"You hate me?" he chuckled dryly. "The feeling is mutual, Ms Rivers and I plan to make you suffer sooner or later for trying to kill me. Don't worry, soon, you'll grovel before me."
"Words and threats, that's all you have, Hansel Ward. I know you're attracted to me," I said defiantly, raising my chin. "I've seen the way your eyes roam my body, and don't worry, I don't plan on running away. If I knew that vial was poison meant to kill you, I'd have gladly done so."
"If you didn't have designs on me, what were you doing in the living room dressed in that?" he gestured at my nightgown.
"Your girlfriend told me not to use any of the rooms except the toilet. She also said the sofa was off-limits. I had no choice but to lie on the floor."
His gaze hardened. "Mina is not my girlfriend, and you're free to use any room in this penthouse except the master bedroom."
"That won't be necessary," I hoisted my bag off the floor. "I'm leaving."
I heard him inhale deeply, running a hand through his already tousled hair. "It's past midnight, and a woman walking alone at night is dangerous."
"Don't worry, the street is safer than spending a night alone with you. I'll take my chances."
"I have a job for you…" He said quietly, making me stop and slowly turn around.
"A job?"
"You want to repay your mom's hospital bill. I've got a gig for you with good pay, too, but I'm too tired to explain now. I'll tell you in the morning," he gestured down the hall. "The guest bedroom is down there. Make yourself at home."
"If you weren't going to tell me about the job, then why the fuck did you mention it?" I hissed. "I won't be here when you wake up, just tell me already."
He started walking away. "If I see you in the living room again," he threw over his shoulders, "I'll take it as a sign you really do want to sleep with me."
I felt my cheek redden at his suggestion. "Bastard," I muttered under my breath and watched him saunter across the room, towards another door.
~~~
My hands trembled as I rolled my duffel bag into the guest room, my heart still pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
What the hell just happened back there?
The guest bedroom was exactly what I expected from a penthouse like this.
A king-sized bed with expensive linens, matching furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering city below.
Under different circumstances, I might have been impressed, might have stood at those windows and marvelled at how the other half lived. But right now, all I could think about was the door. I needed something against the door.
I spotted a small wooden chair by the vanity and, without thinking, I grabbed it and dragged it across the floor, wedging it tightly under the doorknob.
It wouldn't stop him if he really wanted to get in, a man like Hansel Ward probably had keys to every lock in this place, but it would slow him down at least and give me time to scream or fight or do something other than lie there while he—
No. That wasn't fair. He'd stopped when I pushed him away. He'd actually stopped.
My breath caught as flashes of what happened minutes ago flooded back. Hansel's weight on my body, that darned scent from the first night I'd met him, the way his eyes had darkened with want, not even Caleb had been that way with me.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I raised my fingers to my lips; they were still warm and swollen from his kiss, and it hadn't just been a kiss… my lower belly clenched at the thought.
"Ugh!" I groaned, throwing myself onto the bed and gripping the sheets like I could shake the memory off me.
Why had I said those words? "Love me, Hazem…"
Hazem. Not Hansel. That name had been my wake-up call. It had slipped out of me like a reflex, and it was at that moment that I realised I was almost going to fuck my enemy. But that name felt like it had lived somewhere inside me before tonight.
Where did it even come from? Why did it feel so painfully familiar when I looked into his eyes?"
I buried my face into the pillow and screamed into it. Everything inside me was tangled in humiliation and a pull I didn't understand. One moment, I wanted to slap him, and the next…I wanted him to hold me again.
What kind of fool was I?
He was a monster. No, a bastard. A cold, arrogant bastard who treated people like they were beneath him. He was the reason why my acting career came to an abrupt pause. And yet, when he kissed me…heavens! When he touched me… It felt like…
"This is insane," I whispered hoarsely, sitting up.
I sat on the edge of the bed, the sheets were cool against my overheated skin, and I found myself gripping the comforter to have something to hold onto while my mind tried to make sense of what had just happened in that living room.
Or maybe I was losing my mind. That seemed more likely, didn't it? My mother had just died. I'd lost everything in the span of a week. Maybe grief had finally broken something in my brain, made me confuse the man I was supposed to hate with someone I could actually care about.
And when I touched his face, when my fingers traced the sharp line of his jaw, it hadn't felt like the first time. It had felt like the thousandth time, like my hands knew the map of his face better than they knew the map of my own.
Heat crawled up my neck as I remembered what came after. The way he'd kissed me back like he was drowning and I was air, the desperate hunger in his touch as his hands roamed over my body.
God, the way he'd groaned when I rubbed against the hard length of him through his pants, like I'd touched something sacred. My breasts still tingled where his palms had kneaded them, and there was an ache between my thighs.
I pressed my legs together, trying to ignore the way my body was still responding to the memory of his hands on me, his mouth on my neck, his weight pressing me into the rug like he wanted to melt into my skin.
That wasn't me. That wasn't who I was.
And I should have recorded it.
If I'd been thinking straight —if I'd had my phone —I could have captured evidence of him. Next time —if there were one— I'd be ready. I'd document everything and build a pile of evidence I could use if he ever tried to throw me out, or worse.
What I needed right now was to get my phone back from him, and whatever other belongings he'd collected from me when I'd been unconscious.
And I needed to call Reese. Poor Reese, who'd tried so hard to warn me about Caleb, who'd probably been calling and texting for days, wondering if I was alive or dead.
She deserved better than this silence. She needs to know I am okay, even if "okay" was a generous description of my current situation.
I lay back against the pillows, staring at the ceiling and trying to slow my racing heart. If I concentrated, I could still smell him on my skin; that woodsy, masculine scent that had made my head spin in the club and was making it spin again now.
I hated that I'd liked it. Hated that some traitorous part of me wanted to march back out into that living room and demand he finish what we'd started, consequences be damned.
What was wrong with me? My mother had been dead for three days, and here I was thinking about sex with one of the men responsible for taking those last three days from me. The shame of it burned through my chest, mixing with the lingering arousal of Hansel Ward.
But beneath the shame, beneath the confusion and the anger and the desire, there was something else.
Something I didn't want to look at too closely because it terrified me more than anything else that had happened in this nightmare of a week.
That moment when I'd opened my eyes and seen Hansel hovering over me, when I'd felt like I'd been waiting for him my entire life, it hadn't felt new. It had felt like remembering something I'd forgotten, like waking up from a dream only to discover the dream was real and my waking life was the illusion.
We'd done this before. The thought had flitted through my mind.
I rolled onto my side, pulling a pillow against my chest and curling around it like I could squeeze the confusion out through force.
Tomorrow I'll figure this out. I'd wake up with a clear head and remember exactly why I was here and what I needed to do.
Revenge.
That's what mattered.
Making my father pay for signing Mom's death warrant, making Caleb pay for throwing me away, and making Isabella and my stepmother pay for stealing everything I'd worked for.
And yes, making Hansel Ward pay for keeping me unconscious while the most important person in my life slipped away forever.