I woke up empty.

Not emotionally empty—though God knows I was that too—but physically, tangibly empty. The space beside me on rumpled sheets was cold. He'd left at some point, and I'd slept through it like the desperate, exhausted woman I was.

Moonlight filtered through heavy curtains. Enough to see my clothes scattered like casualties across expensive carpet.

Move. Now.

I slid from the bed on legs that trembled. Not from fear. From something far more embarrassing— satisfaction. My body hummed with it, traitorous and loose in ways I hadn't felt in years.

Stop it.

My trench coat lay crumpled near the door. I grabbed it, fingers shaking as I shrugged it on over skin still flushed. My other clothes—where were my clothes?

I didn't have other clothes. I'd worn nothing under this coat.

Right. That had been the plan. Seduce the lawyer. Win custody. Simple.

Except I'd seduced the wrong man. A stranger with hands like vices and a mouth that made me forget my own name.

A cheap pearl earring caught on something—the bedsheet, maybe—and the wire snapped. The fake pearl rolled somewhere into the shadows, lost forever in this stranger's room.

Like my dignity.

Like my self-respection.

Like my entire goddamn plan.

I didn't look for it. Didn't look back. Just tightened my coat and slipped out the door on bare feet, the carpet soft beneath my soles as I escaped into the hallway.

Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. I kept my head down, heart hammering against my ribs. Anyone could see me. Anyone could recognize me.

Skylar Love, former A-list actress, current cautionary tale.

My broken-down Honda waited in the parking lot like a faithful dog. I slid behind the wheel and drove home on autopilot, my mind spinning through everything that had gone wrong.

And everything that had gone right.

Stop it. The man's jaw under my fingertips. The way he'd lifted me like I weighed nothing. That mouth on my —

STOP.

The drive took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of fighting memories that made heat pool low in my belly despite everything.

My basement apartment crouched beneath a renovated Victorian, half-sunk into the earth like something trying to hide. The rent was cheap. The neighbors were quiet. The privacy was absolute—nobody expected a fallen star to end up somewhere so profoundly mediocre.

I fit right in.

The door wasn't even locked. I pushed inside, and my phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

Damon's name lit up the screen.

My ex-husband. The architect of my destruction. The man who'd taken my postpartum depression and weaponized it into a media circus that ended with me in rehab and him with custody of our daughter.

I answered anyway.

"Skylar." His voice was smooth. Pleased. "I thought you'd want to know."

"Know what?" My throat was raw. Had I been screaming last night? I couldn't remember.

"The court order. It's official." A pause, timed for maximum cruelty. "Lily's custody transfers to me at two p.m. today. My lawyer just confirmed."

My knees buckled.

I hit the concrete floor hard, cold seeping through my thin coat. The phone pressed to my ear like a lifeline, though the voice on the other end was anything but.

"Are you there, sweetheart?" Damon's tone dripped false concern. "You sound upset."

"I hired a lawyer." The words scraped out. "I was supposed to meet him last night. I had a plan—"

"Mr. Wright?" Damon laughed. The sound was ugly. "He called my office yesterday. Said you never showed.

Another missed appointment, Skylar. How many is that now?"

I'd gone to the wrong room. I'd fucked a stranger instead of the lawyer who could have saved me.

"I can explain—"

"Save it." Dismissal. Finality. "You had your chances. The judge has seen enough. Two p.m., Skylar. Don't make a scene."

The line went dead.

I sat on the freezing floor of my basement apartment, clutching a dead phone, wearing nothing but a trench coat that smelled like cedar and whiskey and sex with a stranger.

Lily.

My daughter's face materialized behind my eyelids. Dark hair like mine. Her father's eyes. A dimple in her left cheek that appeared when she smiled.

I hadn't seen her smile in six months.

My nails bit into my palms. Pain grounded me when nothing else could. Red crescents bloomed where skin met pressure.

I should cry. Every part of me ached with the need to cry—the sting behind my eyes, the tightness in my chest, the hollow feeling where my heart used to be.

But the tears wouldn't come.

They hadn't come in months. Not when the judge ruled against me. Not when the tabloids called me unstable. Not when my ex-husband's lawyers painted me as a danger to my own child.

Dry-eyed and empty, I crawled to my feet.

My reflection caught in the small bathroom mirror. Pale. Hollow-cheeked. Mascara smudged under my eyes like bruises.

Look at you. Pathetic.

My daughter was being taken from me in less than twelve hours, and I'd spent last night moaning under a stranger.

Worse—I'd enjoyed it.

Something hot and sharp sparked in my chest. Not despair this time. Something angrier.

Damon had taken everything. My career. My reputation. My daughter.

He wasn't going to win.

I moved through the tiny kitchen on autopilot. The knife block sat by the stove—a housewarming gift from better days, back when I'd had a house to warm.

I pulled out the paring knife.

Small. Sharp. Dangerous in the right hands.

My hands were shaking.

I dropped it into my purse beside my wallet and keys. The metal clinked against my phone.

If Damon wanted a fight, he'd get one.

I'd already lost everything there was to lose. What was one more desperate act from a desperate woman?

The afternoon sun was too bright as I stepped outside. My Honda waited, patient and rusting.

Two p.m. at the courthouse.

But first—a stop.

Damon's law firm occupied the top three floors of downtown's shiniest skyscraper. Glass and steel and money, all of it built on the backs of people like me who couldn't afford to fight back.

