My mouth opened and closed. How could I explain something I couldn't comprehend myself? I shifted my gaze to Alex, praying to find any sliver of guilt since he must have been aware I had seen that kiss. We weren't that far away, for God's sake. But… he didn't even look at me.“Sarah!” Jeanette called out cheerfully as she glided my way. If her act weren't so obviously fake, I would have assumed she had hit her head. “You did a marvelous job in here. I'm sure that Mr. Corbin was pleased.”She extended her hand toward me. I stretched my lips into a thin line, realizing far too many people were watching us. I grabbed her hand and shook it. “Why, thank you, Jeanette,” I said, giving her my trained smile before straining through my teeth, “I'm glad that you and your fiancé could make it.”I saw Alex's gaze finally snap toward me. I wanted him to meet my glare, but instead of firmly looking into my eyes, he swiftly turned his to Liam. “Come here, son.” He smiled at him, spreading his arms w

I stared at the almost-empty crystal decanter, pondering whether or not I should refill it. I wasn't sure how many glasses of whiskey I had drunk. It must have been around ten-ish. I wasn't drunk. My overly-working brain was hell-bent on keeping me sober no matter how much alcohol I consumed. Fucking perfect. Tonight, of all the nights, I wanted to drink and forget about everything. But I couldn't.I closed my eyes, and the image of Sarah appeared. I wanted to hold her so fucking badly. How the fuck was I going to fix things between us? And even if I fixed this, everything I could offer her was becoming my mistress. Not to mention that it would not magically solve the problem of someone trying to kill her.A peal of humorless laughter broke through my throat. It took one meeting to shatter my entire confidence. This was the moment I felt absolutely pathetic and helpless, but as soon as I realized that, anger came to life. There was no way I would allow Gregory Duncan to control not on

SARAHDull pain crept through my state of unawareness. I winced, or at least I thought I did. As my senses slowly returned, I realized there was something blocking my throat. A sliver of panic surfaced but quickly died in a mass of blurry sensations and more and more acute pain. Opening my eyes hurt. A sharp, bright light stung. My eyelids were dry, and when I tried to blink, it felt as if I were rubbing my eyeballs with sandpaper. I closed them again.I thought of covering my eyes with my hands, but moving them created yet another problem. They were too heavy to lift, or I was too weak to carry their weight. A wave of sounds washed over my ears. Most of them were unpleasant, but perhaps they appeared this way because I was in need of absolute silence. Then the beeping noise stole my attention. It was a row of never-ending tones on the medium pitch. I felt as if my heart had adjusted to that beat, or was it the other way around?Another wave of pain rushed through me like a toxin floo

ALEXThe last three weeks were hell. I kept feeling Sarah's blood on my hands, no matter how many times I washed them. The feeling of her limp body in my arms haunted me even when I was wide awake. I had almost lost her. I failed her. I should have found a way to prevent this. I should have been more cautious…I vaguely recalled the moment I called for the ambulance, or when the paramedics all but tore Sarah from my arms to take her to the hospital. The following hours felt as if someone ripped off my heart and crushed it into pieces. I felt nothing. I wasn't sure I was even breathing. Different people kept coming. They talked to me, but I probably wasn't capable of responding. The only moment that forced any reaction from me was hearing my son cry. He was scared, and he needed me, but the truth was, I had only managed to leave the state of indifference because of him. I was supposed to be an adult, the strong one, and yet it was the five-year-old boy who turned out to be my anchor…I

ALEXI was sitting in one of the rooms adjoining Philip Corbin's office. He assured me that it was soundproof and had all the proper devices to jam any signal. Yes, my paranoia kept growing, but I was not taking any chances. I wouldn't risk having this meeting in my office. The hundreds of employees spread across all the corridors of the Ravenford Corporation's headquarters were something I couldn't control.Cobin could control it. When he built his company, he refused to centralize it and gather it all in one building. Every branch operated separately. I used to think that it was less efficient that way. Now I knew that his main reason for doing so was safety. It was relatively easy to plant a spy among thousands of workers, but not when there were only twenty or thirty of them. Philip Corbin surrounded himself with less than thirty people. Only they could be found anywhere near his office. Any stranger would have been immediately spotted… and eliminated.I took a deep breath as I sa