The CEO's Asset: Sold To My Enemy

The heat started in the marrow of her bones. It wasn't a fever. It was a chemical fire, licking up her spine and settling heavy and throbbing in her lower belly.

Daniella Diaz shoved the heavy mahogany doors of the ballroom open. The rush of air from the hotel corridor hit her face, but it didn't cool her skin. It just made the sweat on her neck feel like ice against a furnace.

She stumbled. Her heels, usually an extension of her feet, felt like stilts on a rocking boat. The crystal chandeliers overhead smeared into long, glowing streaks of light.

She had to get out. This had Inga Andrews's fingerprints all over it. Xander wasn't smart enough for this level of malice.

Behind her, the heavy thud of footsteps echoed on the marble. They were leisurely, predatory.

"Daniella," Xander's voice called out. It was amused. "Don't be like that. We were just getting started."

The sound of his voice sent a spike of adrenaline through the haze in her brain. She dug her fingernails into her palm, hard. The sharp bite of pain cleared the fog for a split second.

He had spiked her drink.

The realization didn't bring panic. It brought a cold, hard clarity. Xander Yates, the man she had spent two years trying to please, had finally decided that if she wouldn't give him what he wanted, he would take it.

She reached the elevator bank. Her fingers shook so badly she missed the button twice before the light finally glowed.

"Come on," she whispered, her voice a dry rasp. "Come on."

The footsteps were getting closer. She could hear the jingle of his keys. He wasn't running. He knew she had nowhere to go.

The elevator chimed. The doors slid open.

A man in a severe grey suit was exiting, his attention fixed on a tablet in his hand. Daniella didn't hesitate. She turned her body sideways and squeezed through the gap, her shoulder colliding with his expensive suit.

As she stumbled into the car, the man grunted in surprise, dropping his tablet. His hand instinctively went to catch it, and something black and rectangular slipped from his jacket pocket, clattering onto the elevator floor. A key card.

She snatched it.

"Hey!" the man in the suit protested.

Daniella slammed her hand against the sensor inside the elevator.

Xander appeared around the corner. His smile was distorted, a funhouse mirror version of the charm that had fooled her for so long. He reached out, his hand aiming for the closing doors.

The metal panels slid shut just as his fingertips brushed the sensor.

Daniella collapsed against the back wall of the cab. Her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She looked at the panel. The numbers were racing upward, skipping everything between the lobby and the top.

Eighty.

The elevator stopped. The doors opened.

Silence.

It wasn't the silence of an empty room. It was the silence of money. The carpet