CHAPTER 1

Ashley’s POV

“You have been shortlisted for the Heirs Program.”

I was doomscrolling through P*******t, searching for the perfect dress for my date night, when the text appeared across my phone screen. I stared at it for a few seconds, blinked, then read it again, just to make sure I hadn’t somehow misunderstood what I was seeing.

“You have been shortlisted for the Heirs Program.

What heir program?”

Yes, I had been applying for some jobs lately, but I was almost certain I had never applied for anything called the Heirs Program. So what was happening? More importantly, what did Heirs Program even mean?

I immediately opened G****e, because obviously that was the logical thing to do when a completely random organization decided to send you a suspicious text message. Then, because apparently G****e alone wasn’t enough to satisfy my increasingly suspicious brain, I checked AI too. The results were… interesting, to say the least. Entrepreneurship program. Leadership program. Something about succession. And, somehow, even a surrogacy setup.

A surrogacy setup?

I stared at the screen in disbelief. “What the hell?”

You know what? I needed someone who actually knew what they were talking about, and I knew exactly who to ask.

Josh.

My boyfriend.

If there was anyone who could possibly decipher whatever bizarre, elite-sounding nonsense this was, it was him. Josh came from one of those families—the kind of families people wrote articles about, the kind whose names opened doors before they even knocked. He was a chaebol kid, and he definitely knew someone who could explain what the hell an Heirs Program was.

I dropped him a message because Josh hated calls. He was the kind of person who could see an incoming call and stare at his phone like it had personally offended him. Texting was usually the safest option unless I wanted to hear him complain about how unnecessary phone calls were.

Nothing.

I checked again, but the message hadn’t gone through. Okay, maybe it was a network issue. I tried again after another thirty minutes, but it was still the same thing. That was strange.

I decided to call him. It would be faster anyway, and I could just apologize afterward for calling when I knew he hated it.

I pressed his name and lifted the phone to my ear. A few seconds later, the call ended.

Number not reachable.

Same thing.

I tried one more time, and this time I was met with that annoyingly calm female robotic voice telling me the number was unreachable. “Urgh.” I dropped the phone onto my bed, feeling my frustration grow.

And unfortunately, my overthinking mind had decided this was the perfect time to start creating stories about everything.

Maybe his phone was dead. Maybe his network was terrible. Maybe he was sleeping.

Then I remembered that he had told me yesterday that he was coming down with a cold.

My stomach tightened.

What if it was worse now? What if something had happened?

I picked up my phone again and stared at his name for a few seconds, but there were still no new messages. I decided I wasn’t going to sit in my room imagining every possible disaster while waiting for my boyfriend to magically become reachable.

I was going to his house.

Because apparently, worrying from the comfort of my bedroom was no longer an option.

By the time I got to his house, my mind had already created approximately seventeen different disasters, and none of them were particularly helpful.

The front door was locked.

Okay. He was probably at home.

Maybe he was sleeping. Maybe he had taken some medication and knocked himself out. Maybe

I stopped myself.

Enough.

I knew the code.

Well… technically, I didn’t know the code. I had accidentally figured it out. I’d once watched him punching it in when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, and I had peeped over his shoulder. Apparently, my brain had decided that information was worth storing forever.

So, yes.

The code was 1499.

I entered it, and the lock clicked.

“Thank God.”

The door swung open, and I stepped inside.

“Josh?”

The house was eerily quiet. I closed the door behind me and looked around, suddenly feeling the first real knot of worry settle in my stomach.

“Josh?”

No response.

“Josh, are you here?”

Nothing.

The silence suddenly felt wrong.

Too wrong.

I rushed upstairs, calling his name as I went. “Josh!”

My footsteps echoed through the hallway, but there was still no response.

Why wasn’t he responding? Was he really not home? But if he wasn’t home, why was his phone unreachable? And why hadn’t my messages gone through?

I reached the top of the stairs, my breathing already uneven, and looked toward his master bedroom.

I walked toward the door, my heart pounding harder with every step. I reached for the handle and pushed the door open.

And then I saw him.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even process what I was looking at. My entire world seemed to stop as I stood there, frozen in the doorway, staring at the person I loved.

And suddenly, that stupid text on my phone, the one about the Heirs Program, was the last thing on my mind.