Chapter 1

• The glittering rays of the sun sneaked through the filmsy curtains of the windows and fell on the beautiful face of Noémi Rochester. Her shut eyes fluttered at the harsh attack of the warm rays while an uncomfortable feeling crawled up her stomach, making her slightly wince in her sleep and turn to the other side.
• She rubbed her temples when a soft ache started to pound her head, a pungent smell of alcohol began to molest her nostrils.
• Noémi tried to breathe through the thick musky scent enveloping the air around her, but something felt oddly amiss. Something felt really fishy.
• Not to forget she was really cold. The air conditioning in the room had dropped the temperature too low for her liking, a shiver instantly ran down her spine.
• Tugging the warm sheets closer to herself, Noémi opened her eyes to the glaring rays of the sun. It took a lot of blinking and fluttering to get used to the brightness, but once her eyesight adjusted, she finally pulled herself up in a sitting position and looked around carelessly.
• The room was a mess.
• Clothes were littered on the floor, a glass was shattered. There was an empty bottle of rum on the nightstand and a lots of showpieces knocked off from their original places, now lying broken all over the carpet.
• What the heck happened here? She thought to herself.
• Worried lines etched across her forehead as she tried to retrace the happenings of the previous night.
• This was definitely not her room, that was for sure. Then whose place was this? She wondered.
• By then the pounding in her head had turned terribly violent and the ache in her abdomen felt overwhelmingly similar to the cramps she had before and during periods. Although, the raw pain between her legs was a little mystery she couldn’t decipher.
• Until, it dawned on her like a bolt of lightning.
• Smacked right on head with the snapshots of the previous night — the coffee, the unconsciousness, the feeling of being carried and a blurry man moving over her body.
• NO!
• “No no no no no no!” She panicked, her eyes grew wide as saucers as despite the soreness in her thighs and down there, she scrambled out of the bed—almost tripping with her foot tangled in the sheets but catching herself upright just in time—and faced the daunting she almost didn’t want to face.
• Her heart bet like crazy underneath her chest while her breathing grew erratic. Panic bled through her chest and caused all her limbs to grow limp as she saw the naked man lying next to her on the bed.
• He had an arm covering his eyes and a decent portion of his body still enveloped with white sheets. A frown tugged on his lips, the one that looked dangerously familiar to her frightened heart.
• Almost on the verge of fainting again, the first thing Noémi did was to find her clothes and get dressed up.
• Once that was taken care of, she picked her heels, handbag and without sparing much of a glance, rushed out of the room and down the stairs.
• She remembered the mansion belonged to her boss, Mr. Halest. And she came here last night to deliever some important files that needed his urgent approval so she could mail them early morning. Only God knew what happened to those files or where the hell they were. However, there was nothing that could stop her now.
• Barefoot, Noémi ran out of the mansion, battling with the assault of the raging sun and building tears. Her chest felt like it would explode any moment and it didn’t help that the ache in her thighs continued to remind her what the hell had happened.
• Almost knocked out by a car coming to a stop in the driving lane just outside the porch, Noémi skipped a few steps backward to save herself from being hit.
• “Noémi?” She heard someone call behind her, but the girl had already taken off in the opposite direction, not ready to face the world yet.
• Once stumbling to her apartment, she shuffled for the key with shaky hands. It took a bit of frustrating seconds but once she got herself in, and had her back pressed against the door, then and only then, she allowed herself to gasp and break down.
• Tears flooded uncontrollably down her face now, soaking the shirt she was wearing, her heart aching.
• How could he do this to her?
• Her boss. The man she respected so much. The man who recently lost her wife and unborn child. How could he? How could he stoop to such a level?
• Thinking about what he did to her, disgust filled her veins. Noémi tore the clothes off her body as if they carried some infectious disease and tossed them into the the dustbin and went straight for a shower.
• The cold water pouring down her naked body washed away all the evidence of what had happened to her—what he did to her—all night. However, what it couldn’t wash away was her aggrieved heart and the pain in her chest. The shock of being betrayed by a man, she was eager to go to any extent for.
• “I loved you, Mr Halest,” she sobbed, collapsing on the floor while water pounded on her head. “And you raped me!”