A choked cry escaped her lips. She bit her lower lip to stifle the sound, terrified that Alexa might hear. Why? Why is she so cruel?
At eighteen, Freya should have been finishing school, laughing with friends, chasing the small dreams she once had. But life had never been that gentle. Her mother's sudden illness had torn everything away. Medicines, endless tests, bills that piled higher each month, they had cost more than their tiny family could manage. One by one, the things Freya loved were stripped away, until even her education had to be sacrificed. She had dropped out quietly, without telling her friends goodbye, stepping into the world of work with nothing but desperation to keep her upright.
And now here she was burned, insulted, humiliated and reduced to a servant in the house of people who would never see her as anything but replaceable.