Consensual Read online

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Connect with Livia

  CONSENSUAL

  Copyright © 2014 by Livia Jamerlan

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Content Editor: Jennifer Roberts-Hall, Indie After Hours

  Line and Copy Editor: Megan Ward, Megan Ward Editing

  Proofreader: Brenda Letendre

  Interior Design: Christine Borgford, Perfectly Publishable

  Cover Design: Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Creative Covers

  Started from the bottom… Now we’re here. Barbara, Celeste, Eleanor, Elisabeth, Faith, Niecey, & Ruthie. This one is for you ladies!

  The bedroom door creaked open as it had almost every night since I could remember. He always came for the same person—Loren. I hated him, despised him really. That night, like every other night, I didn’t want her to go. My big sister was all I had. My mother and father had died a long time ago.

  “Lo,” I cried. “Please don’t leave. Please.” I heard her kick off her sheets before she rustled out of her bed. I’d never had the courage to look at him standing at the door waiting for her, but I knew he was there, with his greasy hair and his beer belly hanging low over the waistband of his boxer shorts.

  Loren ran to my bed and knelt down next to me. “Shh. It’s okay, Brae. I won’t be long. I promise. Close your eyes like a good girl, all right?”

  I turned to face her, tears moistening my eyes. She planted a soft kiss on my forehead. “I promise when I come back I’ll lie with you, okay?” I nodded.

  It was dark outside, but dawn was coming. Only a few short hours before the light chased away the darkness and all the misery that accompanied it. The sound of crickets chirping outside our bedroom window punctuated the silence inside our small, two-bedroom house. The music coming from their wings should have helped calm me, but it only served as the eerie background track to our recurring nightmare.

  I held back my tears, but couldn’t give up without a fight. “But, Loren—”

  “Shut her up before your aunt wakes,” the horrible man said. Bile rose in my throat at the sound of his voice.

  An eight-year-old shouldn’t know what rape is, or what true hatred feels like, but I hated that man, hated him with every breath I took.

  Loren continued rubbing my hair as she spoke. “Brae, listen to me. This will be over soon … for both of us.” She reached for my hand and squeezed it tightly. “I promise. Please, just be quiet.”

  I closed my eyes and rolled over to face the yellowing drywall that had never been painted. Loren’s footsteps softly tapped against the wood floor as she headed out of the bedroom.

  “What was that all about?” he asked gruffly.

  The thin walls allowed their conversation to flow freely throughout the house, but my aunt Tara never heard them. Her alcohol-induced coma helped her sleep through the horror that occurred every night right under her nose.

  “Nothing,” Loren responded. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  His voice was cold when he spoke again. “I don’t appreciate your mouth. Maybe I should take her to the basement with me instead. She knows better than to talk back to her uncle.”

  I shut my eyes tighter. I never wanted to be near him, especially not alone in the basement.

  “She’s been through enough. You will not take advantage of her,” Loren said just before I heard the signature creak of the basement door.

  My eyes snapped open at the sound of a hand slapping against flesh. “I will have her one day and there is nothing you can do about it. Now get your ass down there.”

  The basement door shut, muffling any further conversation between them. Tears streamed from my eyes as fear consumed me, and I shoved my face into my pillow to mask my sobs.

  I was three when it happened. I didn’t have any memory of it, but Loren had told me the story over and over again. It was a head-on collision. My parents both died on impact, but paramedics ripped me out of the car without a scratch on my body. Loren had been at her dance rehearsal at the time. After the accident, the court gave custody to our aunt Tara and her horrible husband Henry.

  The night Henry first expressed interest in me was the night Loren decided she’d had enough. In the following months leading to her eighteenth birthday, Loren found different ways to barricade our bedroom door, though she always paid for it the next day with extra chores and beatings.

  But she never complained.

  I know she did it for us … for me.

  When Loren turned eighteen she filed a restraining order against Henry and told our aunt Tara what had been happening in her home while she was asleep. Aunt Tara refused to believe anything Loren told her, but she agreed to sign over guardianship rights of me to Loren if Loren agreed not to pursue any legal action against her husband. That was after she kicked us out of her house.

  It was a blessing in disguise.

  Loren applied for a housekeeping job for a couple in Newport, Rhode Island. As soon as things were settled with our aunt, we left Nampa, Idaho, and headed east until we reached the opposite side of the country. We drove cross-country with only pennies to our names, but Henry wouldn’t ever touch Loren or me again.

  It was a welcome fresh start.

  Loren inherited half of our parents’ wealth on her eighteenth birthday. Unfortunately, Tara and Henry never moved the money into an interest-bearing account, so we only had a few thousand dollars to help us in Rhode Island, but it was enough to start our lives over in a new city.

