Hope Rutherford-Henshaw was taking a relaxing bubble bath. She was tired of her husband, Ian’s self-righteous ethics, and especially of his long work hours at the family business. Maybe she wasn’t tired of him so much as she was tired of his complaining about her not making more of an effort at keeping his grandfather’s house clean.
But what was the difference?
Hope was twenty-three years old, and her life had hit a dead end.
She had married her super-wealthy boyfriend, Ian Henshaw III, to enjoy the comforts of being rich. But things hadn’t turned out at all like she wanted.
Hope was a faithful believer in karma. She believed Ian had come to her through karma.
Hope thought that by marrying Ian, she would secure a lifetime of luxuries, such as traveling the world and going out every evening to nightclubs. Instead, she found herself trapped in a marriage of servitude, when all she wanted to do was go out and have fun with other insanely wealthy people.
Her new lifestyle was definitely a disappointing surprise.
Ian was a hot, young industrialist who had inherited more fucking money than she could ever imagine.
But he would never spend a penny of it.
His grandfather owned one of the largest manufacturing conglomerates in New York, but instead of enjoying his wealth, Ian went to work every day in the factories with the regular guys. He wanted to be a man of the people, and he intended for Hope’s marital home to be a run-down, three-bedroom ranch house.
His grandfather owned it as a starter home.
Still owned it.
Ian said living there would teach her to appreciate the work ethic that builds a fortune the hard way.
Hope saw it differently.
Marrying so high up the ladder, then landing right back in the kind of tract home she was desperate to escape, became maddening.
Hope found herself sitting at home alone most days and evenings, feeling sorry for herself. And Ian was failing to make a go of it at his grandfather’s vast empire of manufacturing companies.
To top it off, Ian’s grandfather’s home was located in the same run-down city Hope had been trying to escape since she was a poor girl in high school.
Mt. Vernon.
The city where she had been an exotic dancer.
Ian met Hope when he first moved into his grandfather’s tract house.
He had come to the club to watch the show.
So while she was a girl with dreams of exiting these dilapidated neighborhoods, Ian thought living there would teach them both about character.
He fell in love with her one night when he and his friends were out on the town looking for lap dances. He thought he could save her, and that was when they started dating.
They fell in love and married quickly.
Ian, thinking he had a humanitarian project to work on, and Hope, thinking she had hit the jackpot.
They were both wrong.
While the rest of Ian’s family enjoyed the grandfather’s fortune, Ian had Hope cleaning the run-down three-bedroom ranch home every day. He gave her an economy model SUV to run errands and a modest grocery and clothing allowance.
The very life Hope had worked so hard to avoid.
Had she pissed off the karma gods?
Hope got out of the dingy, stained bathtub, and let the water out. Ian didn’t like Hope staying at home every day; he wanted her out doing charity work, but Hope insisted that she needed the days to herself. Hope always got her way with Ian, only because Ian’s family didn’t like her. He defended her to them, never admitting he was wrong. More than anything, he was afraid that she would leave him, proving them right that he had made a mistake in marrying her.
He wanted an old-fashioned, long-lasting marriage like his parents, and he was determined to have it. That was why he was going to therapy with a relationship counselor, Dr. Aubrey Prentice.
Hope thought that maybe Dr. Prentice could straighten him out.
Appreciate her for who she was.
A woman who could get any man she wanted.
Hope had bleach-blonde hair, baby blue eyes, and real, full breasts. She had a button nose and full, pouty lips that longed to be kissed.
Perfect for being a stripper and even better for trapping men.
Hope knew what her attraction was.
And all Hope really wanted was to have sex with a real man who had money to spend freely. Right now, she settled for Vaughn, her favorite bartender from the Ascot Bar & Grill.
No money, but Vaughn was young, fun, and handsome.
Hope toweled off and lay back on the queen-sized bed with the creaky iron-frame that she shared with Ian, and thought of Vaughn.
She imagined Vaughn’s strong hands as they wandered over her breasts and down between her thighs. While she fantasized about his gorgeous smile and his dark brown eyes, she started touching herself.
In her fantasy, Vaughn flashed her a big smile before he gave her a long, hard kiss.
He knew how to kiss her deeply and hold her firmly in his strong arms.
Vaughn was twenty-four years old and competed in triathlons. He had a ripped body that Hope couldn’t get enough of when she was with him. She loved to run her hands through his thick, straight hair and then down his strong back to his firm ass.
Hope loved to undo his shirt and kiss his sharply defined chest, his washboard abs.
As Hope fantasized, she imagined Vaughn was taking her right in her bedroom, telling her that he would take her away from her dull life of being poor and abused; they would move far away from the town of Orchard Park, and he would compete in triathlons in exciting places while she could lie on the beach in the wintertime instead of suffering through the snow.
As his tongue explored her mouth, she felt Vaughn’s rock-hard member pushing firmly against her slit.
