Laura's head spins, her encounter with Dan striking her like a ton of bricks. She can't stop thinking about the young man who is so different from everyone else she's ever met. Unsure of what to do, overwhelming emotion tests her loyalties. As a web of deception slowly weaves itself around her, Laura will have to decide just how much she is willing to risk when the reward is passion the likes of which she has never known....

Approximate Length: 8,230 words

Part 2 of a series

Laura stubbed out the remains of the cigarette, smiling at her last thought. She wondered for a moment just what she was really capable of. The paradigm had changed, and without realizing it, she had been thrust into an odd position. As she approached a new phase in her life, fresh from the trauma of loosing most of what she held dear, Laura began to understand that she would have to change. Moving forward, her new life would require a different version of herself, an iteration more interested in taking care of her own needs.

She had set those changes in motion the moment that she decided to give it all up and walk away. Laura idly wondered if later in life she would see that act as a traumatic moment, or an empowering one. Though there was no way to know, she was keenly aware of what it meant for her in the short term. Very few of the rules she had lived by applied anymore. It was strangely freeing to realize, if frightening at the same time. Her future was now solely in her hands, and no one else's.

Laura smiled as she contemplated another cigarette.