Stolen Innocence (Becoming Elena #1)

by Melody Anne

  As the doors began shutting — heavens, it seemed to take forever! — Ari finally glanced up, her eyes colliding with Mr. Palazzo’s intense stare. As hard as she tried to break the connection, she couldn’t manage to turn her head away. When the doors finally snapped shut, she sagged against the back wall of the large box and waited for its slow descent.

  After the elevator made the journey without stopping along the way and the doors opened to the lobby, she stepped out and quickly made her way across the marble floor and straight through the front doors.

  Ari didn’t stop until she made it to the next block. Finally, with disappointed steps, she slowed down to a more leisurely saunter until she found a bench. She gratefully sank down. Only in that moment did she allow herself to take her first deep breath since leaving Rafe Palazzo’s office.

  She sat for a while, trying her best not to hyperventilate. She felt as if she just couldn’t get enough oxygen, but she determinedly took in slow, measured breaths. She should have said, Thank you for the offer, but no. She should have laughed at the ridiculous request. She should have…

  With a quiet, deprecating laugh, Ari cut off those thoughts. It was a waste of time to think about what she should have done. Her what ifs were bad enough.

  But…could she do it? Could she sell herself? He was asking her to be nothing more than a high-paid prostitute, right? That’s what it boiled down to, like a scene right out of Indecent Proposal.

  Forcing herself to stand, Ari began walking the three blocks to the Palazzo Corporation parking garage. Without noticing the time that had passed during her rambles, she went up the outside steps to the third floor of the parking structure, spotted her car and climbed in the front seat. She just sat there for a moment.

  As she started the engine and began driving slowly down the ramps to the exit, she remained lost in thought. She needed to get home and review the papers he’d given her — reassure herself that she couldn’t take the job.

  Making such a colossal decision required serious consideration. A few months ago, she never would have even considered the possibility that something like this went on. She’d been truly naïve to the world around her, protected from life’s harsh realities. However, all her innocence had shattered the day the police had shown up at that college party.

  In her mother’s last conscious moments, her only concern had been for Ari’s safety. Her mom had managed to tell the officers they needed to get to her daughter — that Ari was in danger. Only then had her mother succumbed to her injuries.

  Instead of her mother, it was the policemen who’d showed up at the frat house where Ari was waiting, and then who’d transported her to the hospital. She’d waited for hours in the lobby, terror helping to sober her up fast.

  When the doctor eventually came out of surgery, his news hadn’t been good. Her mother was stable, but in a coma. They’d done all they could do for her. Only time would tell if she’d ever come out of it.

  Sandra Harlow had had severe swelling in her brain, and they’d had to operate, drilling burr holes in her skull. Along with the head injuries, she’d also suffered two broken ribs, a cracked hip, and lacerations to her face. When Ari entered her mom’s room, she’d nearly passed out at the scene before her. Its image haunted her even now.

  If the staff hadn’t guaranteed that the person lying in the bed was her mother, Ari wouldn’t have known. The woman had been unrecognizable with her swollen face and the bandages covering her. Ari had sobbed as she’d laid her head on her mother’s bed and apologized repeatedly. If it hadn’t been for Ari, her mom would be home, sleeping safe and sound. Ari would never forgive herself for what she’d done.

  Struggling to push such heart-wrenching memories aside, Ari focused on the road and pulled up at her small studio apartment. She slowly made her ascent up the staircase, her feet dragging as her mind raced. The papers Rafe had handed her were burning a hole in her purse.

  She got to her door and fiddled with the key for several moments — if she didn’t get it into the lock just right, it wouldn’t turn. Heck, she thought, it would probably be faster to slip a credit card into the doorjamb.

  She’d watched enough movies that she could probably break into a lot of places if she needed to. The thought made her smile as the lock finally clicked and she pushed open the door. Maybe she could find a job breaking and entering. It would be a more dignified profession than prostitution.

  Though the day had started only a few hours ago, exhaustion was nipping at Ari’s heels. She sat down on the couch and glared at her purse as if there were a snake inside of it just waiting for the opportunity to strike. Did she really want to see what Mr. Palazzo had planned for her?

  With great reluctance, she finally unzipped the bag and slowly pulled the papers out, her gaze a bit clouded as she glanced down. She fought the urgency to toss them, but reality — and a slight curiosity — won out.

  With only a week left at the apartment before rent was due, and no other jobs on the horizon, she needed to weigh her options. The burden of knowing that her mother’s living conditions would worsen without Ari’s financial support made the decision about the position even more crucial.

  She’d already sold her mother’s home — the place Ari had grown up in. It had broken her heart to pack her mom’s most valuable possessions and take them to storage. She’d prepaid the unit for a year, taking no chances on losing the items that meant so much to her mom.

  Everything Ari had of any decent value had been auctioned off. She’d done everything she could do up to this point. Now, she had to find work — and it seemed no one wanted to hire a college dropout, even if she had been an A student. It meant nothing if she couldn’t finish her degree.

