Chapter 1

When I returned home from the hospital, the first thing I saw was Cassian Andor sprawled out on the sofa, his shirt rumpled.

Even the faintest sound of my entrance stirred him. He cracked open one eye, and when he saw it was me, he immediately sat up, his expression darkening.

"Zora," he barked, "your little performance at the party tonight was disgraceful!"

He sneered, rising to his feet as he continued his tirade. "Heidi has been doing exceptionally well at work lately. Everything you saw tonight—every gift, every flower, every celebration—was simply my way of rewarding her. And yet, you couldn't even hide your jealousy?

"You've learned a few tricks, haven't you? Staging a scene just to get my attention? Did it ever occur to you that your little stunt would make Heidi feel guilty? She's always been so soft-hearted."

I stood there, head bowed, clutching the hem of my jacket so tightly my knuckles turned white.

I had always suffered from allergic asthma.

Ten years ago, when I first moved into the Andor household, Cassian had reacted as though the sky were falling the moment he learned about my condition. He ordered the butler to conduct an immediate overhaul of the entire house—no dust, no pollen, nothing that could even remotely trigger an attack.

He didn't stop there. He hunted down the best doctors, pored over the most prestigious medical journals, all to find a cure that would set me free.

He once told me that even if he wasn't there to watch over me, he wanted to know I would be safe.

Thanks to his relentless efforts, my asthma hadn't flared up in years.

For a full decade, I had been the world's most envied darling, the little princess he openly spoiled and held proudly in his arms.

Everyone knew I was his weakness, the one he would do anything for.

But ever since Heidi Torres appeared, he had conveniently forgotten all of that.

The sight of me gasping for air, doubled over in pain at tonight's party, was nothing more to him than an embarrassing display of petty rivalry.

My nose stung. Tears blurred my vision.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Cassian," I whispered, my voice trembling. "It was wrong of me to embarrass Heidi. It won't happen again."

The address—Uncle Cassian—made him freeze for a fraction of a second. It had been so long since I last called him that.

I was ten years old when my world split into a before and an after. Before that, life had been modest but warm, wrapped in the comforting embrace of my parents' love. Then my mother died of illness. My father's business crumbled. And just like that, we owed an unfathomable debt to the Andor family.

Cassian had come to collect.

I could still remember the scene vividly—my father pushing me towards him without a shred of hesitation.

"Mr. Andor," he said with a forced smile, "I'll leave my daughter with you as collateral. Once I earn enough, I'll come back and redeem her. Surely you can trust me not to run now?"

But of course, my father did exactly that. He vanished without a trace, leaving me alone to fend for myself in the Andor family.

Oddly enough, the man who had once seemed so menacing softened almost overnight. He tried everything—every toy, every sweet word, every carefully orchestrated kindness—to coax the scared, skinny little girl into smiling again.

He enrolled me in the finest schools, dressed me in designer clothes, and showered me with gifts that made the other children gape in envy.

When I fell sick, he stayed up through the night nursing me back to health. When I cried, he sat beside me and cried too. When I laughed, he laughed even louder.

Slowly, the walls I had built around my heart crumbled. I stopped fearing him. I started clinging to him, teasing him, laughing with him.

"Uncle Cassian," I once declared boldly, "when I grow up, I'm going to marry you!"

He had chuckled awkwardly, ruffling my hair. "You want to marry me, Zora?"

"Of course!" I beamed. "You just wait until I'm twenty. Then we can get a marriage license!"

He smiled then, a tender look in his eyes.

"But Zora," he said gently, "if you really want to marry me, you'll have to stop calling me 'Uncle Cassian.'"

I had engraved those words into my heart. And so, starting from my seventeenth birthday, I never called him that again.

I had spent every day since counting down to my twentieth birthday, dreaming of the day when he would finally, finally be mine.

But now, with that milestone just days away, my dreams had withered away, shriveled and frozen into something cold and brittle.

The princess once cradled so dearly in Cassian's palm had lost her castle—and her crown.

Maybe it was finally time to make a different choice.