Price of Passion Read Online Free PDF

go back to living your own life. We’ll be neighbours for a month, that’s all. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse…you’ll hardly even know I’m around…
    ‘And if you wouldn’t mind leaving the rest of that sugar—I think I feel like pancakes for dinner!’

CHAPTER THREE
    ‘M UMMY , look at me!’
    The chain on the swing squeaked as Kate swung higher, rocking her small body on the splintery wooden seat to get more speed, stamping her shoes against the hard-packed ground on the down-swing to propel herself up into the wild blue sky.
    ‘Look at me, Mummy!’ Her white dress fluttered, her hair spraying out around her head as she rushed through the air, her excited squeals mingling with the squeak and rattle of the chain as she went higher and higher towards the impossible goal—doing a complete loop over the steel support bar. What would happen when she was upside down, she wasn’t sure, she only knew that her mother would be proud of her for doing something that only the big boys dared to try.
    ‘Mummy!’ She looked for her mummy’s proud face but she couldn’t see her against the blur of scenery. She suddenly couldn’t see any of the other children or mummies and daddies, either—she was all alone in the big, empty park and it was getting dark. There was no one cheering or clapping her brave effort, only the rusty squeak of the chain to accompany her hysterical cry as she realised that she was going too fast and there was no one there to catch her if she fell, or to stop her from flying off into space and being lost for ever. ‘Mummy? Mummy! ’
    Kate jerked into wakefulness, her eyes flying open, her hands clutching for the dissolving chains and finding only wrinkled sheets. Morning sunlight filtered in around the dark curtains, painting bright stripes on the faded wallpaper. The breath rattled in her chest and the haunting squeak from the disturbing dream still echoed in her thick head.
    She groaned. She didn’t need a psychiatrist to interpret the meaning of that little vignette. Her accidental conception hadn’t stopped her mother from ruthlessly applying herself to her studies and graduating from university with first class honours. Money had been very tight and, except for during term-time lectures, there had been none to spare for day-care. Childish demands for attention had often been greeted with impatient dismissal or an instruction to play extra quietly. Before she’d even known what exams were Kate had learned to dread their approach. Her earliest memory was of lying under the bed in their cramped, one-roomed apartment whispering stories to herself because Mummy had been studying for something more important than silly games.
    Kate rolled her head on the pillow, trying to rid herself of that haunting squeak. Except it wasn’t coming from inside her head, she realised, but rising up from the skirting-board where it ran along behind the bed. And it wasn’t a hard, metallic kind of squeak, either; there was a certain warm furriness about it that suggested some form of rodent. She grimaced at the thought of mice scampering around the house while she slept. She listened for the tell-tale scuffling of tiny feet in the woodwork, but the squeaking was too loud. Far too loud. More like…
    Rats!
    Kate shot bolt upright in the bed, too late remembering that she should have moved with more care. She grabbed at the package of crackers she had left open on the bedside table and stuffed one into her mouth, but even as she chewed she knew what was coming and, showering a trail of crumbs, she fled into the bathroom.
    For the second time in just over twelve hours she inspected the hazed porcelain of the toilet bowl at close quarters.
    Kate was never sick. Never. Until a month ago her biological mechanisms had been in perfect sync with her busy lifestyle. Then she had bought that wretched little box in the chemist and her world had gone haywire.
    ‘Damn you, Drake Daniels,’ she moaned, in between retches