Happily Ever After: A Contemporary Romance Boxed Set

by Piper Rayne

  My shoulders slumped as I realized I might have started a war I wasn’t prepared to fight. She had years on me with causing people pain. She was a pro at it, and I wasn’t even enough to qualify myself as an amateur. What I saw on her face told me I hadn’t seen anything yet.

  “I’ve gone soft on you but now that no one is here to protect you, I can finally do to you what I want.”

  “I don’t care anymore. I have nothing left to live for.”

  “Oh really?” she said laughing. “I bet I could find something for you to live for. We all have the need to survive. It’s instinct weather we want it or not. You’ll see what I mean. Get over here.” Her crooked finger pointed to the spot in front of her while her other hand found her ample hip to rest on. When I didn’t move fast enough. She snapped her finger at me and stomped her foot. “Now,” she screamed.

  I moved closer to her and waited for whatever punishment she could think up. I didn’t have to wait long.

  Dragging me two floors down, she opened the door to the tiny 4x4 room without windows or a bed and pushed me in. I tried to keep my footing, but the floor was uneven, and I tripped on a patch of concrete that stood higher than the rest of the floor. Catching myself on my hands and knees, I sat there for a second waiting for the sting to subside.

  “Stay in here until you realize what you did wrong.”

  “But it’s cold down here and there isn’t a bed or a place to go to the bathroom. How am I supposed to do that?”

  She looked around in the closet outside the room and came back to the door.

  “Use this and if you miss or spill, I’ll make you clean it up with your dress,” she said and threw a small metal flowerpot at me. It missed me but bounced loudly off the floor leaving a loud ringing to circle the room.

  “Where do I sleep?”

  “Oh my child. You and your many demands.” She stood there for a second and then a smile slithered across her face. “Use this. Sleep on this. It can be your bed, blanket, and anything else you need. Keep it clean though, or I will throw it in the next fire I make.”

  She tossed my dad’s blanket at me before slamming the door shut. I heard a key ring jingle before the click of the lock being turned from the outside. Getting up to my feet, I ran to the door to try and turn the knob.

  It didn’t budge.

  I was stuck in there with nothing to eat or drink and only a pot to use as a bathroom and my dad’s comforter to use as a bed and blanket. I pulled it close to me as I backed up to the far wall and slid down to the ground. Using it to cover my face, I sobbed into it until I had nothing left to give.

  6

  Two years later

  * * *

  I almost lost track of time when she shut me away in that little room. That was nothing compared to what she had instore for me once she let me out. The time I spent in there, she used to come up with new ways to make my life a living hell. I knew she was evil, but she took it to a whole new level I had never seen before. Fear of her was justified and I learned how to play her game. She was right about one thing, my need to survive outweighed all the things I had done to me.

  For the years following my father’s death, she made my life a living hell. The final push was making me throw my dad’s things into a fire she had going in the backyard. Watching the little bit of him I had left go up in smoke sparked the hurt and anger I felt the day he died. I still knew she had to have been involved in it and in my mother’s death too.

  When she let me out of my prison cell, one of the first things I did when she had me clean her room was look for the purple flower. It was a long shot, but I had to try. I worked hard to get things done faster than I normally did so I could move from the first floor to the second. Once I made my way up there, I went to her room first. If I got caught, I would say I wanted her room done first so she would feel good about going in there when she was ready. She had been staying in there more and more the past few months, so she wouldn’t have questioned my motives.

  I looked first in the drawer I saw her place them in after I caught her with them, and my heart sank. The drawer was empty without a trace of the flower. I was about to give up and start cleaning her room before she came in and yelled at me when I remembered I had hidden some the last time I saw my father alive. I moved to where I had stashed it, opened the drawer and moved the items to the side. There, in the corner of the drawer, was a perfectly preserved piece of the flower. I was about to pick it up when I heard someone coming down the hall.

  The drawer closed and I was able to move away from the dresser before the door swung open.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” she snapped.

  “Cleaning it so you could have it back as soon as possible.”

  “Have you done all the other chores yet?” my stepmom asked me. Moving toward the bed, she alternated between rubbing her neck and forehead.

  “No. You seemed to have another one of your headaches so I thought I would do yours quick.”

  “Whatever. Be quick about it. I’ll go use the guest room down the hall until you’re done.”

  The guest room she was talking about used to be my father’s bedroom. The room she was in now he used to share with my mother. It still made me ill to think of her in there, using my mom’s things she liked and tossing away what she didn’t. I was mad at my dad for a long time when she took it upon herself to use that room as her own. He tried to make her feel welcomed and part of the family and one way to do that was to let her have the room she wanted. When I asked him why they didn’t share a room like he did with Mom, he just dropped his head and said he didn’t feel right about it. I didn’t get it then, but I got it now.

  “I will.”

  “Hmm,” was all I got back.

