Chapter One

Aria Pov

“I hope you are coming home tonight, because tomorrow you are going to work with your stepdad in his company.”

My mother’s voice carried down the short hallway of our apartment, bright and full of that particular pride she only used when she spoke about him. I stood by the front door with my bag already on my shoulder, one hand still resting on the cool metal of the knob.

“Yes, Mom,” I answered.

I didn’t turn around. I already knew the expression Victoria would be wearing—the soft, satisfied curve of her mouth, the way her eyes lit up whenever she mentioned the man she had married three months ago. The man I had never met. The man whose face I couldn’t even picture. Victoria never stopped talking about him. How successful he was. How respected. How generous. Every month, without fail, money arrived in her account. Enough to cover the rent, the bills, the little extras she had gone without for years. Enough for both of us. She said his name like it was a promise. She said the company he owned was a fortress. She said tomorrow I would finally step inside that fortress and start building a future that didn’t depend on tips or late shifts or the thin kindness of strangers.

I pulled the door open and stepped into the evening.

The air outside was warm and heavy, the kind that clung to skin. I walked without any real destination at first, just moving away from the sound of Victoria’s voice and the weight of her expectations. Tomorrow I would meet him. The stepfather. The stranger who paid for our lives while remaining a ghost. I had asked to see a picture once. Victoria had only laughed and said there would be time enough for introductions when I started at the company. She made it sound simple. Clean. As if a man could send money for months and then simply become family the moment I walked through the glass doors of his building.

I didn’t want to go home and sit with those thoughts. I didn’t want to listen to her talk about him for another hour. So I turned in the direction of Ethan’s apartment.

I was going there to surprise him. In seven days we were supposed to get married, and I had been holding the news close, waiting for the right moment to tell him face to face. I wanted to see his expression when I said it. I wanted the ordinary night, the quiet apartment, the way he would pull me in and listen while I told him that everything was finally going to be official. That thought alone kept my feet moving.

Ethan. My boyfriend of eleven months. The one person who still felt like something that belonged only to me. He had a ground-floor place six blocks away, the kind with thin walls and a permanent smell of takeout and cologne. He had given me a key in the second month, after a night when I had shown up crying about nothing and everything. I still used it. It felt like proof that I had a place that wasn’t bought and paid for by a man I had never seen.

The walk took longer than it should have. My mind kept circling back to the company, to the unknown man who would be my boss and my stepfather in the same breath. I tried to imagine what he looked like. Older, of course. Polished. The kind of man who wore suits that cost more than our rent. Victoria said he worked too much. She said he was rarely home. She said that was why the money came so easily—because he lived for the company and nothing else. I wondered if he even knew my name. I wondered if he cared that his new wife’s daughter would be sitting at a desk in his building tomorrow morning.

Streetlights flickered on one by one as I passed the small row of shops that were already closing. A bus hissed to a stop across the street and pulled away again without me. I kept walking. The closer I got to Ethan’s building, the more I told myself that seeing him would steady me. That his arms, his voice, the ordinary weight of his body next to mine would push the thought of the faceless stepfather out of my head for a few hours. And then I would tell him. In seven days we would be married. The words sat ready on my tongue.

By the time I reached his door, the sky had started to darken. I didn’t knock. I never knocked. The key turned smoothly in the lock, and I stepped inside.

The apartment was quiet at first. Only the low hum of the refrigerator and the faint sound of traffic through the open window in the living room. Then I heard it—something that didn’t belong. A raw, broken sound coming from the bedroom. High and desperate. The kind of sound that made the air feel thicker.

I moved down the short hallway without calling his name.

The bedroom door was open just enough. Light from the single lamp on the nightstand spilled across the bed and the two bodies on it.

Ethan was face-down, fists twisted in the sheets, back arched. Another man—Derek—was on top of him, hips driving forward in a hard, relentless rhythm. Ethan’s mouth was open against the mattress. The sounds coming out of him were nothing I had ever heard before—loud, shameless, almost sobbing with pleasure. He had never made those sounds with me. Not once in eleven months. No matter how I touched him, no matter what I tried, he had never come apart like that. Derek had one hand locked around the back of Ethan’s neck, holding him in place, and the wet slap of skin on skin filled the room.

Neither of them looked up.

I stood in the doorway long enough for every detail to burn itself into me. The sheen of sweat on Ethan’s spine. The way his thighs trembled. The low, satisfied sound Derek made when Ethan pushed back to meet him. The complete absence of secrecy, as if the door being unlocked had never mattered.

Something inside my chest tore open.

I crossed the room before I could think. My hand swung hard and caught Derek across the shoulder and the side of his face. The crack of the slap was sharp in the small space. He jerked back with a curse, pulling free. Ethan’s head snapped up. His eyes found mine—wide, glassy, still dark with the pleasure that hadn’t finished yet. For one second there was only shock. Then the shock twisted.

He shoved Derek aside, scrambled up onto his knees, and backhanded me across the face so hard the world went white.

Pain exploded through my cheekbone and the corner of my mouth. I staggered sideways into the wall, the taste of blood already bright on my tongue. My ears rang. The side of my face throbbed in time with my heartbeat.

Ethan stood there naked, chest heaving, the evidence of what he had been doing still slick on his skin. Derek only reached for his pants, a small, cold smile on his mouth. Neither of them looked ashamed. Neither of them looked sorry. They stared at me like I was the one who had walked into the wrong room, like the violence and the betrayal were simply facts I was supposed to accept.

He slapped me after I tried to slap the guy, because they were not even feeling guilty.