SINFUL VOWS

CHAPTER 2:WRONG DOOR, WRONG MAN

SINFUL VOWS

"Elena?"

She knew the voice before she turned. She had heard it say *I love you* and *I'm sorry* and *it's not what it looks like*, always in that same warm tone that had fooled her for two years.

Ryan stood in front of her with his drink forgotten in his hand. He had gotten a haircut. He looked well. That was the part that stung.

"It is you." His eyes dropped to the ring on her finger, then climbed back up to her face. "What are you doing here? This is the Hartwell. You couldn't afford to park outside this place."

"Hello, Ryan." Her voice came out steadier than she felt. "Excuse me."

She tried to step around him, but he moved with her. "Don't do that. Talk to me. I've called you a dozen times."

"I changed my number."

"I noticed." He lowered his voice and leaned in. "And now you're wearing a diamond the size of a small country at a party full of billionaires. Who is he, Elena? Who did you trick this time?"

The words hit like a slap. Behind him, across the room, Julian was laughing with his cousins, completely unaware. Victoria Hart's gaze drifted their way, sharp as a pin.

"I'm not tricking anyone," Elena whispered. "Please, just leave me alone."

"Not until you tell me what's going on." Ryan caught her wrist. "I know you. I know when you're lying."

She pulled free so hard her bracelet snapped against her skin. "Don't touch me."

She turned and walked, then walked faster, weaving through silk and champagne and polite laughter until the ballroom doors swallowed her. The corridor beyond was cool and silent. A brass sign pointed left. LADIES' LOUNGE.

She pushed through the door and let it swing shut behind her.

Quiet. Marble and mirrors and a row of dark wooden cubicles along the back wall. Elena gripped the edge of the sink with both hands and stared at her reflection. Her eyes were too bright. Her breath came in short, shaky bursts.

*Breathe. Two more hours. Breathe.*

She turned on the tap and pressed her cold fingers to her neck.

Then she heard it.

A low sound from the far end of the room, half groan, half breath. A cubicle door swung slowly open, and a man stepped out of the shadows, one hand braced against the wall.

Elena's blood turned to ice.

It was him. The stranger from the balcony. Up close he was even taller, his black jacket gone, his white shirt open at the collar and damp with sweat. His dark hair had fallen across his forehead. His eyes lifted to hers, and they were wrong. They were glassy and unfocused, the pupils blown wide, burning with something that looked like fever and fury all at once.

"You shouldn't be in here," Elena managed, backing toward the door. "This is the ladies'..."

"Who sent you?"

His voice was rough, low and dangerously slow. He pushed off the wall and took a step toward her, swaying.

"I'm sorry, I think you're ill, I'll get someone..."

"I said," he growled, "who sent you?"

She lunged for the door. She was fast, but he was faster, even half out of his mind. His hand closed around her arm and yanked her back, and the world spun as he hauled her across the room as easily as a coat off a hook.

"Let go of me!"

A cubicle door slammed open. Elena was shoved inside, her back hitting the cold tile wall, and the latch clicked shut behind them.

She screamed, but his palm covered her mouth in the same breath. He crowded her against the wall, one hand pinning her wrist beside her head, his body a heavy wall of heat. She could feel his heart hammering, or maybe it was hers. She could smell whisky and cedar and something bitter underneath.

She fought him. She kicked and twisted and drove her nails into his forearm, and he hissed through his teeth but didn't let go.

"Stop," he muttered, close to her ear, his breath scorching. "Stop fighting me."

*No, no, no.* The men in dark suits at her door. Her father's shaking hands. Fourteen years of running, and she had walked straight into it wearing a borrowed dress.

She bit down on his palm.

He jerked back with a curse, and for one half second she was free. She shoved at his chest with everything she had. Something snapped between them, a thin chain, and a small weight dropped into her hand. She closed her fingers around it without thinking.

"Please," she gasped. "I don't know who you are. I don't know anything. I just want to go home."

He went still.

He stared down at her, his chest heaving, and something flickered behind the haze in his eyes. For a moment he looked almost confused, almost haunted. His grip on her wrist loosened. His gaze dropped to her mouth, and his hand lifted slowly, almost shaking, and touched her jaw.

"You're not one of them," he said hoarsely.

"No."

"Then why," he breathed, "can't I stop looking at you?"

Elena stopped breathing.

His face lowered toward hers, inch by slow inch, and she couldn't tell if she was frozen with terror or something far more dangerous.

Then the lounge door banged open.

Heavy footsteps. Several pairs. Men's voices, low and urgent, echoing off the marble.

"He came this way. Check every stall."

Dante's eyes cleared for one sharp, terrible instant. His hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, pulling her close until his lips hovered against her ear.

"Whatever happens," he whispered, "do not make a sound."

The first cubicle door crashed open.

And Elena, with a stranger's pendant burning in her fist, realised that the men hunting him were three doors away.