“Connor, what happened?” I got up from the floor and looked at him. He was my fiancé, but at that moment, the person I saw staring back at me was a stranger.

“He threatened me,” he spoke in an eerie voice as if he was talking to himself. “He wanted to blackmail me with a big scandal the company covered up a few years ago.” There was a crazed calm on his face that scared me. “He wanted half of my company…” He shook his head violently as he paced the room again. “No, I couldn’t let him do that. He wasn’t going to take my company away from me. I wouldn’t let him.”

Fear paralyzed me as I met Connor’s dark and haunting eyes.

“Liv, baby.” He grabbed my hand. “You understand that I had do to this, right? You love the company almost as much as I do. I see how hard you work. Of all people, you should understand that I had to do this. For the good of the company. There was no other choice.”

“Understand?” I stared at him in bewilderment, shocked that he’d think my reaction would be any different than what I was feeling inside.

“Yes, you understand that I had no choice in the matter?”

Before I could stop myself, I glanced at the motionless body a few yards away. “No choice,” I echoed flatly, as if the words were meaningless sounds to me. Then I turned back to him, my eyes grew wide with disbelief. “No choice?” My voice escalated in volume. “Of course you had a choice, Conner! You could have chosen to not kill him.”

“Baby, come on.”

“Don’t baby me!” I screamed at him and yanked my hand from his grip. I backed away from him, my head shook back and forth in denial. “Who are you?” I whispered, my eyes full of tears. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

Then I looked down at my hands and a gasp escaped my lips when I saw that they were covered in the dead man’s blood. It was then that I flung open the door and ran as fast as I could away from that room, and away from Connor.

A wave of vertigo struck me when the flashback ended and I was back in the reading room with Connor. The room whirled around me and I fell to my knees. I tried to grab onto the floor for support as the room continued to spin and my mind tried to process what I had just remembered.

“What did you remember?” Connor’s voice was cold as he watched me with narrowed eyes.

I willed myself to focus, to breath, to do anything but panic. Finally I was able to get up from the ground.

Some instinct took over and I knew that I couldn’t tell him I remembered what had happened that night. I knew I had to get out of here. “It was just a memory from my childhood. I was on a roller coaster and I was scared and felt queasy.”

Connor glared at me, and I knew he didn’t believe me. “You remember now, don’t you?”

I shook my head. “Remember what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Liv. Even if you think you’re different from before, I know you well enough to know your tells. You have a bad poker face. I know you’re lying to me.”

I took a step back from him. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Connor.” I met his sinister gaze and felt waves of panic crashing violently inside me.

“So does it now make sense why I got you the tracking pendant? You asked me earlier why I’d go through all that trouble if we were in love, if I trusted you.” He snickered. “Now that you remember that night, you must now understand why I needed to keep a special eye on you.”

The world seemed to turn upside down as everything started to make sense. Connor wanted to make sure he knew what I was doing at all times in case I remembered what had happened that night.

“Why didn’t you kill me when I was in the coma? If I was the only one that knew what happened in that room, why did you let me live?”

For a brief second, Connor’s expression softened. “For what it’s worth, I do love you more than I’d loved any other woman. But as you probably know by now, my company will always be my number one priority. I’ve worked too hard for it and I can’t let anyone take that away from me. So when the doctors said there was a chance you’d have amnesia, a part of me hoped that there’d be a way for us to stay together. What happened to that man was unfortunate, but necessary. I didn’t want to kill him, but he gave me no choice. He backed me into a corner. If he hadn’t tried to blackmail me and destroy the empire I’d worked so hard to build, he wouldn’t be dead. He had no one to blame but himself.”

“How can you say that?” I looked at Connor and wondered why I had once thought he was the most caring and compassionate man in the world.

“Because that’s the reality.” There was a matter-of-fact tone to his voice, as if he had just said something mundane like “because strawberries are sweet.”

“Okay, maybe you’re right.” I took another step back toward the reading room door. I wasn’t sure what he was about to do, but something inside told me that I had to try to get out of here. “It was a difficult situation you were put in. That guy wasn’t a nice guy. He was blackmailing you. So you’re right, he needed to be punished.”

“Do you really play for me a fool, Liv? Do you really think I’ll let you go now? I know the minute I let you leave here, you’re going to go straight to the cops.”

“No,” I shook my head, “I won’t say a thing. I swear.”

I let out a scream as he suddenly grabbed both of my arms and pushed me violently up against the wall next to the door. “You really do have a bad poker face.” Then he grabbed my neck with his hands and they tightened their grip against my windpipe. I desperately gasped for air, and within seconds, everything began to fade into black.

Then, before I lost all consciousness, I saw Ethan barge through the door to the reading room. Caught by surprise, Connor released his grip around my neck, and I dropped to the floor. Ethan pulled me up and stepped in between me and Connor.

“Don’t you dare touch her, Connor!”

CHAPTER E LEVEN

I coughed forcefully as oxygen rushed into my lungs. I looked up and saw Connor and Ethan standing a few yards apart, glaring at each other.

“Well isn’t this just fucking perfect. Ethan to the rescue,” Connor snarled sarcastically as he took a step back, never taking his eyes off Ethan. Between the two of them, Ethan looked like he would have an edge over Connor. Ethan was taller with his broad shoulders and a muscular frame that Connor couldn’t compete with.

“Connor, please,” I plead. “I won’t say a thing. Please just let us go.”

Connor turned to me and shot me a twisted smile. “Do you really think it’ll be that simple? Do you really think I’ll let you think you can walk out of here and ride off into the sunset with him?”

“You don’t have to do this, Connor,” Ethan cut in. “We both care about Liv.”

“Do you really think you’d have a chance with her? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?” Connor then turned to me and a wide grin appeared on his face. “How well do you really know Ethan, Liv? How well do you really know the man who you let touch you and taste you?”

My breath caught when I heard Connor’s questions. I turned to look at Ethan and saw the apprehension and torment on his face as he looked to the floor.

“What are you talking about?” I asked hesitantly.

Suddenly Connor’s face lit up in surprise. “Oh, he didn’t tell you?” He looked over at Ethan with an amused expression on his face. “Come on, Ethan, how can you say you care about her when you’ve been lying to her this entire time?” A triumphant smile spread across Connor’s face.

“Ethan?” I stared at Ethan, desperate for him to say something, to defend himself and deny what Connor was implying.