Chapter 3

Somewhere in the hazy space between wakefulness and sleep, heavy arms wrapped around me, pulling my back flush against a hard chest.

A large, warm hand rhythmically patted my shoulder. A deep, gravelly voice murmured the broken fragments of a bedtime story against my ear.

Then warm, whiskey-rough lips pressed to mine.

I jolted awake, every nerve in my body snapping sharp and raw.

Hayes Holt.

How long had it been since he’d stepped foot inside my bedroom after dark?

Before I could gather my wits and push him away, he groaned, deep and slurred, right against my mouth. “Josie…”

Ice shot straight through my veins. I twisted hard, shoving at his chest, but he only growled in faint annoyance and pulled me closer, kissing me harder, his hand drifting lower, past the hem of my silk nightgown.

“Hayes.” My voice was cold. “Open your eyes. It’s me, Hazel.”

He froze. Every muscle in his body went rigid, as if the name had doused him in ice water. Then he reared back, pressing a hand hard to his temple like he was fighting a migraine, blinking rapidly to clear the alcohol fog.

He was just about to push himself off the bed when the door slammed open.

Josie stood framed in the doorway, one hand pressed to her chest in perfect, theatrical horror. “Hayes! How could you?”

She swept into the room, her glare skipping right past him to pin me where I sat propped against the headboard. “Tell me she came on to you. Tell me she threw herself at you, didn’t she?”

Hayes’s jaw tightened, a faint, weary frown pulling at his brows. “I was drunk. I mistook her for you.”

He swung his legs over the edge of the mattress, his tone final. “I’ll arrange for her to move into one of the uptown properties. This won’t happen again.”

Satisfaction smoothed Josie’s features. She glided to his side and slipped her arm through his, tucking herself against his shoulder like the devoted fiancée. “Come on. Let’s get you to your room.”

I stared at their backs as they walked out together, the door clicking softly shut behind them. I lifted a hand to my neck, my fingers brushing the faint, bruising mark his mouth had left just below my jawline.

Absurd. That was the only word for the whole rotten mess.

I didn’t sleep another wink that night.

It was barely past dawn when sharp, purposeful knocks rapped at my bedroom door.

Josie swept in without waiting for an answer, all polished smiles and thinly veiled malice, her designer heels clicking sharp against the marble floor.

“Until we find you a permanent place to settle, Hayes and I will be moving out to the Greenwich townhouse,” she said, perching on the edge of my vanity like she owned every inch of the room.

Her eyes flicked down, zeroing in on the kiss mark on my neck, and her lips curled into a cold, private smile. She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a venomous purr right in my ear.

“You’d better bury that little filthy obsession of yours for good. Unless you want to find out exactly what happens to girls who try to steal what’s mine.”

“What’s going on in here?”

Hayes stood in the doorway, his tie loose around his neck, his face still shadowed with last night’s hangover.

Josie was at my side in an instant, her hand wrapping warmly around my wrist like we were old friends.

“Hayes, I was just telling her about us staying in the townhouse for a while. I hate the thought of her here all alone in this great big penthouse.”

“She’s a grown woman,” Hayes said, his dark eyes fixed steadily on me. “She’ll manage.”

For a split second, I was eight years old again—fresh out of the foster system, small and scared, sobbing into my pillows at night because I was convinced he’d get tired of me and send me back.

Back then, he’d canceled billion-dollar board meetings and flown home overnight from Tokyo just to sit on my bed and read to me until I stopped crying. Back then, he’d held me like I was the most precious thing he owned.

Then he’d realized what I felt for him. And little by little, he’d closed himself off.

A bitter, humorless laugh tugged at the corner of my mouth.

“You don’t have to rearrange your whole life for this. This is your home. Always has been.” My voice was steady, polite, completely detached. “I’ll find a place and move out as soon as I can. I… appreciate everything you’ve done for me all these years. I shouldn’t keep imposing on you, Dad.”

Dad.

I’d barely spoken the word out loud in years.

Something flickered across Hayes’s face—something dark and unreadable, gone so fast I almost thought I’d imagined it.

Then his phone buzzed sharply in his suit pocket.

He fished it out, answered it, and listened in silence. And as he listened, his face hardened, his jaw tightening until the muscle there flexed, cold and angry.

He hung up slowly, never taking his eyes off me.

“What exactly have you done?”