Tells a dark story of Julie’s abuse and predatory grooming by Nathan Vuitton. Focuses on emotion and tension.
Julie has beautiful blue eyes and bright yellow hair. She’s also beautiful, intelligent, adorable. Her mother died while giving birth and her father no longer cares about her and married her mother's substitute and her stepmother is very cruel and deliberately accuses her of stealing things in her room and accuses her of doing evil things. Since then her father has increasingly treated her badly and even continues to beat her and throw her out of the house. When she was kicked out of the house suddenly the rain came and your current thought was to go to her biological mother's grave and take shelter there while hugging her mother's tombstone with her tears flowing down her cheeks.
The rain came down like needles, sharp and merciless, soaking straight through Julianna’s thin sweater. Her yellow hair clung to her face in damp strands, and her blue eyes burned red from crying.
She knelt in the cemetery mud, arms wrapped around the cold marble of her mother’s grave, pressing her forehead to the stone as if it might answer her.
She had nowhere else to go.
The house she’d grown up in had already stopped feeling like home long ago. Since her father remarried, the walls had become traps, the floors echoing with accusations. Her stepmother’s voice still rang in her ears.
You stole it. You’re evil. You always were.
Her father had believed every word. Tonight, he hadn’t even hesitated. He’d grabbed her by the arm, shoved her out the door, and slammed it behind her while she was still crying.
The sky cracked with thunder.
Then, through the sheets of rain, came light.
Headlights cut across the gravestones like pale knives.
Julie flinched, shielding her eyes as a black car rolled to a stop nearby. The engine purred like a beast at rest. A door opened. Heavy footsteps approached.
She shrank back against the grave.
A tall young man crouched in front of her. His dark coat was perfectly pressed, untouched by the storm. His eyes were sharp, calculating, but something unreadable flickered behind them.
“Nathan Vuitton,” one of the men behind him said quietly.
Julie had heard the name before. Everyone had. The youngest CEO in the city. Ruthless. Brilliant. Untouchable.
Nathan studied her like she was something rare and broken.
“Why are you here, little one?” he asked.
His voice was cool, but not cruel.
She couldn’t answer. Her teeth were chattering too hard.
He hesitated for half a second, then shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her small shoulders. It swallowed her whole.
“Do you want to come with me?” he asked softly.
She didn’t know what to say. Fear and cold tangled inside her chest until she could barely breathe.
Nathan straightened and spoke to his men. “Get her in the car.”
Before she could protest, they gently but firmly lifted her and settled her into the warm back seat. The door shut. The rain became a distant whisper.
Julie stared out the window as the city lights blurred past. She felt like she was being carried into another world.
⸻
The House
Nathan’s estate rose from the ground like a palace. Iron gates. A sweeping driveway. A fountain glittering in the moonlight.
Julie followed him inside, her small shoes echoing on marble floors. Chandeliers glowed above her. Everything smelled like polish and wealth.
She had never seen anything like it.
A maid offered her dry clothes. Another brought warm soup. Everyone spoke in low voices, careful, respectful.
She was shown to a guest room bigger than the bedroom she’d had back home.
That night, as she wandered the hallway, she listened at doors but only heard muffled voices from far away. She never learned what Nathan wanted or planned for her future—only that she was now somewhere strange, beautiful, and uncertain.
She curled up on the bed, clutching the jacket he had given her.