All Chapters of THE BOSS'S FORBIDDEN TWINS : Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

Elena Sunlight knifes through the curtains and I jolt awake with my pulse already sprinting. For half a second I have no idea where I am. Then the sheets register—stupidly soft, expensive, the kind of cotton that costs more than my phone bill—and the heat of the body next to me slams the rest of it home. Oh hell. I slept with him. The stranger. The actual definition of a one-night stand. I have literally never done this. I’m the person who buys the same brand of toothpaste for eight years because switching feels risky. I own a label maker. My idea of living dangerously is eating sushi on a Tuesday. My dress is a crumpled heap by the dresser. My bra is dangling off a sconce like it’s trying to escape. There are two empty champagne flutes on the nightstand that I do not remember drinking, and a faint purple bruise on my thigh that is 100 percent from when he lifted me onto the desk and— Nope. Brain, we are not doing the highlight reel right now. I sneak a glance at the clock: 6

Elena I didn’t go home. Home is a studio the size of a shoebox with a radiator that clanks like it’s dying and a mattress that still smells faintly like the coconut oil I put in my hair last week. If I walk in there right now I’ll just sit on the floor and replay every second of that conference room on loop until I’m sick. So I ride the subway all the way to the hospital instead. Visiting hours don’t start until noon, but the cafeteria never closes and the coffee is terrible enough to punish me. I get a corner table by the window that looks out on the ambulance bay and nurse-smoke-break area. The coffee tastes like it was brewed during the Clinton administration. I drink it black and scalding. My phone lights up. Sophia: SPILL. How bad was it?? Did you nail it?? Are we getting lunch on the company dime soon or what?? Sophia. My ride-or-die since we both cried over stats midterms. The one who basically shoved my résumé at HR because “they’re desperate for someone who

Elena Monday shows up ugly.Rain hammers the window of my tiny apartment like it’s personally offended. I’m up at five-thirty, standing in front of my closet in mismatched socks and the same ratty college T-shirt I’ve owned since sophomore year, having a full-on panic attack over fabric.Nothing feels safe. The black dress says, “Remember me on your hotel desk?” The red blazer screams, “I’m trying too hard.” Everything else looks like it belongs to someone who definitely did not ride the CEO like a mechanical bull three nights ago.I end up in the charcoal suit I wore to my abuela’s cousin’s funeral. If it was somber enough for that, it can handle today.The subway is a wet, miserable sardine can. I stand the whole ride, one arm hooked around a pole, the other clutching my umbrella like a weapon. Every jolt of the train feels like a countdown.Soph texts: already here. coffee before you face the firing squad?Tempting. But she’ll take one look at me and know. She always knows