The Scoop by Fern Michaels

nursing school and was sharing an apartment with a former classmate who did nothing but complain. Life in the big city wasn’t all it was cracked up to be until she met Walter.
    She recalled the first time they met. She had just opened a new checking account at the Bank of Manhattan, where Walter had just been promoted to assistant branch manager. He was charming and handsome, and she’d been completely and pleasantly surprised when he invited her to dinner to celebrate his new promotion.
    Their romance had been hot and heavy, virtually consuming her every waking moment. Since he was ten years her senior, she’d been impressed with his knowledge, admired his wit. After a whirlwind courtship that lasted three months, he proposed, and Sophie accepted without a second thought.
    For the first four years of marriage, she’d put her career as a nurse on hold. Walter hadn’t wanted her to work. When Walter became obsessed with his job at the bank and began to work eighteen-hour days, she couldn’t cope with the emptiness or the boredom. With too much time on her hands, Sophie took a job at a pediatrician’s office in Brooklyn. She’d loved the doctor she worked with and adored the children she cared for. After three years of surrounding herself with sick kids, Sophie decided she’d waited long enough for a child of her own. Walter wasn’t getting any younger, and she hadn’t wanted to wait, fearing she’d become one of those “older moms” the girls in the office talked about.
    For the next two years, she tried every trick in the book and then some to get pregnant. When each month rolled around with no results, Sophie gave up on having a child of her own. Walter did, too. Disappointed that she was unable to bear a child, Walter began taking his anger and frustration out on her. It started with little things. His steak was overcooked. Her hair looked messy. Their apartment wasn’t as clean as he felt it should be.
    Walter demanded she give up her job, letting it be known in no uncertain terms that she needed to concentrate on him, their home, and nothing more. As the Bank of Manhattan’s newest branch manager, having a wife who worked outside the home was not an asset. Walter referred to her career as nothing more than an embarrassment, going as far as to suggest friends and colleagues looked down on him, insinuating he didn’t earn enough money to support her.
    For the first time in almost ten years of marriage, Sophie stood up to him. No way would she give up her career. Without it, she had nothing. She thought his reasoning ludicrous and told him so.
    Sophie recalled the first time he struck her.
    They’d just returned from the bank’s annual Christmas party. As was becoming the norm, Walter had drunk too much, flirted too much, and spoken to her as though she were nothing more than his servant. On the taxi ride home, Sophie refused to speak to him. When they arrived at their Manhattan apartment, Walter began ranting and raving, telling her she was no good and he’d made a mistake by marrying her. She was low-class. She didn’t fit in with the other bank executives’ wives. Tired of fighting, Sophie had told Walter she would file for a divorce as soon as the holidays were over. She’d barely gotten the words out of her mouth when he backhanded her, ripping open her lip. Shocked and humiliated, with the salty taste of her own blood filling her mouth, Sophie had tried to leave the apartment, knowing that when her husband sobered up, he’d apologize. Walter restrained her and, in doing so, broke her arm.
    After the third or fourth beating, Sophie gave up on any hopes she’d had of happily-ever-after. At one point, Walter actually convinced her the beatings were her fault. Sadly, she had believed him until Toots made an unannounced visit to New York and found her bruised and battered. Enraged that she would allow her husband to hit her, Toots went directly to Walter’s superior. Two weeks later, he had been