The bedroom was dimly lit by a single wall sconce.

Collette's ruined dress lay discarded on the thick rug. Her skin burned wherever Hartwell touched her.

His thick arms bracketed her sides, holding his weight over her.

A drop of sweat rolled down his sharp jawline and landed right on her collarbone.

Collette arched her back, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

Right as the air grew too thin to breathe, a sharp, piercing ringtone shattered the silence.

It came from Hartwell's private phone on the nightstand.

Hartwell froze. His muscles locked up instantly.

A heavy frown pulled at his eyebrows. He looked deeply annoyed by the intrusion.

Collette thought he would ignore it. She slid her arm down, wrapping it around his waist to pull him back down.

But Hartwell turned his head. His eyes caught the name flashing on the screen.

His entire body went rigid.

He pulled away from her so fast the cold air hit Collette's bare skin like a physical blow.

He snatched the phone off the nightstand and pressed it to his ear.

"Hartwell..." Isabell Nielsen's voice leaked through the speaker. It was weak, trembling, and full of tears. "I'm so scared."

The change in Hartwell was instantaneous.

The dark, consuming lust vanished from his eyes. His voice, usually so cold and commanding, dropped into a tone Collette had never heard before.

"I'm coming. Right now," Hartwell said softly.

He stood up from the bed. He grabbed his dress shirt from the floor and shoved his arms into the sleeves.

Collette yanked the heavy duvet up to her chest.

She sat there, completely frozen, watching his hands move efficiently over the buttons. Her chest felt like it was caving in.

He didn't even look at her.

"I have an emergency. Go to sleep," Hartwell ordered, his voice back to its usual icy detachment.

Collette's fingers dug into the fabric of the blanket. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper.

"What emergency is more important than me?" she asked. Her voice shook, no matter how hard she tried to keep it steady.

Hartwell paused. His hands stopped on his cuffs.

He slowly turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were dead.

"Remember your place, Collette," he snapped. "Don't ask questions you shouldn't ask."

He turned on his heel and walked out.

The heavy oak door slammed shut behind him. The sound echoed in the massive, empty room.

Collette sat alone in the center of the bed. The sheets next to her still held his body heat.

It felt like a sick joke.

She took a sharp breath. Her throat burned, and her eyes stung, but she refused to let the tears fall.

She threw the covers off. Her bare feet hit the freezing hardwood floor.

She grabbed one of Hartwell's discarded button-down shirts and pulled it over her shoulders.

She walked out of the bedroom. The penthouse was dead silent. Marta was already asleep in the staff quarters.

The silence was suffocating.

Collette walked to the open bar in the living room. She grabbed an unopened bottle of Macallan single malt whiskey.

She didn't bother with a glass.

She twisted the cap off, tilted her head back, and let the burning liquid pour down her throat.

It felt like swallowing fire.

She carried the heavy bottle toward the glass doors and pushed them open.

She stepped out onto the open-air balcony.

The brutal Manhattan autumn wind slammed into her. She needed this. She needed the biting cold and the burning alcohol to scorch away the pathetic, soft emotions that were threatening to take root in her chest. Hartwell Lara was a weapon for her revenge, nothing more. Any warmth she felt for him was a dangerous distraction, a poison that would ruin her carefully laid plans. She drank to punish herself, to freeze her heart back into a solid block of ice so she could stay focused on destroying the Norris family.

The neon lights of the city blurred below her. She leaned her forearms against the freezing glass railing, her body violently shivering.

Her stomach cramped again, mixing with the alcohol.

Hartwell's gentle voice on the phone played on a loop in her brain.

Jealousy and raw humiliation chewed at her insides like acid.

She lifted the bottle and drank again. And again.

Her vision started to spin. Her legs lost their strength.

She stumbled toward the woven lounge chair in the corner of the balcony and collapsed onto it.

She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs in a desperate attempt to keep warm.

The whiskey bottle slipped from her numb fingers. It hit the wooden deck with a dull thud, the amber liquid spilling out into a puddle.

The wind howled, cutting right through the thin cotton shirt.

Collette's consciousness faded into black. Her body temperature began to spike dangerously high.

As the sky slowly turned gray with dawn, she lay completely motionless on the freezing balcony.

