were guttural. It was like her body was forcibly expelling all the buried pain and sorrow.

Eventually, Sophie’s anguish diminished, and Flora gently guided her to the bed. They lay together, Sophie clutched at Flora tightly, as though she was the only life raft in a stormy sea. Flora gently stroked Sophie’s hair, making shushing noises to soothe her. It was the first time in their entire friendship that she was the one doing the comforting.

‘Talk to me, Soph. Let me in.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it. Talking about it means I have to relive it.’

‘But if you talk to me. I can help.’

At her words, Sophie sat bolt upright. She turned to face Flora, flushed with anger. ‘Help. There is nothing you can do to help. I’ve had years to think this through. After every punch and kick I would breathe through the pain and plot my escape.’ Sophie got out of the bed. Her anger restoring her energy. She strode over to the window and pointed to it. ‘I even had a whole night in the garden when he locked me out there to sit freezing cold in only a nightgown. A whole twelve hours I spent, barely able to feel my fingers trying to work out a way to escape him. To escape all of them.’

Horrified, Flora tried and failed to clear her mind of the image of a freezing cold Sophie in her nightgown shivering only a few metres from where Flora would have been sleeping peacefully with Sam’s arms wrapped around her. Nausea rolled in her stomach.

Sophie pinned Flora with her gaze. ‘Flora, you are not stupid. I know you have tried to keep your distance and almost ignore the wealth that we have married into. But you know as well as I do the sort of power this family has. For god’s sake, Cecelia and Alistair have organised it so that any speeding tickets, the family gets miraculously vanish. They can do anything they want. Come on, Flora. Open your eyes. It’s time to stop ignoring what is right in front of you.’

‘Don’t be like that, Sophie. I don’t spend as much time with them as you do. I avoid Cecelia like the plague and I’ve never spent more than ten minutes alone with Greg.’

Sophie began to pace up and down the room, gesticulating wildly as she spoke. ‘But you’ve seen the things they can do. You remember Cecelia bragging about the speeding tickets. You were there when Alistair got a restaurant to throw out all the people dining there so we could eat at a table alone, just because he didn’t like the table they had given us. Greg has just as much power as them. Money is power, Flora.’

‘But I don’t understand what this has to do with Greg hurting you.’ Flora’s mind was racing. They had never talked about the darker side of the Cavendish family. Flora had ignored it and pretended it wasn’t happening. Sophie had always seemed to accept that it was a part of having money. But now, the dirty washing was on the line and Flora was starting to realise that in ignoring what type of family she had married into, she had entangled herself in a mess she may not be able to get out of.

‘I tried to leave.’

The words hung in the air. Flora was gobsmacked. Sophie couldn’t look at her.

‘I reached my limit. I just couldn’t take it anymore.’ She sank to the floor. Sitting in front of Flora she stared at her knees and picked at the skin around her nails.

‘I knew I’d have to be clever. I’d told Greg in the past I would leave him if he hurt me again. He was eager to let me know that he would never let that happen. That I was his property.’ She spat these words. ‘He promised if I ever left, he would spend every minute of the day and every penny he had tracking me down.

‘I knew I had to be clever. So, I booked four hotels in different names. Even I didn’t know which one I was going to actually stay in. I took nothing with me except some cash I had been hiding. I couldn’t take my passport as Greg had locked it away in his safe. I was so sure I outsmarted him. I chose a random day. I had meetings booked, he wouldn’t have a clue.’ A tear slid down her face, riding the crest of her cheek and then plummeted to the floor, splashing onto the cream carpet. ‘But when I got to the room in the hotel. Greg was lying on the bed. He had this massive grin on his face. Like we were playing a game of hide and seek and he had won. I didn’t dare try again after that. I knew it was pointless. The broken ribs were also an incentive.’

‘Broken ribs! How did you have broken ribs without me knowing?’

Sophie looked up, her eyes so sad. ‘I didn’t want to lie to you. I told you I had a last-minute business trip in Barcelona. But really, I