Chapter 1

The air in the penthouse was thick with the scent of sex and expensive cologne. Chloe Davis lay propped against a mountain of silk pillows, the oversized shirt she wore doing a poor job of hiding the sharp lines of her body. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights of Silicon Valley spread out like a circuit board. In the background, the soft hiss of the shower was the only sound.

Chloe was a tech prodigy, a ghost in the machine who could build or break anything she wanted. She was also a rebel, a fact that drove her father and the entire tech world crazy. Ethan Hayes, the man currently washing her off him in the marble bathroom, was the opposite. He was a titan, a venture capitalist so revered and so cold he was more of an institution than a man.

No one knew about them. About the frantic, desperate encounters in the back of his Maybach, in locked VIP lounges at galas, or here, in his sprawling, sterile penthouse that overlooked the world he owned. They were two extremes, a collision of chaos and control, and the wreckage was passionate and secret.

After another night of reckless abandon, Chloe felt a familiar hollowness settle in her chest. She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and dialed her mother. The shower was still running.

"I'll do it," Chloe said, her voice flat. "I'll agree to the arranged marriage with the sick heiress on the East Coast."

Her mother' s voice crackled with a joy that was almost painful to hear. "Oh, Chloe! Darling! Are you serious? Anything! We'll give you anything, as long as you agree!"

"I have one condition," Chloe said. Her voice was soft, but her eyes, staring at the blank wall, were hard.

"Name it! Just name it!"

"I'll tell you when I get home," Chloe replied, and hung up.

She was about to slide out of bed when her eyes caught on Ethan's laptop, left open on a nearby chair. A messaging app was on the screen. A new message from a contact named "Liam" had just popped up.

"Ethan, can you come keep me company for a bit...?"

Chloe' s fingers tightened on her phone. She felt a cold dread creep up her spine.

The bathroom door opened. Ethan emerged, a cloud of steam following him. A white robe was knotted loosely at his waist, leaving his chiseled chest and collarbone exposed. Water droplets clung to his skin. He looked like a statue, beautiful and untouchable.

"Something came up at the office," he said, his voice as cool and distant as ever. "I need to leave."

A bitter smirk curled Chloe' s lips. "Is it the office, or your 'first love'?"

Ethan paused in the middle of buttoning his shirt. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," Chloe said, swinging her legs out of bed. Her bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor. The oversized shirt fell away, revealing the toned muscles of her back and legs.

Ethan's eyes darkened for a fraction of a second as he watched her. "I'm going to work. Don't cause any trouble."

The heavy door clicked shut behind him. The moment it did, the smirk vanished from Chloe's face. She quickly pulled on her clothes, ordered a ride-share, and told the driver to follow Ethan' s car.

Thirty minutes later, her car pulled to a stop across the street from a sleek boutique hotel. Rain began to streak down the window, blurring the city lights. Chloe watched as a man in a crisp white shirt stepped out from under the hotel's awning. Liam. He held a jacket in his hands.

Ethan' s car pulled up. He got out and walked quickly toward Liam. Liam smiled and draped the jacket over Ethan's shoulders, his movements fluid and familiar, like a scene rehearsed a thousand times.

"It's cold out," Ethan' s voice was too low to hear, but his concern was obvious as he linked his arm with Liam' s. "Why did you come out without a jacket?"

Chloe gripped the car door handle, her nails digging into the soft leather. She watched them walk into the hotel together, a perfect picture of care and affection.

For some reason, her mind replayed the first time she met Ethan. She had been fighting with her father again. After she'd hacked the central server of his biggest competitor just for fun, he'd sent her to work for his best friend's son, hoping the notoriously cold Ethan Hayes could "temper her wild streak."

She' d walked into his penthouse office, a den of glass and steel. He sat behind a massive desk, his gaze behind his designer glasses as cold as ice. Chloe immediately decided she wouldn't last a day. She made it her mission to get fired.

On her first day, she "accidentally" spilled a large black coffee on his custom-tailored suit. He just gave her a bored look. "Italian cashmere. Bill it to the Davis family."

The next day, she shredded the documents for his most important board meeting. Unfazed, Ethan stood before the executives and recited the entire 30-page proposal from memory, leaving everyone in the room stunned.

On the third day, she went further. She drugged his coffee, planning to catch him in an embarrassing state and blackmail him into letting her go.

But the plan backfired spectacularly. The drug was stronger than she intended. She woke up the next morning in his bed, tangled in his sheets. A wave of disgust washed over her, but before she could escape, Ethan pulled her back, his body warm and solid against hers.

"Chloe," he murmured into her ear, his voice husky.

That one word, her name, spoken with such raw intimacy, disarmed her completely. It had been years since anyone had called her Chloe, not since her mother died. Everyone else called her "the Davis problem" or "the rebellious prodigy."

From that moment on, everything changed. Their dynamic shifted. Every time she tried to provoke him at the office, he would drag her into his private suite. The staff outside would whisper that he was finally disciplining the unruly intern. Inside, they were a mess of limbs on his desk, his couch, against the glass wall overlooking the city, until her legs were too weak to stand.

She fell for him. Hard. Was it the intoxicating way he took control? Or was it just that she was so profoundly lonely? She didn't know. She just knew she was falling.

So, for his birthday, she decided to risk everything. She spent the entire day decorating his penthouse. Roses, candles, soft music. She even cooked, something she never did. In her pocket was a small, velvet box with an engagement ring inside.

