Chapter 1: The First Day
The last thing I saw was the glow of my phone screen, the emailed contract for my new book deal blurring into the headlights of the truck. The impact wasn’t a sound so much as a total, shattering rearrangement of the universe.
I blinked.
The headache arrived first, a vice of pure nausea squeezing my temples. Then the noise, a low, expensive hum of conversation and clinking crystal.
The light was all wrong. Not the sterile blue-white of an ER, but the warm, butter-yellow glow of a chandelier dripping with crystals the size of my fist. It refracted across a sea of champagne flutes and designer gowns. A server glided by with a tray of canapés, and the scent of truffle oil hit me, absurdly vivid.
“London, darling, are you quite alright? You look pale.”
A woman materialized beside me, her face a mask of careful Botox and concern. She was wearing a burgundy gown I’d once described in painstaking detail. A Valentino knock-off, I’d written, the color of dried blood.
Mother. Not mine. Hers. Eleanor Devine.
A memory, slick and foreign, slid into my mind. Debts. The bank calling. Father’s portrait being taken off the club wall. It played behind my eyes like a bad film reel. My fingers tightened around the stem of a wine glass I didn’t remember picking up. The crystal felt real. The wine, something tart and expensive, tasted real.
This wasn’t a hospital. This was Chapter Three. The Aldridge Charity Gala. The last social event the Devine family could cling to before the vultures picked the carcass clean.
“I’m fine,” I heard myself say, my voice higher, softer than my own. “Just a slight headache.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, don’t faint. Sir Reginald is here, and he’s been asking after you.” Her voice was a saccharine whisper, her smile never reaching her eyes. She adjusted the strap of my emerald-green dress—the one she’d insisted on, to match my eyes—and her touch felt like spiders.
Sir Reginald Bartholomew. The name hit my gut like a stone. Fifty-eight. Three divorces. A reputation that made alley cats look chaste. He was the “solution” in the original draft. The wealthy, revolting compromise the protagonist’s family forced on her to salvage their fortune. I’d written him as a cartoon villain, a plot device.
Now, across the room, he was a fleshy reality. His small, damp eyes locked onto me from over the rim of his brandy snifter. He smiled, and a piece of something lingered in his teeth.
“I’m not talking to him,” I said, the words biting out with more of my own edge.
Eleanor’s grip on my arm tightened, nails biting through the silk. “Don’t be childish. We are out of options. You will be civil. You will be charming. He is prepared to be very generous.” Her eyes scanned my face, looking for the pliable daughter from this morning. “Think of your father. Think of the family.”
A cold clarity cut through the disorientation. I was in it. An Oblique Affair, my third novel. The one where the plucky, impoverished heroine catches the eye of the mysterious billionaire Cameron Blackwood at a party, leading to a whirlwind secret affair and, eventually, his dramatic rejection of his arranged fiancée.
But I wasn’t the heroine. I was London Devine, the side character. The one whose function was to be shoved toward Sir Reginald to highlight the family’s desperation. I had maybe three scenes in the whole book.
My knowledge of the plot was a static map, and I was suddenly a live body moving through the territory. A wild, liberating panic surged through me. I could change things. I had to change things. All I needed to do was avoid the main plot entirely. Let Cameron Blackwood meet his intended, Anastasia, and begin their fraught dance. My only job was to not get sold to the bloated pig across the room.
“I need air,” I muttered, pulling away from Eleanor.
“You need to stay here,” she hissed. But I was already moving, weaving through tuxedos and laughter that sounded sharp and brittle.
I found a dim alcove near a potted fern, my heart hammering against my ribs. This was impossible. It was also undeniably real. The ache in my feet from the heels, the bitter aftertaste of the wine, the oppressive weight of the perfume hanging in the air. I’d built this world with words. Now it was building me.
“There you are.”
Eleanor again, a phantom of maternal menace. She didn’t look angry now, just resigned, sad even. She held out a fresh glass of white wine. “Here. You’re trembling. Drink this. It will calm your nerves.”
I stared at the pale liquid. In my draft, this was the moment. The mother, desperate, drugs her daughter’s drink to ensure her compliance with Sir Reginald’s “attentions.” She’d even booked a suite upstairs. A guaranteed scandal, a forced hand.
I almost laughed. It was so blatant. So cruel. So plot-convenient.
“I don’t want it,” I said.
“London, please. For me. Just drink it, and then we can go home soon. I promise.” Her eyes were glistening. A performance worthy of an award.
A waiter passed. The fern frond brushed my neck. Sir Reginald’s gaze was a physical pressure from across the hall. The weight of this entire artificial world pressed down, demanding I follow the script. Maybe, a treacherous part of me whispered, if I just took the drink, the scene would play out and I’d wake up. Maybe this was the way through.
Stupid. This was real.
But the fatigue of the shock, the psychological vertigo, was overwhelming. I took the glass. Her shoulders slumped in visible relief. I pretended to sip, letting the wine just touch my lips.
“Good girl,” she whispered, and her hand slipped into my beaded clutch, depositing something small and cold. A keycard. “Room 1124. Just rest there for a while, darling. I’ll send someone to check on you.”
She melted back into the crowd. I stood frozen, the keycard burning a hole in my clutch. I turned and dumped the full glass of wine into the soil of the potted fern.
The effect wasn’t immediate. A slow, creeping warmth started in my limbs, a fuzzy detachment from the noise. They must have used something fast-acting, something that could be absorbed through the mouth lining. Damn it. I hadn’t sipped enough, had I?
But the world began to soften at the edges. The music blurred into a single thrum. I knew I had to move. Get out. Not to 1124. Anywhere else.
The lobby elevators were a miles-long walk across a tilting floor. I stabbed a button at random. The elevator dinged, its doors a shimmering brass. Inside, the numbers swam. 11. That was the number. Wrong room. Just need a wrong room.
The corridor on the eleventh floor was silent, carpeted in a deep navy that seemed to swallow sound and light. The numbers on the doors pulsed gently. 1120… 1122… My vision tunneled. My body felt both heavy and weightless. 1124 was to the right. Sir Reginald’s room. The trap.
I turned left, stumbling, my shoulder brushing the wall. The last door. 1130. Not my key. Didn’t matter. I slumped against the cool wood, fumbling in my clutch. The keycard from Eleanor was for 1124. This door would never—
With a soft, definitive click, the lock light blinked green.
The door swung inward under my weight.
I staggered into darkness and blessed, cool quiet. The suite was vast, moonlit through floor-to-ceiling windows. I just needed to lie down. Just for a second. Let the drug pass.
A sound to my right. Water stopping. A door opening.
Light spilled from a bathroom doorway, outlining a figure. Tall, broad-shouldered, haloed in steam. He was rubbing a towel through his hair, his body glistening with residual droplets.
The moonlight caught the defined planes of his chest, the taut lines of his abdomen. A six-pack, not like a gym ad, but like something functional, a part of a whole powerful structure. Water traced a path down his torso, disappearing into the low-slung towel at his hips.
He froze, the towel halting in his hands. His face was in shadow, but I felt the intensity of his gaze.
This was wrong. This was so wildly off-script.
My brain, slurry with drugs and shock, could only supply one utterly useless, profoundly stupid observation.
“You’re not Sir Reginald.” The words slurred into the quiet.
He didn’t move. The air in the room, already cool, seemed to crystallize.
“No,” he said, his voice a low, rough vibration that cut through the chemical fog in my veins. It was a voice of absolute authority, and it held a dangerous, curious edge. “I’m certainly not.” He smirks.