Lost

By Leigh Banks

A change of identity allowed Serena Sullivan to live again, yet unable to pull free of the gravity of her lies. As a teenager she married the captain of the high school football team. After years of suffering abuse and isolation at his hands, she eventually made a daring escape. A change of identity allowed her to live again, but not without the shadow of her past eclipsing her future. Years of rebuilding her life led to a position in the writing room on a popular sitcom. Fate brought her face-to-face with Thomas Matthews, the show's star and the man whose face had been invading her dreams her entire adult life. His love and patience is enough to overcome her fear of intimacy, but will it be enough to overcome her past sins... and a dangerous ex-husband wants her star permanently extinguished?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leigh Banks
• Release date: May 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301043859

Leigh Banks

Leigh lives in a remote area of Michigan with her husband and their faithful dog. As a professional writer of non-fiction, she enjoys losing herself in the process of writing novels and screenplays. To share your thoughts about her books send an email to: [e-mail].

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Lost

By Leigh Banks

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Leigh Banks

Discover other titles by Leigh Banks at http//www.leighbanks.com

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Chapter One

"The soaring heat of his breath melted the skin behind her ear as his hands pushed away the long blonde tendrils of her hair.  His hands returned to her face, cradling it as he kissed her. At first, his kisses were tender on her soft, lush lips. Tasting her flamed his desire. His kisses became more hungry and forceful, leaving her gasping for air.

He kissed her progressively lower and lower, his tongue tracing its way sensually down to her navel and further down until she could feel his steamy breath on her…

Serena sighed deeply, closed the book and laid it down next to her on the bed.  Why does she send me these damn books?

Mia, her best friend, liked reading the hot and steamy books, but Mia also had a husband to extinguish the fires they started.

Serena was alone. Worse yet, she had no prospects lined up to fill the vacancy.

Twenty-nine years old and she'd taken only one lover in her life.

Pathetic. 

Even more pitiful was that her ex-husband, Oliver, had been neglectful of her needs. He'd also been emotionally and physically abusive. Because of this, she had yet to feel the tender caress of a lover. 

It wasn't that she couldn't have had her pick of men. It was just that her first choice had left such deep scars. Since then, no man had been able to get close enough to see below the damaged surface to her soul.

If she wanted a man, he wouldn't have a chance to resist her. That wasn't an issue.

Her ivory skin was practically flawless. Usually, she wore very little make-up; typically only a little mascara and blush. It was not only because of the perfection of her skin but because she didn't like the pretentiousness of it. She felt like she should be proud of what her parents and God had given her. Heck, if her looks were up to God's standards, who was she to complain.

Her brown eyes were dark and mysterious. They were her father's eyes. When looking in the mirror she could almost see him staring back at her. They were her connection to him; the one feature she could never regret, or with which she could never be dissatisfied, no matter what else life handed her.

Her straight black hair hung down to her elbows. Instead of showing it off, she used it to shield herself from the world. And, she had much from which to hide.

In many ways, physical attractiveness could be a curse. Men leered at and desired her for the way she looked, not for who she was. Her full, high breasts were yet untouched by motherhood or age. Her waist was small, accentuating her curvaceous hips. Even in a city that demanded a youthful appearance and had the surgeons to provide it, she was a beauty to behold.

Beauty, like a double-edge sword could cut both ways. Since there was a price to pay for it, she sometimes felt that it was all right to use it to her benefit. Even though she didn't like the way she was perceived because of her looks, she could use it to her advantage if needed.

She hadn't been above batting her long eyelashes once in a while when it served her purpose. Not too long ago, she had depended on her sex appeal for survival. As a teenager, she unwittingly abused it to get Oliver's attentions.

At fifteen, Serena first noticed him when he was the captain of the Oak Hill junior varsity football team. He was handsome, tall and powerfully built. He knew it, as did the entire female population of Oak Hill High School.

The small northern Michigan town held few prospects for an intelligent and vivacious young lady like Serena. Through Oliver, she could get out of Oak Hill and fulfill her dreams to be a best-selling author, wife and mother. Only he didn't know she existed.

