Chapter 1

Amelia’s POV

His mouth was everywhere—urgent, reverent—and my back arched like a live wire pulled too tight.

“God, Amelia,” Cayden breathed against my throat, voice hoarse, “your eyes—look at me. Please. Let me drown in them.” 

I did. I let him. And when our eyes locked, something in him shattered—his rhythm faltered, deepened, roughened, like he needed to bury himself. The world blurred as my legs trembled around his waist. 

Seconds later, he collapsed beside me, chest heaving, arm flung over his eyes like even the ceiling might judge what we’d just done. 

I lay there, dizzy with afterglow, still pulsing, like the high had stitched itself into my bloodstream.

“God—” he muttered, catching his breath. “I’m going to miss this.” 

I turned to him, confused. “Miss this?”

He closed his eyes, as if cursing himself for saying it out loud.

“What’s going on?” I asked, voice tight.

He sat up slowly, spine tense like he was bracing for a blow. “Okay, I wasn’t going to do it like this but… you have to move out tomorrow.”

The words didn’t land at first. My mind, still fogged with heat and want and him, scrambled to make sense of it.

“Move out?” I blinked. “Cayden, what—”

“This is over,” he said, sharper now. “I’m getting engaged.” 

Everything inside me dropped.

“No,” I whispered, my desperation already taking hold of me before I could stop it. “Please, not her. Not Scarlett.” 

His face told me everything I needed to know. 

Scarlett.

That name still hung around in our relationship. It was in songs I wasn’t allowed to play in the car because they reminded him of her. It was in the times he pulled away from me when he was distracted, lost in his thoughts. 

And now it had come crashing in, real and cruel.

“I thought…” I swallowed, the taste of him still on my lips. “I thought this was going somewhere. That we’re together.”

“Seriously?” he laughed. “The entire world knows what we are. If you thought we could ever go public—you’re stupider than I thought.” 

“But I love you,” I whispered. “You’re the only—”

“Don’t,” he snapped, standing up and dragging a hand through his hair. “Don’t make this harder than it is.”

Five years.

Five years of hiding. Of lying to everyone. Of rejecting guys for him. Of choking on the shame that came with every kiss, every touch, every lie.

Of loving the boy who grew up across the room from me. The boy the law called my brother. 

My foster brother.

I should have hated myself for it. Maybe I did, but I loved him too much for that to matter. But here I was, shoved aside like a dirty secret he couldn’t stomach anymore. 

I always knew I didn’t mean as much to him as he did to me. But somewhere, I thought the years we’d been together would have meant something. 

He turned to go to the bathroom, not even bothering to look at me as he said, “I want you gone by the time I return from work.” 

Just then, his phone lit up. I caught the name before he could snatch it from the bedside table. 

Scarlett: Come over in the evening. Chef made your fave.

He hesitated for a breath—just a beat—but then pocketed the phone and left the room. 

The silence he left behind felt heavy. I stared at the door a long moment before I forced myself up, pulling the sheets around me as if they could shield me from the truth. My legs shook, but not from what we’d done. 

This was different. This was hollow.

I pulled his t-shirt from the chair and slipped it on. The cotton smelled like him—cedar, faint smoke, something distinctly Cayden. It felt wrong and right at the same time, like stealing something I didn’t have the right to touch anymore.

I dragged my old suitcase from under the bed. Its zipper stuck, stiff from disuse, and when it finally came undone, the sound was a scream in the quiet room.

Five years. That’s how long I’d waited, hoping he’d give this relationship a name. 

Longer, if you counted when I was twelve and the social worker dropped me at the Morgan estate. I wasn’t a child to them. I was a press release. Their factories had been accused of poisoning the people living around those areas, and they needed a redemption story. 

What story is better than parading an orphan through their mansion like proof of their charity?

I never expected this gift to stick for long. But when Cayden opened the door, for the first time, I thought maybe I’d found something like home.

He was 17, always out with friends, playing football, going camping… all things young boys do. I loved him from the start, despite the obvious dynamic we’d been forced into. 

But… he never looked at me. He left home for college and, when he returned on the holidays, he would talk about her. 

Scarlett. 

How pretty she was, how smart she was, how she wasn’t into sports but loved cars, how she was so funny and so sophisticated. 

It was obvious he was smitten… and that she was not. 

I’d just turned 18 when Scarlett had finally shattered Cayden’s heart. He came home on the night of my birthday, drunk and miserable. He kissed me like I was air after drowning. 

I thought it was a beginning. 

Maybe for him it was just an escape.

And now Scarlett was back. Scarlett, with her perfect pedigree and her perfect timing. 

I shoved clothes into the suitcase, but my chest grew tight. 

I pressed a hand over my sternum, willing my heart to calm. The pacemaker hummed faintly, a steady reminder of borrowed time. 

The doctors had warned me at my last appointment—my pumping function was weakening; the walls of my heart were failing me. They asked me to start saving up and preparing for an LVAD, just in case, because things could get worse at any moment. The machine would do what my body couldn’t on its own. 

It was a risky procedure, they’d said. But waiting was riskier. I didn’t have much time… 

I hadn’t told Cayden. I hadn’t told anyone, in fact. I’d spent a lifetime trying not to be someone’s burden—foster kid, charity case, the girl who came with complications. 

He had enough weight on his shoulders; I couldn’t add mine.

The door opened behind me.

Cayden stood in the doorway, dressed for work in pressed pants and a fresh shirt, his tie loose around his neck. He looked composed. Like none of this had cracked him at all.

His body was a conflict of hesitation, guilt, and a heavy amount of annoyance. Perhaps because he wished I were already gone, despite only ten minutes passing. 

“The engagement party’s tomorrow,” he said, still avoiding my eyes—eyes he loved so much. “I don’t expect you to come, but for decorum’s sake, I hope you will. All of Dad’s investors will be there.” 

He didn’t linger. Just adjusted his cufflinks, grabbed his keys, and walked out.

I turned toward the window. The floor-to-ceiling glass showed me towers gleaming in the early morning sun, and cars streaming like blood through veins. It was beautiful, the kind of view you never get used to. I pressed my forehead to the cool glass and let myself memorize it. 

The sound of the front door opening snapped me back.

I whirled just as voices carried down the hall. 

Footsteps. 

Then Cayden’s parents appeared, both in their crisp clothes, perfect in their practiced disapproval. 

And I suddenly became very aware of myself—no pants, their son’s shirt, and my suitcase wide open in his bedroom. 

His mother’s lips thinned, her eyes narrowing like daggers. “What the hell am I looking at, Amelia?”