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PROLOGUE
HER HAND FELT as though her bones were being crushed against themselves. The pain was acute enough to drag Alexandra Zamos toward consciousness, but she didn’t want to come back through the door into reality. That’s all reality was: pain.
She fluttered her eyes open and saw her stepfather. He was the one crushing her hand. Typical. One way or another, he was always trying to maintain a cruel hold on her.
A sob of repulsion rose weakly in her throat as she tried to pull away from his grip.
“She’s awake! Nurse!” Her mother’s voice grew distant as her heels clicked away.
That was also typical. Winnifred Humbolt always turned her back when Sasha was at her most vulnerable. She hated her for that.
She hated both of them and had gone so far as to sell herself into a new life to escape them, but had found herself imprisoned in a different type of torture.
Where was Rafael? Why wasn’t he here to shield her from them?
Her heart lurched as she realized she was in a hospital. Stark fear of what she might face had her longing to sink back into oblivion, where nothing could hurt her ever again, but she heard his voice.
“Let me see her.” The grit in his tone, carrying from a nearby room, made her heart swerve again.
Relief washed over her, especially because Humbolt finally released her hand. She never, ever called her stepfather by his first name, Anson. Why would she when it annoyed him so intensely to be referred to like a butler?
But now she was forced to gather up her defenses against her husband. Rafael was a formidable man. She didn’t dread seeing him the way she loathed her stepfather, but she feared how easily Rafael could destroy her in other ways. He already had.
“Do you love me?”
“That was never part of our agreement.”
It wasn’t. For a long time, she had been able to keep her guard up around him, but over time her defenses had eroded. He’d crept under her skin like a splinter. Every tiny remark, no matter how gently delivered or kindly meant, became a stiletto to the heart.
Then she had gone and revealed how vulnerable she was to him. What a mistake! Her husband drank power like a protein shake every morning. He loved it more than he could ever love her. She should have realized that before she bared her heart to him.
She couldn’t live this way anymore. She really couldn’t.
“Signora Zamos?” A nurse smiled and leaned over her. “I’m going to shine this light in your eye— Sorry.”
Signora? Were they still in Rome? She had assumed America, since her parents were here. How had they arrived so quickly?
Confused, Sasha tried to flinch away, but the nurse was relentless, forcing a peek into her other eye.
“What happened?” Her voice was as scuffed as a flake of skin.
“A car crash, I’m afraid. You have a concussion. Can you tell me your birthday?”
A car crash? When? After the gala?
“I don’t remember it.” She meant the crash. The last thing she remembered was taking that tiny chance at being honest, really honest, with her husband. She had thought that maybe, if he loved her, he might accept all she’d done.
Love had never been part of their agreement, though. And learning he didn’t even love her like this, when she worked so hard to be the wife he wanted, destroyed her. She hadn’t dared reveal the rest.
“You don’t remember your birthday?” her mother was asking with alarm, looming on the other side of the bed so suddenly that Sasha recoiled.
“Please.” The nurse motioned for Sasha’s mother to give her space.
Winnie refused to budge, leaning closer to urge loudly, “You remember me, don’t you? I’m your mother, Alexandra.”
All Sasha could think was, No, you’re not. Not in the ways that counted. She knew how a real mother behaved and she had been robbed on that front.
“Can you tell me your mother’s name, Signora Zamos?” the nurse asked gently. “Do you know where you are?”
