Her mind was a bonfire of broken images and raw sensation. The drug had burned away reason, leaving only instinct.

She couldn't see his face clearly. He was just a shape, a presence, a source of warmth and strength in the cold, terrifying water. He was the anchor. He was safety.

She pressed closer, her feverish cheek finding the cool, wet skin of his neck. It felt good. Solid. Her arms tightened their grip, molding her body to his, trying to absorb his heat, his stability.

And then, from the depths of her shattered consciousness, a name surfaced. A name tied to a desperate, twisted need for comfort, for the fantasy of what should have been.

"Kason..."

The name left her lips as a soft, breathless sigh.

It was like throwing a switch.

The warmth in his body vanished, replaced by something arctic. The arm around her waist, which had been a firm brace, became a vise. The pressure was sudden, painful. It felt like his fingers were digging into her bones.

His eyes, which had been dark with a complex mix of concern and desire, were now just... black. Empty voids of fury.

"Who did you just say?" he bit out, the words low and serrated, as if dragged over broken glass.

Eleanora was lost in her hallucination. She was being held, rescued. This was how it was supposed to feel. She didn't register the danger, only the drug-induced mirage of tenderness.

She murmured the name again, "Kason," and, tilting her head up, she tried to find his mouth with hers.

That was the final transgression.

It was the one thing he could not, would not, tolerate.

A sound that was half laugh, half snarl, ripped from his throat. It was the sound of something primal and possessive being violated.

He shoved her away.

There was no warning. One moment she was clinging to him, the next she was airborne, her body a weightless, helpless arc in the dim light.

She hit the water hard.

The cold was a brutal slap, a punishment. It rushed into her mouth, her nose, shocking her system. The violent coughing that followed was agonizing, but it was a pinprick of reality in the fog.

The chill was a predator, sinking its teeth into her skin, a stark contrast to the fire still burning in her veins.

Horace stood a few feet away, the water swirling around his waist. His chest rose and fell in harsh, ragged breaths. He didn't move to help her. He just watched, his face a mask of cold fury, like a god judging a sinner.

She clawed at the water, her nails finding nothing. The combination of extreme heat and cold was a unique form of torture. A low, wounded whimper escaped her lips, the sound of an animal in a trap. Tears, hot and useless, streamed down her face, mixing with the pool water.

She managed to get her head above the surface, gasping for air, wiping the water from her eyes.

The dim, blue underwater lights of the pool cast an eerie glow. Her vision, for the first time in an hour, started to clear. The fuzzy silhouette sharpened into hard lines and cruel angles.

Her blood ran cold.

That wasn't Kason.

That wasn't the face of the man who had betrayed her. It was the face of the man who had warned her. The face from the newspaper clippings. The face that had stared down at her in the elevator with such unnerving intensity.

It was Horace.

The recognition was an electric shock. It jolted through her spine, overriding the drug. Fear, pure and undiluted, took over.

She turned, scrambling, swimming desperately for the edge of the pool. For escape.

He moved.

With long, powerful strides, he cut through the water, the ripples of his advance reaching her first. He was a shark, and she was bleeding. He blocked her path to the steps, a solid wall of muscle and menace.

Her fingers were inches from the tiled edge when his hand closed around her ankle.

It was a manacle of flesh and bone.

He yanked.

She was dragged backward, away from safety, back into the deep, back to him.

He dragged her through the water until she was directly in front of him, her body forced to tilt back, her face turned up to his.

His eyes were black holes, swallowing the dim light of the room. They burned with an intensity that felt like it was physically searing her skin.

"Horace," she choked out, the name a plea, a prayer, a surrender.

Hearing his own name seemed to do something to him. The raw violence in his gaze didn't disappear, but it shifted, condensing into something darker, more focused. More possessive.

His hand moved from her ankle to her chin, his fingers clamping down like a steel trap. It wasn't a caress. It was a claim.

"So you do know who I am," he rasped, his voice a low threat. "Then you know I'm not my pathetic nephew."

Tears streamed from her eyes, mixing with the water on her face. The last dregs of the drug left her body weak, her limbs heavy and unresponsive. She had no fight left.

She tried to push against his chest, a feeble, desperate gesture. "Please," she sobbed. "I want to go home."

He laughed, a cold, humorless sound. "You broke into my suite. You threw yourself in my pool. You kissed me," he paused, leaning closer, his breath a hot ghost against her lips, "and you called me another man's name. You don't get to go home."

In one fluid, brutal motion, he hooked an arm under her knees and lifted her from the water.

She was nothing against his strength. A doll. She hung in his arms, soaked and shivering, the ruined dress clinging to her like a second skin.

Water dripped from them, pooling on the priceless Persian rug as he strode from the pool area into the cavernous bedroom. The city lights of Manhattan glittered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, indifferent witnesses.

He tossed her onto the massive bed.

The silk sheets were cool against her overheated skin. She landed with a soft thud and immediately tried to scramble away, to crawl to the other side.

His foot came down on the hem of her wet dress, pinning her in place.

She froze, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she thought it might break.

Slowly, deliberately, he reached up and undid his tie, pulling the silk strip from his collar with a soft hiss. His eyes never left hers. They were dark, stormy, full of a terrifying promise.

"Since he didn't want you," he said, his voice dangerously soft, "I'll be happy to take his place."

