Craving Touch, I Wed My Ex-Fiancé's Nemesis

The scream was trapped in her throat, a block of ice choking her airway.

Anastasia Beaumont shot up in bed, her silk nightgown plastered to her skin with a cold sweat. Rain lashed against the windowpane, the sound like the low growl of a beast just outside the walls of the Cross manor.

A familiar emptiness clawed at her from the inside, a sensation like her skin was being peeled away, leaving every nerve exposed. Her fingers dug into her own palms, the sharp sting of her nails a desperate anchor against the madness.

She needed to be touched.

The craving was a physical sickness, a post-traumatic symptom left behind by the fire and the screams that had stolen her family six years ago.

Her gaze fell on the silver-framed photo on her nightstand. Juston Cross, her fiancé, smiled out from the picture, his handsome face a perfect, polished mask. The sight of him didn't bring comfort. It made her stomach clench. He hated her illness, hated her neediness. He called it emotional vampirism.

The phone on the nightstand shrieked, slicing through the storm's roar.

Juston.

The name glowed on the screen, a cold command. She took a ragged breath, the air burning her lungs, and forced herself to answer.

"Ana, I need a tie. The blue Caraceni. Bring it to the Greenwich Polo Club. Now." Juston's voice was crisp, devoid of any greeting, laced with the casual authority of a man who never expected to be told no.

"Juston, I'm not feeling well..." she began, her voice a thin thread.

"Don't make excuses," he cut her off, his impatience a palpable wave through the phone. "Half an hour."

The line went dead. The dial tone was a slap in the face. The hand holding the phone turned white at the knuckles. Humiliation was a thick, suffocating blanket, making it hard to breathe.

She dragged herself out of bed. Juston's walk-in closet was a vast, silent testament to his wealth. She found the tie, its expensive silk feeling like a cruel joke in her trembling hands.

She pulled on a simple, unremarkable dress. A glimpse in the mirror showed a pale, haunted face. She looked away quickly, refusing to see the pathetic creature staring back.

The drive into the downpour was a blur. She gripped the wheel of the modest sedan the Cross family assigned to her, the wipers fighting a losing battle against the deluge. The world outside was as murky as her future.

Her symptoms worsened on the road. The craving became a physical tremor. She had to pull over, her hands locked on the steering wheel, knuckles white, until the shaking subsided enough to continue.

Twenty minutes later, the magnificent, castle-like gates of the Greenwich Polo Club loomed ahead. This was the playground of New York's most powerful elite.

A young valet in a crisp uniform opened her door, his eyes flicking from her plain car to her pale face with a flicker of barely concealed disdain.

Anastasia handed him the keys, murmured a thank you, and hurried into the gilded lobby, desperate to escape his appraising stare.

The hall was a swirl of expensive perfumes and quiet laughter. The damp chill clinging to her felt alien here. She was an intruder, even though she was, by name, Juston Cross's fiancée.

She asked the registration clerk for Juston's location. The woman pointed towards a lively terrace, her tone professional but distant.

As Anastasia turned, she overheard the clerk whisper to a colleague. "Looking for Mr. Cross again... Poor thing. Engaged and still treated like an errand girl."

The words landed like tiny, sharp stones against her skin. She quickened her pace, wanting only to finish her task and flee.

But as she moved through the crowd, the touch starvation hit her with the force of a physical blow. The brush of a sleeve, the proximity of an arm-it was all a dizzying, dangerous temptation. She nearly lost her balance, her hand flying out to grip a marble pillar for support.

She gasped for air, her vision blurring with unshed, physiological tears.

And through that watery haze, her eyes cut through the noise and the glitter, snagging on a figure seated in a shadowy corner sofa.

She couldn't see his face, only the sharp silhouette of his profile against the fireplace glow. And his hands.

They were resting on his knee, long-fingered, elegant, and strong. One was draped loosely around a crystal glass of amber liquid.

In that instant, the world went silent.

Every desperate, aching part of her being, all the emptiness and the pain, rushed towards those hands.

A wild, insane thought seized her: if those hands would just touch her, even for a second, all her suffering would vanish.

She stared, mesmerized, a lost pilgrim who had just found her shrine. She forgot where she was. She forgot why she was here.

The man seemed to sense her intense gaze. He turned his head slightly. The shadows hid his features, revealing only the clean, sharp line of his jaw.

Anastasia's heart seized. She stumbled back a step, retreating into the pillar's shadow like a thief caught in the act.

Leaning against the cold stone, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, she couldn't erase the image of those hands from her mind.

She knew, with a certainty that terrified her, that she was in deep, deep trouble.