  “It’s just you and me, Brae,” Loren said as she looked at me through the rearview mirror. “I promise you, baby girl, I’ll do whatever I can to protect you.”

  I smiled as I hugged my dolly, the last gift my mother had given me before she died. “I love you, Lo,” I said before I looked out the car window. My eyes filled with tears, of happiness this time. Never again would Henry hurt either one of us.

  “I love you too,” she replied. Then she started the car and drove us toward our new life.

  Braelynn

  Sixteen years later

  I’d spent the last four hours scrubbing and cleaning all the unused rooms in the Smith’s apartment. It was never the highlight of my week, but needing cash came with a price. I didn’t want to live in a crappy place, or be forced to eat Ramen, so I cleaned houses. Living in New York City wasn’t cheap, but it was an experience.

  When Loren and I moved to Rhode Island,
she began working for Jennifer and Frank Brown as their maid, cook, assistant, therapist … the list was endless. They took both of us in like we were their own kids. At first, they’d insisted we live in their house and stressed that there was plenty of room for all of us, but Loren was adamant about making it on our own. “This will teach us to grow,” she always said. So instead of living in Newport in a seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom home with a water view, we moved to the cheapest, least roach-infested apartment in Providence.

  Jennifer acted as a mother to both Loren and me. She helped Loren keep me in line, making sure my focus was on school and nothing else. While Loren was busy with housework, I spent countless hours doing homework in Jennifer’s library as she read through her romance novels.

  When I was finally old enough to get my first job, Jennifer recommended me as a nanny to anyone who wanted a Friday or Saturday night off. My summers were spent working for Sara and Michael Smith. They were both attorneys and spent most of their time bouncing around from New York City to Greenwich, Connecticut, but Sara always reserved summers for Newport.

  The front door burst open and Kim walked in carrying bags of groceries, and followed by the three adorable Smith kids, each carrying a small grocery bag of their own. Kim had been the Smith’s au pair for the past three months. As they walked into the kitchen, the three kids dropped their bags, ran toward me, and hugged my legs.

  “Hi, guys!” I knelt down, bear hugging Noah, Brian, and Emily. “You’re all so big!”

  “Lynn,” Emily squealed when my fingers started tickling her.

  “Braelynn, I didn’t realize you were still here,” Kim said as she plopped her grocery bags on the kitchen counter. Noah and Brian locked their arms around my neck, bringing me down to the floor with them as they defended their little sister against the tickle monster.

  “Yep, I’m just finishing.” I giggled as I dislodged the kids from my limbs.

  I told the kids to go wash up before dinner, and they scampered toward the bathroom as I helped Kim put the groceries away.

  “Sara mentioned she referred you to a friend of hers,” Kim said, taking the vegetables from my hand.

  “Yeah, I actually start tomorrow. It’s weird because I didn’t even get to meet her yet. Sara set it all up.”

  “Mrs.—?” Kim questioned.

  “Peyton, I guess. But I think that might be her first name.”

  “Hmm … I’ve yet to meet Mrs. Peyton, so she must not have kids around their age.” She shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll all work out. You’re a terrific cleaner and nanny. These kids listen to your every word.” She gestured to the three young people making their way back into the kitchen.

  “I’ve had years of practice with them. They’ll do the same for you, don’t worry.” I gave her a reassuring smile as I grabbed my purse from the kitchen counter.

  “Easy for you to say. You’ve watched them since they were all in diapers.”

  Kissing each one of the kids’ heads, I said my good-byes. “I’ll see you Monday, Kim.”

  I strolled out of the Smith’s high-rise apartment and into the brisk air. Early spring in New York City meant the weather could be close to seventy or close to thirty degrees, depending on how Mother Nature was feeling.

  I’d moved to New York with my best friend Kennedy right after I finished college. After graduating top of our class at Northeastern University, we packed up our dorm room and headed for the real world.

  Kennedy’s grandmother had a rent-controlled, two-bedroom apartment in a brownstone on the Upper East Side. When we’d both decided that New York was where we wanted to move, her grandmother rented it to us. It wasn’t Park Avenue, but it was only a few blocks from Central Park.

  Kennedy and I were great together. She recently started her internship at Memorial Hospital and was rarely home because of the demanding on-call hours, which made her an easy roommate. She was also one of the very few people who knew about my past—the whole truth.

  I slid the penthouse key card from the doorman over the electronic keypad in the elevator, which brought me straight to the grand foyer. Though Peyton’s apartment was in the same building as Sara and Michael’s, the whole floor belonged to her. I took in my surroundings as I entered.

  To the right of the foyer was the living room. The walls were painted off-white and the paintings that hung on them were black and white with thick black frames around them. A hint of red accented the room, the area rug, and the lampshades. The black wall unit held an enormous flat-screen television, and a white leather couch against all the black furniture completed the chic look.

