Walking The Edge: A Romantic Suspense/Espionage Thriller (Corpus Brides Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

dream. Too much resemblance and too many coincidences. She’d been on the Côte d’Azur with a French lover, and the description fitted him to a T.
    She stood, still reeling with the realization that she had found the identity of a man from her past, and moved away from the settee to the window. The bare, spindly branches of the maple tree in the yard shed dark outlines against the clear glass. In the gusts of the London winter, they danced like macabre shadows in the grey bleakness.
    Just like the wisps of remembrance she clung to in her pitch-black memory.
    A whisper from the dream came back to tickle her consciousness, a whiff of words in a foreign tongue she’d understood perfectly.
    She knew French? Since when? And how?
    So many questions, and not one hint of an answer. She turned away from the window and paced across the room.
    What could she do?
    Nothing, and this made her go stir crazy at the frustration growing and building with every minute she spent cooped up in Peter’s pretentious house.
    “Damn you, Peter. Damn every moment I’m forced to spend with you,” she shrieked.
    However long she remained in the goddamned soulless dwelling, she would be at his mercy. Yet, she also couldn’t get out, couldn’t escape. Not when the hulk of a man downstairs tailed her every move.
    She had to get out, and she wanted—needed—to hurt Peter. The harder, the better, and in her current plight, she knew of no better way than throwing his supposedly hard-earned money down the drain.
    Yes—she would go out and blow all the money she had at her disposal in one single trip. Let’s see what it does to the arse.
    She took a quick shower and changed into a silk camisole and grey linen trousers paired with a black, woollen Burberry trench coat. She then went down to the study and the safe located behind a painting. After emptying the contents, she glanced at the three thousand pounds in thick-bound packets. “Definitely not enough to rile you up, you bastard.”
    She could max out the credit cards, but there, Peter could afford to revoke the purchases and she’d end up making no dent in his stash or his ego. No, she had to flambé hard cash, which meant maxing out withdrawals on her debit cards, easily giving her another twenty grand.
    Great. She smiled.
    She stepped out of the study with her head held high and paused by Nathaniel’s little room. “We’re going out.”
    She didn’t linger to hear his reply. He could debate all he wanted; she would go out. The huge hulk wouldn’t dare drug her, too, would he?
    With resolute steps, she stalked to the garage, intent on making her husband’s life a living hell, at least for today.
    Oh, yes—she’d make him regret he’d crossed the line with her.
     
    ***
     
    London. Knightsbridge
    Friday, December 14. 11:10 a.m.
     
    She smiled at the cashier, laughing inside at the beaming look on the young woman’s face. Who wouldn’t be happy in the girl’s shoes? If the sales people got commissions, this young one had just earned herself a few hundred pounds in the last twenty minutes.
    “Thank you.” She took the bags and, turning around, pushed them right at Nathaniel. His arms already overflowed with shopping gear, and he grunted when she piled on the heavy load of parcels.
    Take that, you thick idiot. Jubilation flowed through her as she went out of the designer apparel shop and headed to another luxury concept store at Harvey Nichols. Five thousand pounds flambé -ed in an hour. Perfect. Another eighteen thousand waited in her purse; what better venue to achieve her aim than Harvey Nicks and its classy, minimalist layout housing outrageously priced shops? Like the one in front of her on the ground level of the building. It sold what, to her, looked like horrible, shapeless, contemporary house decor stuff. Totally inappropriate for the Hampstead Heath mausoleum.
    She waltzed through the aisles, picking exorbitant-priced, stylized décor items resembling nothing, really,