  As soon as I knew the coast was clear, I made my way back to the dresser, opened the drawer, grabbed the flower, and stuck it in my pocket. It was only seconds later that my hand began to tingle and the side of my leg where the flower now sat in my pocket, started to go numb. I needed to get it out of there and in a safe spot before I lost all feeling in my leg.

  Looking down the hall, I didn’t see anyone. I hugged the wall, trying to stick to the shadows of the early evening, as I made my way to the other end to my room. It was right before my dad’s room, so I hoped she wouldn’t see me in there. I had to take the chance though, the numbness was starting to radiate out from where the mystery plant was.

  I managed to get into my room and hid the flower in one of the small corners of my closet. She never cleaned and had nobody but me to since she fired the whole crew the day my dad died. I knew it would be safe there with only myself knowing where it was. I still had to figure out a way to get out of the house and find someone who could tell me what it was and if it could have been what killed my parents.

  “What are you doing in here? I thought you were going to do my room first?” she barked from my doorway.

  “I am but I needed to grab this,” I said and held up the fresh rag I had sitting there. “I wanted it to be perfect for you.”

  “Why was that in your room?”

  “I brought everything I needed to clean up here and put it in my room so it wouldn’t be in your way. I did it for you.” I batted my blue eyes before looking down at the ground. I needed her to believe that if I had any hope of her leaving me alone.

  “I don’t believe a word coming from those filthy lips, but I need to go to sleep. Hurry up and get my room done. I have a special guest coming tonight to meet you.”

  “Me?”

  She hadn’t let me see anyone but her or her nasty fat old lady she had in charge of everything. I wasn’t sure who she could have been talking about since I was sure nobody remembered the little girl that used to have been seen everywhere before her mother died. Then I was the poor little girl they all pitied. When I lost my dad and she shut me away in behind these cold walls, I was sure they had all forgotten.

  “Yes and it’s important you look and act your best. You want out of
here, right? Away from me? You’re almost old enough to go and I think I found both our answers to help you along.”

  “But all I have to wear is this,” I said and held up a corner of the dress that was so dirty, it looked brown instead of the light blue it once had. Torn and frayed, I was sure the filth on my skin was the only thing holding it together and on me.

  “I thought of that already. I need you in my room by four. You have two hours to finish up all the things I have on your list of chores. If you were smart,” she snarled. “You would get moving instead of standing there staring at me like I suddenly grew a second head.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  I raced back into her room, careful not to touch her as I went past her and shut the door behind me. I had to clean the room after what she said. I didn’t know who it was she had coming for me, but if it was someone who could help me get out of there, I was willing to stay and find out. I had to. There had to be someone out there that cared about what I had gone through. Someone who would help me and make the last few years with her make sense.

  Once I finished her room, I did a quick job in the second spare room. Up until she moved in, it was set up as a nursery. My parents always wanted more children, but they never did after me. When Mom got sick, they stopped trying but never changed the room. Instead of the sweet light yellow, the room was a drab grey. Happy little baby things used to sprinkle the room with sunshine. It was something I wasn’t supposed to know about because they always said I was all they needed or wanted, but when I stumbled on it years ago, I figured it out. Since she took over, it was as cold as ice in there. All steel where there could be, the bedding was almost black, and the floors were no longer covered in the soft, thick blue rug. She said it was a place for guests to sleep, but she didn’t want them to feel too comfortable. Nothing was worse than a guest that overstayed their welcome. It worked because even the mice and the cockroaches stayed out of there.

  “Are you done yet?” my stepmom asked peeking around the corner of the room I was finishing up in.

  “Yes,” I mumbled giving the comforter one last tug to make sure there weren’t any wrinkles in it that she would punish me for later.

  “Good. Go take a bath and then meet me in my room. And Sno, don’t take long.”

  7

  She scrubbed my flesh until it bled. Looking like an overcooked lobster, I thought it was as bad as it could get. I couldn’t have been more wrong. She poured in some kind of strong, flower scented oil in the water she had me half submerged in and when it hit the scrapes she had inflicted, I fought to hold back the scream I knew she was waiting for. Dipping me down until my head was covered, she held me there. My lungs burned and I started to fight her for oxygen. Clawing at her wrists and flaying my legs, I was about to give in and let the water fill my lungs when she pulled me up by my hair.

  “Beauty is pain my dear and sometimes, it can be deadly. At least you don’t look like some pauper off the streets anymore. I will leave you for a few minutes. Towel off then put that on,” she said and pointed to a lavender, light fabric dress that was hanging on the back of her bathroom door. “I will also need you to put these on.”

  I looked from her to the flimsy pieces of fabric she held in her hand. I knew one should have been underwear, but they looked like the leftover strings I would cut off the clothes I was making. The other thing, I wasn’t sure what it was with all the straps and two cups I could see.

  “Oh, Sno. You are pathetic. It’s panties and a bra. Put it on.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  Still smaller than I should have been for my age, I hadn’t really developed when my mom was around and then with my dad, we never talked about anything that was related to a girl. I wasn’t even sixteen when he passed and had been used as my stepmom’s personal slave since then. The garment she held up looked like a new form of torture she had thought up.

