Lucas' Revenge

Prologue

Prologue

Everyone in America knew Samantha Miller. She was the only child of US Senator Brad Miller and former Miss America Hillary Williams—the perfect example of "the rich, famous, and powerful family of America."

Samantha Miller excelled in everything she did. She was a valedictorian at Lawrenceville High School and graduated Cum Laude with an Economics degree from Harvard University. Very impressive!

What else? She gave pride to America by reigning Miss USA and eventually bagging the Miss Universe title at the age of twenty-two. Her beautiful, smiling face was plastered on billboards, posters, magazines, buses, buildings, and TV screens in One Times Square and other commercial areas in America. She was the epitome of every American Girl. She had beauty, brain, elegance, and class. All girls envied her, and men adored her.

Samantha was thirteen years old when her older brother died due to a car accident. Their family started to fall apart because of such grief. Her father was in denial. He devoted himself to his political career, travelling to different states and just occasionally stayed at home. She was drinking alcohol and became abusive in taking sleeping pills.

Despite all of these, Samantha remained strong. She helped her parents overcome the grief of losing her brother. She maintained open communication with her parents and encouraged expression of feelings for their loss. She accompanied her mother wherever she wanted to go and spent quality time with her until she eventually recovered. After a year, their family slowly started to normalize and learned to accept their loss.

She surely also knew how to make her parents happy. She made sure to obey her parents' wishes. Her father wanted her to take up an Economics in preparation for her future political interest. She did and excelled in it with flying colors in Harvard University. Her mother aspired for her daughter to be a beauty queen just like her. So, Samantha attended a training school for beauty pageants and joined the said contest. She also did it excellently and even nailed getting the Miss Universe crown. She wanted to please her parents so much in order to have a happy family again. In short, the perfect daughter that every parent could ever have.

But every daughter has her own flaws. She made an unforgivable accusation to someone four years ago. She ruined a person's life and lived to regret it ever happened. Every single night, her conscience wouldn't let her sleep. She wanted to turn back the clock and wished she'd never ever laid eyes on Lucas Monteiro.

It happened when Samantha was eighteen and was starting to take her Economics degree at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was a freshman, and she felt strange, being in new surroundings. During the first day, she could not find her way to her first class. She was scratching her head and starting to get worried that she'd be late.

"Are you lost?"

She turned and studied the guy's appearance before answering. Not the usual guy that she saw every day but a nerdy guy in thick wool gray sweater, baggy brown cotton pants, thick-rimmed black eyeglasses, and canvas shoes. His dark brown hair was flattened to his scalp with greasy gel. He reminded her of Clark Kent, a six-footer or more.

"Yeah," she sighed, "I'm looking for Room 201, I wonder if this is it?" She pointed at the room across her.

"Let me see your schedule." He said, then studied the paper she lifted in front of his face.

"You're in the wrong building. The Department of Economics is at the other side. You can walk with me if you like. I'm on my way there."

"Oh, that's great. Thank you." She smiled, feeling so relieved.

"By the way, I'm Lucas."

"Samantha. Samantha Miller."

He glanced at her then smiled a little. "I know."