Distracted by her Virtue by Maggie Cox

useless mother as well as a useless wife to him,and that they both deserved better. In a bid to prove it, he brought his mistress home.’
    Sophia saw Jarrett’s jaw slacken in disbelief and bit down heavily on her lip. ‘I can see in your eyes that you’re wondering why on earth I would put up with something like that if I had any self-respect at all.’ Anger—defensive and bitter—crept into her voice. ‘Well … perhaps you’ll hold back your judgement until you hear the whole story. I hope that you will, because I’m
so
sick of being judged.’
    Somehow she made herself continue. ‘One evening when he brought this woman home—he’d been besotted with her for quite a while, I gather—he tried to convince our son that she would make a much better mother than me. She knew how to teach a boy to become a man, he said. She wouldn’t turn him into some “namby-pamby Mummy’s boy” like I was doing.’
    She swallowed hard across the burning cramp in her throat. ‘Tom thought he was justified in having affairs because after I’d had Charlie I locked him out of our bedroom. But I did that
because
he was always making eyes at other women, and when he didn’t come home nights I knew he was messing around.’ She freed a despairing sigh.
    Jarrett gave her a quizzical look. ‘He
let
you lock him out of the bedroom?’
    Sophia’s short burst of laughter was harsh. ‘I think that was the first time I made him realise that I wasn’t the gullible little schoolgirl he thought I would stay for ever when he married me. I was so furious with his behaviour that I didn’t care if he hit me. I discovered it’s a powerful thing to meet your fear instead of running away from it. But then he got back at me by other demoralisingmeans. The worst thing of all was when he insisted on taking Charlie out for the day … away from my “despicable’ influence”, he used to say. I knew he’d be with his so-called friends. Friends who were as self-destructive and immoral as he was. I fought against him taking Charlie every time, and suffered not only verbal but sometimes physical abuse too for my protests.’
    Taking a deep breath in at the dreadful memories that flooded back—at the humiliation and hurt of being hit and disparaged, along with her growing fear at the time that her son would grow up to be just like his father if she didn’t find a way to get him away soon—Sophia laid her hand over her chest in a bid to calm her thudding heart.
    As soon he saw the gesture, Jarrett moved across to the sink and poured some water into a glass tumbler. Returning swiftly, he pressed it into her hand.
    Gratefully, she took a few sips and her companion moved back to his seat. Setting the glass down on a coaster, Sophia darted out her tongue to lick the moisture from her lips. Then she resumed her story. ‘Leading up to the time when Tom died—his heart stopped beating one night in his sleep—Charlie was clearly being adversely affected by his father’s behaviour. And why wouldn’t he be? He was wetting the bed at night, having nightmares that made him scream out loud, and hitting me if I said no to something he wanted. I’m afraid it was making him ill.’
    Jarrett scowled and looked disgusted. ‘The man must have been absolutely deranged.’
    ‘He was. He was addicted to everything that was harmful … alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitutes. He had an utter lack of self-control and no self-respect whatsoever,and he didn’t care who he contaminated—certainly not his wife and son. His death was a blessing, not just to me and Charlie … but to
him
too. I’m sure.’
    ‘Why didn’t you leave him long before it got so bad?’
    Sensing an excruciating throb of guilty heat surge through her, Sophia abruptly left her seat and walked across the kitchen. There was an elegant glass wall cupboard full of pristine white crockery and, catching sight of her ghostly pale reflection in it, she quickly looked back to the dark-haired man