Chapter 1

His fiancée, Harriet Kelly, stormed over and slapped me hard across the face.

Calvin Holloway just stood off to the side, watching with cold detachment.

"I'm sorry, Miss Kelly," I apologized, the metallic taste of blood filling my throat. "I was only here to drop off some files for Mr. Holloway."

But Harriet was far from satisfied. She lunged forward, grabbing my clothes and ripping at them violently.

"Dressed up like a total slut," she spat. "Are you sure you're not here to seduce Calvin? Do you really think someone like you can crawl into his bed?"

A sharp pain shot through my scalp as she yanked my hair, but I just bowed my head.

"Whatever makes you happy, Miss Kelly."

Deep down, I found the entire spectacle utterly hysterical. During the years she had been off living it up abroad, I had been her fiancé's bed warmer the whole time.

"That's enough, Harriet." Calvin finally spoke up, his tone nonchalant. "If you're going to kick a dog, you still have to answer to its owner."

His gaze flicked over to me, and he barked, "Go."

Harriet reluctantly let go of me and turned around.

Calvin immediately took her into his arms, murmuring, "You just got back to the country. Are you really going to waste your time being mad at me?"

Harriet let out a playful whimper.

Meanwhile, I stepped out of the room and closed the door behind me.

Through the heavy wood of the luxury penthouse suite, the faint, intimate sounds of their heavy breathing leaked out.

I closed my eyes, my mind instantly consumed by the image of Basil Nolan—fractured, disfigured, and drained of all color. It didn't even look like his face anymore.

That sudden, unheralded agony washed over me like a raging current, threatening to drown me whole. Basil had been my only friend since I was ten years old.

My parents got divorced, and my mother took me with her. Not long after, she married an apparently meek man.

But his gentle demeanor was nothing more than a front; shortly after the wedding, his true nature came to light.

He would sneak into my bedroom whenever Lisa Lancaster left for work. When I finally gathered the courage to tell her, all I received in return was a sharp slap across the face.

"Isn't my life hard enough already?" she snapped. "Even if you aren't lying, can't you just endure it for my sake?"

I ran out of the house, and that was when I met Basil for the first time.

Looking like a total juvenile delinquent, he intercepted me on the street with a crew of boys trailing behind him.

"What are you crying for?" he asked, cocking his head. "You're that girl who just moved in, right? The daughter of the woman who married that old creep?"

I wiped my tears and glared at him.

"Name's Basil Nolan," he said. "Next time you get pushed around, come find me. I'll take care of it."

I was half-skeptical at the time, but sure enough, my stepfather never laid a finger on me again. Instead, he turned to heavy drinking.

Whenever he needed an outlet for his drunken rages, he raised his fists against Lisa.

Every time a fight broke out, I would slip out of the house, only to bump into Basil waiting right outside my front door.

"See?" he'd say with a grin. "Told you he wouldn't dare touch you again."

"What did you do?" I asked, overwhelmed with curiosity.

He just smirked without an explanation.

We belonged to completely different worlds, yet through some bizarre stroke of fate, our paths crossed. Because of Basil, I never had any other romantic prospects.

At school, my friends often tried to warn me. "You'd better stay away from that hoodlum."

I would just shake my head.

None of them understood what Basil had done for me. Without him, I would never have been able to sit peacefully in a bright, clean classroom, nor could I have started a brand-new life.

Ever since the night Lisa drugged me and tried to sneak me into my stepfather's bed, I had never set foot in that house again.

When Basil found out, he held me in his arms, his body trembling with rage and heartbreak.