"Cooper . . . disengaged when he finally noticed me, but he was drunk or drugged or both. I don't know. He started off apologizing, but it disintegrated into him screaming at me about how he didn’t want a whore for a wife. He had actual whores for that." I tried to leave, but he pulled me and I fought him. We tumbled to the ground and he hit me, but I got away. Only as I turned to leave, he caught my ankle and I fell on the glass coffee table, breaking two of my ribs, banging up my face even more, and slicing up my arm. It had happened so fast, but I was a mess. There was blood everywhere. Members of Cooper's campaign team who had been in the other room came running. They got me out of there and called a doctor when we arrived at my father's home."
"Kira," I said, my voice raw, my gut churning. I now fully understood why she'd been so insecure about sex. It wasn't just about her father and his dismissal of Rosa Maria. It was even more personal—she’d basically been told her passion in bed was somehow inappropriate and disgusting. And she'd believed it. And who could blame her? It'd been her first experience. She'd only ever been with one man.
Kira looked off into the distance again. "When my father got home and learned what happened," her face screwed up as if she was going to cry again, but she regrouped with a deep breath, "he told me I'd ruined everything. And then he went into recovery mode: contacting the hotel staff, putting out the story that I'd gotten into trouble with drugs and went wild in case anyone else had seen me leaving the room, or in case other staff talked about the cleanup. Of course, he wouldn't hear of me calling the engagement off, but I was very final about that."
"He threw you under the bus."
She nodded. "Yes. Cooper's campaign and status was more important than his own daughter. He suggested a trip to Europe to make it look as if I was in a recovery program and then upon my return, we could turn the story in our favor—making me look like a success. Can you see the headlines now? 'Heiress turns to drugs, ruins life, but thanks to the love and devotion of selfless fiancé, turns life around.' What a perfect love story. Of course, Cooper would look even more like a hero. His current campaign, and all future campaigns, would be even more successful with a story like that attached to him. And me, I'd be the fall girl, but all for a good cause."
"Jesus." I stared in disbelief.
She sighed. "Well, as you can imagine, I wasn't going to go along with my father's plan to send me to Europe on a shopping expedition, but I did need to go away. Even returning to college here in California seemed too close. I wanted an ocean between us—very literally. I was devastated and needed to heal both physically and emotionally. I needed time to come up with a life plan. I remembered Khotso's invitation to help with his hospital—an invitation I hadn't been able to accept originally—and cut myself off from my father and Cooper. I took an extra day to have a full STD checkup, and then flew to Africa using the very last of the money I had in my bank account." She blushed slightly after the remark about a checkup, and then her expression turned thoughtful. "When I got there, I felt so empty, so grief-stricken. But see," her eyes suddenly brightened, and I sucked in a breath to see her shining light again, "I worked with these women who had lost so much—they were rejected by their villages and their families because of the stigma of something they had no control over. Many of them had lost their babies. They were sick and traumatized. They had lost so much more than me. And I thought to myself, if I'm going to encourage them to be strong, to find power beyond their own circumstances, then I have to be able to do the same for myself. People suffer all over the world, every day. But people triumph all over the world every day, too. And I thought if these women are going to trust me to help them heal and triumph, I have to be able to rise above, as well. And I did."
"You make it sound easy." My voice held a scratchy note. How was she so strong?