Chapter 1

Stephanie held the facecloth under the cold water and immediately noticed her hands were trembling violently. She quickly turned off the tap and pushing back the lump in her throat, she glanced up as she wrung the wet cotton material. She caught her reflection in the mirror. The angry red welt on her cheek was a stark contrast to the paleness of her skin. Pressing the cool cloth against the mark, she bit down on the corner of her lip in an attempt to stop the tears. Crying would only anger him further and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Hearing the movement in the room next door, Stephanie squeezed her eyes shut. She felt her heart ache knowing it hadn't always been like this. There had been a time not so long ago when their lives had seemed practically perfect. They had married over a year ago after meeting at the office. Jonathan was a successful corporate lawyer who handled quite a few legal affairs for the Word Wrestling Federation. She had been an intern learning the ropes and working alongside her father. In fact, that was how they had met. She had sat in on a few of the negotiations between Jonathan and the board. At the end of one particular meeting, he had approached her and asked her for a drink. She had said yes and that drink had led to another date which had led to marriage less than one year later. They had been blissfully happy or at least they had been for the first ten months or so.

The first time he struck her had been after a dinner they had attended for one of Jonathan's partners. Everything had seemed fine. She had spent a lot of time talking to Richard, another partner of the firm. She hadn't thought her husband minded. After all, he was in deep discussions with two of the men at the end of the table and had barely noticed her all night. But she had obviously been mistaken to think that way which had been blatantly apparent when they had gotten home that night. Jonathan had thrown her against the wall and holding her by the throat, he asked her if she was screwing Richard behind his back. She had been in total shock and had only managed to shake her head to deny it. He must have seen the terror in her eyes because he quickly let her go and apologised profusely promising her he would never touch her again. But he had on several occasions whenever he felt she had "stepped out of line". Tonight had been the worst beating so far. She had made the mistake of forgetting to tell Jonathan she would be late home that night. She had attended the birthday celebration for one of her father's secretaries, Janet. When she had returned home a little after nine, her husband had been waiting for her. His hard eyes had been filled with fury and without even waiting for any sort of explanation he had lashed out striking her across the face.

"Stephanie, aren't you coming to bed?"

She winced at the sound of his controlling voice through the locked wooden door. The thought of being anywhere near him turned her stomach but she knew what would happen if she stayed in the bathroom any longer. She stood up slowly and placed the cloth on top of the basin. She then let out a calming breath pushing back her sorrow as she walked through to the bedroom.

Jonathan was already in bed. His piercing green eyes watched her as she pulled back the covers and got in beside him. She avoided his gaze as she leant across to switch off the small lamp but he immediately reached out to stop her.

"Leave it on."

She tried not to scream as his fingers lightly grazed over her skin. His touch physically repulsed her knowing what was coming but she knew better than to refuse his advances. His eyes fell upon her face and for a brief moment, she thought she could see a trace of remorse. But it was gone as quickly as it had appeared and she was sure she had only imagined it.

"You know I don't want to hurt you, don't you?"

She blinked back the fresh tears that threatened to fall as she nodded her head knowing that agreeing with her husband was the only way to survive.

"But I have to do it, Stephanie. I have to make you see that I come first in your life. You belong to me."

She squeezed her eyes shut as his lips descended on hers. His hand reached under her satin nightdress making her skin crawl.

"Tell me you love me." he demanded.

Stephanie knew better than to refuse him and hissed between her teeth feeling her stomach lurch as his fingers invaded her wet heat. "I love you."

As his mouth crashed against hers, she felt the tears burn behind her eyelids. But she was determined not to let him beat her; he wasn't going to make her cry. Instead she did what she needed to do to get through this. Stephanie let her mind drift back to a time when she had been happy. A time when their love had been so strong and true that she thought no-one or nothing could touch them. And a time when she hadn't woken up every morning wondering what had happened to her life and how the hell it had come to this.

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"Well I hope Daddy's little girl appreciates everything you've done for her."

Paul rolled his eyes hearing the venom in his girlfriend's voice as she continued with her rant about Stephanie. God knows it seemed to be her favourite past time today although he didn't understand why. Okay, he'd had to make the script revisions on his own but why did she have to make it out to be such a big deal? Stephanie wouldn't have asked him to do it if she hadn't been sick and unable to work on them herself.

But as per usual Joanie just wanted something to bitch about and it was no surprise that her bitching was directed at Stephanie. She had developed this huge chip on her shoulder about their storyline together and quite frankly, he was getting sick and tired of it. And the ironic thing was Joanie had been the one who had encouraged him to do the storyline in the first place. She had told him it had been his big chance to get to the top. To prove to himself and everyone else that Paul Levesque could carry the business that he loved so passionately. And so far, he felt proud knowing he had succeeded doing just that. Everything was going really well. Ratings were good and Vince seemed to be more than happy with how things had panned out.

But of course, he couldn't take all the credit for that. Stephanie had played a huge part in their success and had really come into her own the last month or so. It had been a nice surprise because he would be the first to admit that he had been more than a little dubious about entering into this storyline with her. After all, back then he had known absolutely nothing about her apart from the fact she was Vince McMahon's daughter. They had barely exchanged pleasantries in the hallway in the last few years that he had been with the company. But over the last couple of months they had worked together closely and he had been more than impressed by Stephanie. She was keen and enthusiastic and worked extremely hard, probably harder than anyone backstage with the exception of Vince himself. It was also nice to be alongside someone who loved the business every bit as much as he did and was so passionate about everything. He had been surprised to find that he really enjoyed working with her and showing her the ropes.

"I'm surprised she hasn't clicked her fingers and summoned you to her dressing room by now."

