LOGINAmelia Carter arrives at Westbridge University determined to graduate at the top of her class, protect her scholarship, and stay far away from drama. The last thing she expects is to clash with Damon Hayes, the arrogant, dangerously handsome captain of the university’s hockey team. Damon has everything: money, popularity, talent, and a reputation for never taking relationships seriously. But when his reckless lifestyle threatens his captaincy and professional hockey dreams, his coach gives him an ultimatum: clean up his image or lose everything. Desperate for a solution, Damon proposes a fake relationship to the one girl who can't stand him, Amelia. Their arrangement seems simple: three months, public dates, convincing kisses, and absolutely no feelings. But pretending becomes dangerously easy when Damon begins protecting Amelia, remembering the little things about her, and revealing the wounded man beneath his confident exterior. Amelia slowly discovers that the arrogant captain has a heart she never expected to love. Then Damon’s glamorous ex-girlfriend, Victoria Monroe, returns determined to reclaim him. Rumors spread, Amelia’s scholarship is threatened, and someone begins exposing secrets from her past. Just when Amelia finally trusts Damon, manipulated evidence makes it appear that she betrayed and used him. Damon believes the lie and publicly breaks her heart. But when he discovers the truth, he realizes Amelia was framed. With help from his best friend Ethan, Damon uncovers a dangerous connection between Victoria, her powerful brother Sebastian, and the sabotage threatening his career. Before Amelia can expose the truth, she disappears. Now Damon must risk his career, reputation, and future to save the woman he secretly fell in love with. Their relationship began as a lie. But this time, Damon is ready to make one promise real: he will never let Amelia go again.
View MoreThe heavy oak door slammed shut with a thunderous BANG, the electronic deadbolt snapping into place with a sharp, mechanical click that reverberated through the hearing room.For several agonizing seconds, nobody breathed. The air grew thick, suffocating, and heavy with dread.Amelia stood frozen, her eyes glued to the faded photograph resting in Coach Reed’s hand. The glossy paper seemed to burn under the harsh fluorescent lights. Her mother looked young and terrified. Beside her stood Michael Carter. And right next to them stood the unknown man—a figure whose presence seemed to command the very air around him.The six words written in dark, permanent ink on the back of the photograph echoed in her mind like a relentless drumbeat: He is not Michael. He is your father.Her fingers tightened around the edge of the gloss paper until her knuckles turned white."That's... that's impossible," she whispered. Her voice sounded thin, frail, almost entirely stripped of life.Coach Reed didn't
Coach Marcus Reed stood anchored in the doorway, his broad frame blocking the dim light spill from the corridor.For several agonizing seconds, air refused to enter my lungs. My chest felt squeezed by an invisible iron band. He wasn't supposed to be here. Not now. Not after the foundations of my life had just been violently torn apart in front of an academic review board.His sharp, dark eyes scanned the suffocating room with slow, deliberate precision. They swept across my tear-streaked face, lingered on Damon’s rigid shoulders, locked onto Richard’s ghostly pale expression, and finally settled on the open blue box sitting on the mahogany table like an unexploded bomb.A subtle flick of fear passed across Coach Reed's face—a crack in his usually unflappable composure that disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. But I caught it.Damon caught it, too."You," Damon growled, his voice vibrating with lethal intent. He took a heavy, commanding step toward his hockey coach. "What the hell
The text message hung in the air like a lethal threat, glowing from every illuminated screen in the suffocating room:> ASK AMELIA WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT SHE WAS BORN.> Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.I stared down at my phone until the blood-red letters blurred into a smeared haze of light. My heart knocked wildly against my ribs, each thud sounding like a death knell in the sudden, dead quiet.Slowly, I lifted my gaze.Every single pair of eyes in the hearing room was locked onto me. Damon. My mother. The man I had called my father my entire life. Richard. Dr. Collins. Dean Vance. Even the university security guard at the door. They stared at me as if I held the missing piece to a puzzle that had been burning their lives to the ground for twenty-one years."I don't know..." I whispered, my voice barely carrying across the table. "I don't know what happened."Across the room, Richard’s stone-cold posture wavered. My father—Daniel—flinched and looked down at his shoes. My mother pressed
The hearing room erupted into absolute chaos.Voices clashed over one another, sharp and frantic, bouncing off the high mahogany walls."Who is her biological father?!""What does he mean by erase?!""Mr. Hayes, are you admitting to felony interference with university funds?!""Is Amelia Carter even her legal name?!"I couldn't hear any of it clearly. The sound washed over me like static, drowned out by the heavy, violent thudding of the blood rushing through my ears.My eyes were pinned to Richard Hayes.The man who had spent weeks making me feel like an outsider. The man who had orchestrated the theft of my scholarship. The man who had tried to tear Damon away from me, painting me as a ruthless gold-digger.And now, the truth had slipped past his cold, calculated exterior: Because I knew what would happen if Damon ever discovered who Amelia really was.Beside me, Damon stood completely frozen. His hand, still tightly interlaced with mine, went icy cold. Slowly, he stepped around the






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