Chapter 7
1001 Words
Dominic Blackwood dreamed in fragments.
A woman stood just out of reach, her back to him, skin warmed by golden light that didn’t belong to any place he knew. She wore his shirt—his—the fabric slipping off one shoulder as if it had never intended to stay. When she turned, he still couldn’t see her face clearly, only her mouth as it curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. Familiar.
She stepped closer. The scent of her—clean, soft, unmistakable—wrapped around him. His hand lifted instinctively, aching to touch, to confirm she was real, that she hadn’t slipped through his fingers the way she had that night.
Then she vanished.
Dominic jolted awake.
His breath came hard, his chest tight, the sheets twisted around his legs as if he’d been fighting something unseen. The room was dark, the city lights bleeding faintly through the glass walls of his penthouse. He ran a hand down his face, jaw clenched, irritation flashing hot and sharp.
Three weeks.
Three weeks since the woman from the hotel room had disappeared without a name, without a trace, leaving behind nothing but the memory of her body beside his and a restlessness he hadn’t known in years.
He swung his legs over the bed and stood, pulling on a pair of slacks, his mind already shifting into control mode. Dreams were weakness. Attachment was distraction. He had built an empire by cutting both out with precision.
His phone buzzed on the bedside table.
Dominic picked it up, already irritated—until he saw the sender.
Dr. Hayes.
That alone was unusual. Hayes never contacted him directly unless it was important.
He answered. “This better be worth waking me up.”
There was a pause on the other end. “Dominic,” Hayes said carefully, “I thought you should know before it reaches the board.”
Dominic walked toward the window, the city sprawled beneath him like something owned. “Know what?”
“One of your competitors has been admitted to Saint Augustine.”
Dominic stilled.
“Who.”
“Bill Rose.”
The name hit harder than it should have.
Rose Medical Holdings. One of the last independent healthcare networks that had refused acquisition. A man who had looked Dominic in the eye years ago and told him medicine wasn’t meant to be ruled by predators.
Dominic had smiled then. And waited.
“And?” Dominic asked, his voice flat.
“He’s critical,” Hayes continued. “Long-term care. Expensive. Complex.”
Dominic exhaled slowly. “Why are you telling me this?”
Another pause. Shorter. Tighter.
“Because I’m overseeing his case.”
That drew Dominic’s attention fully now.
“You?” he repeated.
“Yes. And because certain billing approvals crossed my desk that bear your subsidiary’s name.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened. Of course they did. Blackwood Group had its fingers in half the city’s private healthcare infrastructure. He hadn’t even noticed Rose had fallen this far.
“How long has he been here?” Dominic asked.
“Just under a month.”
A month.
The timeline slid into place with a quiet, unsettling click.
The dream. The woman.
“Is Rose conscious?”
“No. And Dominic—there’s something else.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“His family situation is… complicated. His wife controls most decisions. His daughter—”
Dominic opened his eyes.
“—has been handling the financial strain,” Hayes finished. “Alone, from what I can tell.”
Something cold and unfamiliar slid down Dominic’s spine.
He ended the call moments later, the city outside suddenly feeling too small, too close.
Somewhere in this hospital. In his territory. Under his influence.
And for the first time in years, he had the unmistakable sense that the game had started without his permission—and that he already cared far more than he should.
Elara POV
I woke with the taste of bile in my mouth and a weight pressing hard against my ribs. My body felt foreign—too hot, too weak, too fragile. Three weeks of exhaustion had finally caught up with me, and for the first time, I couldn’t push through it.
Something was wrong.
I sat up slowly, one hand braced against the mattress, the other pressed to my stomach as another wave of nausea rolled through me. This wasn’t stress. I knew stress. This was different—deeper, heavier, insistent.
Still, I forced myself out of bed.
I had to get the files from Dr. Hayes. I couldn’t let him down—not now, not after everything he’d done for my father. No matter how bad I felt, I had to make it work.
The shower barely helped. I dressed in simple jeans and a loose shirt, twisting my hair into a bun when my arms started to tremble. I gave up on makeup halfway through, swallowing hard as the sickness surged again.
While I still had the strength, I grabbed my keys and drove.
The road felt too fast, the world slightly tilted, but I made it to the hospital. I parked, took a steadying breath, and stepped out of the car.
And then I looked up.
My heart stopped.
He stood near the entrance—tall, immaculately dressed, impossibly out of place among the sick and the weary. The man who had taken the one thing that meant the world to me. The man whose touch still haunted my body.
Panic hit first.
I turned and hurried inside, rushing toward the elevators, my pulse roaring in my ears. I jabbed the button repeatedly, praying the doors would close—
They didn’t.
He stepped in beside me.
The doors slid shut, sealing us together, and when I looked up into his face, the memory of that night crashed over me—heat, skin, hands, hunger.
I smiled.
And in that moment, I realized with sickening clarity—
He had no idea who I was.
- Writer
