" It was like being trapped in a nightmare, for both of us. No matter what we did, someone was going to get hurt. You have to understand, we didn't ex...ect to fall for each other like this. I fought it, at first." Until Christmas?" she asked."Yes. He got me a calendar as a present, which I didn't understand until later." He worked all day Christmas Eve to buy you a calendar?" she asked with an arched brow."Not exactly, the real present was a list of the dates he plans to come back to see me,. The more Constance thought on it, the more she remembered Rob and his jealous possession of her. No other man but him should ever have at her cunny … as if it were his and not her own. Thus must it have been with her parents. Anna, wife to William and therefore chattel, had given that which was rightfully his to others. Whether it had been done by force or not. As if she were no person at all, only a belonging. She hoped for her mother’s sake that Philippe Merlion had been a splendid lover. It. His office now free of journalists, he leans back into his black swivel office chair. Unlocking the top drawer, he reaches for a picture hidden under a pile of folders. The naked woman, lying on satin sheets, had her arms tied above her head and to the corners of the bed frame. The position of her legs, raised up over her head and meeting her hands, made her look submissive and vulnerable. Eyeing the exposed smooth triangle between her legs, her wetness glistening from the camera flash, his. .. don't..."Amanda gasped. "Oh no ... oh gods ... Sirinna, p-please, wake up. It's just a dream. It's not happening."Slowly, Sirinna became still. She raised her head and blinked in confusion. She looked first at the Narlassi girls, then at Amanda. Finally, her eyes filled with tears and she let out a keening wail. Amanda pulled Sirinna towards her and hugged her tightly. Tears splashed against her shoulder."It's okay now," Amanda said as soothingly as she could, though her own voice was.