After I Finally Became His Perfect Donna Chapter 04

After I Finally Became His Perfect Donna Chapter 04

I was shoved into the basement.

The room was pitch black. I sat down against the wall, drew my knees to my chest, and wrapped my arms around my shins.

At first, I was actually relieved by this punishment. I even leaned against the wall and drifted off for a while.

Until, somewhere between sleep and waking, countless hands seemed to reach out of the darkness.

They clawed at my clothes, gripped my chin, laughing.

“She’s so pale. Skin this delicate, how could that man bear to send her to a place like this?”

“What’s she screaming? For her husband to come save her? What a joke.”

A man’s breath, heavy and hot, his laughter right against my ear.

“Face reality, sweetheart. Your husband sent you here so you’d learn to behave. You think he doesn’t know

what happens to you in here? He just doesn’t care.”

I buried my face in my knees.

That wasn’t true. Dorian did care. He just he just wanted me to get better.

But had I gotten better?

No. Mike said I was a bad woman. Said I was trying to steal his daddy from his mommy.

I hadn’t won over my husband’s heir. I hadn’t become a proper, well-behaved Donna.

I immediately rose to my knees, spread them shoulder-width apart, and assumed the Academy’s repentance

position.

Then I raised my right hand and slapped myself across the face. Hard.

Once. Then again. I kept going until my mouth bled, my cheek swelled, and my palm went numb.

“I’m sorry. It was my fault. I failed to protect the heir.”

“I upset Mike. I shouldn’t have put my husband in a difficult position.”

For three days, every time I woke, I knelt and slapped myself.

Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth, dripping onto my knees. Warm.

When the basement door finally opened, I instinctively straightened my spine on my knees and lowered my

eyes.

Dorian saw the blood streaked across my face. His pupils contracted sharply.

He stepped forward. “What did you…”

Before he could finish, a servant hurried past carrying a pot of hot oil.

Her foot slipped. The scalding oil arced through the air, heading straight for Mireille.

I didn’t think. I lunged at Mireille with something close to desperation, throwing myself over her and pinning

her beneath me.

I took every drop of that oil. It was agony.

But I didn’t care about the pain. I searched frantically for Dorian’s eyes, hoping to find approval in them.

There was none.

He was looking at me, his whole body trembling, his eyes rimmed red.

I lowered my gaze in disappointment. Was I still not good enough?

But I didn’t have time to think about it, didn’t have time to apologize to him or Mireille, before everything went

black.

The last thing I heard before I lost consciousness was Dorian’s voice, shaking, calling my name.

“Lyra. Lyra…”

When I woke again, Dorian was asleep in the hospital chair beside my bed, his brow furrowed even in sleep,

my hand still clutched in his.

His features were uncharacteristically soft. Just like the days when he’d been chasing me.

I was eighteen that year, working a food truck, and he showed up every single night to help me close down.

The day we got together, itrained. A long, steady rain. When I pushed the cart to the mouth of the alley, the downpour got heavier, and we ducked under an awning, shoulders touching.

“Lyra.” He said my name out of nowhere, his eyes full of light. “Be my girlfriend?”

I blinked. “Did all thatfried rice fry your brain?”

He laughed, eyes crinkling, and then he leaned down and kissed me.

The rain was loud. His lips were soft. He kissed me until I forgot how to breathe.

Grease smoke and cologne mixed together and became the entire scent of my eighteenth summer.

Later, when he insisted on marrying me, the old Don punished him with family discipline. They beat his back

until the skin split open.

I went to see him. He was lying face-down on the bed, his shirt glued to the wounds with dried blood. Peeling it away brought fresh red with it.

I cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. He was the one comforting me. “Don’t cry. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Liar.”

“It really doesn’t hurt.”

He took my hand. His fingers were burning. He had a fever.

“My father asked if I’d change my mind. I said no. He asked if I loved you. I said yes.”

He looked at me, eyes red-rimmed. “Lyra, you’re the only person I’ve ever loved in my life.”

I believed him. Back then, I really believed him.

The curtain shifted in the breeze. I moved my fingers, wanting to close the window.

The moment I moved, he woke.

He looked at me and opened his mouth as if to say something. In the end, all he said was, “Let’s go home.”

Home. Was this place home? I didn’t know.

But I nodded and said, “Okay.”

Maybe as a reward for saving Mireille, Dorian treated me much better over the next few days.

He made Mireille come thank me in person. When Mireille stood before me and bent at the waist, the smile on her face was stiff as cardboard.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I hurried to tell her she didn’t need to thank me.

Dorian watched the whole thing from the side, and some of the tension in his brow eased.

That night, he pushed open my bedroom door.