Sugar traced the lines on her palms, crying until her vision blurred and burned again. Her mother was wrong. Jared would’ve stayed by her side. And God help her, she never would have regretted a lifetime of moments with him.

Don’t ever give your heart away.

“No,” she moaned, because she already had given it away, and losing her heart to Jared was the best and worst decision of her life.

Hell, it wasn’t a decision. And he wasn’t dead… yet.

“Get it together, Sugar.” She jumped to her feet and threw open the ambulance’s cabinets and drawers. Tossing packages and wrappers around her, she searched and searched and searched. Alcohol swabs. She grabbed a handful and tore open the tiny packets. They were of little use, but she scrubbed clean her love line and her life line. The tiny squares dried quickly as they rouged, and she let them hit the floor, opening more packets, repeating the process of ridding her palms of the dark shading.

It wasn’t working, and she didn’t care if his blood coated her hands. Jared was alive. He would stay alive. Titan had access to the best doctors in the country, and Jared Westin, the master of the universe, wasn’t going to die on an operation table.

Sugar spun to the ajar ambulance doors, then jumped out to the parking lot. The heels of her boots hit the ground, sending jolts of pain up her calves. For the first time in an hour, she felt something besides despair. Physical pain. And she would take that over the blanket of anguish.

No one else was around, and the ambulance entrance didn’t offer much in the way of customer service options, just busy people who didn’t notice her. She checked curtained rooms and looked down hallways, but didn’t see Jared. A sign pointed her toward the emergency room lobby, and she pushed through doors until she found the triage desk. She marched to the front of the long line of waiting people.

“Jared Westin. Where is he?”

The nurses behind the desk dropped their jaws. She caught her reflection in the Plexiglas dividing wall. The dried blood covering her face was streaked with tears, and her hair was matted against her cheeks. She turned to see the people standing in line shuffle away.

“Ma’am,” a young nurse stuttered. “Are you okay?”

Another nurse came from behind the desk. Maybe to check her injuries. Maybe to escape. Sugar looked ready to die or kill.

A wide-eyed baby-faced security officer approached her, his white-knuckled hand wrapped around a Taser gun. He mumbled into his walkie-talkie and held onto his Taser, unsure of her next move.

Like that Taser could stop me. “Where is Jared Westin?” She ignored him, placing both hands on the desk, and leaned into the nurse’s space. “Find him for me.”

“Step back from the nurse,” Baby-face called to her. Sugar turned her head. He spread his legs shoulder-width apart and bent his knees in a classic shooting stance. Someone had taught him well. “Ma’am—”