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EMMA

I awaken in the middle of the night with my heart thudding in my chest.

Something’s wrong.

I know it immediately.

Instinctively, I glance toward the door. I’m not surprised to see the shadow there. It’s always there at this time of the night. But something is different about it this time. Instead of being still like always, it’s moving.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I toss the sheets aside and head for the door.

I throw the door open and steel myself for whatever’s waiting on the other side.

It’s so much worse than anything I could have ever imagined.

“Oh my God.” I slap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

Mr. Sinclair is slumped againsthis bedroom door with his hand on the doorknob.His shirt is soaked with blood. I’ve never seen this much blood in my entire life. There are open gashes on his arms and chest—deep, bloody ones that look like they were inflicted by someone who was trying to kill him.

“Go back to sleep,” he barks, not even sparing me a glance.

“What happened?” I whisper.

“Just another Tuesday,” he answers, struggling with the doorknob again. His hands are so slick with blood that he can’t open the door.

“Who did this to you?” I ask, rushing forward to help him.

He freezes when my hand brushes against his. I open the door.He rises slowly, towering over me—looking darker and colder than I’ve ever seen him.

“Go back inside your room, Miss Turner,” he says.

“Why, so you can bleed to death in a few hours?” I say. “You need medical assistance.”

“What I need is for you to leave me alone,” he says through gritted teeth.

He tries to appear menacing, but his eyes are losing focus.I glance down the corridor, looking at the trail of blood he left behind. He’s lost too much blood already.

“I can’t leave you alone when you’re in this state,” I say. “You need me.”

“I don’t need anyone,” he hisses. “Least of all you.”

I wonder if he’s intoxicated. Maybe he got into a bar fight that got violent. It doesn’t sound like him, but maybe I don’t knowhim as well as I think I do.

“I’m calling for help,” I say, turning away from him to get my cell phone.

“You’ll do no such thing,” he says.

His meaty palm wraps around my bicep, stopping me in my tracks. A pulse of pure need hits me in the center of my belly. Everything inside me contracts, seeking something unknown to me.

When I meet his eyes, I find him looking absolutely horrified.

He’s staring at the spot where he left a bloodstain on my white nightgown. His hold on me tightens, like I’m his anchor in the middle of a raging storm.

I swallow. “Mr. Sinclair?”

“You can’t call anyone,” he says. His eyes look haunted. I wonder if he’s in some kind of trouble.

“Okay,” I say, my eyes flicking down to the wounds on his torso. “Can I help you get cleaned up?”

“I don’t like being touched,” he says.

I glance down at where he’s still holding me. This man goes out of his way to avoid physical contact. But when he does touch me, he doesn’t let go.

Maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe he’s starved of physical touch.

“You need help right now,” I repeat.

“I’ll manage just fine on my own.”

“You don’t have to do it on your own.”

He sighs. “Whydo you have to be so damn difficult?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

A figure approaches us, but we don’t take our eyes off each other until she clears her throat.

It’s Helena. She’s holding a tray of medical supplies. She doesn’t look shocked by Mr. Sinclair’s current state. It makes me wonder if this is a regular occurrence in this family.

I wonder what exactly it is that Mr. Sinclair does outside of work.

“Thank you, Helena,” Mr. Sinclair says. “I’ll take it from here.”

He takes the tray from her. She hesitates for a moment, but leaves without saying another word. He’s still losing blood. It falls in silent droplets, pooling near his feet.

I’m seized by a wave of concern for this stubborn, infuriating man.

I reach for the tray. “Let me.”

“Go back inside your room, Emma,” he says. There’s a note of warning in his voice.

I glance down at his bloodied torso. My throat tightens as moisture rushes to my eyes.

“God save me,” he hisses under his breath.

Without a word, he steps into his room. Lights flicker on one by one as he sets the tray on the bedside table. Then he vanishes into the bathroom without looking back.

I wait at the threshold, unsure whether to follow him inside.

His shower turns on.

I step inside his room. I’m not afraid of his wrath even though I know I should be. I sit on the edge of his bed and question all my life choices.

I don’t know why I’m here. He clearly doesn’t want my help. All I really know in this moment is that I can’t leave him on his own.

A few minutes later, he emerges with a white towel slung low around his waist.

“Great, you’re still here,” he mutters.

I’m momentarily distracted by the sight of his body. He’s all thick veins and sinew. It makes my mouth go dry. I don’t think I’ve ever felt desire like this before in my life.

