Chapter 1

The city lights glittered below, a sea of diamonds spread out on black velvet. From Ethan Hayes' s penthouse, the world looked small, controllable. Chloe Davis, propped against a mountain of silk pillows, felt anything but in control. The faint sound of the shower running in the master bathroom was the only noise in the sprawling suite, a quiet rhythm against the beat of her own anxious heart.

She was a tech prodigy, a rebel who had turned Silicon Valley on its head with her disruptive ideas. He was a titan, a venture capitalist whose name was spoken in hushed, reverent tones. To the world, they were oil and water. In private, tangled in the sheets of his king-sized bed, they were something else entirely. Something secret, and passionate, and probably destructive.

Chloe reached for her phone, the screen casting a pale glow on her face. She scrolled to her mother' s number-her stepmother' s, really, but the distinction was a wound she preferred not to poke. She pressed the call button.

Her stepmother, Elaine, picked up almost instantly, her voice a sickly sweet concoction of feigned concern. "Chloe, darling! Are you alright? It' s so late."

"I'll do it," Chloe said, her voice flat, devoid of emotion. She stared at the skyline, the glittering lights feeling a million miles away. "I' ll agree to the arranged marriage."

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end, followed by a squeal of barely contained joy. "Oh, darling! That' s wonderful news! Your father will be so pleased. The Sterlings are a wonderful family, and this will solve so many of our problems-"

"I have one condition," Chloe cut in, her voice slicing through Elaine' s excitement.

The joy faltered, replaced by a cautious tone. "A condition? Name it! Anything, darling, as long as you agree to marry!"

"I' ll tell you when I get home," Chloe replied. Her voice was soft, but a coldness settled in her eyes, a hardness that wasn' t there a few hours ago. She hung up before Elaine could press further, tossing the phone onto the empty side of the bed.

She was about to get up, to pull on her clothes and disappear into the night like she always did, when her eyes landed on Ethan' s laptop. He' d left it open on the nightstand, a careless mistake for a man who was usually so meticulous. A messaging app was open on the screen, a new notification glowing.

It was from a contact named "Liam."

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

Chloe' s heart stopped. Her fingers, which could code complex algorithms without a second thought, now trembled as she stared at the simple, innocent-looking message. It felt like a physical blow, knocking the air from her lungs.

Just then, the bathroom door clicked open. Ethan emerged, a white robe hanging loosely from his broad shoulders. Water droplets clung to his chiseled collarbone, and his damp hair was slicked back from his forehead. He looked unfairly handsome, an image of restrained allure that always made her stomach clench.

"Something came up at the office," he said, his voice as cool and distant as ever. He didn't look at her, his attention already on getting dressed. "I need to leave."

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

Ethan paused, his hand hovering over a drawer of perfectly folded shirts. He turned his head slightly, his sharp gaze finally landing on her. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," Chloe said, swinging her legs out of the bed. The cold marble floor shocked her bare feet. She stood, the oversized shirt she' d borrowed from him slipping off one shoulder, revealing the lean, toned lines of her body. For a moment, his eyes darkened, his gaze flicking over her before he looked away.

"I' m off to work," he said, his voice clipped. "Don' t cause trouble."

The heavy penthouse door clicked shut behind him, the sound echoing in the sudden silence. The moment he was gone, the smirk vanished from Chloe' s face, replaced by a blank, hollow expression. She quickly dressed, pulled out her phone, and ordered a ride-share. She had to see. She had to know.

She typed in the address of the boutique hotel Liam' s message had implicitly suggested. Thirty minutes later, her car pulled up across the street. Rain began to fall, streaking down the car window and blurring the city lights. Through the watery glass, Chloe saw him. Liam Miller, dressed in a crisp white shirt, stepped out from under the hotel' s awning.

A moment later, Ethan' s car pulled up. He got out, and Liam rushed forward, holding out a jacket. Ethan didn't hesitate. He let Liam drape the jacket over his shoulders, their movements fluid and familiar, as if they had performed this exact dance a thousand times. Ethan then linked his arm with Liam' s, pulling him close under the umbrella he held.

"It' s cold out," Chloe could almost hear Ethan' s voice, see the concern etched on his face. "Why are you out without a jacket?"

