Faking his wife, carrying his child.
One night. No names. No promises.
Nova Chen thought she'd never see those grey eyes again.
She was wrong.
When her twin sister Lyra panics days before her arranged marriage to Damien Cross — Halvenmoor's coldest, most powerful billionaire — Nova does what she has always done. She steps in. One ceremony. One signature. One week, then she disappears and nobody gets hurt.
Except Lyra never comes back.
Now Nova is trapped inside a mansion full of secrets, living under her sister's name, watching her lies multiply by the day. The staff notice everything. The mother-in-law suspects something. And Damien himself watches her across every dinner table with those pale grey eyes that see far more than he lets on.
Those same eyes she last saw in a dark courtyard three months ago.
Before she knew his name.
Before she knew she was pregnant.
Nova is carrying the child of the man she is deceiving — a man who does not forgive, does not bend, and is already circling closer to the truth. And somewhere in the city, her sister is hiding with a dangerous man whose agenda could destroy everything Nova is desperately trying to hold together.
She came to buy Lyra one week.
She stayed because leaving would cost her everything.
And the billionaire who was never supposed to matter is becoming the one thing she cannot afford to lose.
One wrong choice. One impossible secret. And a love built on borrowed time.
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Chapter: Chapter Twelve: You're Not Who You Said You WereI hadn't slept.Not after finding my name on that document. Not after sitting on the library floor for forty minutes turning it over and over in my hands like it would eventually make a different kind of sense.Nova Chen. My full legal name. On a supplementary addendum attached to a marriage contract that had been signed before I ever agreed to any of this.Someone in this house — or connected to it — had known I was coming before Lyra made that midnight call. Before I said yes. Before I practiced a signature in my bathroom mirror.They had put my name on paper and waited.I'd gone to bed at two and stared at the ceiling until five and then given up entirely and come downstairs at six.That was when I'd seen the folder.Damien's study door slightly open. The lamp still on inside. And on the desk, visible through the gap — a plain manila folder with two names written on the tab in his handwriting.Lyra Chen.Nova Chen.Both.I'd stood in that corridor for a long time.Then I'd walked t
Last Updated: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Chapter Eleven: Running Into WallsHe didn't come in.That was the thing I kept returning to the next morning. Damien had stood in my doorway with the marriage certificate in his hand and a red circle around a signature that wasn't quite Lyra's, and he had looked at me for a long moment with those unreadable grey eyes, and then he had said "We need to talk" and I had said "Alright" and he had said "Not tonight" and walked back down the corridor.Not tonight.I hadn't slept. I'd lain in the dark replaying those two words until they stopped making sense and started making too much sense. Not tonight meant there was a tonight coming. It meant he was choosing when. Choosing the moment, the setting, the terms of whatever conversation was about to end everything.Damien Cross didn't react. He planned.Lyra had told me that on the burner phone and I hadn't needed her to.I already knew.Isolde arrived at the library at nine the next morning with a document and an expression that said she had not come to make my day easier."T
Last Updated: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Chapter Ten: The Voice on the Burner PhoneI answered it."Hello, Nova."My sister's voice. Bright. Warm. Completely unbothered — the way Lyra sounded when she'd done something she'd already made peace with and was waiting for everyone else to catch up.I sat down on the edge of the bed."Lyra.""I've been thinking about you so much. How are you holding up? Is the house terrible? I always imagined it would be quite cold. All that stone."She said it like we were catching up over coffee. Like I was house-sitting for a friend and she was checking in out of mild curiosity."How are you calling me on this number," I said."I sent the phone, Nova. Obviously.""You sent it." I looked at the prepaid handset in my other hand. "You had someone knock on my door and vanish and leave an unmarked parcel on the floor of the Cross estate.""I needed a clean line. You understand.""Who delivered it.""Someone Pax trusts. Don't worry about that."Don't worry about that.Someone connected to a man Vesna had described with careful words and a de
Last Updated: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Chapter Nine: The Man on the Road"Are you ready?" Damien stood at the bottom of the stairs in a dark suit, keys already in hand, checking his watch with the energy of a man who had decided the answer was yes regardless of what I said. I'd been awake since four. Lying in the dark doing the same calculation over and over. Seventy-two hours. That was what I'd given myself last night after Rowenna left. Seventy-two hours before she got that marriage certificate and put my signature next to Lyra's and understood exactly what she was looking at. "Two minutes," I said. "One." I grabbed my jacket and followed him out. He hadn't explained why he wanted me along. He'd appeared at the library door that morning while I was working and said "Cross Corporation. One hour. Get dressed appropriately" and walked away before I could form a single question. Appropriately meant the wardrobe full of clothes still sized for me that still had no explanation. I wore the navy blazer. Kept my hair back. Sat in the car beside Damien wh
Last Updated: 2026-06-05
Chapter: Chapter Eight: What Rowenna Cross Considers KindnessI was still thinking about Quill's warning when the doorbell rang.This house has a long memory.I'd been turning those words over since I came back inside from the garden, sitting at my desk pretending to work while my mind stayed out there on the cliff path. And now Mrs. Aldren's footsteps moved through the corridor faster than usual and I understood that whatever small amount of composure I'd rebuilt in the last two hours was about to be tested again.I came downstairs to find Rowenna Cross already inside.She stood in the entrance hall removing her gloves one finger at a time, silver-blonde hair pinned without a single strand considering escape, wearing a cream dress that probably cost more than three months of my old rent. She was striking in the way certain women are striking — not warm, not approachable, but impossible to look away from.Her eyes found me the moment my foot hit the bottom stair.Pale grey. Same as Damien's. But where his were still water, hers were something th
Last Updated: 2026-06-04
Chapter: Chapter Seven: Quill Arrives Like a GrenadeThe front doors opened like nobody had knocked. Mrs. Aldren appeared from the corridor at the exact same moment, moving faster than I'd seen her move before, which told me this was not the first time this had happened and probably wouldn't be the last. "Mr. Quill—" "Mrs. A." The man who walked in was younger than Damien by visible years, same bronze skin, same dark hair but longer and slightly unkempt in a way that looked accidental and wasn't. He dropped a bag by the door, looked around the entrance hall, and then saw me standing at the foot of the stairs with a coffee cup in my hand. He stopped. Looked at me for a full two seconds. Then his entire face opened up like someone had switched a light on behind it. "Oh," he said. "I like her already." Mrs. Aldren closed her eyes briefly. "Mr. Cross is in his study—" "He can wait." Quill crossed the entrance hall with his hand already extended. "Quill Cross. The better-looking brother. You must be Lyra." I shook his hand. "Yes."
Last Updated: 2026-06-04
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