“If you’re done gawking, I have to go to bed,” he says.

A blush hits my cheeks.

“Do you need stitches?” I ask, taking in all the cuts on his body.The bleeding has stopped for the most part, so I can see the wounds better now.

He shakes his head and opens a cabinet.

“I still think you should call a doctor,” I say.

“It looks worse than it actually is, Emma,” he says softly. “They’re not that deep.”

I stand. I want to move closer toward him and examine the wounds myself, but something stops me.

As he sifts through the cabinet, I catch glimpses of dark glass vials and sealed sachets. I watch with curiosity as he takes some green herbs in a granite mortar and adds a few drops of liquid from a vial.

He grips the edge of the cabinet for a moment, breathing heavily. Then he walks to the bar cart and pours himself a drink.

“What is that?” I ask him.

“Alcohol,” he says. “It helps with the pain.”

“I meant the mortar and pestle,” I say.

He throws his drink back and grabs a water bottle. He returns to the mortar and pours water into it before grinding the mixture.

“It’s a herbal remedy for wound healing,” he says.

“I didn’t peg you as someone who’d go for herbal remedies,” I say.

He glances over at me.

“What will it take for you to leave?” he says.

I walk closer toward him, ignoring the heat radiating from his body. I take the pestle from his hand and take over. I feel him watching me as I grind the paste.

“Who gave this to you?” I ask.

He doesn’t reply.

I recognized one of the vials. He gave it to his nephew on my first day here. I didn’t think much about that incident with everything else going on, but I think about it now.

“You know, you’re nothing like how I expected you to be,” I say, watching the color of the paste darken as I continue grinding it.

“I wish I could say the same about you,” he replies, pouring himself another drink. “But unfortunately, you’re exactly how I thought you would be. If anything, you’re worse.”

“How am I worse?” I ask.

The attraction between us has a pulse. Tendrils of heat wrap around my body, softly knocking the breath from my lungs.

“It’s better if I keep those thoughts to myself,” he says.

“Maybe I want to hear it,” I say, turning toward him.

The intensity of his gaze catches me off guard. It heats my skin and sets my heart ablaze. Blood rushes to my cheeks as our eyes remain locked.

It feels like a bond that transcends time and space.

“You’re not ready for it, Emma,” he says. “You’re not ready for me.”

“I want to decide that for myself,” I say, turning away from him.

I wash my hands and then pick up the salve. He watches my every movement as I walk toward him. I scoop some of the green mixture into my hand and lift it toward one of his cuts.

“You really shouldn’t be here right now, Emma.” I feel his throaty whisper low in my belly.

“I already told you. I want to be here,” I say.

“I’ll give you one last chance to walk away,” he says.

His chest rises and falls rapidly. Something is brewing inside him—a madness that I understand now. A primal urgency. A story as old as time.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I say, placing the salve over one of the larger cuts.

He hisses through his teeth.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, searching his eyes.

“It does,” he replies. I get a feeling he’s not talking about his wounds.

With pursed lips, I apply the salve everywhere I see open skin. As I move toward his abdomen, I notice the thick outline against his towel. The heat from his body feels like a drug. It distorts everything inside me.

I thought I was a little obsessed with him before, but it’s nothing compared to what I feel right now.

It feels like I’ll never be able to get enough of him.

“I got it from here,” he says, reaching for cotton gauze and tearing off a section. He places it over one of the bigger cuts.

“You’ll need help with the tape,” I say.

His face is a storm cloud. I can’t read what’s going on in his head, but one thing is for certain—he wants me gone.

But I don’t want to leave him alone. I’m worried about him.

And in the darkness of the night, the boundaries that exist between us have already blurred.

I place the medical tape over his skin, making sure the gauze won’t budge. WhenI’m done with all the cuts, I stand in front of him.

I have about a hundred questions I want to ask him. But I also know that every one of those questions will rub him the wrong way.

“Are you going to sing me a lullaby now, Miss Turner?” he mocks.

“Who attacked you?” I ask, folding my arms over my chest. It draws his gaze to my breasts, where it remains unabashedly.

“As I told you already, it’s none of your business,” he says.

“You don’t know, do you?” I ask. “If you did, you wouldn’t look so flustered.”

He stares at me for a beat.

“Let’s talk about something else,” he says, moving closer toward me. “Like what you’re really doing in my room.”

It feels like I’m standing directly in front of a furnace. The heat is almost too much.

“I’m only here to help you,” I say.