I'd been scared my whole life. Scared of failing. Scared of being forgotten. Scared of losing the people I loved.

Look where fear had gotten me.

I slid behind the wheel and started the engine.

Time to stop being scared.

The elevator doors slid open on the top floor, and I stepped out like a woman who belonged there.

I didn't, obviously.

My trench coat was wrinkled. My bare feet left faint prints on marble that probably cost more than my entire existence. The receptionist looked up from her desk, her perfect eyebrows climbing toward her hairline.

"Can I help you?"

No. Yes. Absolutely not.

I walked past her without answering. My purse bounced against my hip, the knife a comforting weight inside.

Room 1201, the file directory said. Corner office. Main conference room.

Two security guards appeared from nowhere, blocking the hallway.

"Ma'am, you need to—"

"I'm here to see my husband." The lie slipped out smooth as butter. "Well, ex-husband. He's expecting me."

They exchanged glances. Uncertainty flickered across both faces.

Damon's name carried weight here. Everyone knew who he was. Who I used to be.

That bought me exactly three seconds.

I shoved past them and ran.

My shoulder hit the conference room door at full speed. It wasn't locked. It flew open with a bang that rattled the walls, and suddenly I was standing in a room that smelled like leather and money and everything I'd lost.

Damon sat on a sleek gray sofa, one arm draped across the back, legs crossed at the ankle. Relaxed.

Confident. Next to him perched another man—fifty, balding, gut straining against his expensive suit.

Harrison Wright.

The lawyer I'd meant to seduce last night.

The lawyer who was supposed to save my daughter.

His thick fingers pressed a button on the intercom. "Security to Conference Room A. Immediately."

"No." The word ripped from my throat.

My hand dove into my purse. Metal handle, cold against my palm. I pulled out the knife and pressed it to my own neck before anyone could move.

The blade bit into skin. Not deep. Just enough to sting.

"Don't." My voice cracked. "Nobody move."

Damon's eyes narrowed. Amusement flickered in their cold depths, and I hated him for it.

"Skylar." He said my name like a parent addressing a toddler. "Put down the knife."

"Cancel the custody transfer." The words tumbled out faster than I could think. "Call the judge. Tell them you made a mistake. Tell them—"

"Or what?" Damon stood. Slow. Deliberate. "You'll kill yourself in my conference room?"

"If I have to."

He laughed.

Actually laughed.

The sound was casual. Dismissive. Like he'd seen this coming and was disappointed by the execution.

"Sweetheart." He walked toward me, hands in his pockets. "You really think this changes anything? You holding a blade to your own throat proves everything I told the court. Unstable. Irrational. Dangerous."

"Shut up."

"Where's Lily right now?" He tilted his head. "With her nanny. In my home. Safe from her mother's meltdowns."

"I'm her mother."

"Biologically." Damon stopped three feet away. Close enough that I could smell his cologne—that familiar blend of sandalwood and cruelty. "Functionally? You're a liability."

My hand trembled. The knife pressed harder. A warm trickle slid down my throat.

Blood or tears. I couldn't tell anymore.

"You took everything from me." The accusation came out strangled. "My career. My reputation. My daughter."

"You gave those things away yourself." His smile was polished, practiced. "I just helped the process along."

Harrison hadn't moved from the sofa. He watched us like a tennis match, dispassionate. Professional. This was entertainment to him.

"Mr. Wright." I turned desperate eyes toward the lawyer. "Please. I can pay you—I'll find a way—"

"You missed our appointment." His voice was flat. "I don't work with clients who can't show up on time."

"I went to the wrong room." The confession spilled out. "I made a mistake."

"Clearly."

Damon's hand shot out.

I didn't see it coming. One second the knife was against my throat. The next, my cheek exploded in pain and the blade clattered across hardwood floors.

The slap echoed through the conference room.

My face burned. My vision blurred. When I could focus again, I was on my knees, palm pressed against flooring that cost more than my pride.

"Iron." I tasted it. Copper pennies coating my tongue.

My cheek throbbed. I looked up at Harrison Wright—really looked at him—and my stomach curdled.

Fifty years old. Balding. Thick fingers. Soft jaw.

This was the man I'd planned to seduce.

This was the body I'd imagined beneath me.

A wave of nausea rolled through me. The absurdity of it all—my entire desperate plan hinged on charming this man, and I'd ended up in bed with someone else entirely.

I'd lost everything because I couldn't read a room number.

A sound. Loud. Shattering.

The conference room's frosted glass door exploded inward. Shards sprayed across the floor like diamonds, catching light from the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Security. They'd finally arrived.

But the man who stepped through the wreckage wasn't a guard.

He stood easily six-three, wrapped in a tailored charcoal suit that screamed wealth. His presence filled the room so completely that the air itself seemed to tremble. Piercing gray-blue eyes swept the scene before landing on me—kneeling, bleeding, broken—and something flickered in their depths.

Between his long fingers, he held a single cheap pearl earring.

My earring.

The one I'd lost in Room 1214.

He rolled it slowly, deliberately, gaze never leaving my face.

"Well." His voice was low, rough, laced with something I couldn't identify. "This is interesting."

I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

The stranger from last night stood five feet away, holding evidence of my mistake like a conductor's baton.

And he was looking at me like I was a puzzle he'd just decided to solve.