Page 13 of Take Me Under

If I hadn’t already felt the urge to vomit, he had pushed me to the edge. I’d excused myself from the table before I really did get sick all over the guests and made my way to the bathroom. When I lost what little had been in my stomach, I knew I had to leave. My body ached with fever. I recalled going outside to call for a cab. That’s when Anton had come upon me.

From that point on, things started to get fuzzy. I’d been so tired. I remembered getting into his car…and then, nothing.

My eyes darted once again to the dress tossed over the chaise. Raising the comforter to get a view of myself, I found that I was dressed in a white T-shirt—a man’s T-shirt. I lifted the collar of the shirt to find I was naked, save my cotton panties and the ruby necklace.

“What the hell?” I didn’t remember undressing.

The last thing I recalled was Anton leading me to the backseat of an SUV. He’d climbed in next to me, so someoneelse had to have been driving. I’d fallen asleep, and I had no memory of how I’d come to be in this room—in this bed.

“Bad things happen to women who travel alone, Serena.”

I could hear my mother’s words as clear as day. She didn’t like the idea of me coming to New York on my own, but I’d had little choice. We didn’t have the money for her to accompany me, and my best friend, Caterina, hadn’t been able to get off from work.

Now here I was in a strange bed, having no idea how I’d gotten here. I mentally checked my lady parts. Everything felt okay, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t a horror movie in the making. I had to get out of here before something really bad happened.

Before I could consider an escape, nature called. There was a door on the other side of the room cracked open enough for me to see it was a bathroom. Using what little energy I had, I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I stood, but my body swayed so much, I had to sit back down.

“Mother Mary,” I muttered. I was sicker than I’d realized. In fact, I couldn’t recall a time in my life when I’d felt this terrible.

I attempted to stand again, then slowly put one foot in front of the other until I reached the bathroom door. Once inside, I fumbled for the switch. I didn’t find one, but my movements alone seemed to trigger the lights. I glanced around, trying to get my bearings. The bathroom was beautiful, boasting sophistication and functional class. Any other day, I would have paused to take in every meticulously curated detail, but right then, my fevered body could only focus on getting to the toilet.

After using the facilities, I went to the sink to wash my hands. A minimalist pendant light hung just above the mirror, highlighting the dark circles under my eyes. I looked like hell, and as much as I knew I needed to leave this strange place, my body longed to crawl back into the soft embrace of the bed.

When I exited the bathroom, I stopped short at the silhouetteof a man outlined against one of the wide glass windows. Startled, I gasped.

This is it. This is how I die.

He slowly turned, and I held my breath. When Anton’s beautiful face came into view in the dim light, I breathed a momentary sigh of relief before panic rushed right back in. After all, he was a stranger. Albeit, a very sexy stranger who made me weak in the knees, but that was beside the point. I was in an unfamiliar place wearing only a T-shirt that barely covered my underwear.

“Good. You’re awake. You had me worried for a while there,” he said, appraising me up and down.

“Where am I?” I demanded.

“My penthouse. How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. The reality was that I felt ready to collapse. Everything hurt and I just wanted to sleep.

He moved over to the bedside lamp and turned it on. His head tipped to the side curiously as he studied my face. “You don’t look fine.”

“Gee, thanks,” I replied.

His lips curved slightly to form an amused grin before he took a step toward me. Instinctively, I backed away and tried to ignore how good he looked in a snug black T-shirt and blue jeans. It was a drastic shift from the polished man I’d met outside of the museum. This version of him was darker. Edgier.

“Princess, you should go back to bed.”

There was that word.

Princess.

It had stirred something in me when he’d first called me that, and even though I felt like death, hearing it again awakened that arousal once more. Not wanting to entertain why that was, I changed the subject.

“How did I get here?”

“You fell asleep in the car on the way to your…motel,” he replied, not bothering to hide his disgust over the last word. “I tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t budge. I also didn’t like the idea of leaving you alone in that place when you clearly weren’t well. So, I brought you back here.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to ward off the pounding in my head as I attempted to make sense of what he was saying.

“I don’t remember coming here, let alone climbing into this bed.”

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