Chapter One: The Girl Who Never Lived

The champagne flute trembled in my hand, condensation slicking against my palm like cold sweat.

I'd never been inside a place like this before—all dark mahogany and crystal chandeliers, where the glasses cost more than my monthly rent and the people moved with the casual confidence of those who'd never worried about money a day in their lives. The bar's entrance had felt like crossing into another world, one where women like me didn't belong. But tonight, I wasn't going to be the good daughter, the obedient girl, the perfect porcelain doll my parents had spent twenty-four years molding.

Tonight, I was going to taste freedom, even if it was only for a few stolen hours.

"First time here?" The bartender's voice cut through my spiraling thoughts, his expression kind beneath the dim lighting.

I managed a smile that probably looked as fragile as I felt. "That obvious?"

"Only because you're actually looking around. Regulars don't see this place anymore." He slid a drink menu across the polished bar top. "What are you celebrating?"

My last night of freedom, I thought bitterly. Tomorrow, my parents would introduce me to Richard Pemberton III, a forty-two-year-old investment banker with cold eyes and a colder handshake. The "suitable match" they'd been grooming me for. The final nail in the coffin of any dreams I'd harbored about choosing my own life.

"Just... living," I said instead, the word tasting like a lie. I'd never really lived at all.

Twenty-four years of finishing schools and etiquette classes, of charity galas where I smiled until my cheeks ached, of my mother's cutting comments about my weight, my hair, my everything. Twenty-four years of suffocation disguised as privilege, of gilded cages and diamond handcuffs. My entire existence had been curated, controlled, predetermined.

But not tonight.

Tonight, I'd slipped out while my parents attended one of their insufferable dinner parties, leaving behind the designer dress they'd selected, the pearl necklace that felt like a noose, the practiced phrases they'd trained me to recite. I'd pulled on jeans—actual jeans—and the one top I owned that my mother didn't approve of, something that hugged my curves instead of hiding them. I'd taken a cab to the other side of the city, to this upscale bar where no one would know my name or my family's reputation.

Where I could pretend to be someone else. Someone brave. Someone free.

The bartender poured something amber into a glass and set it before me. "On the house. For living."

I raised the glass to my lips, the liquor burning a path down my throat that felt like courage distilled. The music thrummed low and seductive, and for the first time in my life, I let myself simply be—not performing, not perfect, just present.

That's when I felt it. The weight of someone's gaze, heavy and heated against my skin.

I turned slowly, scanning the sophisticated crowd, and then my eyes locked with his.

He stood near the far wall, partially hidden in shadow, but the dim lighting couldn't disguise the raw magnetism that seemed to radiate from him. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark hair that looked like he'd run his hands through it repeatedly and a jawline sharp enough to cut glass. He wore a black suit that probably cost more than my car, tailored to perfection, but it was his eyes that stopped my breath—intense, stormy gray, fixed on me with an attention that made my skin flush hot.

He wasn't just looking at me. He was seeing me, in a way no one ever had before.

My pulse kicked into a dangerous rhythm. I should look away. Good girls didn't make eye contact with strange men in bars. Good girls didn't feel this sudden, visceral pull toward someone they'd never met. Good girls certainly didn't imagine what it would feel like to have those large hands on their body, that focused intensity directed at something far more intimate than a glance across a crowded room.

But I wasn't trying to be good tonight.

He moved then, pushing off the wall with predatory grace, and I watched, hypnotized, as he closed the distance between us. Each step felt deliberate, purposeful, like he'd already decided something I hadn't yet comprehended. The crowd seemed to part for him instinctively, and then he was there, sliding onto the barstool beside mine, close enough that I could smell his cologne—something expensive and masculine that made my head spin.

"You look like you're either celebrating something wonderful or running from something terrible," he said, his voice low and rough, with an edge that sent shivers down my spine.

I gripped my glass tighter, trying to steady myself against the unexpected force of him up close. "Can't it be both?"

His lips curved into a half-smile that transformed his face from devastating to absolutely lethal. "The best nights usually are."

There was something in his tone—world-weary, knowing, tinged with the same recklessness I felt thrumming through my own veins. This wasn't a man who played it safe. This was someone who understood what it meant to want escape, even temporary, from whatever demons chased him.

"I'm—" I started, ready to give him my name.

"Don't." He held up a hand, that storm-gray gaze pinning me in place. "No names. No stories. No real world tonight."

My heart hammered against my ribs. This was dangerous. This was reckless. This was everything I'd been taught never to do.

"Just tonight?" I heard myself whisper.

"Just tonight," he confirmed, and something in his expression shifted—darker, hungrier, edged with a promise that terrified and thrilled me in equal measure. "No past, no future. Just right now."

He extended his hand, and I stared at it for a long moment, knowing that if I took it, there would be no going back. Good girl Evelyn would stay in this bar. Someone else entirely would walk out those doors with this beautiful stranger.

The champagne glass sat forgotten on the bar. My parents' expectations felt miles away instead of across the city. Tomorrow, I would be introduced to my predetermined future.

But tonight... tonight could be mine.

I slipped my hand into his, feeling his fingers close around mine with confident possession, and let him pull me into the unknown.

"What should I call you?" I asked as he stood, drawing me with him toward the exit.

His smile was wicked, dangerous, everything I'd never allowed myself to want. "Whatever you'd like. As long as you're screaming it by the end of the night."

Heat exploded through my body, and I knew—with terrifying certainty—that after tonight, nothing would ever be the same.

I just had no idea how right I was.