Chapter 1 1

The first thing Vivian felt was the jackhammer inside her skull. It wasn't a dull throb; it was a rhythmic, violent pounding that synced perfectly with the nausea rolling in her stomach. She tried to open her eyes, but the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows was an assault. She groaned, burying her face into the pillow.

Silk.

She froze. Her pillows at the penthouse were Egyptian cotton, crisp and cool. This was slippery, warm, and smelled like sandalwood and something darker, like expensive scotch and rain.

Vivian forced her eyes open. The room was vast, minimalist, and terrifyingly unfamiliar. Charcoal gray walls, abstract art that probably cost more than a small island, and a view of the Manhattan skyline that suggested she was dangerously high up.

She shifted, and the sheet slid down her chest. She looked down.

Naked.

Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the hangover fog. She scrambled backward, clutching the silk sheet to her chin, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Memories of last night were a blur of neon lights, the stinging taste of tequila, and the humiliating image of Hunter, her fiancé-no, ex-fiancé-grinding against a bottle service girl on the giant screen at their own engagement party.

A door clicked open.

Vivian flinched, pulling her knees up to her chest.

Julian Blackwood was sitting in the wingback chair in the corner of the room. He hadn't just walked out of the bathroom; he had been watching her.

He was fully dressed. An impeccable charcoal three-piece suit, a crisp white shirt that looked like it had never known a wrinkle, and a dark tie. He held a tablet in one hand, his legs crossed at the ankle. He looked clinical, detached, and utterly terrifying.

"You're loud," he said, not looking up from the screen. His voice was a deep rumble, devoid of morning grit, perfectly modulated for a boardroom execution. "And you're bleeding on my sheets."

Vivian looked down. A small scrape on her shoulder was oozing slightly. She looked back up at him, her face burning. "What... why am I here? What did you do to me?"

Julian finally looked at her. His eyes were the color of a stormy sea, cold and sharp enough to cut glass. He stood up, placing the tablet on the side table with a deliberate click. He didn't move toward the bed; he kept his distance, as if she were a contagious disease.

"You showed up at my door at three in the morning, Vivian. You were crying so hard you couldn't breathe, and you vomited in my foyer plant. I didn't 'do' anything to you except prevent you from passing out in the hallway and creating a scene that would inconvenience my neighbors."

He walked to the window, turning his back to her. "My housekeeper has already disposed of the plant."

Vivian sat there, the shame washing over her hotter than the nausea. She remembered now. The desperate need to go somewhere, anywhere that wasn't the empty apartment she shared with Hunter. And her subconscious had driven her here. To the one man who hated her more than anyone in New York.

"Get dressed," he said, staring out at the city. "You have five minutes."

Vivian's jaw tightened. She hated him. She hated how composed he was, how he looked at her like she was a stain on his immaculate floor. She spotted her clutch bag spilled on the nightstand.

She needed to regain control. This was a transaction. Everything in her life was a transaction.

She reached out, her hand trembling slightly, and grabbed her checkbook. She found a pen on the floor. With shaky strokes, she wrote out a number. Five zeros.

"Here," she said, her voice cracking. She ripped the check out and tossed it onto the mahogany nightstand. "For the... inconvenience. And for your silence."

Julian stopped. He turned slowly, his gaze landing on the check. Then, he looked at her. The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

He walked over to the bed. He was so tall, looming over her, blocking out the sun. Vivian shrank back, pressing herself into the headboard.

Julian picked up the check. He held it between two long fingers, studying it like it was a piece of trash. A cruel, humorless smile touched his lips.

"Fifty thousand dollars," he murmured. "Is that the going rate for your dignity these days, Vivian?"

"Take it," she snapped, though her lip quivered. "It's more than you deserve for playing Good Samaritan."

Julian's eyes locked onto hers. He didn't tear the check. He folded it, slowly, meticulously, into a tiny square, and flicked it back onto the bed near her hand.

"I don't want your money, Vivian. I want you gone. Your credit is no good here."

He leaned in, placing a hand on the headboard, just inches from her face. She could smell the mint of his toothpaste and the cold, metallic scent of his cologne. "And frankly, you can't afford me."

Vivian stopped breathing. His proximity was suffocating.

"Get out," Julian whispered. "Before I have security drag you out."

He straightened up, adjusted his cufflinks, and walked out of the bedroom without looking back.

Vivian let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. She scrambled out of bed, her legs wobbling. She found her dress from last night-a red Valentino gown-in a heap on the floor. The hem was torn, and it smelled like stale alcohol.

She put it on, her fingers fumbling with the zipper. She couldn't find her shoes. She didn't care.

She grabbed her bag and walked out of the bedroom. The apartment was silent. She moved quickly to the elevator, her bare feet making no sound on the cold marble. She saw no one. Julian had ensured his staff was invisible, erasing any witness to her presence.

She hit the elevator button, tapping her foot impatiently. When the doors slid open, she practically fell inside.

As the elevator descended forty floors, Vivian stared at her reflection in the polished metal doors. She looked like a disaster. Mascara smeared under her eyes, hair a rat's nest. A victim.

No. Not a victim.

She reached into her clutch and pulled out a compact and a tube of lipstick. Her hands were shaking, but she forced them to steady. She wiped the smudge from under her eyes, not to clean it, but to artfully blur it. She ran her fingers through her hair, smoothing the worst of the tangles but leaving it just disheveled enough to suggest a wild night rather than a breakdown.

If she was going to walk out of here, she would own the narrative. She wasn't the crying ex-fiancée; she was the party girl who didn't care.

The doors opened to the lobby.

Flash.

Blinding white light exploded in her face.

"Vivian! Vivian! Is it true Hunter is with the nanny?"

"Vivian, look here! Did you spend the night with Julian Blackwood?"

"Vivian! Are the rumors true about the engagement being off?"

A wall of noise hit her. There were at least twenty of them. Paparazzi. They were swarming the lobby entrance, held back only by two overwhelmed security guards.

Vivian held her bag up to her face, shielding her eyes just enough to look coy, not scared. "No comment," she whispered, pushing forward.

A camera lens bumped her shoulder. Someone stepped on the torn hem of her dress. She stumbled, gasping as her bare foot landed on something sharp on the floor.

"Back off!" a guard yelled, shoving a photographer away.

Vivian dove into the back of a waiting taxi, the door slamming shut just as a microphone hit the glass.

"Drive," she choked out to the driver. "Just drive."

She didn't look back. But if she had, she would have seen a silhouette standing in the floor-to-ceiling window of the penthouse, watching the chaos below with hands deep in his pockets.

Her phone buzzed. It was Margo, her publicist.

Don't go to the apartment. Go to the estate. It's bad, Viv. It's worse than the engagement.

Vivian stared at the screen, her thumb hovering over the cracked glass. Her stomach dropped.