Hi everyone. The lovely Chevy Chase has decided to continue An Alternate View for your delight. So here you are, with a re-print of chapter 1, and chapter 2 straight behind. Enjoy, and thanks Chevy!

AN ALTERNATE VIEW

by

Chevy Chase

The view from my sun bed is idyllic, the Mediterranean Sea is azure blue with a million sparkles on the water. The sun is warm with a light breeze to keep the temperature comfortable – perfect. Except it isn't perfect, my life isn't perfect. I am seething and I have a burning knot in my stomach: how can this have happened to me?

I, Rebecca James, always get what I want…

My childhood as Rebecca Montegue, only daughter of William and Sophia Montegue was that of comfortable priviledge. Daddy made his money in the city in the 80's, then a series of well timed investments meant that money was never an issue. Mum on the other hand never worked and was always on hand for me. Private schools, Pony Club and endless summers in the med summed up my childhood. I was never academically gifted, but then I never needed to be. I had no real intention of going to university, but when all my friends were applying I thought it sounded like fun and I didn't want to be left out. So with a little help from Daddy and the School, I managed to secure a place at University to study Geography.

It was during Freshers week that I saw him; six foot plus with penetrating dark brown eyes, lips to die for and a slim athletic body, he was laughing and drinking with his friends and he made my jaw drop – no-one had ever done that before. After some discreet enquiries I found out his name was Charles James, he came from Bath and he was studying English. My plans started to form immediately and a quick phone call to Daddy, followed by an interview with the Faculty Head, saw me, at the beginning of the academic year, start my English degree on the same course as Charles.

When I want something I am single minded and go for it relentlessly. I was tall and slim with long blond hair, ice blue eyes and cool as a cucumber and I made sure I was involved in every event Charles attended. We quickly became a couple and my cool exterior was melted for the first time by the intensity of our relationship, Charles was a fantastic lover, considerate, inventive and exciting. Oh I was still Miss Cool with everyone else, I know they called me the Ice Maiden behind my back but I didn't care, I was totally in love with Charles James.

The university years were bliss, sex, parties, drinking and staying in bed all day, I never worried about the academic side and my 2-2 result was not entirely unexpected. Charles on the other hand got a first and he could have done anything he wanted.

Daddy was all primed to set Charles up with something in the City, but he knocked me sideways when he announced that he wanted to go to Sandhurst and become an officer in the British Army, following in his Grandfather's footsteps. He had never mentioned it before and it was not in my game plan. I was not going to be an 'army wife'. However all that was deflected by Charles getting down on one knee and proposing, a week before he started at Sandhurst. I was ecstatic: I was in love! Our wedding later that summer was the full works, it cost a fortune and I was the envy of all of my friends.

I hated Charles being at Sandhurst – I hardly saw him and I hated the army for it! I kept that to myself though, as I was sure I could persuade him to leave after a couple of years.

The reality of army life was a total shock, our weekends away and dinners with friends being replaced by tedious army functions, don't get me wrong I could play the part of officer's wife at these functions standing on my head, but it was so not me to deal with smelly kit, bergans and boots!

I remember Charles was on exercises when I found out I was pregnant, I was shocked as it wasn't planned, but none the less I couldn't wait to tell Charles. He arrived back, dirty, exhausted and short tempered. I had cooked his favourite and had planned on breaking the news over dinner. His news that he was going on his first tour in four weeks hit me like a body blow. The tour was due to finish the week before I was due – I cried that night.

Charles was a bit gobsmacked he was going to be a dad, but was supportive and loving, however all too soon I was waving him off on his first tour.

Being on my own pregnant and bored was horrible, as I grew in size I became more and more miserable. The pregnancy was challenging, I was sick the whole time, frequently hospitalised and I couldn't wait for Charles to be home. Two weeks before he was due back I went into labour, it was long and exhausting but eighteen hours later I gave birth to our beautiful son Sam. It was eight days before Charles got to meet his son – I resented him for that, even though it probably wasn't his fault.

We moved into a bigger house closer to Charles's base and family life began. Except it didn't – he was never there, coming home late and exhausted, leaving all the baby duties to me, I felt like shit!

I snapped straight back to my pre-pregnancy body and a year down the line was beginning to get some sort of life back. I badly wanted Charles to leave the army and I am used to getting what I want! Charles wouldn't hear of it, his reasons of duty and wanting to make a difference jarred with me. What about us? What's wrong with being your own boss and answering to no-one? Why would you want to live out of a bag, in a tent in a grotty desert? We had some heated rows and afterwards I would feign a headache and refuse sex. – he hated that, Charles loves sex!

