The Powers that be are really trying to keep this book from surfacing.
Or maybe it’s just so many things in life are hitting me all at the same time.
I think if you aren’t having drama you aren’t living life correctly.
I’m going to believe that because I have to be living life correctly, LOL.
I’ve been hard at work trying to finish up Book Three.
I had to layer over some scenes, make sure I could explain a lot of things and not let the Hearts get too much into the story without disappointing the fans.
Trust me, this has been a difficult book, but it should average 25K words and that’s pretty good.
I’ve got five more chapters which I’m going to knock out of the way today and tomorrow so we can have a nice release party Friday.
Thank you soooo much for your patience.
Okay, without further ado, here’s a sneak peak at Chapter 20 from the sago Dark Facade!
Dark Façade III:The Evil Behind the Mask
Synopsis: Maxine, an AA graphic designer who has no life, realizes that her best friend and coworker disappeared the day after telling Maxine she was going out on a hot date with a man she met on the Internet.
Now it’s up to Maxine to find out what happened to Lisa and who was this mysterious man, who emailed his picture to her friend that Maxine just can’t stop thinking about.
(Author’s Note: If you haven’t read Part 1 & 2, here’s a deeper synopsis, but I would suggest you read the previous instead of reading the deeper synopsis.)
Maxine has infiltrated the Detroit Masquerade, an exclusive role-playing club, where she is the slave and the mysterious Philippe is the master.
Appalled the role-playing is more than real and Philippe means business when he means obedience, Maxine has to quell her strong will to disobey and become “his slave.”
She only signed up for the club to find out what happened to her missing co-worker, Lisa, but upon finding where Lisa is “tied” up, Maxine can’t free her. For her disobedience, she is caught and severely punished.
Now Maxine vows to never return and never give in to the lust Philippe erupted in her soul. She never wants to set eyes on Philippe ever again and vows never to return to Detroit Masquerade ever again.
CHAPTER 20
“Count to twenty and take the blindfold off,” an unfamiliar male voice ordered.
Maxine heard a door close and a heavy engine take off while she was counting, but she wasn’t sure where they had left her. Soon as she reached twenty, she snatched the blindfold off and looked frantically around. She was standing in the foyer of her apartment building. Her bag was at her feet.
Reaching inside the bag her fingers trembling from the shock of the nights events, Maxine found her keys to her home and the other items that were packed that she had been allowed to bring. Her gold key and mask were gone.
Her legs began to quiver and she fell to her knees to weep in relief as her mind began to recap what happened after Devon had left her with that ominous threat.
They had made her lie on that bed for what seemed like hours in the darkness and she had been afraid that more men would come in to rape her. She was a hot mess when a door finally opened and someone came in and put a blindfold on her extra tight.
As each cuff was released, her wounds were tended and she knew this person was not there to rape or hurt her. She wanted to ask who it was, but she didn’t, but for some reason she thought she smelled Philippe nearby.
She convinced herself she was delusional because of everything that had happened and cursed herself for imagining him because deep down inside she wanted to be with him so badly.
Philippe never even bothered to make an appearance to console her. Why should he?
Those women were right. The masters were only there to use their bodies as they saw fit. Philippe didn’t care about the emotional and mental scares this whole experience had caused. He was rich and powerful and a son of a bitch she swore she never wanted to lay eyes on again!
Maxine remembered crying even though as the person tended her wound was not hurting her, but she still cried.
“I want to go home,” she mumbled, feeling very ashamed and dirty. She hadn’t felt like that in so long and the last time she had felt like that she knew that her feelings had caused her to do horrible things to herself.
She was helped on with a thick robe and someone put shoes on her feet. Someone very large picked her up off of the metal bed and carried her somewhere. They were gentle with her even though she was highly tensed. She sobbed and felt like she couldn’t breathe. Whoever was holding her suddenly stopped walking. His grip tightened as if in a small way he was comforting her. After a moment, when she could control her crying the person started walking again.
