ALCATÉIA: O AMOR PROIBIDO

Chapter 1

ADRIA

I stood outside the VIP room with trembling hands, clutching the thermos of soup that still burned my palms through the insulated container. The hallway of Eclipse Club reeked of expensive cologne and poor decisions, much like my marriage.

"Sir, your wife is here with the soup for Miss Amber," Adina's voice filtered through the slightly ajar door before I could knock.

My husband's secretary. Always so efficient, always so beautiful in her tailored suits that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. I'd tried befriending her once, during the first month of our marriage. She'd looked at me the way one might look at a stray dog—with pity and mild disgust.

"Tell her to leave it with you," Damien's voice replied, cold and dismissive. "I don't want her embarrassing me in front of everyone."

I should have left. God knows I should have turned around, gone home, and pretended I hadn't heard that. But my feet remained rooted to the plush carpet, and my heart—that stupid, desperate thing—still held onto the foolish hope that maybe, just maybe, he didn't mean it the way it sounded.

"Come on, Damien," another male voice laughed. "Your wife isn't that bad. She's pretty easy on the eyes, at least."

"Easy on the eyes?" Damien scoffed. "Marcus, the woman has zero personality. She follows me around like a lost puppy, agrees to everything I say, and has absolutely no backbone. Do you know what it's like being married to someone so... bland?"

The thermos nearly slipped from my grip. I pressed myself against the wall, hidden by the decorative column, my breath caught somewhere between my throat and my breaking heart.

"Then why'd you marry her?" This voice belonged to Kieran, Damien's childhood friend. I'd met him twice, both times brief and unmemorable.

"Honestly? I felt sorry for her." Damien's laugh was cruel, sharp enough to cut through whatever remained of my dignity. "She was so pathetic, always showing up wherever I was, looking at me with those desperate eyes. I figured she was an orphan with nothing going for her, and I thought... why not? A wife who worships the ground you walk on and asks for nothing? Seemed like a decent arrangement."

"An arrangement that's about to get complicated now that Amber's back," Adina chimed in, her voice carrying a smugness that made my stomach churn.

Amber. His first love. The woman whose photos I'd found tucked in his study drawer three months into our marriage. The woman who looked eerily similar to me—same dark hair, same petite frame, same wide eyes. I'd convinced myself it was coincidence, that maybe he saw something in me he'd loved in her.

What a fool I'd been.

"Amber and I have unfinished business," Damien said, his voice softening in a way it never had when he spoke to me. "She left for Paris before we could make things official. Now she's back, and—"

"And you're married to her knockoff version," Marcus interrupted with another laugh. "Man, that's cold even for you."

My vision blurred. Sixteen years. I'd waited sixteen years to find the boy who saved me.

I was six years old when it happened, burning with fever in that abandoned warehouse where my kidnappers had left me. The memories were fragmented, fever-distorted, but I remembered the feel of cool water on my cracked lips, gentle hands checking my pulse, and a voice—young but steady—telling me I'd be okay. Before he left to get help, I'd pressed my most precious possession into his palm: my mother's necklace, a delicate silver chain with an emerald pendant shaped like a teardrop.

"Find me when you're older," I'd whispered in my delirium. "This is a promise."

He couldn't have been more than eight, but he'd nodded solemnly and disappeared into the night. By the time the police found me, he was gone. The authorities assumed he was another street kid, impossible to trace. My parents had been frantic, grateful I was alive but unable to comprehend why I kept crying about a necklace and a boy with kind eyes.

Eighteen months ago, I'd bumped into Damien outside a coffee shop in the financial district. Literally bumped into him, my latte splashing across his expensive suit. I'd been stammering apologies when I saw it—the emerald teardrop pendant hanging around his neck, slightly hidden beneath his collar.

My necklace. My promise. My savior.

Everything else had ceased to exist in that moment. I didn't see the irritation on his face or hear his sharp words about the stain. I only saw salvation, destiny, the answer to sixteen years of searching.

From that day forward, I'd dedicated myself to being near him. I'd learned his routine, showed up at his favorite restaurants, joined the same gym, volunteered at charity events his company sponsored. People called me obsessed. My friend Maya called me insane. But how could I explain that I wasn't chasing a stranger? I was chasing the boy who'd saved my life, the promise I'd made to a feverish child's dream.

When he'd finally acknowledged my existence, I'd been ecstatic. When he asked me out, I'd cried. When he proposed after only eight months—a rushed, practical proposal in his office with no ring and barely any emotion—I'd said yes before he could finish the sentence.

I'd molded myself into whatever he wanted. Quiet when he wanted peace. Absent when he wanted space. Agreeable when he wanted compliance. I'd buried Adriana Salvadore, secret heiress to the Salvadore empire, and become Adriana Chen, orphaned nobody, because he'd mentioned once that he found wealthy, powerful women intimidating.

All for a boy who'd saved me.

Except he wasn't that boy.

"Hey, Damien, where'd you get that necklace anyway?" Kieran's question pierced through my spiraling thoughts. "I've never seen you take it off."

My heart stopped.

"This?" Damien's voice carried confusion. "A friend lent it to me, what, two years ago? Said it made me look more sophisticated for the Singapore deal. I just never got around to returning it."

The hallway tilted. Or maybe I did.

"Dude, you've been wearing a borrowed for two years?" Marcus laughed. "

The thermos slipped from my hands, hitting the carpet with a muffled thud. Soup seeped through the lid, spreading across the burgundy fibers like blood.

Everything I'd sacrificed. Everything I'd endured. Every piece of myself I'd carved away to fit into his life.

For a borrowed necklace and a man who'd never saved anyone but himself.