HOT SET: Playing with Fidelity (A romantic suspense novel) by Kerry Northe Page B

life, his young, susceptible daughter watched his transformation from athletic, tall and handsome into an overweight, self-absorbed, very angry man. Sam, in turn, observed both his wife’s prettiness disintegrate and his daughter’s withdrawal from him, making him even angrier. It was justified to throw that plate one day and it felt so satisfying to see it shatter against the wall. It felt just as justified yelling at Karen and Amelia the following day over a piece of burnt toast. He felt guilty for a moment until the next time he got angry, and the next time, and the next time until vitriol was the only way he knew how to speak. He called Amelia a slut, whore, ugly, skinny, useless and stupid. As a pre-teen with a fragile self-esteem, she believed what he said.
    Amelia, her confidence now ground into the dirt, found solace in an unexpected gift. She was eleven when she started to write a diary in the sanctuary of her room. It was something Sam couldn’t interfere with and she poured her frustration and dreams into that little exercise book, which later became several. A year later, at twelve, she looked back through those sheets and noticed the words were mature, poetic, clever and well-flowing.
    Amazed and f eeling an uncharacteristic of burst of self-assurance, she nervously, and without her parent’s knowledge, sent in a short story into a local paper’s writing competition. She came third. Amelia was elated and following her newly-found confidence, joined a writing club at school and later submitted articles for the school newspaper under the assumed name of Meredith Scholar. She didn’t make a fuss of her talent and no one asked so she was left to write to her heart’s content.
    Amelia, being so ashamed of her rundown house and ugly father, had shunned relationships of both the romantic and friendship types, not that people approached her for either, anyway. Having no positive association with her good looks, she downplayed them. At 13, she let her fringe grow long and messy, hiding her face. She wore shapeless clothing and hunched a little to look shorter. She didn’t speak up in class, was an average student academically and just tried to not be noticed. But despite her efforts, a statuesque body and heartbreaking face was emerging from beneath her teenage gauche.
    She was happ y by herself; it just meant she found social etiquette challenging and regularly missed queues by reacting with the wrong emotion or words to a situation, something which she’d struggle with for the rest of her life. Combined with her clothing choices and shy nature, this isolated her further. At 14, a particularly nasty bully named Lisa decided her easy pickings and Amelia had a terrible year, spending most of it crying.
    Her life was so sad , but she had big dreams. She hated Sam with a passion that was tangible and knew the ultimate revenge would be taking her mother away from him, leaving him to die alone. Amelia fantasised coming back to her dingy streets in a fancy car and whisking her mother away to a quaint little cottage all of her own, leaving Sam shaking his fist behind them and never seeing his hideous face again. He didn’t belong in her dreams and wanted nothing to do with him (something Sam did sadly note but was too far-gone to change). She lived this daydream, it was all she had.
    Amelia was a few months past 15 when the miracle happened .
    She was in the public library; a favourite place of solace and protection . For a change, she’d tied her hair back in a messy knot and as the sun moved through the windows, a warm, bright patch of yellow light surrounded and heated her and she took off her sloppy jumper leaving on a simple black singlet top. Unknown to her, the sun stream descended like a Godly aura, illuminating her loose strawberry blond hair, peaches n’ cream skin, icy blue eyes and Cupid’s bow lips. Her figure without the baggy clothes was slender and long, her arms slim with a few freckles delicately