Chapter 3

The bedroom was dimly lit by a single wall sconce.

Collette's ruined dress lay discarded on the thick rug. Her skin burned wherever Hartwell touched her.

His thick arms bracketed her sides, holding his weight over her.

A drop of sweat rolled down his sharp jawline and landed right on her collarbone.

Collette arched her back, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

Right as the air grew too thin to breathe, a sharp, piercing ringtone shattered the silence.

It came from Hartwell's private phone on the nightstand.

Hartwell froze. His muscles locked up instantly.

A heavy frown pulled at his eyebrows. He looked deeply annoyed by the intrusion.

Collette thought he would ignore it. She slid her arm down, wrapping it around his waist to pull him back down.

But Hartwell turned his head. His eyes caught the name flashing on the screen.

His entire body went rigid.

He pulled away from her so fast the cold air hit Collette's bare skin like a physical blow.

He snatched the phone off the nightstand and pressed it to his ear.

"Hartwell..." Isabell Nielsen's voice leaked through the speaker. It was weak, trembling, and full of tears. "I'm so scared."

The change in Hartwell was instantaneous.

The dark, consuming lust vanished from his eyes. His voice, usually so cold and commanding, dropped into a tone Collette had never heard before.

"I'm coming. Right now," Hartwell said softly.

He stood up from the bed. He grabbed his dress shirt from the floor and shoved his arms into the sleeves.

Collette yanked the heavy duvet up to her chest.

She sat there, completely frozen, watching his hands move efficiently over the buttons. Her chest felt like it was caving in.

He didn't even look at her.

"I have an emergency. Go to sleep," Hartwell ordered, his voice back to its usual icy detachment.

Collette's fingers dug into the fabric of the blanket. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper.

"What emergency is more important than me?" she asked. Her voice shook, no matter how hard she tried to keep it steady.

Hartwell paused. His hands stopped on his cuffs.

He slowly turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were dead.

"Remember your place, Collette," he snapped. "Don't ask questions you shouldn't ask."

He turned on his heel and walked out.

The heavy oak door slammed shut behind him. The sound echoed in the massive, empty room.

Collette sat alone in the center of the bed. The sheets next to her still held his body heat.

It felt like a sick joke.

She took a sharp breath. Her throat burned, and her eyes stung, but she refused to let the tears fall.

She threw the covers off. Her bare feet hit the freezing hardwood floor.

She grabbed one of Hartwell's discarded button-down shirts and pulled it over her shoulders.

She walked out of the bedroom. The penthouse was dead silent. Marta was already asleep in the staff quarters.

The silence was suffocating.

Collette walked to the open bar in the living room. She grabbed an unopened bottle of Macallan single malt whiskey.

She didn't bother with a glass.

She twisted the cap off, tilted her head back, and let the burning liquid pour down her throat.

It felt like swallowing fire.

She carried the heavy bottle toward the glass doors and pushed them open.

She stepped out onto the open-air balcony.

The brutal Manhattan autumn wind slammed into her. She needed this. She needed the biting cold and the burning alcohol to scorch away the pathetic, soft emotions that were threatening to take root in her chest. Hartwell Lara was a weapon for her revenge, nothing more. Any warmth she felt for him was a dangerous distraction, a poison that would ruin her carefully laid plans. She drank to punish herself, to freeze her heart back into a solid block of ice so she could stay focused on destroying the Norris family.

The neon lights of the city blurred below her. She leaned her forearms against the freezing glass railing, her body violently shivering.

Her stomach cramped again, mixing with the alcohol.

Hartwell's gentle voice on the phone played on a loop in her brain.

Jealousy and raw humiliation chewed at her insides like acid.

She lifted the bottle and drank again. And again.

Her vision started to spin. Her legs lost their strength.

She stumbled toward the woven lounge chair in the corner of the balcony and collapsed onto it.

She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs in a desperate attempt to keep warm.

The whiskey bottle slipped from her numb fingers. It hit the wooden deck with a dull thud, the amber liquid spilling out into a puddle.

The wind howled, cutting right through the thin cotton shirt.

Collette's consciousness faded into black. Her body temperature began to spike dangerously high.

As the sky slowly turned gray with dawn, she lay completely motionless on the freezing balcony.