Chapter 28

• Joaquin’s POV
• The cold hardwood floor of the study was soaked in a spreading pool of warm, crimson blood. My breath came in shallow, ragged hitches as I slowly pushed myself up from the wreckage of the desk. The back of my shirt was shredded, and a sharp, burning agony throbbed violently across my shoulder and upper back where the heavy metal quill pen had repeatedly pierced my flesh. She had stabbed me. Roxanne had played her part to absolute perfection, lulling me into a desperate, heated haze of passion only to strike the second my guard dropped.
• Pain meant nothing. Blood loss meant nothing.