Hannah spent the daylight hours pacing the perimeter of the ground floor like a caged leopard. Every time she approached an exit—the grand mahogany front doors, the French sliders leading to the terrace, even the service entrance near the kitchens—a wall of dark suits and mirrored sunglasses materialized.
"Mr. Doren's instructions, Mistress," they said, their voices as mechanical as the security cameras tracking her every move. "For your safety, you are to remain indoors."
"My safety?" Hannah's voice rose to a frantic pitch by noon. "I am a free woman! I have a right to look for work! I need to earn—"
She stopped herself. She couldn't tell them about the hundred million. To these men, she was just a fragile, broken thing their boss had plucked from the gutter. They didn't see a woman with a plan; they saw a liability in a silk robe.
By 2:00 PM, the staff began their assault of kindness. Trays of poached salmon, asparagus drizzled in hollandaise, and crystal flutes of sparkling water appeared as if by magic.
"Please, Mistress, you must eat," the head housekeeper urged, her eyes full of a pity that made Hannah want to scream.
"Take it away," Hannah snapped, her stomach churning not with hunger, but with a rising, toxic bile. "I don't want his food. I don't want his charity. I don't want anything that belongs to him!"
She fled back upstairs, the walls of the mansion feeling like they were slowly contracting, squeezing the breath from her lungs. She retreated into the master suite and shoved the heavy brass bolt home. She crawled into the corner of the velvet sofa, pulling a decorative throw over her shoulders.
But the cold she had been ignoring since her escape from the Beacon—the dampness that had settled into her bones during those hours in the Vancouver rain—finally decided to claim its due.
By sunset, the room was bathed in a bruised, orange light. Hannah was no longer pacing. She was shivering so violently her teeth rattled, a sound that seemed deafening in the silence of the room. Her skin felt like it was shrinking, pulling tight over her bones. One moment she was freezing, her breath coming in white puffs in her mind; the next, a wave of molten heat crashed over her, leaving her drenched in a sudden, sickly sweat.
Her consciousness began to fray at the edges. The shadows of the furniture turned into the silhouettes of guards; the sound of the wind against the glass sounded like the clattering of meal trays against cell bars.
The click of the lock was a distant, secondary thought.
Dermin entered the room with the quiet gravity of a man returning from a war room. He didn't even turn on the overhead lights, opting for the soft glow of the bedside lamps. He saw her immediately—a small, trembling heap on the sofa, her hair plastered to her forehead, her eyes glassy and unfocused.
"Hannah?"
He was across the room in three strides. He dropped to one knee beside the sofa, his hand reaching out to touch her face. He recoiled almost instantly. "You're burning up."
"Don't..." she rasped, her voice a mere thread. "Don't touch... me."
Dermin ignored her. He stood, stripped off his suit jacket, and tossed it onto the floor—a rare act of disorder for him. He moved with a focused, clinical urgency. He went to the bathroom, returning with a basin of cool water and a stack of soft cloths.
For the next hour, the world was nothing but the sensation of his hands. He lifted her from the sofa, ignoring her weak protests, and placed her on the bed. He worked with a terrifyingly gentle precision, pressing cold compresses to her forehead, her neck, and the pulse points of her wrists. He forced small sips of electrolyte-infused water between her cracked lips, his arm supporting her head with a steadiness that made her want to weep with rage.
As the fever finally began to break, leaving her limp and exhausted, Dermin reached for a fresh cloth. He began to unbutton the top of her gown, his movements slow and deliberate.
"What are you... doing?" Hannah's eyes fluttered open, her hand feebly catching his wrist.
"The sweat will chill you, Hannah. You need to be wiped down and put into dry clothes," Dermin said, his voice low and steady. "Stay still."
The fog in her brain cleared just enough for the horror to set in. "No. No! I would rather die. I would rather the fever burn me to ash than let you touch my body like that."
"Hannah, don't be a child," he murmured, his blue eyes fixed on hers. "I'm not doing anything stupid. I'm helping you. Just like that time... fifteen years ago. When you fell into the creek behind the school. Do you remember? I dried you off then, too. You trusted me."
The mention of the memory was like a jagged blade across her heart. The heat of the fever was nothing compared to the sudden, icy clarity of her hatred.
"Trust you?" she whispered, her voice trembling with a decade of accumulated venom. "You buried that trust a long time ago, Dermin. You buried it the night you left me in that hotel room. Do you remember that? The smell of the expensive carpet, the white powder on the table, and the man... the man lying on the floor with his eyes open and his blood soaking into my shoes?"
Dermin's hand froze. For a split second, the mask of the powerful CEO cracked. A look of profound, raw pain flickered in his eyes—a shadow of the boy he used to be.
"You ran," she continued, her voice gaining strength from her spite. "You left me with a dead body and a kilo of cocaine. You left me to explain to the police why my fingerprints were on everything while yours were already halfway across the border. You don't get to talk about 'fifteen years ago.' You destroyed the girl from fifteen years ago. You killed her."
Dermin looked down, his jaw tightening until the muscle throbbed. He didn't defend himself. He didn't offer an excuse. He simply pulled his hand back, the cloth falling into the basin with a soft splash.
When he looked up again, the hurt was gone, buried under a layer of cold, professional ice.
"Fine," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. "If my touch is so repulsive to you, I'll have a maid come up and assist you. I'll be in my study."
He stood up, his stature towering and distant once more. He didn't look back as he walked toward the door, but as he reached for the handle, he paused, almost like he wanted to say something but then stepped out, the door closing with a final, echoing thud, leaving Hannah alone in the dark.