Sinners Read Online Free Page A

new surroundings would bring them together again.
    Lorna did not become enthusiastic about it. She insisted they hire an interior decorator, and left the whole thing to him.
    Two weeks after they moved in, Charlie had to go to Spain. When he returned, Lorna had moved out. She had left the children, and a short note saying: This is all your fault, don’t ever blame me .
    She had vanished, and it took Charlie two weeks to find her. A private detective discovered her in a hotel room in Bayswater, in bed with an out-of-work stuntman. The detective took photos, and that was that. One divorce coming up.
    At first Charlie couldn’t believe that Lorna would leave him for a ‘nothing’, a ‘nobody’. Why, the man wasn’t even good-looking.
    But Lorna didn’t seem to care about anything. ‘Go ahead and divorce me,’ was all she said, ‘it will be a pleasure.’
    He was left with the children, a nanny, his chauffeur, and a huge penthouse.
    He could hardly believe it. He had finished with Michelle. He wanted Lorna. She was his wife. Couldn’t she understand that? He was prepared to forgive her for the stuntman. Surely she should forgive him? For the children alone she should be prepared to try again.
    But she didn’t want to know.
    She moved in with her boyfriend, and shortly afterwards her lawyer demanded the children. The law being what it was, she got them, but Charlie had ample access.
    He sold the penthouse and moved into a hotel suite. He spent long evenings alone, sometimes just staring blankly at a wall, sometimes getting stoned on pot.
    There were many girls. One night he would be with a stripper, the next with a married woman whose husband just happened to be out of town.
    And they all let him down. One by one they tried to use him in some way or other.
    With all of them he told his story: how unhappy he was; how his wife had left him for another man; how life and success only meant something if shared.
    The women he saw more than once all half-expected him to propose. He hinted at it all the time. He made them each feel as if she were the only woman he wanted. But he treated them badly, stood them up, never called when he said he would, contacted them only when he felt like it, sometimes at two in the morning. He felt, in a way, he was getting his own back on Lorna. A different woman every night. But none of them meant anything.
    It was a big change from the days when he had gone after Lorna. He had been the chaser then, and she had certainly given him a hard time.
    They had met at a party in Manchester. He could remember his first impression of her very clearly as she was so unlike any other girls he had met. Her hair was pale yellow, pulled severely back into a bun, and she wore huge National Health glasses, which made her face look strangely small and pathetic. She wore no make-up, and was a bit on the short side. No raving beauty by any means, but to Charlie she was lovely.
    Within a year they were married and spent their wedding night in the best hotel in Manchester, an extravagance they could hardly afford but which Charlie decided would be worth it. It wasn’t.
    Although he had been seeing her for nearly a year, it hadn’t been an every night thing. Most of the time he was travelling round the country, and their time together had been limited. She lived with her family and had told him firmly and clearly, early on in the relationship, that there would be ‘none of that’ until she got married.
    It was one of the reasons he decided to marry her. He was getting plenty of ‘that’ elsewhere, and the thought of a ‘nice’ girl he could marry and have children with was appealing. Besides, she really seemed to care about him. And he certainly cared about her.
    At twenty-one Lorna was still a virgin, and from the way she carried on, it seemed she planned to stay that way.
    She had undressed in the bathroom, and then refused to come out until all the lights were out. She then made a quick dive into bed, and