Assumption (Underground Kings #1) - Aurora Rose Reynolds
Prologue
I see you judging me. I know what you’re thinking. She has to be a slut; she works at a strip club and takes off her clothes for money. Yes! I work at a strip club, and you may think I’m a whore for showing off my body, but this is a talent that has been forced down my throat since I was a young child. Look pretty and smile. I put on a show for those who choose to watch. However long I’m on stage, I’m not even me. It’s what I imagine an out-of-body experience would be like—a performance, nothing more, nothing less. The people watching make assumptions about who they think I am or cook up a story in their heads of who they want me to be. I’m just another beautiful face.
Beautiful. I hate that f*cking word. Who gives a crap if someone is attractive on the outside if they are dying inside? My whole life has been about what I look like. I swear, the only reason my mother kept me was to have a real-life, living, breathing doll she could dress up and control, which is the exact reason why I got as far away from her special brand of crazy as I could as soon as I became eighteen. That’s also why I don’t date. The first thing guys do is look at me and see a pretty face, a nice body, and an empty space where my brain’s supposed to be. They have no interest in getting to know the person I am on the inside. They don’t care that I volunteer my spare time, and they couldn’t care less that I’m going to school to be an RN. They don’t ask about my hopes, my dreams, or about where I see my life in twenty years. They don’t care about me at all.
They just want someone pretty to follow them around and tell them how handsome they are, how special they are, while agreeing with everything they say. F*ck that! I did that for too many years. That’s why I live inside books. At least there I can choose where I want to be—from the highlands of Scotland to a king’s bed in a faraway land—and even if it’s pretend, sometimes that’s a lot better than reality.