Chloe' s hand tightened on the car door handle, her nails digging painfully into her palm. She watched them walk into the hotel, a picture of domestic intimacy. The concern on Ethan' s face was a look she had never seen directed at her. It was a look reserved for someone precious.

For some reason, her mind reeled back to the first time she met him. She' d been at war with her father, a constant battle of wills since her mother' s death. After one particularly defiant act, her father, at the end of his rope, had sent her to work for his best friend' s son, Ethan Hayes, hoping the notoriously cold businessman could temper her wild streak.

Their first meeting was in his penthouse office. He sat behind a massive mahogany desk, his gaze behind his designer glasses as cold as ice. Chloe, of course, had no intention of being tamed. She decided to make his life a living hell. On her first day, she "accidentally" spilled a large cup of black coffee all over his custom-tailored suit.

Ethan had merely glanced down at the dark stain spreading across the expensive fabric. "Italian cashmere," he' d said, his voice bored. "Bill it to the Davis family."

The next day, she deliberately shredded the documents for his most important meeting of the quarter. Unfazed, Ethan stood before the board of executives and dictated the entire multi-page report from memory, his flawless recall astonishing everyone in the room.

On the third day, she took it a step further. She drugged his coffee, setting up a hidden camera to capture whatever embarrassing moments followed. She planned to use it as blackmail to get him to fire her. But the plan had backfired spectacularly.

She woke up the next morning in his bed, the sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows. She felt a wave of self-disgust, but before she could move, Ethan, surprisingly, had pulled her closer, his body warm against hers.

"Chloe," he had murmured, his voice husky as he nibbled on her earlobe.

That single word, her name, spoken with such intimacy, had disarmed her completely. No one had called her Chloe like that, not really, not since her mother died. Everyone else called her Ms. Davis, or the "rebel prodigy." He had seen her.

From that day on, everything changed. Their dynamic shifted from a battle of wills to a dangerous, addictive game. Every time she provoked him at the office, he would drag her into his private study. The entire company thought he was disciplining the unruly heiress. In reality, they were tangled up on his desk, on his leather couch, against the glass wall overlooking the city, until her legs gave out and she couldn't think straight.

She found herself becoming addicted to him. Was it the thrill? Or was it because, for the first time in years, she didn't feel so devastatingly lonely? She didn' t know. She only knew she was falling, hard and fast.

So, for his birthday, she' d decided to lay it all on the line. She spent the entire day decorating his penthouse. Roses, candles, music. She even had a small, velvet box in her pocket with an engagement ring inside. She was going to ask him.

But Chloe waited all night. The candles burned down to puddles of wax, and the roses began to wilt. He never came. He never even called.

At 3 AM, a news alert lit up her phone. #TechMogul'sSecretLovePicksUpFirstLoveAtMidnight#

The picture was grainy, taken from a distance, but it was unmistakably them. Ethan, carefully escorting a delicate-looking man into a car. The look on Ethan' s face, a tenderness so profound it radiated even through the poor-quality photo, was a physical shock.

The comment section was a storm of excitement.

"OMG, what a power couple! I'm shipping them so hard!"

"No way! Isn't that Ethan Hayes and Liam Miller, the campus sweethearts? If Liam hadn't gone abroad for his health, they' d be married by now!"

"I was in their class! Ethan was cold to everyone but Liam! It' s true love!"

Her phone clattered to the floor. Campus sweethearts? First love? If Ethan already had someone he cherished so deeply, then what was she? A convenient body? A toy to play with when he was bored?

She tremblingly dialed his number, once, twice, a dozen times. It went straight to voicemail every time. Desperate for an answer, for any kind of explanation, she did something she had never done before. She walked into his study, the one room in the penthouse he had always forbidden her from entering.

The moment she opened the door, the truth hit her like a punch to the gut. The room wasn't an office. It was a shrine. It was filled with photos of Liam Miller. Graduation photos, travel photos from places she' d never been, candid shots of Liam sleeping peacefully. Ethan Hayes, the man famous for his ice-cold composure, was capable of this level of obsession.

Did she even need an answer from him anymore? The evidence was all around her. It seemed irrelevant now.

