Chapter 2

Eleanor sat rigidly in front of the brightly lit vanity mirror in her private dressing room. The makeup artist wiped a cotton pad across her eyelids, removing the heavy glitter. Eleanor stared at her own reflection. Her eyes looked dead, hollowed out by exhaustion.

The door swung open. Brenda Holloway, her manager, marched in. "We broke the box office record tonight, El!" Brenda shouted, waving a clipboard.

Brenda stopped. She noticed the tight line of Eleanor's jaw. Brenda immediately waved the makeup artist out of the room. The door clicked shut. Brenda lowered her voice. "Did Boston call again?"

"No," Eleanor lied, her voice flat. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the matte black business card, and tossed it onto the glass vanity table. The sharp clack echoed in the quiet room. She needed to change the subject.

Brenda picked up the card, flipping it over. Her eyebrows shot up. "No name? Just a number? Did you meet a psycho fan or a billionaire backstage?"

Eleanor let out a dry, humorless laugh. She quickly explained the encounter in the hallway. "He's just some spoiled trust-fund kid trying to escape a bad date. Forget it."

Her phone buzzed on the table. The screen lit up with a text from Caleb. Stuck at the studio. Mixing the new track. So sorry I missed the show, babe. Celebrate tomorrow?

Eleanor's chest squeezed. She unlocked her phone and opened Instagram out of habit. She tapped on the stories. Isla, the new pop singer Caleb had just signed, had posted a video three minutes ago. It was a boomerang of two champagne glasses clinking. But in the bottom left corner of the frame, a man's wrist was visible.

Eleanor stopped breathing. She stared at the custom Rolex Daytona on that wrist. She had bought that exact watch for Caleb last Christmas.

The blood drained from Eleanor's face. Her fingers turned ice-cold. She didn't reply to Caleb's text. She slammed the phone face-down on the glass table. "Brenda. Find out exactly where Isla is right now. Pull her schedule."

Brenda saw the murder in Eleanor's eyes. All the joking vanished from her face. She pulled out her iPad and immediately started dialing their private investigator.

Across the city, inside the penthouse suite of the Ritz-Carlton, the air was freezing. Dominic Sterling stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows. He looked down at the glittering grid of Manhattan. He held a crystal glass of neat whiskey in his right hand.

The heavy mahogany door opened. Alex Dunn, his Chief Executive Assistant, walked in. Alex held a thick leather binder. "The final risk assessment for the Silicon Valley merger, sir."

Dominic took the binder. He flipped through two pages, his eyes scanning the numbers. He tossed it onto the marble coffee table. "Get me the security footage from the backstage corridor of Madison Square Garden. From thirty minutes ago."

Alex froze. He cleared his throat nervously. "Sir, that's a public arena. Hacking their feeds without a warrant could trigger a media leak."

Dominic turned around. His dark eyes were completely unreadable, a deep, still pool that swallowed the ambient light of the room. He stared at Alex with a quiet intensity. "Do I need to teach you how to buy their entire security firm to get one video?"

Alex swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "No, sir." He pulled a heavily encrypted tablet from his briefcase. His fingers flew across the screen. He bypassed the arena's firewall in less than three minutes.

Alex handed the tablet to Dominic. The screen showed the black-and-white security feed. It played the exact moment Eleanor slipped and fell backward into Dominic's chest.

Dominic tapped the screen, zooming in. He watched the way Eleanor's muscles instantly locked up the second he touched her. He saw the violent flinch of her shoulders. It was the physical reaction of a woman who was used to defending herself.

He stared at the exhaustion and the hidden, feral sharpness in her eyes. His pulse ticked steadily against his collarbone. He looked at her like a man admiring a rare, dangerous weapon.

"Eleanor Vance," Alex read from his phone, standing at a safe distance. "Twenty-four. Currently dating her music producer, Caleb Marsh."

At the sound of Caleb's name, Dominic's jaw clenched. A dark, violent shadow crossed his eyes. The grip on his whiskey glass tightened until his knuckles turned white.

"I want Caleb Marsh's entire financial history and his private itinerary for the last six months in my inbox in ten minutes," Dominic ordered, his voice dangerously low.

"Yes, sir." Alex practically ran out of the penthouse, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Dominic sat down on the black leather sofa. He dragged his finger across the tablet screen, rewinding the video. He watched the moment Eleanor smiled at him, her hand touching his suit lapel.

He played that three-second clip over and over. His long index finger tapped a slow, rhythmic beat against the leather armrest. Thud. Thud. Thud.

He picked up his phone and dialed an unlisted number. "Start leaking photos to Caleb's rival media outlets," Dominic said into the receiver. "Make it interesting."

He hung up the phone. He lifted the crystal glass and downed the whiskey in one swallow. The alcohol burned a hot, sharp path down his throat, matching the heat in his blood.

Dominic stood up and walked to his massive oak desk. He opened his laptop. Alex's email had already arrived. The attached file contained high-resolution photos of Caleb and Isla walking into a hotel together.

Dominic stared at the screen. The corners of his mouth slowly curled upward into a long, contemplative smile. He looked at the screen with the profound, unsettling focus of a man who had just discovered something utterly fascinating.

He pressed the intercom button on his desk. "Tell the driver to bring the car around. We are flying to Los Angeles tomorrow morning. Beverly Hills."

The tablet on the coffee table paused on the final frame of the security footage. It showed Eleanor walking away. Dominic's eyes locked onto her retreating figure, burning with a sick, absolute obsession.