Chapter 3 3

The black town car slowed to a halt on the shoulder of Montauk Highway. The driver didn't even turn his head.

"This is as far as I go, Miss Sterling," he said.

Vanessa stepped out into the gravel, the wind whipping her hair across her face. The car sped off, leaving her in a cloud of dust. It was a calculated humiliation. Richard wanted her to arrive broken, sweaty, and desperate.

She pulled her phone out. A text from Serena, her cousin: Saw the pics of Caleb and Bea. You look pathetic, V. Just give it up.

Attached was a screenshot from a gossip site. A photo of Caleb and Beatrice leaving a club at 2 AM, looking glamorous and untroubled. The headline read: Montgomery Heir Finally Moving On?

Vanessa locked the screen. Her reflection in the dark glass looked ghostly. Pale skin, dark circles under her eyes. She popped a Xanax from the prescription bottle she kept in her pocket-the one Eleanor insisted she needed. She dry-swallowed it, her body barely registering the chemical anymore.

She closed her eyes and thought about the stranger in the elevator. The way his hand had felt on her waist. Possessive. Heavy.

Who was he?

She hadn't asked his name. He hadn't asked hers. But he had paid her mother's medical bills. That wasn't a transaction; it was a statement.

She started walking. The Sapphire Resort was two miles away.

By the time the gates of the resort came into view, her feet were blistered. She was sweating in her trench coat.

She walked into the lobby. It was a cathedral of glass and white marble. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling, dripping crystals.

The receptionist looked up. Her smile faltered when she saw Vanessa's windblown hair and travel-worn clothes.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm here to see Caleb Montgomery," Vanessa said. "I'm his fiancée."

The receptionist's eyebrows shot up. She typed something into her computer. "Mr. Montgomery is in the VIP bungalow. But he didn't leave a name at the front desk for a guest key."

Of course he didn't.

"I just need a room," Vanessa said, sliding her own credit card-the one with a limit of five hundred dollars-across the counter. "Any room."

The receptionist looked at the card with disdain. "We are fully booked, except for a service room in the annex. It's... small."

"I'll take it."

Vanessa took the key card. She didn't go to the room. She couldn't. If she stopped moving, she would collapse. She needed to get this over with.

She navigated through the resort, following the sound of bass-heavy music. The main pool area was transformed into a nightclub. Blue lights, white cabanas, models in bikinis holding champagne flutes.

She scanned the crowd. Caleb wouldn't be in the open. He would be somewhere exclusive.

She found him in a semi-private cabana, draped in sheer white curtains. He was wearing a white linen suit, holding court. Beatrice was on his lap, shielded from the general public but visible enough to anyone looking.

Vanessa stood in the shadows of a pergola, watching them. The humiliation was a cold stone in her gut. She was supposed to walk up there and apologize? Apologize for catching him cheating?

She took a step back, intending to turn around, to find a bathroom where she could splash water on her face.

She turned too quickly.

She slammed straight into a solid wall of a chest.

The impact knocked the breath out of her. A glass of red wine, held by the man she had collided with, tipped over. The dark liquid splashed across the front of his pristine, charcoal-gray suit.

Vanessa gasped. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry. I..."

She looked up.

The apology died in her throat.

Storm-cloud gray eyes looked down at her. The same sharp jaw. The same terrifying stillness.

It was him. The man from the elevator.

The air around them seemed to freeze. Two large men in earpieces stepped forward from behind him, their hands moving inside their jackets.

"Mr. Blackwood," one of the guards said, his voice low and urgent.

Blackwood.

The name hit Vanessa harder than the collision. Julian Blackwood. The Wolf of Wall Street. The man who bought companies just to dismantle them for sport. The man who was rumored to have no heart, only a calculator where it should be.

She had slept with Julian Blackwood.

She had slept with Beatrice's cousin.

The blood drained from her face so fast she swayed.

Julian held up a hand, stopping his security detail. He didn't look at the stain on his shirt. He looked only at her. His gaze was intense, stripping away her defenses layer by layer.

"You have a habit of running into things, Miss Sterling," he said. His voice was low, a velvet rasp that made the hair on her arms stand up.

He knew her name. He had always known.

"I... I didn't know," she stammered. "I'll pay for the cleaning. I..."

"You can't afford this suit," he said simply. His tone wasn't insulting; it was a cold assessment of her current financial reality, one he seemed intimately aware of.

He took a step closer, invading her personal space just like he had in the elevator. He smelled the same. Rain and cedar.

"You look like you're about to faint," he observed.

"I'm fine," she lied.

"You're a terrible liar." He glanced over her shoulder, toward the VIP cabana where Caleb was still laughing. His expression darkened. "Is that why you're here? For him?"

Vanessa looked down. "I have to apologize."

"Apologize?" Julian repeated. The word sounded foreign in his mouth. "For what?"

"For making a scene," she whispered.

Julian let out a short, harsh sound. He reached out, his hand hovering near her elbow, but he didn't touch her. Not here. Not in public.

"Come with me," he ordered.

"I can't. Caleb..."

"Caleb is a boy," Julian said, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "And right now, you owe me a shirt. Walk."

He turned and walked toward the private exit of the pool area. He didn't look back to see if she was following. He knew she would.