The Game of Love and Losers

TWO

 Song inspiration -Miss Amanda Jones- The Rolling Stones

Only when Amanda Harrington found herself getting home, and closing the front door behind her,  she started feeling she could breathe easy, and felt safe. 

 Still not quite believing how the night had turned out. 

She had finally plucked up the nerve and stood up to Graham McKenzie for his treatment of her, with his philandering with various women, even though they were supposed to be getting officially engaged in another months time.

 It had all started just a few months after she had accepted his proposal of marriage, lately, treated her with a certain kind of disdain and  became critical of what she said or did,  suddenly, seeming to enjoy making her feel inadequate, so that any self-esteem she had, was starting to crack under the strain.

She wasn't sure if she could go on with this relationship any longer, no matter how much her father, John Harrington, thought it would help advance his future political career.

He had been the one who had introduced them to each other, just over a year ago.

John had become close friends with Graham McKenzie's father, Alex, a well-known politician who also claimed a peerage of a lord in his family line. It was a case of 'I will scratch your back and you can scratch mine,' kind of relationship.  John would mentor Alex's son, Graham, and introduce him into his business world, as his future partner, and it would be tied up all so nice and neatly if Amanda and Graham became man and wife, making it a whole family affair, securing all their futures.

In the beginning, Graham had been his charming best, wooing Amanda, determined to win her over, encouraged by her father, she started dating him, unaware of all the shenanigans going on in the background between their two fathers.

It was only when her relationship had become public knowledge and she committed herself  to Graham, that he started changing a little. She always felt he had a sense of arrogance and self-entitlement about him, but had she overlooked it, because her father really impressed on her mind that Graham was the kind of man she needed, he was from  from good stock, her father had always been impressed by the idea of connections with so called' blue blood' and insisted they made a lovely couple.

Now she knew why.

Having assured his future was going to be a wealthy and bright one, thanks to her father taking him under his wing, Graham realised it wasn't Amanda's approval that mattered, but  John Harrington needed his father, Alex, to achieve his own political goals, Graham knew he could get off with quite a lot, because frankly John Harrington cared about more about his big ambitions, so keeping in with the McKenzies, was more important to him than his relationship with his daughter

He knew had this power over her, and there was little she could do about it. 

Her father would not be a happy man if she tried to end their relationship thus fracturing the so-called friendship between their fathers. Over the last year from becoming part of her life, Graham knew she had been brought up believing that her father's word was law, and his ways were always right, and to go against him was not an option.

Graham had even confessed his true reasons for marrying her shortly after she had finally agreed to get engaged to him. Amanda had been shocked and dismayed. She had confronted her father, to find out if it was true. He had admitted this was the case, and implored her not to mess up his carefully laid plans for his future over some silly little disagreement with Graham.  that they could make the marriage work and everyone would benefit from the happy event. and dismissed her concerns as nothing.