CHAPTER ONE

She moved her hand slowly over the bed, her senses catching the faint trace of unfamiliar cologne. Lyra Jenson sat up abruptly and quickly pulled the blanket over herself to cover her nakedness. She looked around the room but saw no one. The hotel suite was unfamiliar, and yet one thing was painfully certain.

She had been violated.

Scrambling to her feet, she wrapped the cloth tightly around herself for safety. She reached for her dress, only to discover that it was torn.

“What an animal,” she muttered under her breath, hurrying to the wardrobe, tears slipping from her eyes in helpless frustration. Relief washed over her when she saw clothes hanging inside. She quickly grabbed an oversized jacket to cover her petite frame, pulled on a pair of baggy trousers, and placed a cap over her head to hide her identity.

She rushed back to the bed to search for her phone but found nothing. With no other choice, she turned toward the door. Just then, her eyes caught several bundles of dollars lying on the bedside table. She hurried over, pulled out enough money to get herself home, and quickly left the room.

Once she was seated on a bus, Lyra forced her mind to recall what had happened the night before. The only thing she could remember was accepting a drink from a waiter at the bar while Sylvia sat beside her. If anything had gone wrong, Sylvia was supposed to make sure she got home safely.

Unless this had all been planned by Sylvia.

Oh. She had been fooled again.

~¥~

“See who remembers she has a home,” Ramona Jenson, her stepmother, said as soon as Lyra passed the dining room toward the stairs. They were having dinner as though her absence didn’t matter, not that it did.

“Where were you last night, Lyra?” her father, Taylor Jenson, asked, looking up from his breakfast.

“I…” Words caught in her throat. She couldn’t remember how she had ended up in a hotel room, and she didn’t know what story Sylvia had cooked up for her parents.

“That’s obvious, Daddy. She spent it in a man’s house. I mean, look at her dress,” Sylvia interjected, rolling her eyes.

Lyra wanted to shout. She wanted to tear Sylvia apart and ask her why. Why did she hate her so much? How had she been violated again but then the first time should have been lesson enough, Her father would never believe her.

“Sylvia was kind enough to organize a party for you, and all you had to do was sneak out and follow a man. Who is he, Lyra?” Taylor asked, his fingers interlocked as he stared at her. Kind enough indeed.

“Sylvia, why didn’t I return home with you?” Lyra asked, turning to Sylvia, her hand stiffened over her cutlery.

“Because you disappeared. You were nowhere to be found and…”

“And you didn’t bother to find me?”

“Are you a child?” Taylor asked before Slyvia could speak. “Lyra, are you a child?”

“You take every opportunity to get a man in your pants. A whore begat a whore after all,” Ramona said and Lyra gasped, looked at her father while hoping he would speak up for his late wife. But the silence was deafening. A side of her would always remember how he never find anything wrong with whatever his wife did. She turned and started leaving. She wasn’t going to stand and watch them insult her anymore; she was literally tired of this family.

“Lyra, where are you going? Lyra!” her father screamed after her, but she didn’t wait. She stormed up the stairs. “You won’t drag my name in the dirt. You won’t turn a bitch in my house,” she heard his words as she walked away.

Once she got inside her room, she sat by the door and cried her eyes out. The difference between this day and the day Dorian Bowers, her father’s family friend’s son, had defiled her, was that she didn’t have a memory of it. Her brain couldn’t recall anything from the night before, and now she blamed herself for trusting Sylvia again. She had only longed for her attention and love as her only sibling, but today made it clear she would never get that.

Downstairs, Taylor Jenson was boiling with anger, his hand shaking. He didn’t know where he had gone wrong, but since the death of his ex-wife, his first daughter had been nothing but a shame to the family. Since she had seduced his business partner turned family friend’s son, he had kept her out of public sight. Yet again, she had gone out on her twenty-first birthday only to return in some man’s shirt.

“Honey, she’s really getting out of hand,” Ramona said, touching his shoulder.

“Did you think I am not father enough?” Taylor asked, looking at her.

“You’re the best father she could ever have. Look at Sylvia,she chose to uphold the family’s dignity,” Ramona said. Sylvia shrugged.

“Dad, this shouldn’t be new to you, considering she seduced Dorian when she was just fifteen. Who knows how many people she’s slept with?” Sylvia said.

“Exactly my point,” Ramona said, resuming her meal.

“I begged my way to get an invitation to Chairman Hawthorne’s birthday party. I was thinking of taking her along…”

“Her? No,” Ramona said, disgusted.

“Dad, why would you think of that? To the Hawthornes’ party? Did you want her to disgrace us?” Sylvia burst out.

“I mean, it’s been a while since she followed us to any gathering,” Taylor said, dropping his cutlery.

“She doesn’t have to, Dad. Who knows what she’ll do at the party?”

“You know how short-tempered the Hawthornes are. You might end up losing her if she steps on the wrong person,” Ramona said. He nodded briefly, picking up his cutlery.

“I’ll send her to a convent. She can’t be a whore in my house,” Taylor said.

“That’s definitely a great idea, Dad.”

“Let me check with the Reverend Father,” Taylor said, dropping his cutlery again and leaving the dining room. Sylvia took this opportunity to lean into her mother and whisper.

“Mom, that jacket on Lyra is worth 600 thousand dollars.”

“What?” Ramona wanted to scream, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

“It's a limited edition. Only two people in the whole wo

rld have it. Who is Lyra sleeping with?”