www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Chances Are is sincerely dedicated

       to the wonderful young women and their

       children who I had the pleasure of working

       with in a setting very much like Chances,

       and who provided the inspiration for this

       story. I think of you all often, and wish you all

       continued success and many blessings.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Epilogue

      Prologue

      Fear, such as she’d never known, rose along her flesh like prickly heat then spread mercilessly through her slender seventeen-year-old frame. Every limb ached, partly from the uncontrollable tremors that rocked her, but mostly from the vicious beating inflicted upon her by her father—with the two-inch thick, black leather strap that he used to sharpen his razor—even as he prayed to God for forgiveness, and tears of remorse coursed down his tortured cheeks. If her mother hadn’t finally pulled him off her, she was certain she’d be dead.

      Cowering in the farthest corner of her bed, eyes swollen, throat raw from crying, she jumped at the sound of breaking glass and raised voices from the floor below. Her parents had been screaming and yelling at each other for what seemed an eternity. And it was all her fault. Her fault.

      Oh, God, what would she give to turn back the clock, use her head and remember all the lessons that had been drilled into her over the years? How could she ever face her mother again and not feel her shame, or face her father and not feel worthless and dirty? She didn’t know if she ever could.

      Fresh tears coursed down Dione’s cheeks, surprising her. She was sure she’d had no more tears to shed. And then, suddenly, the three-story brownstone on Madison Street, grew silent, which was more frightening than the noise.

      She sat up in the bed, listening. The front door slammed, rocking the house. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs. They were light. Her mother.

      The door opened and her mother stepped into the dimness of the frilly, but precisely ordered bedroom. Margaret Williams didn’t say a word, but went straight to Dione’s closet, took out a suitcase and began pulling clothes off hangers then out of drawers, stuffing them inside.

      Dione watched in silence, her horror mounting with each breath she took.

      Her mother snapped the suitcase shut and turned toward her daughter, unable or unwilling to meet Dione’s pleading eyes. She reached into the pocket of her pale peach robe, pulled out a thick, white envelope and handed it to Dione.

      “You have to leave. Now. Your father doesn’t want you here when he gets back.”

      Dione’s eyes widened in terror, her stomach lurched and seemed to rise to her chest. “Mommy, please! Don’t let him do this to me.”

      “There’s nothing I can do. I can’t go against your father. I can’t.”

      “Where can I go? What will I do?”

      “You should have thought about that before—” Her voice broke. She turned away and walked toward the door.

      “Ma, please! Please!” Dione scurried to the end of the bed and went after her mother, wrapping her arms around her mother’s stiff body. “You can’t let Daddy put me out,” she begged as tears streamed down her face. “I have nowhere to go. I’ll do anything. Hide me,” she begged in desperation. “Please—”

      She felt her mother’s body tremble as she struggled to contain her sobs. “Don’t be here when he gets back, Dione. For your own sake. I don’t know if I can stop him if he goes after you again.”

      Dione dropped her arms to her sides, feeling as if the life had been sucked from her and she wished, at that moment, that her father had killed her, because it had to be better than this.

      “There’s enough money in the envelope to last you awhile.”

      “And then what?” she choked. “What’s going to happen to me when the money runs out? How can you let him do this to me? Do you even care?” she screamed at her mother’s back.

      Her mother took a breath and walked out, shutting the door and her daughter out of her life.

      Through clouded, tear-filled eyes, Dione stared at the closed door and vowed from that night forward that no door would ever be closed to her again.

      Chapter 1

      Eighteen years later

      Dione Williams sat in her small, but neat, afrocentric office, located on the basement level of the four-story brownstone she’d purchased five years earlier in the Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. Laid out from end to end on the gray metal table she used for a desk—purchased at a discount city auction—were utility bills, invoices from vendors, taxes due and another pile of rejection letters for the three proposals she’d written for additional funding.

      She rubbed a hand across her forehead, then began to massage her temples with the balls of her thumbs.

      Chances Are was in trouble. Serious trouble, and according to her accountant if she didn’t secure a solid influx of capital within the next four to six months, the ten teen mothers and their babies who’d come to live at the reconverted residence and who depended on her for their survival would be put out onto the street, and her staff would be out of jobs.

      All around her, she felt the doors closing, and that old fear underscored by more than a decade of anger resurfaced like a swimmer gasping above the water for air. She looked up and out of the small basement window, catching a glimpse of the near-barren trees, the branches reaching out at her, begging for her help and the grass that was turning a honey