There was blood in the bathtub.
Just a drop.
Barely visible. A small smear against the ivory curve of porcelain.
But Emilia saw it.
Her heart caught.
She hadn't cut herself.
She checked. Hands. Knees. Nothing.
She leaned in closer. And there, next to the glint of gold from a discarded razor, was a single dark hair. Not hers.
She straightened, cold crawling up her spine.
This wasn't paranoia. It was presence.
Someone had been in here.
Someone had used the tub.
And not cleaned up.
---
Damien was on the phone when she found him, pacing the glass-walled office like a general preparing for war.
"No," he snapped into the phone. "If Vale buys even ten percent, we're exposed. Tell him to back off or I'll burn what's left of his legacy."
Emilia froze.
Vale.
The man from the gala. The one with the drowning eyes and the wolf's smile.
She stepped into the room.
Damien turned sharply, muting the call. "What?"
"There was blood in my tub."
His eyes narrowed, suddenly very still. "Yours?"
"I don't bleed red wine," she snapped. "And I don't have black hair."
He stared at her, calculating. Then: "I'll have security check the feeds."
"No," she said, voice low. "Tell me the truth."
"What truth?"
"This penthouse has rules. West wing. Locked doors. Dead photographs. And now strangers in my tub?" Her breath caught. "Who else lives here, Damien?"
A beat passed.
Then another.
"I do," he said softly. "In pieces."
---
The next day, her closet was rearranged.
Dresses she didn't own. Lingerie she'd never wear. A perfume bottle tucked on the highest shelf labeled Annabelle.
She didn't ask.
She Googled instead.
Annabelle Cross.
There it was.
Damien's last fiancée.
Dead.
Drowned in Capri.
No body found. Only blood. And rumors. Whispers that she'd been trying to leave.
That Damien had been the last to see her.
That grief had hardened him into stone.
But grief didn't explain the toothbrush in the guest bathroom. Or the journal tucked under her side of the bed.
The initials A.C. etched in gold.
Annabelle Cross.
Or Annabelle Cole.
Or Annabelle—
She didn't want to finish that thought.
---
That night, Emilia didn't sleep.
She locked the door.
Sat in the bed, back against the headboard, phone in hand. She scrolled through legal contracts, old articles, real estate records.
Until she found it.
The penthouse had been purchased under a trust.
Cross & Vale Holdings.
Vale again.
He wasn't just a rival.
He was history.
And something told her—he hadn't shown up at the gala for the champagne.
---
At 3:12 a.m., there was a knock on her door.
Not loud. But deliberate.
Three knocks.
Emilia stood, barefoot, skin cold.
Opened it.
Damien.
His eyes were glass. His tie was gone. His shirt half-buttoned. Vulnerable. Or pretending to be.
"Don't open the west wing," he said, voice rasped. "No matter what you hear."
She swallowed. "Is that where you keep the ghosts?"
He didn't smile.
He looked at her like she was already part of the haunted.