Crime and Punishment by G.F. Newman

Author:G.F. Newman [Newman, GF]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-TWO

Leah Cohen walked and talked like a dead woman after her move into Jack’s Park Street flat. She didn’t care that it was in Mayfair, the best part of London, or that it was spacious. She much preferred her poky little room and the freedom that went with it in Bow. She would only give herself to Jack physically, never mentally or spiritually, because she despised him. When he had forced her to go with him, her first thought had been to kill herself, and it didn’t leave her. It was her ultimate access to freedom.

“What do you think?” Jack said eagerly, as he showed her around. “Look at the fridge—it’s the latest from America.”

“Oh,” Leah said without interest.

“It’s the business,” Jack said, like a disappointed child. “I paid a fortune for it. It’s got an ice-cream compartment.”

“I’m moving in here because I have to, Jack,” she told him. “I’ll give you what you want, but I intend to go on studying full-time.”

“What for? I’ll give you everything you want, Leah. You don’t have to work,” he said. “That’s daft.”

“You won’t give me the one thing I crave,” Leah told him, “which is freedom. And another thing. I don’t ever want to see Brian, not here or anywhere else. If I do I’ll kill myself.”

She had spoken without trace of emotion.

“We won’t have him here.”

“Get it over with, Jack,” Leah said coldly. “Give me a poke. That’s what you want.”

“No. No. I want to take care of you,” Jack replied, with touching earnestness.

But Leah wasn’t touched. She knew his concern wouldn’t last. He’d lose his temper and the monster would be back. She lay on the bed, hitched up her skirt and pulled down her panties.

Jack protested again that that wasn’t what he wanted, but finally, like the animal he was, he climbed on to her, entered her and spent himself, then lay on top of her panting. Leah didn’t move throughout the whole procedure, other than to turn her head to avoid his breath. Breath, like kissing, was too intimate. His sex was unprotected, but she didn’t care. After Brian had made her pregnant, her colleagues at St. Bart’s had helped with the termination and tried to talk her out of sterilization, but Leah had been adamant. She’d agreed to talk to the psychiatrist and had continued to see him long after both surgical procedures. Now she hated Jack Braden almost as much as she hated his nephew. She couldn’t bear to be in his presence, but was too terrified of him to do anything other than resist him silently and passively. She’d get stronger through her studies. She knew he hoped that in time she’d warm to him but Leah was determined she never would.

“It was definitely Drury, was it?” Jack asked Jimmy Humphreys, as he followed him through the empty club. Without customers, the smell of stale tobacco smoke, beer and sweat hung over the place.

“Oh, it was definitely him, Jack.” Humphreys was thin with a mop of brushed-up hair that looked like he spent a lot of money on it.

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