At seven in the morning, Marta walked into the living room with a dust cloth.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

The heavy glass door leading to the balcony was wide open. The freezing autumn wind was blowing the curtains wildly into the room.

Marta rushed toward the balcony.

She gasped, dropping the cloth.

Collette was curled into a tight, unnatural ball on the lounge chair. She was wearing nothing but a thin men's dress shirt.

"Miss!" Marta cried out.

She reached out and touched Collette's cheek. She yanked her hand back.

Collette's skin was burning like a furnace. Her lips were cracked and completely white.

"Oh, God," Marta panicked. She pulled her phone from her apron pocket and dialed 911 with shaking fingers.

Ten minutes later, the sirens wailed through the streets of Manhattan.

Inside the back of the ambulance, the paramedics ripped open ice packs and shoved them under Collette's arms and behind her neck.

Collette thrashed weakly on the stretcher.

She muttered something incoherent, her brow deeply furrowed in pain. A single tear leaked from the corner of her eye and rolled into her hairline.

The ambulance slammed to a halt at the emergency entrance of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

Dr. Marion Alcott took one look at her vitals and ordered her straight into a room.

"Acute pneumonia and a severe fever," the doctor announced.

Because there was no family member to sign the VIP forms, Marta had immediately contacted K. M. Sterling. The executive assistant used the Lara Empire's corporate channels to handle the exorbitant admission fees. However, since Hartwell was entirely unreachable and hadn't given explicit orders, Sterling could only secure a standard ward room for the time being.

Hours later, the harsh, white fluorescent lights pierced through Collette's eyelids.

She slowly opened her eyes. Her head felt like it was being split open with an axe. Her throat was so raw it felt like she was swallowing broken glass.

She stared at the IV tube taped to the back of her hand.

Marta sat in the plastic chair next to the bed, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

"I called Mr. Sterling," Marta sniffled. "He will tell Mr. Lara."

Hearing Hartwell's name made Collette's stomach physically twist.

She pushed her elbows into the mattress and forced herself to sit up.

A sudden, sharp pressure hit her bladder.

Without thinking, she grabbed the plastic tubing on her hand and ripped the IV needle straight out of her vein.

"Miss! No!" Marta jumped up.

Collette ignored her. Blood immediately beaded on her skin. She snatched a wad of sterile cotton from the bedside tray and pressed it hard against the puncture wound, hiding the bright red drops. She swung her legs over the bed and stood up. The room spun wildly, but she grabbed the wall to steady herself.

She walked out of the room. The harsh smell of bleach and rubbing alcohol assaulted her nose.

Keeping her bleeding hand firmly clenched and hidden against her side, she walked slowly toward the public restroom down the hall.

As she passed the nurses' station, two nurses were leaning over a clipboard.

"Did you see the girl in the top-floor VIP suite?" one whispered. "Miss Isabell. She's so delicate. The guy with her is gorgeous."

Collette's feet stopped moving.

The name "Isabell" hit her chest like a sledgehammer. Her lungs forgot how to work.

She didn't go to the restroom.

Her legs moved on their own. She dragged her burning body toward the elevators and pressed the button for the VIP floor.

The doors opened to thick, plush carpeting. There was no smell of bleach here. It was completely silent.

Collette hid behind the corner of the wall, her eyes locked on the heavy wooden door at the end of the hall. It was cracked open.

She crept closer.

Through the narrow gap, she saw Isabell sitting up in a hospital bed. She wore a silk hospital gown. Her face was pale, but her hair was perfectly brushed.

Sitting in the chair next to the bed was Hartwell.

His suit jacket was draped over the back of the chair.

He was holding a small paring knife. His head was bowed, his eyes focused entirely on peeling an apple for Isabell. His movements were slow and incredibly patient.

"The bed is too hard, Hartwell," Isabell whined softly.

"I'll have them change the mattress tomorrow," Hartwell replied.

His voice was low. It was the exact same gentle tone he used on the phone last night.

"Did you leave work just to sit with me?" Isabell asked, reaching out to tug on his shirt sleeve.

Hartwell didn't pull away. He just kept peeling the apple.

Collette stood in the hallway. The blood in her veins turned to ice.

Her body shook violently from the fever. She bit down on her bottom lip so hard that the skin broke. The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth.

