“I grew up thinking it was a fairy tale marriage. And why wouldn’t I? I lived in a fairy tale palace for a home, with a fairy tale mother and a fairy tale father, and I was the little princess. That’s what my father called me, inviting me into his business meetings from the time I could twirl and be shown off, while all the time my mother dressed me in the prettiest of clothes and then, as a teenager, taught me all the tricks she’d learned as a model, so that one day, I might look as beautiful as her. I knew I never could, because she was so fair, but my mother insisted I try my best. Men liked women to look beautiful, she told me. Men liked women who knew how to look after them.”
She paused, temporarily abandoning the bobbles, thinking how naïve she’d been, how she’d loved them and how she’d believed they’d loved her. So she’d trusted them, when all those years they’d been grooming her.
“When I turned sixteen,” she said, her throat constricting at the memories, “I was so excited. My father had promised me a surprise for my birthday. He called me into his office late that evening. There was a man there who I knew, the father of a good school friend, and he wished me a happy birthday. He acted strangely when I asked about my friend, but I just thought he was embarrassed he hadn’t thought to bring her.
And then my father offered me champagne for the first time – I was sixteen, my father said, and it was time to take my place in the family business – and the men drank a toast to me and I felt so mature and grown up. And then he told me the men had business to do, and called for the brandy as he sent me away.
“I didn’t understand what was happening. Not then. Not until later, when my mother took me to a beautiful bedroom in the house I’d never seen before, and on the coverlet of the bed was lingerie all set out, beautiful white silk lingerie my mother told me was a birthday gift, and that I should put on, and get into bed, and wait for my surprise. And even then, I was confused and none of it made any sense, but this was my mother, my beautiful fairy tale mother, and she loved me, and so I trusted her...’
So naïve! She squeezed her eyes shut and rolled her lips between her teeth and bit down.
“You don’t have to do this,” Caleb growled, his big hand between her shoulders, his fingers trying to stroke comfort into her soul.
“But I do,” she bit out without turning. “You have to know. You have to understand why.” She took one breath and then another, steadying herself. “Eventually I fell asleep, only to be awakened when I realised there was somebody in the bed with me, a man who reeked of brandy and who was fumbling for me. I screamed, thinking he must have stumbled into the wrong room, the wrong bed, but then he hit me and told me to shut up, and I recognised it was my friend’s father and I screamed again. I was so frightened.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, cast back to that moment, to that innocent girl whose life was about to be shattered.
“And this time after he hit me, he had the pleasure of telling me, he had paid my father handsomely for the privilege of deflowering his daughter and I should cooperate and enjoy it.” She put a hand over her heart, her breathing ragged and rushed until she calmed it, several breaths later.
“That was the first time my father used me as part of his deal making. That was the first time I was expected to take my place in the family business.”
She turned her head up to the ceiling, remembering the helplessness she’d felt back then. The fear. The pain. The agony of knowing her fairy tale life had been a lie.
“Christ, Ava...’ Beside her Caleb searched for words, but she knew there were none.
This was no flesh wound he could stitch up or stick on a dressing and let it heal. This was betrayal that cut soul deep and there were no dressings, no sutures for that.
“How could they do that to you? How could your mother...”
Ava clutched her arms, trying to laugh then but the sound came out fractured and broken. “I appealed to her, of course. I couldn’t believe she knew. I thought she would help. And I remember she held me like when I’d been a child, rocking me, and as she wiped the moisture from my eyes she told me that tears make eyes puffy and that men like their women to look happy and beautiful. And when I told her I didn’t understand, she smiled down at me and told me that this was the price for my fairy tale existence. That for twenty years she had been my father’s whore, and that it was my turn now.”
“Ava.” He made to scoop her into his arms then, but she pushed them away and rose from the bed, feeling strangely stronger, as if saying the words out loud had released some of the pressure.
No longer was it her big dark secret. It was out there, in the open, the whole sordid horror of her former existence. She stood by the window, staring out but unseeing, her mind stuck in the past, replaying the video from those former days.
“After that, my home became my prison, palatial and luxurious, but still a prison. I had bodyguards to accompany me when I was allowed out, delivered to hotels or private houses for a rendezvous or a party, but they weren’t there to protect me. They were there to ensure I didn’t escape.”
“God, Ava, I don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to say anything.” All he
