Chapter 1 - Aria

It flapped against the corkboard like it didn’t want to be seen. Like it knew it shouldn’t be here. I stared at it without moving, my hands still stuffed in the pocket of my hoodie, heart ticking too fast.

WEEKEND ASSISTANT NEEDED.

MUST BE QUICK, QUIET, AND CURIOUS.

APPLY IN PERSON. 9:00 A.M. SHARP. RIDGEWOOD TOWER.

No number. No logo. No way to contact—except in person. Something about it made my skin prickle. I reached out and touched it, and the second my fingers brushed the paper, I felt… something.

A tingle down my spine. A whisper at the base of my skull.

The wind caught the corner of the flyer again and I turned my head, just slightly—to the car parked across the lot.

Gran sat behind the wheel of the old Subaru, her fingers tapping a slow rhythm against the steering wheel. Four taps. Pause. Four taps.

She always did that when she was nervous.

And I always knew when she was nervous.

She raised me after my parents died. Or disappeared. Or… something. She never talked about them—not really. Just stories that sounded like fragments. Like myths. My mom used to sing to me, she said. My dad loved the stars. That was all. The rest was blank space.

Sometimes I tried to remember them, but there was nothing there. Just heat. Smoke. A feeling I couldn’t name.

I took my middle name—Moonstone—after I turned twelve and realized I didn’t want to carry the last name on my school file. It didn’t feel like mine. Not the way Gran felt like mine.

She never once told me who they really were. Maybe she couldn’t.

But she loved me. Fiercely. Quietly. Like a lighthouse in fog. And even though we barely scraped by, she never let me feel the weight of it.

I folded the flyer slowly and slipped it into my pocket. Didn’t say anything.

I didn’t have to.

Gran looked up. Our eyes met. She gave me a single, slow nod.

And started the car.

⸻

The next morning, Ridgewood Tower rose in front of me like a skyscraper dropped from another universe. It didn’t belong here. Too sleek. Too clean. I stood on the sidewalk and felt it—the pressure. Like the air around the building was heavier. Tighter.

I stepped inside anyway.

The lobby was too white. Too cold. The woman at the front desk didn’t even look up when I said, “I’m here for the assistant job.”

She just said, “Top floor. Elevator.”

The elevator doors closed behind me, and the moment they did, something shifted. The air changed. I blinked. My ears rang with a high-pitched note I couldn’t explain. The reflections of myself in the metal walls didn’t look right. I could swear I saw something shimmer behind my eyes.

Then the doors opened.

The office was huge. Minimal. Expensive. Cold.

And then I saw a male figure.

He stood with his back to me, facing the glass wall like he was waiting for something. Or someone.

And when he turned…

God.

My lungs stopped. Everything else blurred.

Silver eyes locked onto mine and the floor dropped out from under me. It was instant. Familiar. Impossible.

Not just attraction. No, that word was far too soft.

This was something ancient.

Something raw. A sex-throb deep in my belly that pulsed outward, through my chest, into my throat, burning behind my eyes.

The moment our gazes met, it struck me like lightning. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. My skin prickled with heat—my thighs clenched instinctively, and I prayed he didn’t notice the way my breathing changed.

But then he looked at me—really looked at me.

Not politely. Not professionally.

His eyes moved over me like he was taking inventory of every inch I had to offer—like he was imagining what was beneath my hoodie and jeans. The curve of his mouth tightened, just barely. His jaw flexed.

He wanted to devour me.

And did I… like it?

God help me, I did.

It frightened me—this reaction. I wasn’t a girl who lost control. I kept things buried. Kept my world ordered, clean, safe. But now?

I wanted to take a step closer.

I wanted to touch the line of his jaw and ask him what he was thinking.

I wanted him to pull me against him and make me forget why I ever believed I was in control of anything.

“I’m Damon Thorn,” he said, voice like velvet and smoke. “You must be Aria Moonstone.”

My name in his mouth made my spine tighten.

“Have we… met before?” I asked, voice lower than intended. Even though I knew we hadn’t. Still, it felt like a memory I hadn’t lived yet. A dream half-remembered.

I felt the weight of my frown and shifted my brows—trying to mask the storm inside.

He studied me. Slowly. Thoroughly.

Like he was looking for something. Like he’d found it.

“No,” he said at last.

But it was a lie.

I felt it in my bones.