His Contract Bride, The Real Heiress

The room was pitch black when Julian Sterling walked in.

He didn't turn on the lights. He couldn't. The migraine behind his left eye was a pulsing, living thing, a rhythmic hammer striking the inside of his skull. The charity gala had been a sensory nightmare-too many perfumes, too many fake laughs, too many hands trying to touch him.

He loosened his tie, ripping the silk knot apart with a groan of relief. He swallowed two pills dry-benzodiazepines, strong enough to knock out a horse, or just barely enough to quiet the screaming noise of his PTSD.

He stripped. Jacket, shirt, belt. The clothes landed on the floor in a pile of expensive fabric. He didn't care. Martha would pick them up. Martha always picked them up.

He was down to his boxer briefs. The air in the room was cool, the climate control set to a precise 68 degrees, just the way he needed it to keep the night sweats at bay. He stumbled toward the bed, his vision blurring at the edges as the drugs began to kick in.

He needed sleep. He needed the oblivion where the memories of the kidnapping couldn't find him.

He pulled back the duvet and slid in. The sheets were high-thread-count Egyptian cotton, cool against his heated skin. He exhaled, a long, shuddering breath, and let his body sink into the mattress.

His arm brushed against something.

Something warm. Something soft.

In his drugged haze, his brain didn't register "intruder." It didn't register "danger." The logic centers of his mind were already shutting down. Instead, his primitive brain took over.

The warmth radiated a scent. It wasn't the sterile detergent of the hotel, nor the cloying Chanel No. 5 his mother bathed in. It was vanilla. Subtle, sweet vanilla, mixed with the fresh, ozone smell of rain.

It was a scent that bypassed his conscious mind and struck a chord deep in his limbic system. A feeling of safety he hadn't felt in twenty years.

Julian didn't recoil. He did the opposite. Like a starving man finding bread, he instinctively shifted closer. He wrapped his heavy arm around the warmth, pulling the body against his chest. He buried his face in the hair that smelled like salvation.

No... he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep and medication. "Don't... go..."

Serena woke up with the violence of a switchblade snapping open.

Her eyes flew open in the dark. There was a weight on her. A heat. An arm like a steel band clamped around her waist.

Her training kicked in instantly. Assess. Target. Neutralize.

She wasn't Serena the hillbilly. She was Zero. She was a weapon.

She stiffened, her muscles coiling. Her right hand moved with lightning speed, finding the pressure point at the base of the intruder's wrist. She prepared to twist, to dislocate the joint and drive her elbow into his throat. It would take less than two seconds to incapacitate him.

Then she heard it.

Please...

The whisper was broken. Vulnerable. It was the sound of a child terrified of the dark.

Serena froze. She felt the tremor in the body pressed against hers. It wasn't the tremor of aggression; it was the somatic shaking of a nightmare, of deep-seated trauma.

She hesitated. Her hand hovered over his wrist. She could feel his pulse-erratic, racing, then slowing as the drugs pulled him under.

Julian.

This was Julian. He had come to his own bed. He had mistaken her for... a pillow? A comfort object?

She should shove him off. She should break his nose. But a strange, unbidden hesitation stopped her. The way he clung to her was desperate, almost pathetic. It sparked a flicker of curiosity in her cold, pragmatic mind. Why was the "Wolf of Wall Street" shaking like a leaf?

He's drugged, she realized, noting the slackness of his muscles. He doesn't know who I am.

If she attacked him now, she'd blow her cover. A farm girl wouldn't know Krav Maga. A farm girl would scream.

But she didn't want to scream.

She slowly lowered her hand. She lay there, stiff as a board, trapped in the embrace of the man she was supposed to be conning.

The drugs won. Julian's breathing evened out into a deep, heavy rhythm. He was out cold.

Serena sighed, staring into the darkness. She was trapped. If she moved, he might wake up and lash out in a drug-fueled panic.

Exhaustion, heavy and gray, pulled at her eyelids. Just for an hour, she thought. I'll sneak out before the sun hits the window.