Page 2 of Sinful Desires
Chapter
One
“I dream. Sometimes I think that’s the only right thing to do.”
?Haruki Murakami
Scarlett
18 years old
Eight years ago
“We invested over thirty million dollars in brand development. Stylists, hair and makeup artists, producers, choreographers, fan servicing. All of it to ensure Miss Scarlett Harper would become the living, breathing legend of our century within five years.”
The applause hit like thunder, echoing off the sterile glass and steel of the boardroom. Suits lined the chairs, sipping espresso and nodding along like they hadn’t just dismantled a childhood and repackaged it for global consumption.
Thomas Jenkins, my father’s COO, clicked the remote with pride as the final slide disappeared from the screen.
I didn’t move. My chest felt tight, not from nerves or excitement, but from the familiar ache of watching another piece of myself get carved away.
They had decided everything.
Phase One: I would be the lead of a three-member group named Little Angels. A band, technically, but only in name. I would be the only face, the only voice. The others had been selected to blend in. Nothing more than set dressing.
Modern country would be our sound. All-American, polished, sweet enough to sell but just edgy enough to trend.
Red, white, and manufactured to bleed.
After three years of public adoration, Phase Two would begin: a solo career with a new sound and a new image. Scarlett Harper, reborn. I was the real act now, the real product, and they had already chosen the font for my debut album cover.
I wasn’t a person anymore; I was a pitch.
There was something almost religious about the whole thing, a gospel of profit. They rewrote my future like scripture, every detail planned in high-definition clarity. My clothes, my body, my smile, even my silence.
It had all been outlined.
This wasn’t just a career. It was a machine, a polished performance of life. And I was expected to shine through it like a diamond, cut and pressed beneath the weight of legacy.
That’s what came with the Harper name. My father didn’t just run the media, he engineered it. He didn’t follow trends. He created them.
And still, beneath the dread, there was a thrill. A curtain had lifted. A stage had opened. I could feel the electricity of it, even if the script had already been written for me.
It had started when I was sixteen.
On a cold Friday night in late October, the wind had beat at the windows, and the house smelled like cinnamon andmicrowaved popcorn. Kiara and I were buried under blankets, halfway throughThe Grincheven though Halloween had still been days away.
We had been arguing over costumes, witches or fallen angels, when our mother called us upstairs. She never raised her voice. She didn’t have to. When she used our full names, we moved.
The study was too bright, too perfect. The fireplace glowed like something from a catalog, and my father’s scotch was already half gone. He gestured for us to sit without a word.
That night, they told me it was time to choose. Not a dress. Not a major.
A future.
Two options, laid out with the elegance of a loaded gun.
Option One: an internship at Harper Media. Learn the empire, walk the path, inherit the throne.