  “It goes on like this. The straps in the back and the two thicker pieces in the front to cover your chest.” She snickered when she said that. Compared to her, I looked like a boy. “Try not to get tangled in the straps. I’ll be back in five minutes and I want all of this on you when I open that door. We still have to do something with your face and that nasty hair on your head. He will be here in less than two hours and I have a feeling I will need them all for you.”

  “What about you?” It was a dumb question and I knew it the second the words left my mouth. If it had been about her, I would have heard nothing but that the whole time she was killing me in the tub.

  “I am not who he is here for and I know what I need to do. It’s why I have to hurry with you. Asking stupid questions isn’t going to help and will only slow us down. So, shut up and do what I say, and you might make it out of this dinner without having to go to the basement again.”

  She had let me sleep in my own bed the past two weeks. It was so nice to sleep on a bed instead of a worn-out comforter on the concrete floor. I would do whatever she asked to not have to go back to that. Besides, my room had a big, bay window I could look out at night and count the stars. I wasn’t going to lose that again.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Good. Hurry.”

  She shooed me with her hands before slamming the door shut and disappearing. I looked at the clothes she had laid out for me and took a deep breath. I wasn’t even sure where to start, so I picked up the piece that should have been underwear. Slipping it on, I was shocked at how soft they felt. The smooth, silky fabric slid over my legs and the sensation of it made me tingle in places I hadn’t before. It didn’t last long though. I had to fight the thing she called a bra and with all the straps, I had a hard time figuring out what end went where. She had shown me before she stormed out of the room, but standing there, with it crumpled in a ball, it didn’t look like it had when she was holding it to her own chest. It had to have been getting close to the five-minute mark and if she came in and all of it wasn’t on, she would punish me for sure.

  I finally got the strange garment on and was almost done slipping the dress over my head when I heard the knob turn. Pulling hard, I caught a strand of my still-short hair and stifled a scream. I was straightening the skirt when she flung the door open. With force, it hit and stuck into the wall.

  “Good. It wasn’t that hard to be a woman, now was it?”

  Walking around me to study me, I suddenly felt less than the dirt she had washed off of me moments earlier. She picked at the helm of the dress, spun me around and swiped her hand down my back and stopping at my butt.

  “Lift it,” she demanded.

  “What?”

  “Lift the dress. I want to make sure you put on what I told you to and that you’re not hiding them somewhere. I know how you love to do that with things you don’t like. Lift.”

  I did as she asked and when she saw the underwear, she smiled.

  “Higher.”

  Doing as she demanded, she stopped me when she could see the bra she had thrown at me.

  “Not too bad. Are you sure this was your first time putting one on? You didn’t even get the straps wrong.”

  “I’m sure.” It would also be the last if they were like that. Four straps that crossed over each other in the back. It was the same as having ropes tying me down. They rubbed on my back where she had scraped at my flesh and hugged me tight around my ribs.

  “Hum. He’ll know if you’re lying. Men always know if a girl’s been with another man. Remember that. If you lie to me, it’s one thing. Lie to them, and they would beat you for it.”

  “Why would our dinner guest have to know about that anyway?”

  “You really are a dumb child, aren’t you? Just follow me. We have to do something to make you not look like a boy.”

  She was the one who continued to chop my hair. The first time she had done it, it was a punishment. Once she saw how it changed me, it became a fun little game for her. She never cut it so it looked nice. Long strands stuck out among the two inches she left over most of my h
ead. Some spots, she had gotten so close, I had bald patches and scars from where the scissors cut at my scalp.

  She put powder on my face and something on my lips that made them feel tight. Putting a little color on my eyes, she pressed so hard, it was hard to see for a few minutes when she was done.

  “It’s the best I can do. The rest will be up to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can only make you as pretty as I can. You didn’t leave me much to work with. I need you to be polite, use your manners, don’t speak unless you are spoken too and for the love of all things, stop looking like your life is so hard. You don’t even know what hard is. At least here you get food, clothes and a bed to sleep in.”

  Unless you wanted to count the two years I had hardly gotten any of that. She lived to starve me to the point I almost passed out before giving me small amounts. Water was a “gift” from her, and I hadn’t been on a bed in years until two weeks ago. I should have known she had something up her sleeves the way she suddenly started to watch what I ate, where I slept and paid extra attention to who was allowed to see me even from a field away.

  “When he gets here, I want you to be quiet. Look like a lady, but not one who has been around a lot. Look at him when he talks to you and don’t throw your opinion around unless it is asked for. There will be other men around to help with dinner, I need you to not even look in their direction or speak to them. If they ask you a question, I will answer it for you. You are only to look at, or speak to, Daan or myself. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “You’re impossible. Don’t screw this up or I will make the last few years look like a vacation for you. Got that?”

  She was right in my face with her hand squeezing my shoulder. Her hot breath reeked of onions and liver as it hit my face with every word she fired at me. Wincing, I fought to form the words I knew she wanted to hear.