When he announced he was being deployed again - I flipped. The prospect of another solitary six months was unbearable. Charles did seem genuinely sympathetic and said he would make it up to me – by leaving the bloody army I hoped!

I took Sam with me to wave him off, but I couldn't tell what he was thinking, he was distant and he had his 'work face' on. I was so upset this wasn't fair.

I was having a new kitchen fitted the very next day, so immersed myself in dealing with that. Nothing went to plan, there were units missing, they sent the wrong doors and the fitter dropped the cooker hood, I was furious and I rang the company to complain and I was rewarded with a visit from the boss/owner and there it began.

Frustration and anger at Charles's deployment resulted in a rant to a startled Mr Jed Davies and to my horror I burst into tears. He took me in his arms and held me – Oh it felt good to be held. He sorted out all the problems and invited me out to dinner. So leaving Sam with a babysitter and still smarting from being abandoned, I went. I have a tiny pang of regret that perhaps this was ill advised – but hey no-one could blame me could they? Jed was slightly shorter than Charles, muscular and well covered, he was surprisingly gentle and I had him in the palm of my hand. He quickly became besotted with me and I loved the attention. He took me for weekends away, holidays in 5* hotels and treated me like a queen. He wasn't a bad lover just a bit clumsy and lacked imagination and I taught him a lot. I hadn't heard from Charles for three weeks when I decided to leave him and move in with Jed . I moved out the day before Charles was due back. I left him a letter – I suppose I thought when he realised how deeply I hated the army and how selfish he had been, he would beg me to come back – he didn't.

Within weeks I knew I had made a serious mistake, I didn't love Jed, he was kind and devoted to me but it was boring and I missed Charles.

Three months after I left, when I was due to drop Sam off with his Dad, I asked him if I could come back. I was fully expecting to have to grovel a bit, but when straight away he said "of course" I was delighted. However he followed that with "you can come back, but I will move back to barracks and in with my parents" – Damn!

To be honest I tried everything after I moved back into our home, to get Charles back. I was heartened by the fact Charles seemed uninterested in any other women. That so called friend of mine Olivia Portas kept inviting him for dinner and accidently 'bumping in to him', but happily he seemed oblivious. Sometimes I felt he was warming to me especially over Sam. He even cuddled me when Sam was ill, but we couldn't break down the barriers that were my infidelity and the fact he was still in the army.

The onset of another tour, his third, left me cold, but I was in no position to comment. Charles was his usual professional self, but I got the distinct impression he was pleased to be going. I was never much interested in Charles's work so we rarely talked about it, but his third tour changed him. When he returned he was quiet and morose, he said he had lost one of his men and he blamed himself as his Captain. I thought that was ridiculous, but his low mood continued despite my attempts to lift it.

Some months later I was overjoyed when he arrived unannounced at the house, I was sure he had come to say he wanted us to try again. My world fell apart when he said he wanted a divorce and that he was going to volunteer for a fourth tour to let me sort it all out. I never got on all that well with Charles's parents but even they said that Charles shouldn't make decisions like that whilst he was still so low and that they were seriously worried about him.

What choice did I have? He said I could keep the house and I clung on to the fact that we still had Sam and that would tie us forever. The divorce was finalised a couple of months into his tour but I was still supremely confident that he would eventually come back to me.

The knock at the door late one night was a complete boneshaker, Charles had obviously forgotten to change his next of kin. They said Charles had been shot and was seriously injured, he was being transferred from Bastion to Birmingham. I know it sounds silly but I had never really considered that Charles was in danger – it would never happen to him would it? – but it had. The reality of losing Charles and Sam losing his Daddy hit me hard. As soon as I was able, I packed Sam and I a bag to travel to Birmingham. When we got there, Charles was barely concious and had lots of tubes and equipment attached to him and he looked so ill. I'm not really very good with injuries and looking at his, made me feel faint. The doctors said that the first operation on his leg hadn't worked and he needed another urgently. Sam and I retreated to a family room in the hospital to wait for news. Sam wanted to leave a message for his dad when he woke up and a kindly nurse suggested he wrote it on his arm so it wouldn't get lost. It brought a lump to my throat and I hoped Charles would know it came from both of us. I remember thinking that he was so going to need me while he recovers from this and I would ask him to move back home whilst he recouperated.