She did everything she could to make him aware of her affections. Finally, in the first weeks of their junior year, she boldly invited him to a Sadie Hawkins dance. He accepted and they were inseparable after that.

He showered her with attention and praise and sent her flowers using the small amount of money he made bagging groceries. Naively, she thought his willingness to wait for sex was a sign of his sincere love for her.  Her friends certainly weren't getting that kind of respect from their boyfriends.

He was the man she could spend the rest of her life loving and being loved by. She was blessed. Or so she thought.

They dated steadily the rest of their high school years. Then before graduation, Oliver signed up to join the Navy. He was going to go far from Oak Hill and take her with him. Within weeks after receiving their diplomas he left for boot camp and technical training.

Six months later he was assigned to the Naval Station at Bremerton, in Washington State. He came home to Michigan long enough to marry her, then they set out to drive across country to start a new life together.

Their first night as husband and wife was spent in a hotel in Wisconsin. He slapped her around and refused to consummate the marriage. He told her it would happen when he was ready and not a minute sooner. 

Confused, Serena looked to herself to find the answers.  Surely, he hadn't meant to hurt her.  After all he loved her. He had vowed to cherish her till death do they part.

She reasoned his behavior away, blaming it on the stress of boot camp, tech school and moving so far from home. There had to be something causing him to behave this way. She had to figure out what she was doing wrong.

Their marriage vows seemed to have wiped away all the romantic gestures he'd been heaping on her for years. No longer did she feel loved and desired. 

It had to be her fault.  What else could it be? He denied any problems with the Navy and even bragged about how quickly he was moving up in the strict military ranks.

She tried every way possible to let him know she desired him and wanted him to cherish her as a man was supposed to love his woman. 

After four months, he rolled on top of her, waking her from a dead sleep. Shocked, she let him take her innocence, even though she wasn't prepared. Pain seared through her and she whimpered as he relieved his urges in her. When spent, he rolled over and fell asleep. 

Serena cried for weeks. In her heart she knew love wasn't supposed to be hurtful.

Then again, maybe that was how life was and nobody had told her.  Her mother had died when Serena was just days old. She had no sisters to ask for advice.  Perhaps she had been living in a fantasy-land of unrealistic expectations exploited by movies, television and the kind of books Mia sent her.

Serena's father had raised her as best he knew how; but she had missed the lessons a woman imparts to her daughter. Instead, her father shared with her his deep love of astronomy, teaching her about the moon, stars and planets. He allowed her to pick a star when she was feeling the sting of not having her mother in her life. Serena imagined her mother was on that star and talked to her. He meant well but it didn't fill the gaping black hole in her heart.

He taught her to always look within herself for answers to the hard questions, but also not be afraid to look beyond herself.

Her father always made her feel loved and cherished until his death, only weeks before she married Oliver.

Serena was sure that with a husband's love and affection, Oliver would fill the void created by her father's death. It didn't turn out that way. Far from it.

Once in Washington, Oliver arranged off-base housing for them. Without her knowledge, he rented a ramshackle house an hour's drive from the base.

He took their only car to work each day, leaving her lost to the world in a dense forest.

Each night Serena begged him to take her to town or let her drive herself. Ignoring her pleas, he ate the meal she'd prepared and then watched TV for hours. He'd fall asleep on the couch with the car keys safely in his pocket. She was left to cry herself to sleep, alone in their bed.

She wanted desperately to share all the love bottled up inside her with someone. When she tried to be affectionate with Oliver he would throw it back in her face. Then he would beat her to discourage such nonsense again.

Some nights she prayed she would conceive a child. She felt selfish for such thoughts because she really didn't want a child to be raised by Oliver. Yet, her loneliness and desperation were all consuming.

It was during this time she started to write to maintain her sanity. She'd take the most horrible part of a day and turn it around to find a humorous side to it. It took discipline, which gave her a focus to get through each day. It was a skill her father had taught her and she used it to survive. It's what she'd been doing each day since, surviving. Even to this day.

Now she could see their marriage for what it was. Oliver hadn't loved her; he never did. By removing her from her hometown and sticking her in a secluded house, miles from anywhere, he had total control of her life. It still frightened her to think she'd given up control of her life to another human being. How could she ever trust herself in another relationship? The answer was simple; she couldn't.

