Amara didn't breathe.
She stood frozen on the balcony of Drevane Hall, the storm-cold marble biting through the thin silk of Selene's borrowed gown. Below her, the French Riviera unfurled like a stolen dream—the Orada sea, a churning expanse of liquid mercury under a bruised twilight sky, cliffs plunging into waves that shattered against ancient rocks. This isn't real, she thought, her knuckles white on the railing. No one lives like this. Not people like me.
She'd grown up in the dusty quiet of her mother's library—a cottage with sagging bookshelves, the scent of aged paper and rain-soaked earth clinging to every corner. Her world was ink-stained fingers and the weight of silence, not this: a fortress of glass and steel perched on the edge of the world, where the air itself tasted of salt and power.
She turned slowly, taking in the house.
Drevane Hall wasn't a home. It was a declaration.
A monolith of floor-to-ceiling windows and polished steel, it clung to the cliffside like a predator surveying its kingdom. Below, the driveway curved like a serpent, choked with cars that gleamed even in the fading light—a fleet of obsidian Rolls-Royces, a crimson Ferrari, a matte-black Bentley. Chauffeurs stood at rigid attention, their uniforms so crisp they looked carved from ice. Beyond them, the estate sprawled: manicured hedges sculpted into geometric labyrinths, fountains where water arced in perfect, silent spirals, and a helipad where a private jet sat idle, its rotors still.
But it was the people that stole her breath.
Maids in dove-gray uniforms moved like ghosts through the gardens, pruning roses with surgical precision. Butlers in tailored black suits materialized from nowhere, carrying trays of crystal glasses that caught the dying sun. A groundskeeper polished the hood of a vintage Aston Martin with such reverence Amara half-expected him to whisper apologies to the engine. Everything here is curated, she realized. Even the air feels staged.
This is how the other half lives, she thought bitterly, tracing the railing's icy edge with her thumb. Not living. Performing. Marcella traded Selene for a stage play, and I walked onto the set wearing her costume. Her gaze dropped to her hands—still trembling from Cassian's touch hours ago, though she'd scrubbed them raw in the suite's gold-plated bathroom. You're not a Veyron, the voice in her head hissed. You're a prop. A blonde-haired lie.
A memory flashed: her mother's hands, calloused from restoring rare manuscripts, smoothing Amara's dark hair as she read aloud. "Real beauty isn't in palaces, ma chérie," she'd whispered. "It's in the quiet moments—the smell of rain on old paper, the weight of truth in your bones."
Amara's throat tightened. I bleached my hair for a ghost's legacy. For a house that feels like a museum of broken things. She looked out at the sea again, where the horizon bled into indigo. What would you say, Mama, if you saw me now? Trading your library for this gilded cage?
Survival isn't betrayal, another voice countered—sharp, pragmatic. Marcella will sell every book you love if you fail. So wear Selene's skin. Play the part. Just… don't forget who you are beneath it.
A flicker of movement caught her eye.
Near the fountain, a maid knelt to adjust a stray petal on a rosebush. Her hands moved with quiet efficiency, but Amara saw the tension in her shoulders—the way her eyes darted toward the house, as if expecting reprimand. She's afraid, Amara realized. They all are. Even the butlers, with their polished shoes and unreadable faces, moved like soldiers in enemy territory. This isn't a home. It's a kingdom built on silence.
And Cassian Drevane is its king.
The thought sent a shiver down her spine. His storm-gray eyes, that tear she'd glimpsed… Why cry over turbulence? What haunts a man who owns islands?
Stop, she ordered herself. You don't get to wonder about him. You get to survive him.
She turned back to the suite, steeling herself. The room was a study in sterile luxury: white linen, chrome fixtures, a bed so vast it looked like an altar. On the vanity, Selene's makeup lay arranged like surgical tools—foundation to mask her olive skin, blue eyeshadow to mimic eyes she didn't have. The costume is ready, the voice in her head murmured. Now put it on.
Just then, a soft knock echoed.
A maid stood in the doorway, her posture perfect, her expression carefully blank. "Mademoiselle Veyron," she said in flawless French, eyes lowered. "Dinner is served. Monsieur Drevane awaits you in the dining hall."
Mademoiselle Veyron. The lie wrapped around her like a second skin.
Amara forced a nod, the platinum strands of her wig shifting against her neck. "Thank you."
The maid didn't move. "Everyone is waiting," she added, almost too quietly. A warning? An observation? Her gaze flickered to Amara's bare wrist—where Selene would have worn diamond bracelets—and then away. "The guests do not like to be kept waiting."
Guests. Amara's stomach dropped. I wasn't told there would be guests.
The maid vanished as silently as she'd appeared, leaving Amara alone with the echo of those words: Everyone is waiting.
She walked to the mirror. The woman staring back was a stranger—hair like spun moonlight, eyes wide with borrowed fear. This is it, she thought, smoothing Selene's ivory gown over her hips. The performance begins.
She touched the necklace at her throat—a delicate chain holding a single pearl, Marcella's "gift" for the occasion. A leash disguised as jewelry, she thought bitterly. How fitting.
Taking a breath, she stepped toward the door.
But as her hand closed around the cold brass knob, she paused.
She felt something strange behind her. She quickly turned.
There was nothing.
Just the ghost of adhesive on the metal.
Why?
She could have swore that she definitely saw something
And most terrifying of all—
What if her intuitionis right?