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Page 54

| "Please don't hurt me," Bianca begged, tears pooling in her eyes as she wiped the blood from her face with the back of a hand. "You know I do what I do so that I can exist. Mama lives a nomadic life with our people. I do not know who my Papa is so I cannot ask him to help me. It is only myself that I must depend on to put food in my mouth and clothes on my back!" |

| "That's going to change," Stanford said, picking up her meager cotton dress and thrusting it into her arms. "Get dressed. You're going with me." |

| Bianca's breath was stolen in her throat, fear spiraling through her. "You take me away?" she said, her voice lilting. "Where to?" |

| "Anything is better than this hellhole," Stanford grumbled, grabbing more of her clothes and thrusting them into a valise he found under the bed. |

| "I'm not sure if I want to go," Bianca said, clutching her clothes to her chest as she cowered away from Stanford. |

| Then she felt something grab her at her heart when another thought came to her. She was pregnant. If she did not cooperate with him he might beat her and make her lose her child. At this moment, her child was the only thing that gave her a reason to live! Giving a child life would be the first time she had ever done anything decent in her own life. |

| Stanford's face reddened as anger flared within him. "Let me give you cause to want to go with me," he said. He cupped her face between his hands and lowered his mouth to her lips. "I'll give you all the lovin' you need without having to be pestered by all |

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