  Beyond the foyer, the wide floor plan opened up into the kitchen and dining room. The black and white theme continued, but instead of red accents there were different shades of green.

  Walking over to the black marble countertop in the kitchen, I saw a typed note with the envelope of cash that was left for me.

  Braelynn,

  Thank you so much for coming on such short notice. The cleaning products are all in the laundry room past the guest bedrooms. Do not clean the back bedroom. If you need anything, please let me know.

  Thank you,

  Peyton

  I had never cleaned a house where certain rooms were off-limits. Strange.

  I made my way down the hall to the laundry room, throwing in a load of wash before grabbing the cleaning supplies and getting to work. The rest of the house was spectacular. The two guest bedrooms I cleaned had light wall colors and dark furniture. Simple and classy. The master bedroom, however, was breathtaking. One wall was a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out directly over the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir—the view was incredible.

  Like the rest of Peyton’s apartment, her bedroom was elegantly decorated. The nightstand on her side of the bed was extremely neat; the one on the other side of the California king was not as organized, but still very well kept, for a man. The bright white walls made the mahogany furniture stand out, and the plush white and gray rug at the foot of the bed matched perfectly with the white down comforter and gray shammed pillows. Though I hadn’t met Peyton, her decor made me think that her fashion sense must be fantastic.

  After I finished with cleaning the bedrooms and the bathrooms and the kitchen and the dining room and the living room, I folded the clean clothes and laid them neatly on her bed. Only her husband’s undershirts and boxers had needed to be washed, and I was sure Peyton wouldn’t want me to go through her husband’s drawers.

  She didn’t have anything out of place, not even a piece of jewelry or a scarf. I just hoped she wouldn’t mind that I left the clothes on top of the bed.

  My body was weary as I stumbled into my apartment and crashed on the couch. It was only eight o’clock on a Friday night, but all I wanted to do was sleep.

  It seemed Kennedy had other plans for the evening, however. Her stereo was blasting in her bedroom. It reminded me of college, when we used to get ready to go out for the night. After Kennedy started med school and I started law school, our nights out were few and far between. Still, whenever we did party, we liked to do it right.

  “Brae, is that you?” she shouted from the bathroom.

  It was pointless to try and shout over the radio, so I got up and walked over to her bathroom. “Yeah, I just got in,” I said, peeking my head through the door. She was dressed in a shiny tank top and high-waisted shorts which made her supermodel legs seem longer, if that were even possible.

  Kennedy applied blush to her flawless skin before turning to me. “Go get ready. We’re celebrating tonight. Energy drinks are in the fridge and there’s a dress on your bed waiting for you. Oh, and something came in the mail for you. I left it on the kitchen table.”

  I walked into the kitchen and found the letter I had been waiting all month for. At the end of each semester, Professor Goldstein selected one student to mentor. That student would be working hands-on with his legal cases. It would mean an opportunity to work for one of the most prestigious law firms in M
anhattan—in the entire tristate area!

  He’d made it very clear during his last class that he only sends one letter—one approval letter, no denial letters. I picked up the envelope and gently tore it open. As I read through it, I jumped with joy. I had been picked to assist Professor Goldstein on all his cases this spring and summer. Now I understood why Kennedy was getting all dolled up. Feeling the need to dance and party, I took two energy drinks from the fridge and headed toward my bedroom. I chugged the first drink before I even walked into the shower.

  Kennedy had laid out a tiny Dolce & Gabbana dress on my bed with a small note attached to it.

  It was a skintight little black dress cut right below my butt cheeks. I didn’t have long legs compared to Kennedy, but they were long enough to complement the dress. I wiggled into it, slid on my black peep-toe shoes, and then curled my long blonde hair, pinning a few tendrils away from my face before applying my makeup.

  I felt extremely sexy.

  I finished the rest of my second energy drink while I danced to the music playing from Kennedy’s room. The approval letter sat against the mirror on my dresser, and as I was getting ready I couldn’t help but stare at my new beginning. Years of hard work, long hours, and sleepless nights had finally paid off. That piece of paper was my first step toward my legal career, and tonight we were going out for dinner and drinks to celebrate that new beginning.

  The next step in my life was going to be big.

  I could feel it.

  Quay was packed. It was the new hot spot in SoHo and was known for having a spectacular restaurant and lounge atmosphere. I checked my watch as we waited outside with the crowd for Alexa and Gustavo to meet up with us.

  Gustavo was a model who Kennedy had met during a photography class she’d taken in college. She brought him around once during our freshman year and we’d quickly become the best of friends. Alexa had been Gustavo’s roommate before she moved in with her boyfriend. She was studying to be a fashion designer, so she always knew when there was a sale and what the next must-have look would be..