Chapter 1: Stranger

Aurora’s POV

His lips were on mine before I even had time to process that I didn't know his name.

I knew I should have pushed him away and faced the wreckage Asher left behind. Instead, I gripped his broad shoulders and pulled him closer, desperate to eliminate every inch between us.

The forest air was freezing, but his chest was so warm. His hands gripped my waist, holding on tight like he really needed me. I could feel his heart beating fast against my hand and mine was racing just as hard.

When he pulled back slightly, breathing hard, his dark eyes searched my face in the moonlight.

“Are you sure about this?” His voice was deep, rough as gravel. “Once I start, I’m not stopping.”

I looked up at him. I wasn't drunk, and I wasn't confused. My heart was shattered and I just wanted the agony to stop.

Two hours ago, I had arrived early at the Grand Sterling Hotel with the keycard to Asher’s penthouse suite. We were supposed to announce our wedding date to the press in the morning.

For three years, I believed Asher loved me, foolishly thinking my quiet loyalty would finally earn me a real home.

Instead, I opened his bedroom door to soft laughter and the sight of my fiancé pinned against the headboard, kissing Sophie.

Sophie. The real daughter.

Three years ago, a hospital record revealed the truth that ruined my life. Sophie and I had been switched at birth. She grew up with my real parents in poverty. By the time the truth came out, they were both dead, leaving me with no real family left in the world.

My father's love shifted overnight. Sophie was given the master bedroom, the family credit cards, and all his attention, while I became an outsider in my own home.

And now, she was tangled in my fiancé's sheets.

“Don't cause a scene, Aurora,” Asher had sneered, buttoning his cuffs without a shred of shame. “Sophie is the real heiress. Marrying you was just an obligation for the board. Take your things and leave quietly.”

Then the bedroom door opened behind me, and my father stepped inside.

He didn't look angry at Asher or Sophie. He just looked at me with cold, tired eyes, as if I were a spilled drink ruining his expensive carpet.

“You knew about this?” I had choked out. “You let them do this to me?”

When I threatened to walk down to the lobby and expose them to the waiting press, my father didn't flinch. He simply called his private security and ordered them to lock me in the family estate until the morning conference was over.

I fled the hotel, kicked off my heels, and sprinted past the warning signs into Blackwood Ridge, a dark, forbidden forest where no sane person dared go. I went there to drown in my tears where no one could mock them.

Then this stranger stepped out of the black trees.

He was bleeding from a deep wound along his ribs, his clothes shredded, radiating lethal danger. My breath caught, and every instinct screamed at me to run.

Yet when he took an unsteady step forward, our eyes locked in the dark. There was no cruelty in his gaze only raw pain and exhaustion that mirrored the devastation in my chest.

Anyone with common sense would have bolted. But after what they did to me, I had no sense left. When he reached out to steady himself, his calloused hand brushed my bare arm, and a jolt of pure heat cut through the freezing mist.

I was done being safe. I was tired of being the fake daughter and the heartbroken fool. I just wanted to feel alive, even if it only lasted for one hour in the dark.

“Touch me,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Please.”

A low growl tore from his throat, and his mouth came down hard on mine.

For a few breathless hours on the cold earth, the hurt vanished. I forgot Asher. I let myself get entirely lost in a man whose name I didn't know.

The bitter morning chill woke me.

Gray light filtered through the canopy, illuminating the frost on the ground. Reality hit me like a slap.

Beside me, the stranger was still asleep. In the daylight, he looked massive, terrifying, and completely foreign to my world. Dried blood crusted his chest, and his breathing was rough, rattled with fever.

Panic gripped my throat.

What did I just do?

If my father’s guards caught me out here, or if the media discovered I had spent the night in the dirt with an armed stranger, I was ruined.

I didn't wake him. I didn't want awkward morning words or hollow apologies. Whatever happened last night belonged in the dark.

Scrambling up, I looked down at my ruined evening dress, torn and soaked in mud. Desperate to cover myself, I grabbed his oversized black shirt from the leaves, pulled it over my head, and turned to run.

Snap.

I froze.

Down the slope, two sharp flashlight beams cut through the thick fog.

Then came the crackle of a two-way radio: “We found tire marks by the gate. Circle the area. Mr. Nathan said drag her back before the media finds out.”

My stomach dropped. My father's security was closing in.

Without thinking, I bunched the stranger's shirt tight around my thighs and ran blindly through the brush. Branches whipped my face and brambles tore at my bare legs, but I didn't dare slow down. I never looked back at the clearing. I just ran.

Finally, my soles hit hard asphalt. I stumbled onto the desolate mountain highway, gasping for air, bleeding and shaking. A ragged breath of relief escaped my lips.

Then blinding high beams erupted in the dark.

Screeech!

Tires smoked as a heavy black SUV swerved across the lanes, blocking my path.

The doors flew open. Three guards stepped into the glare, sidearms drawn.

“There she is,” the lead guard barked, striding straight toward me. “Grab her!”