A harsh, grating laugh escaped her lips, echoing in the silent, empty room. As she laughed, hot tears streamed down her face, splashing onto the polished floor. The laughter turned into sobs, and the sobs turned into a blind rage. She trashed the entire penthouse. She shattered vases, ripped paintings from the walls, and threw his expensive gadgets against the floor until they were nothing but plastic and wires.

The next day, when Ethan finally returned, he surveyed the wreckage with an unnerving calm. He didn' t yell. He didn' t ask what happened. He simply instructed his staff to clean it up, not even sparing her a single glance, as if her destructive, heartbroken outburst was just another Tuesday.

Chloe watched, numb and helpless, as a cleaner swept up the debris. She saw the small, velvet box-the one with the engagement ring-being swept into a dustpan along with broken glass and torn silk, treated like just another piece of trash.

He didn't know what was in that box. He didn't know she had been ready to give him her entire future. And he certainly didn' t know that in the moment that ring was discarded, she decided to stop loving him, too.

"Ms. Davis, where are you headed?"

The driver' s voice pulled her sharply back to the present, back to the rain-streaked car parked outside the hotel.

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

Back at the sprawling, cold mansion she was forced to call home, her father was waiting for her in the grand foyer. "Chloe, are you serious? Elaine told me you' re reconsidering the marriage to the Sterling heiress."

On the grand staircase, her stepmother, Elaine, watched her with expectant eyes.

"Yes," Chloe said, her gaze sweeping over both of them, cold and dismissive. "But I told you I had a condition, didn't I?"

"What is it? Just tell us!" her father urged, his voice filled with a greedy eagerness.

Chloe took a deep breath, and enunciated each word with perfect, chilling clarity. "I want to-disown you, Father."

The air in the foyer froze. Her father's face, a moment ago alight with greed, contorted into a mask of disbelief and rage. "Are you out of your mind?! Do you know what you' re saying?"

"I couldn't be clearer," Chloe' s voice was sharp. "You cheated on my mother. You brought that woman"-she flicked her eyes toward Elaine-"into our home, and you drove my mother to suicide to make way for her. From that day on, in my heart, I never acknowledged you as my father again."

She watched her father' s face turn an ashen gray. "Now, the ailing heiress from the East Coast is offering fifty billion dollars for a marriage of convenience, money you desperately need. You' ve been hounding me for three months. If I didn't agree, were you planning to drug me and drag me to the altar?"

A sneer twisted her lips. "Since that' s the case, what' s the harm in making it official? We disown each other. You get your money, and I get my freedom from you. Go ahead and bring your mistress' s son home. Let him be the precious Davis heir you always wanted."

Her father trembled with rage. "Fine! Fine! Disown me then! But you have to go to the East Coast before the end of the month! The Sterling family says she's on her last legs!" He scoffed, a cruel glint in his eye. "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 graciously stepping aside, he' ll be moving in tomorrow!"

Chloe let out a short, sharp laugh that held no humor, only pain. "So eager to raise someone else' s son, while you couldn' t be bothered with your own daughter. You' re truly one of a kind, Father."

She turned to leave, to escape to the sanctuary of her room, but Elaine moved to block her path, her face a mask of false concern. "Chloe, how can you talk to your father like that? After everything he' s done for you..."

Chloe stopped dead in her tracks. She turned around slowly, the years of suppressed hatred finally boiling over, burning in her eyes. "What? You think once I' m married off and out of this house, you can finally play the role of the legitimate Mrs. Davis in peace?"

She took a step closer, forcing Elaine to take a step back. "Elaine, listen to me very carefully. My mother may be dead, but that doesn't change the fact that you are, and always will be, a homewrecker that everyone in this city despises. And your precious son," she spat the word, "even if he becomes the Davis heir, he can't erase the stain of his mother being a mistress!"

Elaine' s face went completely pale. She stumbled back, her hand flying to her chest as if she' d been struck.

Without another word, Chloe turned and walked away, climbing the stairs to her room. Each step felt like walking on broken glass. It wasn' t until she was safely behind her closed door that she finally slid to the floor, her body trembling as if all her strength had been drained away at once.

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

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

The butler, standing nervously 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. A familiar figure. Dressed in a simple white shirt, he stood there quietly, a gentle smile on his face.

It was Liam Miller.

Chloe' s blood ran cold. The man from the hotel. The man from Ethan's photo shrine. Her stepbrother. It was all one and the same person.