I got a message from the ward to say he was back and awake at 6.30am. Feeling happy and optimistic, I dressed, applied my make up carefully and Sam and I rushed across to see him. I had hoped he would be pleased to see us but what I hadn't expected was for him to be gazing into the eyes of a scruffy squaddie – was she stroking his brow? Judging by the way she jumped back, I'm sure she was. Charles introduced her a someone who saved his life in Afghanistan, I felt sure that was an exaggeration so when she said she she had better go, I said not to on my account as I wanted to know more about this girl. Sam was giggling at her, which was annoying and I then decided it was probably better she went. It was the way she said 'ditto' when she said goodbye to Charles I didn't like and the way he looked at her! That was the first time I encountered Molly Dawes, I never saw her again at the hospital so dismissed it as a visit from one of his section and no more.

Disappointingly Charles went back to his parents house when he was discharged from hospital, he still had to have extensive rehabillitation at Headley Court, but I went to see him, using Sam as an excuse, as much as possible. He was distracted and distant and was very hard work! His parents were due to go away on holiday, so I took it as my main chance to get in there, become indispensible and work my magic on him. By now he was much more mobile, though he still had a heavy limp. When his parents left for Lake Garda I decided to visit Charles, for once without Sam, to try and get him to open up and talk and hopefully get him into bed. I was aching for some physical contact, especially Charles's kind of physical contact!

Strangely there was no-one in when I knocked at the door , I knew it wasn't his Headley Court day so I went for a short walk thinking he would be back soon. As I rounded the corner of the Royal Crescent I saw him up ahead, it was his limp I noticed first, but he wasn't alone, he was arm in arm with a small girl with long wavy chestnut hair. I couldn't make out who it was and hurried to get closer. Before I could get close enough they disappeared inside the house. I remember thinking was she part of the rehabillitation team or maybe a visiting relative. I hovered outside wondering whether to knock, in the end I decided to go and collect Sam from school and return to see if the mystery lady was still there.

Returning with Sam I was met at the door with a less than warm welcome, Charles was reluctant to let us in, but Sam pushed past and ran into the kitchen. Charles was quickly behind him, to find Sam standing at the table talking to the girl. It took me a minute to realise who it was, well she was a lot cleaner than she had been the last time I had seen her. No less than Molly Dawes! This had to be against regulations, even if she was just visiting, I excused myself and headed for the bathroom upstairs to calm down and collect my thoughts. As I walked past Charles's bedroom, there on the floor, beside the rumpled bed was a pair of sandals and a black clutch bag, Charles would never leave his bed unmade and only one conclusion could be made, they had slept together. I turned on my heels collected Sam and left. I waited until the next morning before phoning Charles and gave him a piece of my mind. I would not have Sam subjected to any floozy squaddie he decided to bed! Charles was icy calm and pointed out Molly was a friend and I had arrived uninvited!

As quickly as Molly had arrived she was gone again, leaving Charles in an upbeat mood. A couple of days later I was dropping Sam off at his father's when he took a phone call, it was obviously from Molly Dawes, as he kept saying "Molly calm down" she appeared to be crying and incoherant. What ever she said shocked him to the core and he just sat down in a trance. He didn't respond to me at all, but as I hoped they had split up, I took Sam back home with me. I only found out what it was all about from his mother, when she informed me that Charles was away at a funeral of another one of his men. The soldier had died suddenly when he was with the medic that had saved Charles's life.

Charles returned to his distant distracted self when he returned and as Molly Dawes seemed to have disappeared and he wouldn't talk about her, I assumed they had indeed finished. I was out with the girls and had had far too many proscecco's one night when I decided to just go for it. The girls had encouraged me and I rang Charles and asked him to come round, he didn't know that Sam was staying with my parents and he assumed there was something wrong with him. I put on my sexiest underwear and lay on the bed and waited. My sole intention was to seduce him, after all he could never resist me before - I could give that Molly Dawes trollope a run for her money!

Charles laughed, he actually laughed at me and said " Rebecca put your clothes on, I'm not interested" I was burning with frustration and anger - how dare he! He told me he had found the love of his life and whilst he wasn't sure she would come back to him as she had taken a short tour in Afghanistan, I had done him a favour, leaving him when I did.

Molly Dawes is the polar opposite to me and I hate her. I hate them both! I have come out to my parents villa to calm down and think what I'm going to do next. Nobody has ever turned me down,

I always get what I want….