His strides were longer as if he was in a hurry and then she was set on some carpet. They were outside only for a brief moment and then she heard doors closed and a heavy engine start. She had to be inside of a van by what she felt. She didn’t pull her blindfold off. She felt like she could have, but she didn’t. When the engine stopped, she waited for the doors to open and then she was carried yet again.
This was the same body that had carried her originally and she relaxed in the arms comforted by the knowledge this person wasn’t going to hurt her. She wanted to ask the person where was Philippe and where was she going, but she didn’t.
Maxine kept quiet the whole time. The voice finally said something, but only to make her count.
Getting up off the floor, she ran up the steps to her apartment and locked the door as if that would keep them out.
Immediately, Maxine tore off the dress robe that the person in the dark had put on her and then ran to the bathroom to take a hot scorching bath. She didn’t care that she scrubbed almost a layer of skin off. Maxine had emotional grim that she just didn’t feel she could get it all off.
Visions of Mr. Gallagher over her repeated in her head. Sweat dripping off his body and her whimpering in a pillow so they wouldn’t wake Mrs. Gallagher. Tears swathed her cheeks rapidly. There was no pain, but there an internal ache. That’s how she had felt when Devon had been in her.
Of course, she wouldn’t be driven in the arms of just letting men use her like she did when she was a teenager. She remembered she would just lie there and let them do what they wanted as long as they didn’t enter her.
No kissing. Never that. She had kept her lips sacred. It was the only part of her body where she had a choice that they touched.
After a lot of therapy, Gerald had been her first kiss. He was a sloppy kisser, not like Philippe.
Maxine immediately stopped her thoughts. What the hell was wrong with her? The man had watched her rape and had done absolutely nothing about it!
Standing in the mirror after her bath, she wiped the mirror from all the steam and stared at herself. The beautiful necklace caught her eye and she gripped it to snatch it off her neck, but she couldn’t. For some reason, she couldn’t muster the strength to yank it off.
For some reason, all she could think about was Philippe’s voice saying, “Obedience is a must.”
Maxine cried because as much as she wanted to hate Philippe, she found herself still craving his touch and proximity. She ran the water in the sink to try to wash her face, but every time she wiped her face, more tears would just come.
When she couldn’t cry anymore and the water in the sink had started to grow cold, she turned off the faucet and lean on the sink. Feeling a little weak physically from her emotional turmoil, she sat down on the edge of the bathtub and just stared into nowhere.
She wasn’t sure what to really feel at that moment.
Not really aware of how long she had sat there, her butt started to protest the hard surface and she trudged into the front room with just a towel around her body. She spotted the pouch where all her things were in still at the door where she must have subconsciously dropped when she entered her apartment. Turning the bag upside down, she let all the items fall to the floor and she fell on her knees to see if all her items had really been given back to her.
Everything seemed fine, except she saw some things in her wallet had been turned around. Her instinct was to turn them back the way they were supposed to be, but then she noticed there was a distinct weight to the wallet.
Opening the wallet where she kept her money, she gasped. Ten crisp hundred dollar bills.
She dropped the wallet to the floor looking at the wallet as it were an apparition. Leaning back, her hand brushed up against something else… her cell phone.
It was still relatively fully charged since it had been on complete silence all weekend. Now in her hands, she turned it on. No one had called and no one had texted her.
Her other hand went to the necklace firmly clasped around her neck. The chain didn’t break, even when she tried her best to pull it off.
Call the police, her conscious told her. You have proof you were there. Show them the necklace.
Standing slowly so she wouldn’t get dizzy, she stared down at the keypad looking at the nine and the one repeatedly as if her mind could do the dialing. Her hands begin to tremble so much, the phone dropped to the floor.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there just staring at the phone on the floor.
to be continued…
Okay, so that was the first part of the chapter and there’s actually more to that chapter, but I thought I should stop there so i can get back to work.
I want to thank you all for your eager patience. I know you’re sitting on pins and needles and this Friday, you’ll be clicking and opening up the book on your reading device if it kills me!
Haven’t read book one and two?
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should be available on Nook and iTunes. Just look up Dark Facade and I should pop right up in there! Don’t forget to leave reviews and share with other readers.
Your Author, Sylvia Hubbard! Thank you!