Chapter 4

Jamie's POV

Guests screamed and scattered. Glasses shattered. Tables crashed over.

"Where's Ethan Foster?! Tell him to get out here!"

The leader swept the room with wild, violent eyes.

These were hired men, brought in by a bankrupt rival of the Foster family to settle the score.

Chaos swallowed the room whole.

"Ethan!" Sophia crumpled to the floor, shaking.

Ethan's expression shifted. On instinct, he scooped Sophia into his arms and lunged toward the emergency exit.

"Jamie! Come on!" He looked back and shouted.

And that's when I saw it. One of the men raised a blade and swung it straight at Ethan's back.

He was holding Sophia. He couldn't dodge.

I didn't think.

Twenty-two years of instinct kicked in. I kicked off my heels, grabbed a solid wooden chair, and in the split second before the blade landed, I swung it as hard as I could into the attacker's wrist.

The crack was loud.

The blade bit into a marble column instead.

"You want to die?!" The man's eyes went red. He turned on me.

"Go, Ethan, RUN!" I shouted and smashed a wine bottle across another attacker's head.

Ethan looked back. Behind him, I stood like I was holding the line, feet planted, eyes clear.

Sophia sobbed into his chest. "Ethan, please, I'm scared. Let's just go."

"Jamie, hold on! I'll get her out and come straight back!"

He yelled it. Then he turned and ran, Sophia in his arms, and disappeared into the emergency exit without looking back.

He left me with the danger. Again.

He had always believed, completely and without question, that I was invincible.

I watched his retreating back, and a hollow smile crossed my lips.

One moment of distraction, and a knife punched deep into my left shoulder from the side.

Thud.

White-hot pain flooded my body. I grunted, grabbed the attacker's arm by reflex, and threw him over my shoulder onto the floor.

Security finally surged in, swarming the room to get things under control.

I pressed my hand to my shoulder. Blood soaked steadily through the black velvet.

The dark fabric hid it well. Just a warm, wet patch.

I leaned against the wall, my face the color of paper, cold sweat breaking across my forehead.

Everyone around me was too busy surviving to notice.

Ten minutes later, Ethan came crashing back in with a team of security guards.

"Jamie! Jamie!"

I forced myself upright. I steadied myself.

I didn't want him to see me like this. I didn't want him to think I was using an injury to make him feel guilty.

That was my last shred of pride. Pathetic as it was.

"I'm here." My voice was thin, but steady.

Ethan rushed over. I was standing straight, face pale but otherwise apparently intact. He let out a long breath and punched me in the right shoulder.

"God, you scared me! Jamie, that was insane. You were incredible!"

The impact jolted through to my left side. The wound tore.

I bit down on my lip until it bled, and made no sound.

"Is Sophia okay?" I asked.

"She's shaken up pretty bad. She's crying in the car. She scraped her hand, so I need to get her to the ER."

Ethan was already moving toward the door as he spoke.

"You're good to handle things here, right? Talk to the police when they arrive and deal with the press. We can't let this tank the stock price. I have to take Sophia. She needs me."

Then he was gone.

I stood there, looking at the blood on the floor.

My blood. Though Ethan would probably assume it belonged to one of the attackers, if he noticed it at all.

A scraped hand. Needs the ER.

I looked down at my own soaked side. And for the first time, I felt it, not pain, but the pure, flat absurdity of twenty-two years of this.

"Mrs. Foster, you're bleeding!" A sharp-eyed staff member finally spotted the dark stain spreading across my back.

I waved them off and refused a hand.

"It's fine," I said quietly, staring at nothing. "It doesn't hurt."