Abby’s POV
I gasped, sputtering as icy water stormed my lungs and stung my face.
My eyes flew open, the chlorine burning. My heart pounded so hard I thought it would break my ribs.
Where am I? How?
I thrashed, my limbs heavy, but this wasn't possible. The last thing I remembered... the wind... the scream trapped in my throat...
Nicholas.
The memory hit me. Nicholas, my husband. His hand was shoving my back. The endless, screaming fall.
I was dead. He killed me. Nicholas pushed me!
My feet touched the smooth, tiled bottom of... a swimming pool? I scrambled toward the edge, hauling myself out, my body shivering violently, though not just from the cold. I looked around wildly. The extravagant patio furniture, the soaring marble columns... The Grand Palace Hotel.
Why here?
My gaze traveled upward, past the manicured balconies, up... up... to the penthouse rooftop looming against the sky.
A horrifying echo of memory flashed—not of the fall, but of the landing. The sickening crack of impact, the explosion of pain as my bones shattered, the crimson cloud spreading through this very same blue water. This was the pool I had landed in. The pool where my body had been broken beyond repair.
But I wasn't broken and I wasn't bleeding now...
I glanced down at myself. I was soaked, but whole.
I'm back.
The realization dawned, cold and sharp as the water. I knew this place. I knew this day. The opulent brunch buffet. The nervous excitement I'd felt. This was the day I was supposed to meet Nicholas Anderson here. The day of his first grand proposal.
I was reborn, returned to the very beginning.
Minutes before the man who would one day murder me was scheduled to ask me to be his wife!
I stood there, shivering. My white dress, the one he told me to wear, was plastered to my skin, completely see-through.
"It's a celebration, my love," Nicholas had cooed. A celebration for my twentieth birthday.
What a fucking joke.
Today wasn't a celebration. It was the day my cage was supposed to be built. The day he’d smile, get on one knee, and slide a ring on my finger. The day he’d start his long, slow plan to bleed me dry and take everything my family owned.
I wasn't going back inside. Not yet. I needed to think.
"Decide to go for a swim before the party?" A deep voice, dripping with sarcasm, cut through my thoughts.
I looked up. A man stood near the edge of the pool, dressed in a black suit so sharp it could cut glass. He was tall. No, he was a fucking giant, built like a solid wall of muscle.
He had to be in his late thirties, and he was handsome in a way that scared me—all hard angles and shadows, with intense eyes that were currently raking over my entire body, lingering on the way the water dripped from the hem of my ruined dress.
He took a slow step closer, his presence sucking all the air out of the patio.
I knew him.
Oh God, I knew him.
This was Matteo Romano.
The Romano family's dirty secret. The illegitimate son they’d shipped off abroad, the one nobody was ever supposed to talk about. The Romanos and the Andersons hated each other. They were poison in each other’s water.
The Anderson family—Nicholas's family—ran the biggest luxury shipping line in Europe. They moved multi-million dollar yachts and exotic cars. But the Romanos? They owned the ports. They controlled what came in and what went out. It was a constant, bitter war for control.
And Matteo Romano, the rival, the boogeyman, was back in Italy. He wasn't supposed to be here.
He stared at me, a tiny, dangerous smirk on his lips.
But Nicholas, the man who murdered me in my past life, was waiting inside to ask for my hand.
And his greatest enemy was standing right in front of me, watching me drip.
He stared at me for another second, that annoying smirk playing on his lips. Then, in one smooth, almost lazy motion, he shrugged off his heavy suit jacket. He didn't ask. He just draped it over my shivering shoulders.
It was warm from his body, and huge. It smelled like expensive cologne and power, covering my ruined dress completely.
As the warmth hit me, another memory sliced through my brain, cold and sharp. The proposal wasn't the end of it. It was just the start.
The party.
Nicholas's "celebration" party tonight. His grinning, slimy friends, all of them animals. That one man... the one Nicholas pushed me toward... the hands... the tearing...
No. My hands clenched into fists. I won't let it happen. Not again. Never again.
Rage burned away the cold. I had to get out of here. I turned to walk away, to just run, but my legs felt like water. I stumbled, pitching forward, a pathetic cry escaping my lips.
Strong arms snapped around my waist, yanking me back against a chest that felt like solid rock. Matteo held me steady, his grip borderline painful.
"Careful," he murmured, his voice low and mocking right by my ear. "You can't be this clumsy, Ms. Sinclair."
My blood ran cold. Sinclair.
How does he know me?
My throat closed up. Why wasn't I screaming? Why couldn't I speak? I was frozen, staring up at him. Our faces were inches apart. And I could feel his breath on my skin.
Then suddenly we heard footsteps! Someone was walking down the hallway, getting closer. The sound was casual but unhurried.
Nicholas. It had to be!
I didn't think. I just acted. I grabbed Matteo's hand—the giant, dangerous, enemy—and ran. I yanked him toward the elevator bank, stabbing the button.
The doors slid open. I practically threw myself inside, dragging him with me. The footsteps were right outside as the metal doors finally slid shut, sealing us in the small, mirrored box.
I panted, my back pressed against the wall, my heart trying to escape my chest.
Matteo didn't even look winded. He just looked at me, his head tilted. He was confused, but that dark amusement was still in his eyes.
"You're not exactly planning on coming to my suite, are you?"
I stared at him, my mind blank with panic. My lips trembled in terror. What am I supposed to do now? Ugh, think, Abby, think!
I stared at him, my mind reeling. The elevator was silent except for the mechanical hum, but my brain was screaming.
Matteo Romano...
Why did that name suddenly feel so... personal? I’d seen him in business magazines. The big bad wolf. Nicholas's rival. But there was something else.
Then it hit me. Like a ton of bricks.
Lia.
My best friend. My kind, sweet, precious Lia. The one person in the world I trusted. Lia Romano.
This was her father!
The whispers I’d heard my whole life suddenly clicked into place. The Romano family disgrace. The illegitimate son who’d gotten a girl pregnant at seventeen. The child they’d tried to hide, the scandal they’d buried.
That child was Lia.
This man, who looked more like her older brother than her father, was the source of it all. I was standing in a tiny box with my best friend’s secret, dangerous dad.
My God. The world was too small!
"Why are you staring at me like that?" Matteo’s voice, low and sharp, snapped me out of it.