In her fantasy, he was only wearing his underwear, his erection already bursting from his boxer briefs. He pulled them down excitedly, and he was inside of her, thrusting into her wetness while she moaned at the pressure he exerted on her clit.
Hope imagined smelling his aftershave and feeling the full force of his cock pounding into her sweet spot; the thought of it all was too much. Vaughn was breathing hard on her neck, his cock thrusting into her without mercy.
“Oh, please,” she whispered, “I want to come, Vaughn!” A shudder ran through her body. It was almost too much to bear.
The gratification of her intense release left Hope breathless and momentarily exhausted. She took a few moments to recover and then sat up in bed. Ian would be there soon. He would want a hot dinner and a clean home, so she needed to get back to reality.
But instead of doing any of that, she curled up like a soft little kitten and drifted into a short nap.
It wasn’t peaceful.
Hope slipped straight into a nightmare about Ian.
It was so vivid it felt suffocating, claustrophobic. He was standing over her again, making her scrub the bathroom floor until it shone, barking corrections, picking at her posture, her breathing, her existence. His harsh words made her shrink smaller and smaller. The chemical sting in the air made her eyes water; in the dream, she couldn’t tell if it was bleach or tears.
She scrubbed harder, knowing that no matter how clean it looked to her, it would never be clean enough for him.
Her arm ached. Her knees burned. His shadow grew larger.
His looming figure warped, broadening at the shoulders, shrinking at the waist. His voice dropped into a deeper, nasal drone she hadn’t heard in years.
Coach Reddin.
The high-school football coach who used to “accidentally” corner her in the equipment room. The one who smelled like sweat and always stood too close when no one else was around.
In the dream, he crouched beside her, the clipboard tucked under his arm, a predatory half-smile stretching across his face.
“You’re real obedient when you try, Hope,” he said. “I like that. Now don’t tell anyone, okay?”
God, she’d forgotten how those words could crawl over her skin.
She froze in the half-scrubbed bathroom-that-wasn’t-a-bathroom anymore, the bleach smell replaced by the rubbery scent of the locker room. Cold, damp concrete. Banging pipes. The thud of balls being thrown around the basketball court.
Coach Reddin reached out to turn her face to his.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
His shadow raised itself to its full height and dragged Hope down into some abyss.
And then something happened.
There was a sound she heard that drew her out of the deep recesses of the locker room.
A sound that didn’t fit the high school memory.
The creak of a door opening.
The sound of keys hitting the bowl in the hallway.
Ian was home.
The locker room dissolved in a sudden, ripping jolt, like someone had yanked a cord.
Hope’s eyes flew open.
She was wide awake, back in her bed. Dear God, how long did she sleep? Ian would be furious! Her lungs took in a deep, involuntary breath. Despite this, she was still groggy, the dream of Coach Reddin clinging to her, compounding the fear of being asleep when Ian came home.
Panic shot through her system before she could think. She scrambled upright on the bed, wiping at her face to get the sleep out. Just sweating, flushed, shaken. Her thighs still tingled faintly with the fading afterglow of her fantasy. God, no. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. Not like this. Not so vulnerably sprawled across the sheets with the blanket half on the floor.
She could already picture Ian’s expression if he walked in:
The disappointment.
The lectures.
The questions she could never answer honestly.
“Hope?” She heard Ian’s voice down the narrow hallway. Calm, collected, self-righteous in that maddeningly reasonable way of his. “I’m back earlier than expected.”
Of course he was.
She heard Ian go into the living room. The floors in the house were so creaky. She heard him sit on the noisy springs of the couch, probably opening the mail.
Hope shot off the bed, grabbing her robe from the floor and yanking it around herself. Her legs wobbled slightly from the mix of release and fear, but she forced them steady. She patted down her hair, ran into the bathroom, and splashed some cold water on her face. Could she make it look like she just got out of the tub after a long day of cleaning?
She needed to look composed.
Busy.
Domestic.
Anything but what she’d really been doing.
She took two steps toward the bedroom door, then froze when she saw the mess she had made. Blanket on the floor. Mussed sheets. A half-drunk cocktail on the nightstand.
The things that upset Ian the most.
Her heart thumped painfully.
“Hope?” Ian’s voice came from the living room. “Are you napping again?”
Ian knew she was napping, maybe drunk, but he liked to play cat and mouse with her.
“No,” she called out, her voice too bright, too quick.
“I was just getting ready to start dinner.”
It sounded thin. Fabricated.
She hated how easy lying had become.
She hated even more that Ian made her feel like she needed to.
Hope went to the living room after she had tidied up the bedroom, and tried to look as if she had just jumped out of the shower.
He gave her a tired smile.
“Good. I had a rough day.”
Hope tightened her robe with both hands, pasting on a smile that made her cheeks ache.
She wasn’t sure which was worse, the nightmare she’d escaped or the real life she’d woken up to.
But either way, she was trapped.
And dinner wasn’t going to cook itself.
So, she had pissed off the Karma Gods.