  In the end, she really had no choice but to look at the material before her. Grasping the papers determinedly, she unfolded them and started scanning the words. By the time she got to the end she literally wanted to throw up. She couldn’t do this — no way.

  Chapter Three

  Ari was speechless. She didn’t know what to think. Her bright eyes gazed at the words while her mouth hung open in shock. There was no way in hell she would do this. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. There had to be another option.

  The words there in cold black type circled in her head, showing her a side of life she never imagined existed. He owned her body? He could take what he wanted — day or night?

  Ari didn’t think so. She’d end up even worse off than she was because she wouldn’t abide by the stupid rules he’d set forth, and then he’d prosecute her. Could he do that? If she chose not to satisfy him as much as he wanted, could he really prosecute her?

  She slowly read back through the papers, and felt a smidgeon better. No. That wasn’t what he was saying. He could only actually prosecute her if she broke his confidentiality clause.

  What did he mean, though, by the word unknowingly? If she didn’t know she’d done something, then how could she be responsible? As she gazed at the paper, she realized what that meant. If she left information about him lying around and someone got ahold of it, leading to people finding out, then she’d be at fault.

  Well, she wasn’t going to become his employee, or mistress, or whatever he chose to call the ugly position, so she wasn’t taking chances of someone’s discovering the dang paperwork. She walked to her stove and turned on the burner, then placed the edge of the papers against it, and she was consumed with overwhelming satisfaction when the paperwork began to go up in smoke.

  She held on to it for several seconds, making sure every last word would burn, then tossed the remains in her empty sink, where the wretched thing finished burning and turned into nothing but ash.

  Washing the ash down the garbage disposal helped relax her shoulder muscles somewhat. She could shut that door in life behind her and move forward. It was a good thing she couldn’t afford smoke detectors in her place, for her little act of defiance would have set every one of them off.

  Having opened a window to let out
the smoke before she choked, Ari grabbed the newspapers she’d gathered all week and began fanning the smoke toward the outdoors with a wide up-and-down motion. As the smoke lifted upward to the sky, the realization that she was turning down the opportunity of one hundred thousand dollars a year began to sink in and her hopes of taking care of her mother were now plummeting.

  She stopped fanning the air and laid the newspaper out on the table, running her thumb along the creases to make it lie flat so she could search through the ads again. She must have missed something. There was a job out there for her — there had to be. She just wasn’t trying hard enough to find it.

  A three-hour search and twenty-five calls later, Ari flopped back on the couch and the tears started. At first, they were just a slendertrickle, but it didn’t take long for them to flow down her cheeks and drip off her chin.

  It seemed so hopeless.

  What was she going to do?

  After allowing herself half an hour of falling apart, Ari had just brushed away the last of her tears when the phone rang. Her head spun around as she gazed at the contraption as if it were a lifeline to save her in the middle of an ocean where sharks were slowly circling closer and closer.

  “Hello.” Ari’s voice was full of hope. It had to be someone calling her back about one of the hundreds of jobs she’d applied, someone saying the company needed her to start immediately. It was either that or one of the many bill collectors seeking money she didn’t have to give them.

  “Is Ms. Harlow available?”

  “This is she.” It’s a prospective employer, she thought positively.

  “This is the Clover Care Facility. Your mother has been transported over to San Francisco General Hospital. Can you go there immediately?”

  “Is everything OK with my mom?”

  “Ms. Harlow, it would be better if you could leave now and arrive quickly. They will answer all your questions when you get there.”

  Ari sat silently for a moment as she forced herself to take a quick breath. Something was wrong with her mom. Selfishly, she didn’t want to know. After the day she’d had, she couldn’t take any further bad news.

  “Yes, of course,” she automatically replied before hanging up.

  With sagging shoulders, she gathered her purse and left the apartment. Her mom had always told her never to leave that till tomorrow which she could do today. It was a sentiment dear to Benjamin Franklin’s heart, and he happened to be one of her heroes. That proverb went with the good and the bad. Even with terrible news, she might as well get it over with.

  She climbed into her car and made the thirty-minute journey to the hospital, mustering as much courage as possible for the moments that would follow her arrival. Was she going to walk in only to find that her mother had given up and passed away? She knew they planned on sending her to a state facility, and if that happened, she’d never get the treatment she needed. Ari just didn’t know any of it anymore. She didn’t know whether she could handle whatever they had to say.

  As Ari stepped from her car, she heard chanting voices and wondered what was happening. As she approached the front doors of the hospital, there was a crowd of protesters lining the walk. She had to get through, but hated to pass by them as they waved their signs angrily.

  “Don’t support their greed. Find another hospital!” they chanted as she neared. With her head down she passed by, feeling something hit her arm. She didn’t dare look up, afraid that if she made eye contact, they might attack her outright. “Traitor!” was the last thing she heard before she reached the safety of the hospital lobby.

  “Ms. Harlow, thank you for coming down so quickly. I apologize for the disturbance at the entrance. The hospital has had cutbacks, and I’m afraid there are several previous staff members who are upset. Again, I’m sorry that you had to endure that, but there’s news of your mother and we needed you to come right away. She’s awake.”