She didn't make a sound.

"Miss? Are you lost?" a passing nurse asked, looking at Collette's bare feet and standard hospital gown.

Collette flinched like she had been burned.

She covered her mouth with her bleeding hand, spun around, and ran toward the elevator, fleeing the floor like a pathetic, wounded animal.

Collette stumbled back into her standard ward room.

Her legs gave out the second she reached the bed. She collapsed onto the thin mattress.

She grabbed the scratchy white blanket and pulled it entirely over her head.

Her body shook uncontrollably. The fever burned her skin, but inside, she felt completely hollowed out.

Heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed in the hallway.

The sound of expensive leather shoes hitting the linoleum floor grew louder, stopping right outside her door.

The door was pushed open.

"Mr. Lara," Marta's voice trembled with respect.

Hartwell walked in. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

Collette kept her eyes squeezed shut. Under the blanket, her hands curled into tight fists. Her fingernails dug deep into her palms.

Hartwell stopped next to the bed.

He looked down at the blanket, then his eyes caught the drops of blood smeared on the white sheets from where she had ripped out the IV.

The space between his eyebrows pulled into a hard, deep crease.

"Get a nurse in here to fix this line. Now," Hartwell barked. His voice was thick with raw anger and heavy irritation.

The nurse rushed in, her hands shaking as she re-inserted the needle into Collette's bruised vein. As soon as she finished, she practically ran out of the room.

Hartwell reached down and violently ripped the blanket off Collette's head.

Collette was forced to open her eyes.

She stared up into his pitch-black eyes. Her own eyes were completely dead, filled with nothing but defensive spikes and cold mockery.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Hartwell demanded, towering over her. "Running out to the balcony in the middle of the night? Is this some pathetic attempt at a pity play?"

The words hit the exact center of Collette's trauma.

She let out a harsh, breathless laugh. Her chest heaved.

"A pity play?" Collette sneered. Her voice was weak, but the venom in it was lethal. "I wouldn't dare. After all, I'm not nearly as delicate as Miss Nielsen."

Hartwell's pupils contracted to pinpoints.

The air in the room turned dangerous.

He leaned down, his large hand snapping out to grip her jaw. His fingers pressed hard into her skin, forcing her to tilt her head back and look at him.

"Do not test my limits, Collette," Hartwell warned through gritted teeth. "You and she are not comparable."

Collette's heart physically ached, but she forced her chin up higher against his grip.

"You're absolutely right," she smiled, a hollow, ugly thing. "I'm just a whore you bought. She's your actual heart."

Hartwell's jaw ticked. The muscle jumped under his skin.

His fingers tightened on her jaw.

Collette sucked in a sharp breath of pain, but she didn't blink. She just stared at him, daring him to break her.

They stayed locked like that for ten agonizing seconds.

Hartwell stared at her flushed, feverish cheeks and her cracked, bleeding lip.

Slowly, he let go.

He let out a harsh breath, turned his back to her, and walked to the water dispenser in the corner of the room.

He filled a paper cup with warm water. He pressed the back of his hand against the paper to test the temperature, ensuring it was appropriately warm.

He walked back to the bed.

He slid his arm under her neck, easily lifting her upper body off the pillows. He pressed the cup to her lips.

Collette turned her face away. She kept her lips clamped shut.

"Drink it," Hartwell growled. "Or I will force it down your throat with my mouth."

Collette's eyes widened slightly. She knew he wasn't bluffing.

Humiliated, she opened her mouth and let him pour the water down her dry throat.

When he pulled the cup away, Collette tried to shift her weight. Her left arm, stiff from the IV, moved awkwardly. She let out a quiet hiss of pain.

Hartwell set the cup down.

He didn't say a word. He just reached out and grabbed her cold, stiff arm.

He placed her arm across his thigh. His large, warm hand wrapped around her wrist.

With perfect, calculated pressure, his thumb began to massage the tight muscles of her forearm, working his way up to ease the soreness from the IV fluid.

He kept his head down. His face was completely focused, his touch incredibly gentle, as if he were holding something made of fragile glass.

Collette stared at the straight line of his nose and his thick eyelashes.

The heavy block of ice in her chest cracked, just a fraction.