Blood Ties and Billionaire Lies

My gown shimmered like moonlight trapped in glass.Royal blue, silk threaded with stones that caught the light and scattered it across the ballroom like stars.I haven't even stepped fully into the room before I felt it—the shift.A slow hush, as if someone had drawn a curtain over sound itself.Heads turned. Eyes locked. The air thickened.The soft murmur of the elite crowd, all silk gloves and practiced smiles, broke like waves against me.First one glance, then another—until the silence became weight, pressing into my chest.Alia exhaled beside me. “Selena… they’re all looking at you.”She leaned in, gripping my arm gently, but I barely felt it.My fingers clenched the fabric of my dress. “We stay close, okay?”She nodded, but even her voice had dropped to a whisper. Like we were suddenly on stage and didn’t know our lines.And then… the whispers began."Who is she?""Isn’t she Cassandra’s little sister?""An intern... wearing that?"The voices weren’t loud, but they pierced just t

The elevator doors slid open, and I stepped onto my floor. My eyes landed on him instantly. Damien Roth.Tall, composed, in a charcoal suit that fit him like it had been stitched straight onto his frame. His hair was perfect, his posture relaxed but full of quiet authority. And he wasn’t alone. Cassandra was beside him. She was dressed in a shimmering emerald suit, the fabric catching the light as she shifted her weight onto one heel. Her hair was pulled into a sleek ponytail that made her look sharper, more dangerous. She was smiling wide and flawless and her laugh drifted across the lobby like music. Damien smiled back. Not the half-smile from last night. This one was warmer, open. The kind you give someone who matters. It hit me like a punch. I lowered my gaze to the marble floor, the gold veins in the stone blurring as I headed for the intern cubicles. If I moved fast enough, maybe I could just “Selena!” Her voice cut through the air like a whip. I froze and turned. “Go

The weekend was too quiet. For most people, quiet meant peace. For Selena, it was dangerous. Quiet meant thinking. And thinking meant remembering. No matter how many times she tried to distract herself washing dishes, rearranging the bookshelf, watering her plants her mind kept circling back. Cassandra’s voice from earlier in the week still clung to her, sharp and cold. "That’s why he’ll never really see you." It wasn’t the words that hurt most. It was the way Cassandra had said them. Like a fact carved in stone. Like she wasn’t just predicting the future she was promising it. Selena pressed her lips together and kept dusting the shelf. But under Cassandra’s voice, another memory pushed its way forward. The one from the washroom. The flicker of the light. The blur in the mirror. That prickling on the back of her neck that said she wasn’t alone. She had told herself it was nothing just her imagination. But the truth was, she still didn’t believe herself. By late morning, she

The hum of the office on Monday morning felt different. There was the usual shuffle of papers, the steady rhythm of keyboards, the muted chime of phones but for me, everything carried an undertone of anticipation. Richard D. Morgan had assigned me to a project directly under him. The thought alone was enough to make my pulse stumble every few minutes. I adjusted my blazer for what felt like the tenth time as I entered the sleek, glass-walled floor where Richard’s division operated. Here, the air felt colder, sharper, as though success itself demanded precision. People walked briskly, not a step wasted, their conversations clipped and professional. Richard’s office sat at the far end, large but not ostentatious. Unlike Damien’s top-floor penthouse suite with its panoramic view, Richard’s space was structured, functional, lined with shelves of reports and thick binders. The man himself stood behind his desk, sleeves rolled neatly at his elbows, reviewing a file. His stern profile sof

The buzz around the company shifted that week, and at the center of it all was Cassandra Monroe. Her picture had appeared in a business column standing beside Damien Roth at a charity gala, her flawless smile perfectly timed for the cameras. It didn’t matter that Damien’s expression was unreadable; the press didn’t care. The headlines wrote themselves. The Rising Monroe and Roth Enterprise’s Enigmatic Heir. Cassandra soaked it up. Every time I passed her in the hallway, she was surrounded by whispers and stares. Her smirk seemed permanent now, sharpened by the glow of attention. She wanted everyone to believe Damien Roth was hers or that he would be soon. And maybe she even believed it herself. Meanwhile, I sat quietly behind my laptop at night, scrolling through Roth Enterprise’s project forums. Damien’s comments were sparse, but they always drew my eyes. When he posted an observation, it was clear, precise, like cutting glass. I responded when it made sense, careful not to over