"No," she whispered, shaking her head, the movement frantic. "No, please, don't."

Her pleas were meaningless. Her resistance was a joke. He was a force of nature, and she was just a girl who had been foolish enough to get caught in the storm.

He came down over her, his body a heavy, suffocating weight. He blocked out the light, the city, the world. There was only him. His scent of cedar and smoke and pool water. His terrifying strength.

A strange, horrifying mix of pain and sensation shot through her. She couldn't tell if she was hot or cold, if the shivers wracking her body were from fear or the drug or him.

She bit down on her own lip, hard. The sharp, coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. It was the only thing that felt real.

Outside, the city glowed, a million tiny lights forming a beautiful, cruel backdrop to the ugliest moment of her life. Every touch was a brand, a mark of ownership. A punishment.

Her vision blurred, the glittering lights of the skyline smearing into streaks. Her consciousness, battered by the drug, the betrayal, and now this, began to fray at the edges.

She closed her eyes, a final act of surrender. She let the darkness, the humiliation, the sheer, crushing weight of it all, pull her under.

As her consciousness frayed, the punishing rhythm of his movements ceased. He stared down at her pale, tear-streaked face, and the cold fury in his eyes was slowly replaced by a dark, aching possessiveness. Only then did his arms wrap around her, pulling her tightly against his chest, holding her as if she were a treasure he had just stolen and would never, ever let go.

Sunlight, sharp as a razor, sliced through a gap in the heavy curtains, striking Eleanora's closed eyelids.

She groaned, a low sound of pure misery. Her head felt like it had been split open with an axe. Her body... her body ached in ways she had never known. A deep, grinding soreness, as if she'd been run over by a truck.

The sheets beneath her weren't cotton. They were silk. Cold and unfamiliar.

And she was naked.

Her eyes flew open.

She was in a strange bed, in a strange room. Panic, cold and immediate, seized her. Then she saw them.

Dark, ugly bruises blooming on the pale skin of her collarbone. A cluster of them on her hip. They were fingerprints. They were bite marks. They were a map of last night's violation.

The memories came back not in a trickle, but a flood.

Kason. Brielle. The red wine on her dress. The cold water of the pool.

Horace.

His cold eyes. His brutal strength. The feeling of being pinned beneath him.

A strangled cry tore from her throat. She shot up, grabbing the duvet and pulling it around herself like a shield. Her body trembled violently, a storm of shock and shame and revulsion. Her stomach churned, and she gagged, bile rising in her throat.

She looked around the room, her eyes wild.

And there he was.

Horace stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, a dark silhouette against the morning light. He was wearing a silk bathrobe, a mug of black coffee in his hand. He looked calm. Rested. As if he hadn't just shattered a woman's life into a million pieces.

"You!" she shrieked, the sound raw and broken. "What did you do to me? You animal!"

He turned slowly. His expression was one of utter, chilling indifference. He took a slow sip of his coffee, his eyes coolly assessing her breakdown.

He walked toward the bed, stopping a few feet away, looking down at her. A cruel, lazy smirk played on his lips.

"You were quite enthusiastic last night," he said, his voice a casual drawl. "Are you telling me you didn't enjoy it?"

The words were so callous, so dismissive, they stole the air from her lungs. With a scream of pure rage, she grabbed the nearest pillow and hurled it at him.

He caught it easily, his reflexes impossibly fast, and tossed it to the floor. The smirk vanished, replaced by a flicker of annoyance.

He moved to the edge of the bed and leaned over, his hand shooting out to grip her chin. His fingers were like steel, forcing her to look at him.

"You brought this on yourself," he hissed, his face inches from hers. "You come into my home, high as a kite, and you have the audacity to scream another man's name in my pool. You don't get to play the victim now."

A feeling of suffocation closed in on her. This wasn't real. It couldn't be.

She wrenched her chin from his grasp, the tearing pain in her body a distant echo to the agony in her soul. She had to get out. Now.

She scrambled off the far side of the bed, but he was faster. He grabbed her shoulder, his grip bruising, and shoved her back onto the mattress.

"You walk out that door," he warned, his voice low and deadly, "and your life as you know it is over."

"I hate you," she sobbed, her voice thick with tears and loathing. "I wish I'd never met you. I wish you were dead."

She shoved him, using the last of her strength. This time, he let her go.

She stumbled to her feet, her bare feet sinking into the plush carpet. She looked around frantically for her clothes. Her dress was in a wet, torn heap on the floor, destroyed beyond recognition.

There was nothing.

Wrapping the duvet tighter around her trembling body, she felt a fresh wave of humiliation.

"Going out like that?" Horace's voice, cold and mocking, came from behind her. "You'll give Kason and the morning papers quite a show."

She froze for a second. The thought of anyone seeing her like this, of Kason seeing her like this, was a new kind of horror. But the thought of staying in this room with him for one more second was worse.

She would rather die.

With a choked sob, she ran. She stumbled through the living area, past the pool, to the main door of the suite. Her fingers, slick with sweat, fumbled with the heavy handle.

She pulled it open and ran out into the hallway, not looking back.

Horace stood in the center of his room, watching the empty doorway. The indifferent mask on his face finally cracked, replaced by an expression of dark, possessive fury.

He pulled his phone from the pocket of his robe, his thumb pressing down hard on the screen.