Prologue

 

Celeste Harper had done a lot of desperate things in her life.

She’d worked three jobs at once. Lived on instant noodles for weeks. Lied through her teeth just to get hired at a voice-acting gig that barely paid her rent. But this?

This was the first time she was about to lie to a man’s face while pretending to be his fiancée.

And not just any man. Lucian Aldridge.

Billionaire. CEO. Recently blinded in an accident. And as far as he knew? She was Vivian Lancaster—the woman who had left him the second he lost his sight.

The lie sat heavy on her chest as the sleek black town car glided through the massive iron gates of the Aldridge estate. The rain outside matched the storm brewing inside her. She gripped the leather seat so hard her knuckles turned white.

“This is crazy,” she muttered under her breath.

“What’s crazy is you second-guessing our agreement at the last minute,” came the smooth, clipped voice beside her. Emelia Aldridge, Lucian’s mother. Powerful. Elegant. Cold as a winter breeze. And the mastermind behind this whole twisted plan. “You need the money,” she reminded Celeste, her tone laced with the kind of confidence only someone with an obscene amount of wealth could have.

Celeste clenched her jaw. She wasn’t wrong.

Across town, in a sterile hospital room that smelled like antiseptic and heartbreak, her younger brother Noah lay in a coma. The victim of someone else’s gang fight. The wrong place at the wrong time. He didn’t deserve this. But the universe didn’t care about fairness, did it?

Neither did the hospital that kept sending her bills she had no way of paying.

She swallowed against the lump in her throat and forced herself to focus on what she’d agreed to.

One year.

That was all Emelia wanted. One year of playing a role, of pretending to be Vivian, of making sure Lucian didn’t spiral further into the abyss he’d been drowning in since losing his sight.

And most importantly? Convincing him to go through with the damn surgery.

“You’ll play the role,” Emelia continued, crossing her legs like she was discussing the weather. “You’ll do what needs to be done. And when it’s over, you’ll disappear.”

Disappear. Right. Because it was that easy.

“He’s going to hate me for this,” Celeste muttered.

Emelia sighed. “He’s already miserable. What’s a little more rage?”

Great. That was so reassuring.

The car pulled to a slow stop in front of a sprawling estate that looked more like something out of a gothic novel than a billionaire’s home. High ceilings, towering columns, massive doors that looked like they led to a different world entirely.

Celeste’s stomach twisted.

She reached for the door handle, but Emelia’s voice stopped her.

“One more thing,” the older woman said, her gaze sharp as steel. “Lucian is… difficult. But under no circumstances do you drop the act. You sound exactly like Vivian. That’s why you’re here.”

“Right,” Celeste said, her voice steady even though her pulse was anything but.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Emelia warned, her lips curling into something that was not quite a smile. “You’re not here to fix him. You’re here to make sure he gets the surgery.”

Celeste nodded, exhaling slowly.

She could do this.

For Noah.

For the brother who had always believed in her, always fought for her. Now, it was her turn to fight for him.

So she stepped out of the car, letting the icy rain soak into her clothes, and walked toward the mansion.

Toward Lucian Aldridge.

The man who would hate her the moment he realized she’d come back.