Almost four years later he was assigned to a ship in the San Diego area. He had requested the assignment, hoping to win a place in the prestigious Navy Seals.

Once his ship put out to sea on a six-month tour, she finally had a chance to think for herself again. She'd been so lost in the world according to Oliver; it was hard for her to imagine being in control of her destiny again.

It was then she made friends with Mia, their neighbor.  Mia talked her into getting out of the marriage, and then helped her make her escape while Oliver was at sea.

It would be impossible to return to her small hometown and blend in. In Oak Hill, Oliver was still revered as the high school football star that took the team to the State Championship game for the first time, and won. Living there would mean forever having to hear gossip and rumors of their relationship.

Fear that he would come after her, to claim her once again as his own, further motivated her to stay away from a town to which she was no longer tied. Looking for a fresh start, she moved to Los Angeles where she could hide in a sea of people. Later, she changed her name in hope of forever leaving behind her old life, and everything she did to survive.

In the five years since leaving Oliver, she'd dated a few men.  If they started to be affectionate, she would back out before it could become intimate. Even worse than losing a man she cared for, would be to find out life was indeed supposed to be like it had been with Oliver. As long as no one got close enough to prove her wrong, she still had hope.

Pushing the book off the bed, she pulled a quilt from the foot of the bed over her legs. Rolling onto her side she closed her eyes, praying for sleep to find her. A nagging, primal desire burned deep within her. It called to her through the ages of time.

She refused to listen.

Her focus turned to work and what she had to accomplish the next day. It would be a full day of making coffee, copies and sucking up to the powers that be.

Miraculously, she had landed a job as an assistant writer for a new television sit-com, Grading Gavin. Tomorrow would be her first meeting with the show's sexy star.

Serena turned over and punched her pillow.

Grading Gavin was a spin-off of Raising Cain, a popular sit-com that had been on the air for ten years. The original show's plot revolved around two brothers who were orphaned when they were fifteen and eighteen. The older brother raised the younger boy, Gavin Cain.

Actor Thomas Matthews had been cast as the younger brother in the original show.  When Keith Klein, who played the older brother, refused to sign for another year, the spin-off based on Thomas' character was launched. In the new show Gavin Cain is a rookie teacher at a girls' prep school.

Living on her own the past years, Serena filled lonely evenings with television, looking forward to each new episode of Raising Cain. Her fantasies often revolved around Gavin Cain's character sweeping her off her feet and loving her the way she needed to be loved. He haunted her dreams with a familiarity, as though she'd known him her whole life.

She'd been intrigued by Thomas since she first saw him on television. He looked like the type of boy-next-door every girl wanted to grow up next door to. He was at least six feet, if not taller. His build was slim but muscular, muscular but not burly. His biceps and pectorals stretched his shirts enough to show he was no weakling. He had female hearts across the country racing, including hers.

His skin was always perfectly tanned. His brown wavy hair, always the right length to get your fingers lost in, didn't hide his classically handsome facial features. And yet, all that was almost dulled in comparison to his stunning green eyes. It was those eyes that would haunt her dreams, even when no other part of him was apparent in her unconscious mind.

Despite his physical beauty, it was always his manner that intrigued Serena the most. He had a soft, humorous way about him. If it was all acting and scripted, she had no way of knowing, although soon she'd have the opportunity to find out first hand. That is, if she could control her lustful urges long enough not to scare him off.

Serena sat up on the side of the bed and ran her fingers through her long black hair, pulling it back off her face. Her eyes were tired and dark. How was she going to be at her best tomorrow if she didn't get some sleep? She knew better than to pick up one of Mia's books. In her sheltered lifestyle, extreme boredom and nothing noteworthy on TV, she hadn't much choice left.

Despite her efforts to focus on other things, her mind kept racing back to the image of Thomas' face on a television screen.  He wasn't real, but a character in a show. She realized that. Yet, she was about to meet the flesh and blood man who was the basis of her irrational desires.

Obviously, there was no way a relationship would develop between them in real life. Surely, she wouldn't fit into the string of starlets with whom he'd been photographed over the years.

If he was the same loveable character portrayed on the show,