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CHAPTER ONE

LAUREL FORRESTER BURST fro for the lift down the hall Her breath caasps and she stuh stilettos her mother had insisted on

She heard the sound of the door to the executive suite being wrenched open behind her and then heavy footfalls

‘Come back here, you stupid little—’

With aaround the corner The glea black doors of the lift shimmered ahead of her, a promise of freedom

‘Wait until I…’

She closed her mind to Rico Bavasso’s threats and stabbed the button for the lift with a shaking finger Please, please open Save me…

Bavasso ca sixty Laurel risked a glance back and then wished she hadn’t Three diagonal cuts slashed one of his lean cheeks, where she’d scratched hi down his face in crimson, pearly droplets

Please, please open If the lift doors didn’t open, she didn’t knohat she’d do Fight for her safety, for her life Go down kicking and screaht be older but he was big, strong and angry, and she was five-foot-four and just a little over a hundred pounds soaking wet

With a glorious ping the doors opened and Laurel threw herself inside, bruising her shoulder against the far wall before she scraht She pushed just about every button she could, anything to get her away frorabs, his insistence that he would get what he’d paid for What her mother had promised him

Bile rose in Laurel’s throat at that memory and she choked it down She didn’t have the luxury of hts in this moment This was about basic survival She pushed the ‘door close’ button repeatedly as Bavasso stu his coldface thrust forward His bow tie was askew, his tuxedo shirt straining against the buttons as he reached one hand forward to keep the doors froainst the lift wall, her heart beating in her chest like so

‘I’ve got you, you little slut’

Laurel kicked off one of her wretched stilettos and swung it at Bavasso’s grasping hand He let out a howl of outrage and yanked it back, his paler-sharp heel The doors closed and then the lift was soaring upwards and Laurel was safe, safe

She let out a sob of both terror and relief, her senses overwhelmed by what had happened—and what had als felt weak and watery and she sank onto the floor, drawing her knees up to her chest as shudders wracked her body That had been so close

But she wasn’t out of danger yet She still had to get out of this hotel, out of Ro in his hotel roo down in the foyer Laurel had seen the around like stony-faced gorillas, eyes darting around the casino floor, looking for threats And now she was one

What would he do? Over the last two days’ acquaintance he’d been sleek and char herhe was her ant and entitled, and she feared he ht not let this lie And what about her mother? Was Elizabeth safe? Would Bavasso turn on her—or had she really been part of it all along, as he’d i what your mother promised me

Surely not? Surely her mother wouldn’t have sold her off like a cow at auction? With another cry Laurel covered her face, the tureed to coet what she wanted And yet she had She’d weighed it up in her mind and she’d decided it orth it One last favour and then she’d finally be free Except she wasn’t free now She didn’t feel remotely free

The doors opened and Laurel lifted her head, shrinking back, half-expecting Bavasso to be there, waiting But, no; the lift opened directly into what looked like a private suite, twice as elegant and spacious as the one Laurel had just fled