ESCAPING THE CEO 3

A gasp tore from Avery's throat, sharp and ragged in the silent room.

The ceiling was unfamiliar. White, impossibly high, with ornate molding that seemed to mock her. A wave of nausea rolled through her, the kind that came from a hangover, but she hadn't had a drink last night. She was sure of it.

Her head throbbed, a dull, heavy pulse behind her eyes.

She tried to sit up, but the silk sheet pooled around her waist, heavy and slick against her bare skin. She was naked. A cold dread, sharp as ice, slid down her spine. Her gaze dropped, catching sight of faint, purplish marks blooming on her collarbone.

Her breath hitched. The air in her lungs turned to stone.

Slowly, as if moving through water, she turned her head.

The other side of the king-sized bed was not empty.

A man lay there, turned away from her, his profile sharp and unforgiving even in sleep. Black hair, a strong jaw, the curve of a shoulder muscled and powerful.

Dominic Baxter.

The name was a brand on her soul, a curse she had carried to her grave. The man who had destroyed her family, her life, everything she had ever loved.

Avery's vision tunneled. The luxurious suite, the silk sheets, his presence—it all blurred into a single, terrifying thought. This was hell. This had to be hell.

Her limbs trembled uncontrollably as she scrambled out of the bed, her legs threatening to buckle. She snatched a plush white robe from a nearby chair, pulling it tight around herself as if it could ward off the contamination of his presence.

Her eyes darted around the room, taking in the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the glittering expanse of Port Sterling. The Grand Hyatt. The presidential suite. A place she'd only ever read about in magazines.

Then she saw it. On a sleek, minimalist desk, a digital clock glowed with the time and date.

The date.

It was five years too early. Five years before the day she had finally bled out on a cold, concrete floor, a prisoner in one of his forgotten properties.

The realization struck her not like a gentle dawn, but like a lightning bolt, splitting her mind in two. This wasn't hell. It was a second chance. A nightmare reborn into reality.

The memories of her first life crashed over her in a brutal, unrelenting torrent. Her father, clutching his chest as Harding Industries filed for bankruptcy, his face a mask of grey despair. Her brother, Caleb, his car a mangled wreck of steel and glass after a suspicious "accident." And herself, locked away, forgotten, wasting away under Dominic's cold, indifferent watch.

A sob, dry and painful, clawed its way up her throat. Hate, pure and undiluted, coiled in her stomach like a living thing. Her fingernails dug into her palms, the sharp pain a welcome anchor in the storm of her past.

She stared at the man on the bed. He hadn't moved. His breathing was deep and even, lost in a drunken stupor.

And then she remembered.

In her past life, on this exact day, the news had been full of him. Dominic Baxter, missing after a yacht party. It was Seraphina Vance, the city's darling, who had miraculously found him, pulled him from the sea, and become his savior. His angel.

But he wasn't in the sea. He was here. With her.