She waited. And waited. The candles burned down to puddles of wax. The roses started to wilt. He never came home.

At 3 a.m., a news alert lit up her phone.

#TechMogul'sSecretLovePicksUpFirstLoveAtMidnight#

The photo was grainy, but unmistakable. It was Ethan, carefully helping a pale, slender man into his car. The look on Ethan' s face was one of pure, unadulterated tenderness. It was a look he had never, ever given her.

The comment section was a storm of excitement.

"OMG, it's Liam Miller! They were the campus sweethearts at Stanford! I'm shipping them so hard!"

"I heard Liam went abroad because of his poor health. If he hadn't, they would have been married by now!"

"I was in their class! It's true! Ethan was like an iceberg to everyone except Liam!"

Her phone clattered to the floor. A call-on-demand lover. That' s all she was. Shaking, she dialed his number again and again. It went straight to voicemail every time.

After the last failed call, a desperate idea took hold. She walked to his study, the one room he had always forbidden her from entering. Her hand trembled as she turned the knob.

The moment she opened the door, the air was knocked from her lungs. The room wasn't an office. It was a shrine. It was filled with pictures of Liam. Graduation photos. Travel photos from places around the world. There were even candid shots of Liam sleeping, his face peaceful.

The cold, composed Ethan Hayes was capable of this level of obsession. Just not for her.

Did she even need to ask him for an answer anymore? The truth was plastered all over the walls.

A laugh escaped her lips, a harsh, ugly sound in the silent, empty penthouse. As she laughed, hot tears streamed down her face, splashing onto the polished floor. A blind rage took over. She tore the pictures from the walls, smashed the frames, overturned the furniture. She destroyed everything in a fit of grief and fury.

The next day, Ethan came back. He walked into the wrecked penthouse, his face a mask of indifference. He surveyed the damage with a calm, detached air and simply told his assistant, "Have the staff clean this up."

He didn't look at her. He didn't ask her why. He didn't yell. He acted as if her complete emotional breakdown was just another minor inconvenience.

She stood there, helpless, as the cleaning crew came in. She watched as one of them swept up the small, velvet ring box along with the shattered glass and torn photos, dumping it all into a black trash bag.

He never knew what was in that box. He never knew she had wanted to build a life with him. And he would never know that in the moment that ring was thrown away like garbage, she decided to stop loving him.

"Ms. Davis, where are you headed?"

The driver' s voice pulled her from the painful memory. She was still parked across from the hotel, the rain now a steady downpour.

"Home," Chloe said, her voice like a chip of ice. "To the Davis estate."

When she arrived, her father was waiting for her in the grand foyer. "Chloe! Your mother called. Are you serious about this? About the East Coast?"

On the sweeping staircase, her stepmother, Elaine, watched her with an expectant look on her face.

"Yes," Chloe said, her eyes dead. "But I told Mom I had a condition."

"What is it? Just tell us!" her father demanded impatiently.

Chloe looked straight at him, her voice ringing with cold clarity. "I want to... disown you, Father."

The air in the foyer went still. Her father's face twisted in disbelief and rage. "Are you out of your mind?! Do you have any idea what you're saying?"

"I couldn't be clearer," Chloe said, a humorless smile playing on her lips. "You cheated on my mother. You drove her to suicide so you could make room for this woman." She flicked her gaze toward Elaine. "From that day on, I never considered you my father."

She watched his face turn a blotchy, ashen color. "The Sterling family is offering fifty billion for this marriage of convenience. You've been pushing me for three months. If I didn't agree, you were just going to drag me there, weren't you? So what's the difference if we disown each other? You get your money either way."

She sneered. "Go ahead. Bring your mistress's son into this house. Let him be the precious Davis heir you always wanted."

Her father trembled with fury. "Fine! Disown me! The Sterlings want you there before the end of the month! They say the heiress is on her last legs!" He scoffed. "And as for your stepmother's son, he came back from abroad two days ago. He' s been staying in a hotel. Since you're so willing to step aside, he'll move in tomorrow!"

Chloe laughed, a sound that held no joy, only a deep, aching pain. "So eager to raise another man's child, but you couldn't be bothered with your own daughter. You really are one of a kind."

She turned to leave, but Elaine moved to block her path, her face a mask of fake concern. "Chloe, dear, how can you speak to your father like that?"

Chloe stopped dead. She turned around slowly, her eyes filled with a decade of suppressed hatred. "What? You think because I'm finally getting married off and out of your hair, you can play the part of the legitimate Mrs. Davis?"

She took a step closer, forcing Elaine to back away. "Listen to me, Elaine. My mother is dead, but that doesn't change the fact that you are, and always will be, a homewrecker. And your precious son," she spat the word, "even if he becomes the Davis heir, he can't wash away the stain of his mother being a mistress."

Elaine's face went white. She stumbled backward, speechless.

Chloe turned and walked up the stairs, each step heavy. She didn't stop until she was in her room with the door locked behind her. Only then did she slide down to the floor, all her strength gone.

The next morning, she was woken by the sounds of laughter and cheerful chatter from downstairs.

"What is all that noise?" she muttered, throwing open her bedroom door. "Can't a person get any sleep around here?"

The butler, standing in the hallway, stammered, "Miss Davis... Mr. Miller has moved in..."

Before he could finish his sentence, a figure appeared at the top of the stairs.

It was Liam Miller. Dressed in a simple white shirt, standing there quietly, a faint, almost innocent smile on his face.

Chloe's blood ran cold.