Karen Preston is an ambitious artist and gallery owner who struggled hard to rise up the ladder. Always used and cheated by others due to her caring heart, she has fallen into debt and made guarantees that are putting excessive pressure on her business and her reputation. One fateful day, Karen is injured in a terrible motor accident caused by billionaire playboy, Taylor Grey and is unable to work. With the wolves at her door, she is in a dire situation. Taylor, aware of how the accident could affect him and his family, and wanting to keep everything out of the public eye, makes Karen a tempting offer - recuperate away from the public eye, in comfort, in a location of his choosing, and be handsomely compensated. Karen hurriedly accepts Taylor's offer in desperation, to escape the grasp of loan sharks and debt collectors, and to avoid losing her gallery. Unknown to Karen, this is only the beginning of a long deception that she must endure to save herself from a life of continuous exploitation. Taken to a sprawling mansion in the middle of nowhere to recuperate, she finds herself cut off from all communications, with only silent people around â except for Taylor Grey â the man who brought her to this place. He is the only one she can interact with in this unexpected prison. Refusing to be controlled and refusing to continue being manipulated by others, Karen forces herself to make tough decisions. Can she, herself, manipulate Taylor Grey into letting her out of this cage? Why is he really here with her, and what really caused the accident?
Chapter 1 Collision of Fates
"Her vitals are fading, we need to get her into an operating room, stat!" yelled one of the doctors in the team.
"Yes doctor," a nurse responded, hurrying off to the intercom to book a room for an emergency operation.
The emergency room was bright and rowdy, two doctors and three nurses stood around the lady on the gurney, from her driver's license they knew her name was Karen â Karen Preston.
"We have one," the nurse who made the call for the operating room said as she rushed back to the team on Karen.
"Let's move," the doctor said as they all rushed Karen out of the emergency room and to the operating room.
A man stood to follow, but the nurse working on him held him back, "They are going in for surgery, I'll let you know where the room is. For now, hold on while I have a doctor look at this arm," she said in a gentle, firm voice.
The man sat back down with a nod and shortly after, a doctor came over to look at his injured left arm.
The man, much calmer now, looked around the noisy, bustling room. He remembered the moment of impact and shook his head, turning away.
==========
Karen opened her eyes with a jolt. Her heart was racing and her breathing was short and rapid.
She tried to move her head but she could not, she tried her arms, but they did not budge. She closed her eyes and opened them, taking in what she could of her surroundings.
This looks like a hospital. I'm...I'm in a hospital bed.
She steadied her breathing and listened, trying to get a handle on the sounds around her but there weren't any.
Slowly, she noticed the beeping of a heart-rate monitor and something she assumed to be an air-conditioning unit.
In her line of sight, there was a white lace curtain covering a wide window. She could see the bright blue sky and the clouds.
It suddenly hit her, it's daylight!
It was nighttime when I was driving. I remember! It was night and now it's...morning? Afternoon...? It's...daylight!
But it was night, dark, late, and I was heading...I was heading to the gallery for a showing...I was on the phone....
And then, her memories came flooding back in.
After she hung up using the button on her car's dashboard, she checked the clock on her phone clipped beside the steering wheel, navigation running, showing her the time to her destination.
She turned the corner, taking a sharp bend, and was startled by a car coming from the opposite direction.
It was a large vehicle, driving at full speed, way too fast for a bend, with headlights on full blast.
She had slowed down, but the car suddenly came at her, swerving into her own lane.
Desperate to avoid the oncoming vehicle, she had turned the wheel sharply to the left. The oncoming driver also swerved, but in the panic of the situation, made a wrong decision and swerved to the right, causing a direct impact.
Her smaller sedan could not take the impact from the larger GMC truck and was thrown across the road, tumbling three times before landing upright on its wheels and spinning to a grinding halt.
She felt glass fall on her, and that was the last thing she remembered before waking up here, in a hospital.
Karen's heart started to race again and she could hear the heart monitor speeding up.
It was then that she felt someone in the room. Was it a quick breath that was taken, or the imperceptible movement of cloth?
She felt it before she actually heard the person, and she held her breath, struggling to move her eyes, which would not obey her brain's command.
Karen could hear the footsteps of someone approaching the bed. Again, she tried to turn her head but she could not.
The footsteps came around the bed, and her mind raced, is it a doctor, a nurse, an orderly? But as the person came into view, she saw that this was none of these. Far from it.
This man, almost a giant of a man, gazing down at her was dressed in casual clothes â a dark golf shirt, dark brown belt, and light-colored slacks â and had an expensive haircut. A very expensive haircut.
He looked familiar, like someone she had seen on TV, in the papers or on her newsfeed.
He stepped closer to the bed, his mouth moving, but Karen could not hear what he was saying. She gazed at him, blinking slowly.
==========
As the man stared down at her, he remembered what had happened barely one week ago. How he had waited outside the operating room, after being treated by the nurse and doctor in the emergency room, and how anxious he had been at the accident scene.
He could still hear the screeching of tires, the loud crash, and the tearing and breaking apart sound of metal.
He relived the accident again, for the umpteenth time in the past two days.
He had opened the driver's side door of the silver GMC truck slowly and stumbled out.
He approached the wrecked vehicle, fumbling in his pockets for his phone as he wiped at a cut on his forehead.
What have you done now, Taylor? He asked himself.
His eyes were unfocused, his body stumbling, swaying from side to side from the impact and the shock of the accident, as he tried to get to the driver of the sedan.
Through the shattered windshield, he saw a mass of tangled brown hair matted with red, and he tried to walk faster. The driver was unconscious, pressed between the dislodged back seat and the airbag from the steering wheel, and covered in broken glass.
Taylor approached the wrecked sedan, desperately trying to hurry but unable to do so. The pain from the accident ripped through his body, slowing him down. He worked frantically to pull out his phone as he moved forward.
He finally extracted his device from his pocket and immediately dialed the emergency number, his blue eyes squinting from pain.
He knew something in him was broken but he didn't know what or where. His only thought was to get to the slender woman covered in red and glass.
The road was still damp from the rain that had fallen earlier that evening and the weather was cool, but Taylor was sweating profusely, his heart beating rapidly, gasping to catch his breath.
As soon as he reached the driver's side of the sedan, he placed the index and middle fingers of his left hand on her neck to check for a pulse, calming his nerves and holding his breath as he did so.
Her skin was cold to the touch at first, and Taylor felt a crazed panic rising within him. He pulled his hand away, took a deep shaky breath, and tried again.
As he waited to feel her heartbeat, his heart sinking with every passing moment, he suddenly felt it and sighed with relief, There it is, he thought, his heart beating fast, She's not dead! Thank God, she's not dead!
He stumbled away from the near-crumpled vehicle and sat on the roadside, waiting for the ambulance to arrive.
It had taken almost twenty minutes for the ambulance to show up and he had ridden with the injured lady, to the hospital.
Throughout the ride, the same words kept repeating in his head, and they were in his head right now as he looked down at the woman gazing at him with hazy eyes.
What am I going to do?
What is my father going to do? He brooded.
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