I matured faster than other girls my age.
At my eighteenth birthday party, my overprotective brother, Cole, asked his best friend to watch over me.
But from the moment we met, the man’s eyes burned with a raw desire. His gaze was a thorny vine that wrapped around me and wouldn't let go.
After graduating from college, I became his senior executive assistant. By day, he was my boss. By night, he was the lover who claimed my body.
For four years, we carried on this secret affair.
He molded me into the woman he desired, and I mistook his control for love.
Then one day, his ex-fiancée, Cassidy Hayes, returned from Europe. Without a second thought, he left my bed in the middle of the night to pick her up from the airport.
Humiliated and furious, I still followed him like some pathetic puppy, only to watch him tenderly kiss another woman on a park bench.
He turned, saw me, and sneered, "This was never anything more than a game, Willow Ashton. And you... you look pathetic."
The more tenderly he looked at her, the more cruelly he mocked me.
That's when it hit me. He was right. None of this had ever meant a thing.
So I lowered my head, sent a text to Cole accepting the arranged marriage with the Lancaster family, then looked up at the man with a smile more liberating than any I’d worn in four years.
"Fine. We're done."
————————
1
It wasn't long before Cole Ashton called.
Even over the phone, I could hear the relief in his voice. He assumed I had finally moved on from the man I’d loved for years.
What he didn't know was that the man I was madly in love with... was his best friend, Rhys Sterling.
After hanging up, I grabbed the resignation letter I had already prepared and headed to the HR department. However, the process stalled at the very last step.
"Ms. Ashton, because yours is a core position, an exit within the week requires the CEO's personal signature for approval," the HR Director said, an apologetic look on her face.
Of course. Rhys. Even now, at the very end, I couldn't escape him.
I clutched my phone, walked to the end of the empty hallway, and dialed the number I knew by heart.
The phone rang for what felt like an eternity.
Just as I thought it would go to voicemail, the call connected. But the voice that answered wasn't his deep timber—it was a woman's, light and unfamiliar.
"Hello? Looking for Rhys? He's in the shower..."
In the shower.
The words were a thousand poisoned needles lancing through my chest. Despite this, years of professional training kept my voice steady, almost detached.
"Never mind. Thank you."
I hung up before she could say another word. The dark screen reflected my pale, drawn face.
Less than two minutes later, my phone buzzed violently. I stared at Rhys's name on the screen for a few seconds, took a deep breath, and answered.
"What is it?"
His tone was all business, cold and distant. Just last night, this same man had been on top of me, whispering my name like a prayer.
My knuckles whitened around the resignation letter.
"Mr. Sterling, I have a personnel change document that requires your signature."
He let out a low "Mm," then added as an afterthought, "Oh, right. Come by later and pack up your things. Cassidy is moving in."
"My place on the West Side is empty. You can move in there." His tone was infuriatingly casual, a thin veil for his patronizing pity. "I promised Cole I'd take care of you."
Four years ago, he'd drunkenly pulled me into his bed and made me his mistress. Four years later, to make room for the rightful lady of the house, he was offering me a new cage, cloaking it as a duty to his best friend.
The sheer audacity of his "kindness" was laughable.
"That won't be necessary, Mr. Sterling," I said, forcing a smile. "I'm an adult. I can take care of myself."
Once he signed the letter and I completed the final handover, our absurd four-year charade would be over for good.
And me? I was getting married.
