Seven Years Apart

I loved Julian Hayes for seven years. When I was kidnapped, he refused to pay the ransom, all because his secretary suggested this was a perfect chance to teach me a lesson and make me *behave*.

I endured hellish torment. Finally, I learned to stay away from Julian. But then, he cried, begging me for another chance.

1.

The day I walked barefoot into the city center, I made headlines.

The adopted daughter of the Hayes family, kidnapped for months, returned a wreck – clothes torn, filthy, reeking, her feet bare and covered in scars, like a beaten animal scrambling back home.