Paul looked up to see Joanie standing with her hands on her hips with her scowl only emphasising her obvious pissed off expression. He sighed as he pushed back his hair with his hands and frowned at her.

"Stop being such a bitch, Joan. Steph and I work with one another. You know we have to spend a lot of time together."

"Yeah but not every single minute of every god damn day! You spend so much time with her I hardly even see you any more."

"That's not true and you know it."

"Do I?"

Joanie sighed sadly and sat down beside him on the bench, their shoulders brushing together as she nudged closer to him. But no matter how close she got, she knew it couldn't stop this huge space she could feel growing between them. She and Paul were drifting apart and it was all thanks to the little princess and their damn storyline together. Paul was completely oblivious of course. He always was. He just couldn't see what all the late night meetings and phone calls were doing to their relationship. Or maybe he did see and he honestly didn't care any more. After all, he was so wrapped up in the WWF that he was probably quite happy to be spending every hour of every day working. His career was like an obsession to him; an obsession that slowly was taking over his life leaving room for little else, including her. She could feel him slipping away and she felt powerless to stop it. She wasn't a priority to him, not any more.

As Joanie glanced across the room, Paul saw the sad expression on her face and felt a pang of guilt in his chest. His lips rolled together in silent contemplation knowing that although he had denied it, they did to spend more time together. He knew he had neglected her the last couple of days but it hadn't been intentional on his part. It was just that he had been so busy revising the script that he had very little time for anything else. But he would have to make it up to her especially if he didn't want the cold shoulder the next couple of days. He just couldn't handle the tension between them and he never could.

Letting his lips curve up gently, Paul reached across and squeezed her leg affectionately. "Look, how about I take you to dinner after the show? We can spend some time together then."

Joanie's brow furrowed as her eyes glared back at him. "And are you sure the princess won't have other plans?"

He tried to ignore her biting tone as he did his best to smooth things over between them.

"I'll cancel them if she does." he told her.

Joanie nodded her head. She seemed satisfied, well at least for now. Paul kissed her briefly before standing up and picking up the script from the table.

"I'd better go and try to catch up with Stephanie before the production meeting starts. I'll need to run over the changes I made to the script."

As Paul gathered his things together, he deliberately ignored his girlfriend's scowl as he turned round and left the dressing room. He certainly wasn't hanging around for yet another argument and God knows they'd had enough of those the last few weeks.

As the door clicked shut behind him, Paul's head was bowed but it lifted as he heard the sound of her familiar laughter. Stephanie was down the bottom end of the corridor talking to her father. He began to walk towards them absently flicking the pages of the scripts in his hand.

"Paul! We were just talking about you." Vince smiled as he approached and affectionately slapped him on the back. "Steph was telling me you're looking forward to your match at the Rumble."

"Yeah." he beamed back enthusiastically. "I reckon if we pull this off, Foley and I are going to make history on a whole lot of levels."

Stephanie shook her head at the huge grin plastered on Paul's face as he discussed the match with her father. His eyes were bright and animated. Only Paul could get so enthusiastic at the thought of getting battered and bloody at the hands of some barbed wire. The guy was totally nuts when it came to wrestling and reminded of her of an excited big kid every time he talked about his matches.

"Well, I'll leave the pair of you to it. I'll see you at the meeting in an hour."

Vince waved farewell and made his way towards the group of wrestlers standing by the curtain. Stephanie's blue eyes followed him until the sound of Paul's voice got her attention.

"So, you don't look very ill. I'm thinking you used being sick as an excuse to take the weekend off."

His brown eyes twinkled back at her as he grinned at her mischievously. She shook her head and smiled at him.

"I might have known I wouldn't get any sympathy out of you."

Paul chuckled and she tried to ignore the guilt she felt at leaving him in the lurch the way that she did. After all, it had been her idea to fly out a day early and work on the script yesterday. But there was no way she could have made it. Not with the yellow bruising still evident on her cheek. It would have raised far too many questions, questions she was just far too ashamed to face. She just thanked God the bruise had faded considerably over the last forty eight hours because there was no way she could have missed the show and thanks to the wonders of makeup, no-one would ever suspect the truth.

"So I made quite a few changes to the script. I thought we could go over them before the meeting."

"Sure." she nodded. "But only if it involves coffee and a muffin."

"Of course. Because God help us all if the princess doesn't get her caffeine." Paul winked at her as he took her by the arm and led her down the corridor, her heels clicking rhythmically against the concrete floor.

"You know, you're lucky I like working with you, Levesque otherwise you'd be jobbing to the likes of Test and Albert."

"Yeah well it is threats like that that will get you into trouble."

Stephanie snorted and nudged him playfully as they entered the catering area. "And how exactly would you plan to do that?"

"We have to kiss tonight, Steph. If you don't watch your step, I might slip you the tongue."

She heard him snicker to himself as he grabbed a bottle of water. Stephanie shook her head. She could always rely on him to lower the tone of the conversation. She poured herself a coffee and as she looked up, she saw Paul already had her usual banana muffin in his hand. She smiled to herself as she followed him back to the table.

"So, we've got three backstage scenes tonight as well as the match. Most of the changes I've made are in the last one."

As Paul flicked through the pages of the script, she smiled to herself and for the first time in four days, she felt a huge weight being lifted from her shoulders. A sense of freedom she hadn't been able to find sitting at home. She had felt stifled and alone. She was so glad she had flown out today. Work was providing a welcome distraction and she was able to forget the fear and the pain if only for a little while. Of course she knew all too soon Wednesday would come and the harsh reality of her life would come crashing down. But until then she would try and maintain the pretence that everything was fine. She had to. She simply had no other choice.