I faltered for a moment, trapped by the sound, before I frantically looked around the lobby for the nearest exit. A large group from the engagement party had gathered at the front door, laughing and hugging, blocking my escape.
“Violet. Turn around. I want to talk to you.”
He wanted to talk to me?
Disbelief had me darting toward the next best thing—the sweeping, curved staircase that the opulent hotel was known for. The massive wooden pillars supporting it were carved in intricate flowers, and the stairs that were at least thirty feet wide were covered in the same lush, maroon and gold carpet as the rest of the floors.
I fumbled up them as quickly as I could, the high heels I rarely wore making the task a whole lot more difficult.
Especially when I could feel him. When I could feel him coming after me.
The heat of him rippled through the dense air and covered me in a thick shroud of treason and deceit.
Chains that threatened to bring me to my knees.
I gasped in relief when I made it to the second floor, and I took off to the right, having no clue where I thought I was going except for someplace safe.
Someplace he couldn’t get to me.
Someplace he could never hurt me again.
“Violet.”
I only made it about ten steps before a hand latched onto my wrist.
Fire flashed up my arm. A fiery storm that consumed me whole.
A rasp raked from my lungs, and my eyes were widening all over again when he had me backed up to the wall before I even knew what had hit me.
A goner before I’d even known I’d been struck.
Sounded about right when it came to Richard Ramsey.
Intense, green eyes flashed ire and spite, as if he had the right to be angry with me, his chest heaving as he grated the words near my face. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
I jerked my arm free, my teeth grinding and my eyes squeezed shut when I spat, “Don’t touch me.”
Did a whole lot of good considering it only afforded him the space to edge in an additional inch, a wraith that boxed me in between the shadows of the cavernous, deserted hall.
The man towered over me, and his head dropped closer to mine, his breath a soft caress across my cheek though his words were sharp as razors. “And what? You think I should just let you go? Let you walk away from me?”
“You have plenty of experience with that, don’t you? Letting me go?” I shouldn’t have opened my eyes, shouldn’t have allowed myself to look at that face that glared down at me with this violence and agony that I couldn’t process.
That I couldn’t understand.
My eyes raced to take it all in, and my mind spun like mad with every question he’d left me with while my hands ached to run across the hard planes of his gorgeous body.
His dark aura hit me like a bad dream that I didn’t ever want to wake from. A decadent, smooth chocolate melting on my tongue that hit my bloodstream like a straight shot of poison.
Every angle of his face was carved and chiseled and sharp, except for those full, velvet lips that rested somewhere between loathing and horror.
Hair cropped on the sides and longer on top, darkened to a bronzed brown over the years, like every bit of him had aged and deepened and changed.
Like he’d stepped right into that role of a music god. Harsh and intense.
A dark poet.
The shocking potency of it left me all kinds of foolish.
Impulsive and rash.
The way he always made me.
Unable to stop myself, I reached out and barely brushed my fingertips along the distinct curve of his rugged jaw.
Such a fool.
“God, Richard, what happened to you?”
When did he become a man I didn’t recognize? Doing exactly the opposite of what I’d trusted him to do.
He flinched and snatched me by the wrist again, only this time, to stop me from touching him. “Don’t.”
I lifted my chin in defiance. “You used to like it when I touched you.”
A bolt of fury left his nose. No doubt, I was playing with fire.
“That was a long time ago,” he grated.
“And what changed?” I didn’t mean for my voice to slip into a plea. For the suffering he’d caused to come tumbling out.
His eyes dropped closed, and his jaw clenched. I caressed it, the scruff that coated his face, like I was attempting to dip my fingers into the past and knowing I’d never find my way there.
Knowing it had been nothing but a fallacy.
A fantasy.
I pulled my hand away and pressed closer to the wall like I could disappear into it. Still, the man pinned me.
Trapping me in the gaze that had always hypnotized.
The man had always been nothing but a tornado blowing through.
“What are you doing here, Violet? Told you to stay away. From me. From my family. You think you can just waltz in here like you belong? Because let’s be clear…you don’t.”
Every muscle in his body flexed.
Hard. Rippling with an anger that had come into existence sometime when I hadn’t been paying close enough attention. Or maybe I’d just been too lovedrunk on the man to see what was lying in wait.
The cruelty that scorched his spirit and sparked from his mouth.
“Then let me go,” I whispered hard. “You’re the one who chased after me.”
Pain lanced through his expression like it was possible that this was as hard for him as it was for me.
“Goddamn it.” He exhaled a breath of dire recklessness, and his forehead dropped to mine, his voice dragging through the guttural rasp, “Goddamn it, Violet, I don’t know how.”
Confusion churned and spiraled and whipped.
This agony that shouted, why, why, why?
How could we be perfect one minute and the next he was leaving me with some pathetic excuse of a note that said goodbye?
I fought it—the tears that wanted to surface—only for both of us to freeze with the gasp that ripped through the air.
Richard’s attention jumped over his shoulder.
Emily stood twenty feet away, shock and disbelief and hope in her eyes. “Violet?”
She said it like a question.
Like she couldn’t believe I was there.
I was having a hard time believing it, too.
Richard pushed away from where he had me pinned, freeing my body but there was no chance he could free me from the clutch he had on my soul.
Forcing a bright smile, I swiped at the moisture that leaked down my cheeks. “Emily. Hi.”
“You’re here,” she whispered in that low, sweet voice.
I stumbled away from Richard and toward her. Knees weak and my heart flailing. “I’m…I’m sorry. I-I just wanted to see you. To see your happiness for myself. I didn’t mean to overstep.”
Richard’s sister shook her head. “Why would you say that? I invited you. I wanted you here.”
The low rumble of a moan echoed from behind. There was nothing I could do but look toward it.
At the man who now had his back pinned to the wall, like he was hooked there, being tortured, his brow twisted in anguish.
Wearing a fitted suit and looking like the star I’d always known he would be. A few tattoos leaked out from under the sleeves of his jacket, the man standing like mayhem and chaos.
I tore my gaze away because continuing to stare at him was liable to do me in. Rip out the last thread that was holding me together.