Prologue

Natalia stared at the police officer standing in front of her, not believing what she had heard. It can't be true. Today was her eighteenth birthday. How could she lose everything on the day she became an adult?

"Did you hear me?" The officer asked softly.  

"Please tell me you have the wrong house. It can't be my parents. You had to have made a mistake." She answered in a whisper.  

"I'm sorry, but we confirmed it was them." Elias had been working for the Pheonix Police Department for ten years. Notifying a family that their loved ones had been killed was the worst part of the job.

"Noooooooo." Natalia fell to her knees, sobbing as the grief took over. Her parents can't be gone. They were on their way home to take her to dinner for her birthday. How was she going to go on without them?

__________

Three Years later

Natalia walked out of the auditorium with a sense of accomplishment. She had graduated at the top of her class two years early with a master's degree in business at the age of twenty-one.

She got into her car and looked in the mirror. She had long pale blonde hair and dark blue eyes. She was five foot eight with a body that men wanted and women wished for. She sighed as she turned on the car. Her looks had opened doors, but she had worked hard once they were open. Now it was time to work hard to succeed in the business world.  

When Natalia's parents were killed by a drunk driver three years ago, it was the worst day of her life. They were wealthy, and because she had no siblings or other family, all the money went to her. She didn't touch any more than she had to. She was determined to make it on her own to make them proud. 

She drove to her off-campus apartment so she could finish packing. Natalia had scored an intern position in New York. She planned to learn everything she needed know in order to start her own company. The corporation she was interning for bought companies that were failing and either liquidated or resold them for a profit.  

People hated those types of companies; they looked at them as though they were sharks. Natalia wanted to start a similar business, but her plan was to invest in the companies in trouble and become a partner to help them succeed. It was a risky way to go because she could lose a lot of money. However, she was willing to take that chance.  

As she packed up her apartment, she was eating pizza while listening to the radio when there was a knock on the door. Natalia wasn't expecting anyone, so she looked through the peephole curiously and smiled when she saw who it was. 

"What are you doing here?" She asked as she opened the door for her best friend.  

"Are you kidding? I couldn't let you spend your graduation night alone packing. I came to help you before you disappeared, and I never see you again." Cara was petite with short, curly dark brown hair and amber eyes. She and Natalia became friends on their first day of college. She still had at least another year of school before she graduated.

"Of course, you're going to see me again. There are these big things called airplanes. Maybe you've heard of them." Leaving Phoenix to go to New York was a big move, but it was one Natalia felt she needed to make. She would miss her friends and being away from everything she knew. However, she was determined to be successful and respected as a woman and a CEO.   

"You're funny. You know how it is when people graduate and say they'll keep in touch. Maybe they see each other once a year and call on holidays, but after a couple of years, they go their separate ways. Once you get to New York, you may meet the man of your dreams, get married, and start having babies." Cara made a space on the couch between boxes so she could sit down as she ate a slice of pizza. 

"You know I don't care about men. I have no desire to find love. What's love anyway? Just a way to make a woman depend on a man so he can break her heart."  

  Natalia had fallen in love during her first year of college. She was still hurting from the loss of her parents when a senior took an interest in her. She had been so lonely that she was blinded by the attention he had given her.  

  After they'd been together for a couple of months, she decided to give in to him and have sex. The same day she was planning on surprising him, she was checking her social media account, which she was rarely on. She found a post of his where he was tracking how many freshmen he could have sex with before graduation. He had logged two that day and was up to ten for the week.

  Natalia had been heartbroken and cried for several days. She broke up with him but never told him why. She was too humiliated to know that she had been just a number to him. She was only thankful for finding out what he was doing before letting him take her virginity.

  "You can't hate all men because of Jon being a pig. Many nice guys have tried to date you, but you turned them all down. Don't let that idiot ruin your life, Nat." Cara had been with several men but never got attached to any of them. She was just having fun. 

  "He didn't ruin my life. He opened my eyes. I decided at that point I was going to bury myself in my studies. I want to be respected when I make it big and don't want any low-hanging fruit to hold me back. Decisions you make in college can follow you once you get out into the real world. We see it every day. There is nothing that I've done that can come back to haunt me later." Natalia went back to packing her boxes while Cara watched her.

  They'd had this conversation many times, and Cara understood what Nat was saying, but she couldn't live like a hermit. She liked to party and enjoyed college life. Due to Natalia ignoring the other students who asked her out, rumors spread that she was sleeping with the professors to help her grades. Cara defended her when she heard people spouting those lies, but Nat told her to forget about it.  

  "Are you planning on just eating pizza, or are you going to actually help me?" Natalia looked at Cara with a smile as her friend stood up and began to pack. 

They spent most of the night packing up Natalia's apartment. Whatever she wasn't taking, they threw away. She gave the keys of her car to Cara as she wouldn't be taking it to New York, so she had signed it over to her friend. The moving truck would be there in the morning, and her flight was leaving soon afterward. When they were done, Cara was crying as she was getting ready to go. 

  "Please promise me you'll stay in touch. You're the best friend I've ever had. I love you." Natalia was crying, too, as she hugged her.

  "I promise. I love you too." After they said their final goodbyes, Natalia took a shower and went to bed. 

  The following morning she woke up and was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt when the movers arrived. Natalia gave them their instructions, then took a ride-share car to the airport. Her flight was on time, and she was early. She always flew coach because she didn't like wasting money on frivolous things like first-class seats.

When she arrived in New York, Natalia felt like the smallest fish in the sea. She had never been to the impressive city, but she knew it was where she needed to be in order to be successful. As she made her way out of the airport, she got into a taxi and gave the driver the address of the apartment in Manhattan that she had already pre-leased. It was a small one-bedroom, yet it cost four times as much as her place in Phoenix. 

  The traffic was horrific, and she rode most of the way with her eyes closed. Once they pulled up in front of her new home, she gave the driver a generous tip for getting her there in one piece.  Her legs were a little wobbly getting out of the car. 

  Her apartment was on the first floor of a large brownstone. She picked up her key from the super who lived in the basement apartment. When she opened the door, she looked around with a smile. It wasn't large by any means, but it was hers. She couldn't wait to fill it with her furniture when it arrived.   

  As she opened the window to let the warm air in, Natalia took a deep breath. She had finally made it. Now she just needed to conquer the business world until she was on top.