The grand chandelier of Blackwood Manor threw fragmented prisms of gold across the second-floor gallery, but Adrian felt only the bitter draft sweeping up from the grand foyer below.

The October rain had turned into a driving, relentless downpour that soaked through Emma’s thin slate-gray dress within seconds of clearing the wrought-iron gates of Blackwood Manor.

The wound on her knee burned like acid with every stride. Her stocking was shredded, soaked with a sickening mixture of blood and muddy rainwater, but she refused to stop. She leaned heavily against the cold limestone perimeter wall that ran along the winding mountain road, her breath coming in ragged, steaming gasps.

Down in the valley, the distant lights of upstate New York flickered through the mist like dying embers.

Behind her, the high-pitched wail of police sirens and the flashing strobe of emergency vehicles cut through the darkness, illuminating the grand, monstrous estate she had called home for two hundred and ten days.

It was all a stage, she thought, the realization tightening around her throat like a garrote. Every smile. Every sigh. Every time he let his head rest against my shoulder when he was too 'tired' to sit up.

She remembered the scent of peppermint ointment on her hands, the late-night hours spent rubbing his calves, whispering that he was strong, that he was brilliant, that the world was waiting for him to reclaim his life. And he had laid there, behind closed eyelids, secretly laughing at the naive girl who thought her devotion was curing him.

A pair of blinding xenon headlights swept through the rain from around the bend.

Tires screeched violently against the wet asphalt. A heavy, bespoke German SUV—Adrian’s armored Maybach—swerved across the double yellow lines, splashing a wave of freezing water over the curb before slamming to a halt twenty feet ahead of her.

The driver’s door flew open.

Adrian didn't have an umbrella. He didn't have his overcoat. He wore only his drenched dinner shirt, plastered to his chest by the rain, his black hair whipped into his eyes by the gale.

He ran toward her.

He ran with the terrifying, athletic speed of a predator, his strides long and powerful, completely mocking the very idea that he had ever needed an aluminum frame to cross a room.

“Emma!” his voice broke through the roar of the downpour.

Emma stopped. She didn't turn to flee; she knew she couldn't outrun him, not with her torn knee and her soaked dress. Instead, she leaned her back against the wet stone wall, pulled her chin up, and watched him approach with eyes as cold and empty as the grave.

Adrian skidded to a stop five feet from her, his chest heaving, water cascading down the sharp planes of his face. He reached out with both hands, his fingers trembling as he reached for her shoulders.

“Emma, stop. Get in the car. You’re freezing, you’re bleeding to death—look at your leg!”

“Don’t touch me, Mr. Blackwood,” she said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the thunderstorm with the terrifying finality of a guillotine blade.

Adrian’s hands froze in mid-air. He looked at her, his silver eyes wide with raw, desperate panic—a look no boardroom rival, no assassin, and no federal agent had ever seen on his face.

“Please,” Adrian begged, the word sounding alien and cracked on his tongue. “Call me Adrian. You’ve called me Adrian for seven months.”

“I called a man who needed me Adrian,” she replied, shivering violently as the icy rain plastered her dark curls to her neck. “I don't know who you are. The man who needed me was gentle. He had a soul. You’re just a ghost in a thousand-dollar suit who uses people until the market closes.”

“That isn't true!” he yelled over the thunder, closing the distance and gripping her upper arms despite her flinch. His fingers were burning hot against her freezing skin. “Emma, listen to me! I swear to you on my sister’s grave, everything with Julian and Vanessa was a war! If I had told you, they would have watched you! They had cameras in the chandeliers! They had microphones behind the wainscoting in my bedroom! If you had changed how you looked at me for five seconds, Julian would have realized I was recovering!”

“Then you should have let me go!” she cried, tears finally breaking through her stoic defense, hot and bitter against the rain. “You should have fired me! You should have told me to find a job in the city! Instead, you let me break my back for you! You let me beg Vanessa to have mercy on you! Do you have any idea how humiliating that was? Kneeling before that woman, begging her not to leave you because I thought your heart was breaking?”

Adrian’s breath hitched. A look of unbearable agony contorted his features. “Emma... I never asked you to kneel to her.”

“You didn't have to ask!” she screamed, beating her fists against his soaked chest with everything she had left. “I loved you, you arrogant bastard! I loved you when you had nothing! I loved you when the whole world called you a cripple!”

The confession hung in the freezing air between them, louder than the thunder rolling across the valley.

Adrian stood frozen under her blows, not moving an inch, absorbing the impact of her small, trembling fists as if he wished they were bullets.

Emma’s hands dropped. The last of her adrenaline drained into the mud around her shoes. Her injured knee buckled beneath her weight.

Before she could hit the asphalt, Adrian lunged forward, sweeping his powerful arms beneath her back and her knees, lifting her effortlessly against his chest.

“Put me down!” she gasped, struggling against his grip, but his arms were bands of forged steel.

“Never,” Adrian whispered into her hair, his voice breaking as he turned toward the idling SUV. “Hate me all you want, Emma. Curse my name every hour of the day. But you are going to a hospital, and you are going to be safe. Even if I have to chain myself to the foot of your bed to keep you there.”

He kicked the passenger door open, gently lowering her onto the heated leather interior, wrapping his heavy cashmere travel blanket around her shivering frame before she could push him away.

As he slammed the door shut and circled to the driver’s side, Emma leaned her head against the fogged window, staring at the distant, flashing red lights of the manor.