Bella Grey had this gnarly nightmare where she saw her dad, Lucas, all bloody and grinning at her.
“Dad! Dad!” Bella yelled, sprinting towards him. But Lucas just floated backward, like some ghostly balloon, until he vanished into a mist.
She jolted awake, heart pounding, and glanced at the clock by her bed. Today was the day Lucas was flying a private jet for the Windsor family; he should've landed by now.
With that creepy dream still fresh in her mind, Bella grabbed her phone and called Lucas. No answer.
A bad vibe hit her hard. She kept dialing, but it was like his phone was dead or something.
Thunder boomed outside. Bella stared at the rain hammering the window, feeling like her heart was getting smashed by the storm.
She didn't sleep a wink that night. The next day, she got the news: Lucas' plane had crashed.
Everyone on board, including the Windsor family, was gone.
Bella's mom had vanished when she was just a kid, and now with Lucas gone, she was an orphan. But on the day of Lucas' funeral, a kid showed up at her place.
He was a boy about her age, but he acted way older than he looked.
His name was Sterling Windsor.
The Windsor family had hired Lucas as their private pilot. Sterling's parents were on that doomed flight.
People thought Sterling took Bella in because they both lost their families. Bella thought so too, at first. But when she got to the Windsor Villa, she realized Sterling had other plans—revenge.
Rumors were flying around that Lucas had been drinking and broke a bunch of rules before the flight, causing the crash.
Bella knew her dad wasn't like that. But Sterling believed it. He kept her around just to mess with her.
Bella spent nearly ten years in that house, living like a cautious Cinderella. One tiny slip-up, and Sterling would lose it. The constant stress messed her up big time, and Sterling left a deep scar on her psyche.
At 18, in the dead of winter, Bella rode a beat-up bike, saying goodbye to her best friend, Anna Powell.
Bella's face was pale from the cold, and Anna felt bad for her. She wanted to give Bella a ride home, but Bella said no.
Bella didn't want anyone to know that the city's hottest young CEO, Sterling, had a Cinderella living in his house.
Sterling had warned her to keep their connection a secret, and Bella didn't want to stir up trouble and get punished again.
Anna watched Bella's thin figure disappear into the cold wind and sighed. Bella was gorgeous, but she was also stubborn as hell.
Fighting the freezing wind, Bella finally made it back to Sterling's villa. She parked her bike and snuck in through the back door to her damp, dark storage room that doubled as her bedroom. Just as she was about to drop her backpack and chill for a bit, the servant, Zoey Smith, grabbed her hand.