Free Seeking Prince Charming by Terry Towers

back from her and brushed a stray lock of dark hair from her face. Of all the women in all the world he’d never have guessed the woman he’d eventually fall for would be his former stepsister, Chloe Bennett. It just goes to show, sometimes true love can be right in front of you – you just have to open your eyes and see it. 
     
    The End
     
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Excerpt from
     
     
    Secrets
     
     
    By
     
     
    Terry Towers
     
    Available Now
     
     
     

Prologue
     
    Anastasia
    I could hardly believe what I’d just done. My entire body froze in a state of shock as I looked down at my husband’s limp body at my feet. It wasn’t until the remainder of the broken crystal vase slipped from my fingertips and the remaining glass shattered as it hit the floor that I was jolted from my state of horror.
    “Please God, don’t let him be dead.” As I silently prayed he’d still be alive, a part of me wanted nothing more than to see him gone from this earth for good. I’d have done the world a service if he were. My husband, of just shy of two years, was a true monster of a man. Despite a part of me longing to see the earth rid of him for good, it couldn’t be by my hand. Admittedly, I was weak and didn’t have it in me to do it. I’d been a lot of things and done a lot of things to survive in my meager twenty-two years on this earth, but being a murderer wasn’t one of them.
    Dropping to my knees beside him I pressed my fingers to the side of his neck and let out a sigh of relief; his pulse was strong. I’d only knocked him out. However, the three-inch bleeding slash on his left cheek defiling his otherwise devilishly handsome face would no doubt scar, a lifetime reminder of his wife’s betrayal. 
    “Mamo, are you okay? Mamo!” I turned to see Ura, my beautiful five-year-old son, stepping into my bedroom, his blue eyes wide with concern as he looked at me and then down at the man he’d considered his father for the past couple of years. “What’s wrong with Daddy?”
    He took a step into the bedroom and I raised my palm to him, stopping him in his tracks. “Go to your room, Ura. Go to your room and pack as much of your favourite toys in a bag as possible, okay, baby? And your clothes. All your favourite clothes.”
    “Why, Mamo?” Ignoring my warning he took another step into the room. His brow furrowed as his eyes caught sight of my face and pointed at me. I could feel my lip beginning to swell and the tenderness around my right eye. “What happened? Daddy do that? Daddy hurt you again?”
    Again . I cringed at his choice of the word.
    “What happened to Daddy?” The look of concern and confusion in his expression deepened.
    “We had a little accident, Ura, now do as you’re told and gather your toys, NOW!” I lowered my face, blocking his view of my injuries. I’d been trying so damned hard to keep the bruises and scars from my son, but they’d been becoming more frequent and more intense lately. It was becoming incredibly hard to hide them from the world – what little bit of the world my husband permitted me to see, that was. I went where I was told to go, when I was told to go there, and always under the supervision of my husband or one of his goons. I wasn’t a wife – I was a slave masquerading as a wife.
    The blonde-haired boy hesitated, took one more look at my husband and nodded his head in agreement. “Da, Mamo.”
    Surprised to hear him answer in Ukrainian, our mother tongue with a perfect accent, my head jerked back around to watch him exit the bedroom. He barely spoken a word of Ukrainian since we arrived in Miami. Ukrainian was forbidden to be spoken here; Russian and English were the only acceptable languages in Alexander Vetrov’s home.
    I looked down at my husband and sighed. How long before he woke back up? I had no clue.