Silent Daughter 1: Taken Read Online Free PDF Page A

with them now that I have finished my degree and did not get accepted to the Master's program I applied for. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to be. An imposed gap year is what I am facing right now, in hopes to be accepted into another program next year. Months of nothing to do except for inhabiting my old childhood room in a house I don’t like with people who don’t want me around.
    I flinch in surprise when someone touches me on the shoulder. It is my sister Sandria, asking me to come with her so she can introduce me to her father-in-law to be.
    We head to a little group on the terrace that includes Sandria’s fiancé, my other sister Lucia and her husband and Mr. Bishop… and him . The ominous tall, stranger with the dark hair and the tattoo peeking through at the top of his collar. Mr. Clark, Angelica had called him.
    My heart almost stops when I notice his presence, but I try my best not to let it show.
    I can feel his eyes on me as I join the group, but I don’t reciprocate his gaze. Sandria introduces me to her future father-in-law, and I shake his hand like a good girl, but cannot bring myself to respond to his lame introductory words.
    Of course, I am introduced to Mr. Clark next. Our eyes meet for a few moments when we shake hands and he pins me down with his stare. His eyes are not completely black but more of dark gray. He looks at me with such intensity that I would normally fear that there was something wrong with my hair, my face, my dress. But I can tell in his stare that that's not it.
    He doesn't focus on any imperfection. Just on me. No one has ever looked at me this way.
    Why is he gritting his teeth, though? Am I making him angry?
    "Leonard Clark," he introduces himself.
    I look at him and give a polite nod before withdrawing my hand from his grip.
    I cannot shake off the feeling of his intense stare the entire time I am forced to chit chat with Mr. Bishop and my sister's dull fiancé. When the topic turns to my academic endeavors and my sister uses yet another chance to play me down, Mr. Clark chimes in, forcing me to look back up at him.
    I find it very hard to talk to him, even harder than usual.
    He wants to know what it is that I could be embarrassed about.
    "Nothing," I lie.
    I am certainly not embarrassed about my choice of major and college.
    I am, however, embarrassed about what happens in my bedroom when I find myself alone. I am embarrassed about what happened on campus when I participated in occasional dating and found myself with a boy staring at me with fear and disgust when I told him what I wanted him to do to me.
    I am embarrassed and sad about the emptiness I felt every time someone fucked me, thinking he was giving me just as much pleasure as he was enjoying, while I just prayed for it to be over, faking every single orgasm I have ever experienced with a man.
    Of course, that's not what anybody here at this party would expect or want to hear from me.
    Mr. Clark looks at me as if he expects me to continue, but I am of the opinion that everything I need to say has been said. When I can longer bear to withstand his dark gray gaze, I lower my eyes, noticing that he has his hands in fists.
    He is tense, clenching his fists so much that his knuckles turn white.
    His hands are big and strong.
    I wonder what they would feel like wrapped around my throat.
    He knows that I noticed his clenching fists, but doesn't relax them. The longer I look at them, the more it feels as if he is grasping me, as if I was within his strong touch.
    I avert my eyes and resume the dull conversation about my educational choice. I don’t want to be here. This conversation annoys me, and Mr. Clark’s eyes feel like spears poking into me.
    “Will that be all?” I finally dare to blurt out. I know this is not the way one ought to leave a conversation, no matter how dull or annoying it is, but thanks to my overall reputation I am granted a fool’s license when it comes to my family - and I intend to use it to my