  It took a few moments for the nurse’s words to register. Her mother was awake. She was out of the coma. Ari felt blackness trying to overtake her vision as she gazed in shock at the woman in front of her. There was no way she could pass out. She fought it with all she had.

  She was so exhausted both physically and mentally, the unexpected news was almost too much for her to handle. She wouldn’t believe them until she actually saw her mom; more than anything else, Ari needed to hear that beloved voice. No one else could comfort her like her mother — she needed the woman who’d always been there through the good and the bad.

  Ari finally fully understood why she was breaking apart so much. She’d been trying to do all of this without her mom. Never before had she realized how much she’d always leaned on her — never before she’d lost her and then found her again.

  “Please. Where is she?” Ari asked breathlessly, the words barely making it past her throat.

  “Right this way.”

  The nurse turned and started leading Ari down a maze of hallways, toward the intensive care unit. When they reached the door to her mother’s room, Ari suddenly found herself afraid to turn the handle.

  The thought crossed her mind that she’d open that door and it would all be a cruel joke. Her hopes dashed, she’d have to deal with the pain of losing the most important person in her life all over again.

  “Take a few moments if you’d like before you go inside,” the nurse offered before leaving Ari to sort through her overwhelming emotions.

  With a deep steadying breath, Ari pushed the door open and stepped inside. She found her mother sitting up in bed, looking extremely frail, but with her beautiful green eyes open. Ari blinked just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

  “Mom?”

  “Ari! Come sit with me,” her mom responded weakly as a small smile lit up her pale face. Ari needed no other encouragement. She rushed to the bedside, bent down to feel her mother’s warm arms wrap around her once again, and reveled in the contentment of a loving embrace.

  “I’ve missed you so much, Mom. I’m sorry I called you that night. I’m so sorry you got in an accident,” Ari sobbed as her mom stroked her back comfortingly.

  “Oh, Ari. You can’t blame yourself. Bad things happen to all of us. This isn’t your fault.”

  “Yes it is. If I hadn’t gone to that party and gotten drunk. If only I’d never called you, then you wouldn’t have been out there,” Ari sobbed.

  “The doctors tell me I’ve been in a coma for six months. That’s a long time you’ve been carrying this heavy guilt around. No matter what happens to me, I want you to live your life to the fullest. This was in no way your fault.”

  “You have to say that, Mom. It’s in the parent’s handbook or something, but I’m twenty-three, not fifteen. I should have been more responsible.”

  “No matter how old you become, you’ll always be my little girl. I would be upset if you got in trouble and didn’t call me. I was worried about you that night, but also happy to see you having a bit of fun. Life will pass you by before you know it if you don’t give yourself some room for a few mistakes. You have to do things that are not planned to the very last detail. You have to live.”

  “I don’t know how,” Ari said, unsure this was even her mother.

  “Oh, baby, you’ve always done what is right. You have to allow yourself to make a mistake now and then. Sometimes in our lives, the best results come from the worst mistakes. We don’t know why anything happens. You can’t blame yourself for my getting into that accident. It may be the thing that saves my life. You never know the reason behind it. Maybe if I’d been home the next week, a burglar would have broken in and shot me, or what if I’d been driving to the store and a child had dashed in front of my car, and I’d killed him? We can’t agonize over what has happened — we can only be thankful it wasn’t worse.”

  “I needed you so much these last months, Mom. No one can make me feel better. Please, I’m begging you, please don’t leave me. No matter what it takes, don’t go. I love you.”

  Ari flung hers
elf into her mother’s frail arms, vowing that she was never going to let go again. She could get through anything as long as she had her mom there beside her.

  “Ms. Harlow, can we speak to you for a few minutes?”

  Ari sat up and turned to find a doctor standing in the doorway. Her stomach clenched with anxiety when she looked at his somewhat somber expression. She didn’t think she was going to like the conversation. As she looked at her mom, she found the added strength she needed. None of this was insurmountable as long as they had each other.

  “I’ll be right back, Mom.”

  “Take your time, sweetie. I’ve been up for a while and these pain medications are making me tired. I think I’ll catch a little nap.”

  Ari walked from the room, a sense of dread filling her at the thought of her mother taking a nap...oh, no. What if she didn’t wake again for another six months? It would probably be months, maybe even years before she wouldn’t dread it when her mother went to sleep. She knew she couldn’t live that way, but tell that to her irrational heart.

  Since she had no choice, Ari trailed behind the doctor down the hallway and into a small conference room, where several men in suits were sitting around a table. This couldn’t be good.

  “Thank you for joining us, Ms. Harlow. We were pleased when your mother was admitted here after she woke up from her coma. How are you feeling? We know that this kind of tragedy can often be harder for the loved ones than for the patients.”

  “I’ve been trying to take it one day at a time. It’s all been very difficult,” Ari answered cautiously, wishing the man would get to the point. She didn’t want to make small talk. She needed to be with her mother.

  “I’m sorry about that. I wish we could put this off, but because of your mother’s condition, time is of the essence.”

  “Put what off?”