PROLOGUE
Fifteen Years Ago
I fell in love with Michael Sinclair when I was eight years old.
I can even remember the exact moment.
After years of being alone after the death of my father, my mother married one of the most eligible bachelors in London - Charles Edward Dalton Sinclair. He was wealthy, had an incredible pedigree, and adored my mother.
What was more, he also happened to have a son who was five years my senior. I was thrilled I was finally going to have a sibling. An older, protective brother. One who would cherish and look out for me. It was something I had dreamt about my whole life and it seemed as though my wish had finally been granted.
But God had a different plan.
My new stepbrother, Davis Sinclair, would quickly become the bane of my adolescent existence. My curse. He was everything but brotherly and caring.
In fact, I quickly became convinced he was the Antichrist.
After our parent’s marriage, I soon realized his biggest pleasure in life came from teasing me mercilessly and making me cry. Davis liked to see people suffer. There was a sickening type of joy that came over him when he saw someone’s pain. Since I was so young and naïve , I played right into my stepbrother’s evil machinations. It wasn’t until I was much older that I finally stopped the tears and learned the art of feigning indifference, which in turn, made Davis thankfully leave me alone.
But during my younger years, while I depended on my tears as a source of comfort, Davis’ cousin, Michael Sinclair was there to protect me.
I’ll never forget the moment he stepped into my life like a knight in shining armor when I was only eight, and he was sixteen.
It was a beautiful summer day in Surrey and I was outside playing with my dolls at my stepfather’s country estate.
“Shabby Abby!” Davis screamed at me in a shrill voice as I cried over the injustice of such an awful nickname. “Shabby Abby, are you crying like the flabby baby you are?”
He circled me and stuck out his tongue.
I covered my ears with my hands and tried to block out his tormenting words.
“Leave me alone!” I cried out.
“Shabby Abby!” Davis shouted with glee. “Shabby Abby, you’re so flabby! Flabby Shabby Abby! Flabby Shabby Abby!”
Looking back now, I must admit, I was on the flabby side.
To my mother’s horror, I was a chubby child, so much so, that she had put me on a strict diet. Unfortunately, it ended up backfiring, because it turned me into a closet eater. Chocolate, potato chips and fattening baked goods became my constant companion in the hiding spaces I would sneak off to. I stole food from the pantry whenever no one was paying attention to me, which wasn’t so great for my mother’s plan, because it just so happened no one ever paid any attention to me at all.
So there I was, surrounded by my dolls, remnants of cookie crumbs littered all over my uncomfortably tight pink dress, wishing Davis would somehow magically disappear.
And that’s when something even better than his disappearance happened.
“What’s going on out here?”
The sun was glaring in my eyes as I squinted up to see who had joined Davis. If it were one of his hideous friends, I was ready to take my dolls and go inside the house for a few hours and hide inside a dressing closet where they wouldn’t be able to find me.
“I’m here with Flabby Shabby Abby!” Davis declared proudly as he pointed at me like I was diseased.
There was a break from the bright sunlight as the clouds moved, and it was at that moment I stared into Michael Sinclair’s piercing blue eyes for the very first time.
He seemed as tall as the sun. And just as handsome as all the fairy-tale heroes I read about at night.
He leaned down next to me and took in my sad face. He reached out and brushed my cheek with the back of his large hand and gave me a sympathetic smile.
“Are you okay, Abby?”
“Are you Prince Charming?” I asked in awe. “Are you here to save me from my evil stepbrother?”
He smiled at me. “Do you need saving?”
“I do,” I told him as I nodded my head. “He’s very mean to me.”
“He is?” Michael asked sympathetically as I nodded.
“He makes me cry,” I admitted softly.
“Shut up, Flabby Abby!” Davis sneered. “You talk too much!”
Michael gave me a sweet smile before standing to his full height and turning his attention to my stepbrother.
“You need to stop teasing our Abby,” Michael told him sternly.
I watched Michael with wide eyes, half in love with him already.
“Or what?” Davis sneered at him. “What will you do?”
“Punch you in the face,” Michael informed him.
Davis shook his head and laughed, then for good measure stepped close to me and leaned in so that his face was only inches from mine.
“Shabby. Flabby. Abby,” he taunted me again. Except this time he crossed a line he was warned not to go near.
It happened so fast.
One second Davis was leaning in so close I could feel his breath on my skin and the next he was lifted up away from me and punched soundly in the face.
I watched in happiness as he flew through the sky and landed with a thud on the ground, a good distance away from me.
Michael Sinclair descended, loomed over him like an imposing young demigod and grabbed him angrily by his collar.
“You’ve been warned, Davis.”
Davis was too frightened to move. He could only nod his head in acknowledgment before he ran off like the devil was chasing him.
Michael turned to face me when Davis was gone and gave me the most beautiful smile I had ever seen in my life.
“If he bothers you again, Abigail,” he said to me, “I will beat him to a bloody pulp.”
And just like that.
I finally had a hero.
I decided right then and there when I grew up I would marry Michael Sinclair.