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Sterling was going to be tired when he came back from Jett’s.

I lay back, staring at the ceiling while my pulse gradually slowed from my abrupt awakening, although the unease I was feeling didn’t. It lingered, coiling in my chest without a reason I could name.

Creak.

The floorboard groaned, and I stiffened, every muscle locking as my breath caught.

Another creak, closer now, like footsteps savoring the approach.

Goosebumps prickled across my skin, raising every fine hair on my arms. My fingers dug into the sheets, and my knuckles were white as I pushed up on my elbows.

“Sterling?” The name barely made it past my lips before it was cut off, swallowed by the sight of someone stepping into the moonlight at the foot of the bed.

Pale blond hair caught the silver light like frost. It was longer than I remembered, but David’s gray eyes still had the same terrifying gleam I’d prayed to forget.

I knew that look all too well. It always came before the pain.

My mouth opened, but the sound that came out was barely there. “No.”

“Hello, sweetheart.”

I scrambled backward until my spine hit the headboard. “You can’t be here,” I cried, the words tumbling over each other. “This isn’t real.”

He moved…and his knee sank into the mattress, close enough that the bed dipped and shifted beneath me. He crawled forward, the space between us shrinking with every inch as I sat there frozen in place.

“You really thought you got away?” he asked quietly. “You thought distance would keep me from you?”

His hand closed around my ankle, and he yanked me down the bed, the sheets tearing loose as I cried out and finally jerked to life. I kicked my legs out, but he was already over me, his knees pinning me down.

My chest heaved in frantic gulps, dragging in lungfuls of his Tom Ford cologne, that cloying, expensive scent that used to linger on my skin for days after he’d touched me. It hit me now, twisting my stomach until bile burned the back of my throat, making me gag even as terror flooded my veins.

“How are you here?” I gasped as I shoved at his chest. “This isn’t possible.”

He leaned in until his breath ghosted hot against my ear and his lips were brushing my skin in a mockery of intimacy. “I always find you,” he murmured silkily. “You should know that by now.”

Before I could scream, his hands shot up and wrapped around my throat, and his fingers were squeezing hard, cutting off my air in an instant.

Panic exploded through me, and I began to thrash, clawing at his wrists until I was raking deep furrows into his skin as I bucked and twisted, kicking my legs wildly against the mattress.

My lungs burned, screaming for oxygen that wouldn’t come, and black spots were dancing at the edges of my vision as his grip tightened. His thumbs were pressing mercilessly into my windpipe.

“Sienna!”

My eyes flew open, and the world came crashing back in a rush of dim lamplight and frantic breathing.

Sterling was hovered over me, braced on his arms, his face inches from mine and his gray eyes wild and panicked—no, they weren’t gray. Because he wasn’t David. Sterling’s were dark and stormy blue, and they were filled with fear as he stared down at me like I was slipping away right in front of him.

Red nail marks were slashed across his cheek, beaded with tiny drops of blood where I’d clawed him in my sleep.

Oh God.

It was a nightmare.

David hadn’t been here.

It was just a dream.

A choked sob tore from my throat, and I burst into ugly, uncontrollable tears as my body shook with the force of it.