Chapter 1

*Adelaide

“To the future bride and groom!” My father raised a glass of champagne in the festive air, a proud smile on his lips as he gestured to my half-sister and her fiance. “This is a proud day of union for the Hildebrand and Steyns!”

“Cheers!”

I needed a drink.

My now ex-boyfriend leaned down to kiss his beautiful fiance, and I ducked behind the wall, fists clenched so tightly I felt my nails as they dug into my palms.

The b’stards hadn’t even invited me.

Perhaps, that shouldn’t have been what stung the most, but it was something else that drove a perfectly manicured nail in the coffin that was my heart. I had been completely blindsided.

Then, there was that patent he’d been after… I shook my head, not wanting to think about that at the moment.

When I first heard the news, I hadn’t believed it. I had been in the airport as I waited for my flight in Los Angeles to fly to New York for a business meeting. The news had been the only channel blaring on every lounge TV.

“Ashton Steyn, the youngest member of Nevada’s First Congressional District, has officially announced his engagement tonight. His engagement to Corinna Hildebrand is being celebrated at a private affair at Caesars Palace,” the blonde on the nightly news had reported.

I should’ve just gotten on the d’mn plane to New York!

Instead, I’d changed my flight and came here in some misguided hope that all of this was some cruel practical joke. The worst part was that I couldn’t even march in there and slap him across the face as he deserved.

“I don’t want my position to affect you.” That’s what he had told me every time I asked why he kept our relationship a secret. And just last night, the exact day before the engagement party here, he called me honey and I said goodnight.

I was too foolish to look past my rose-colored lenses.

To the rest of the world, our grandparents were friends and nothing more. If I had stormed in there, I’d have only humiliated myself further.

I watched as my half-sister, Corinna, smiled, her cheeks pink as the crowd adored her, just like they always did. Her perfectly practiced smile and curled blonde hair were the epitome of the fiancee he’d always wanted. Ashton’s arm wrapped around her shoulders as he held her close for the cameras.

An inferno had raged inside my chest. It had boiled over until my heart had shriveled up and died. Every moment I’d shared with Ashton went up in flames and left behind nothing but ashes and me.

I snatched a champagne glass from a tray of a passing waiter. I ignored the nasty look he sent my way for snatching the glass, pulled my mask below my lips and downed the champagne like it was water.

I swallowed the bubbly liquid and with it, any remnants of my pride.

With one last resentful glance at the happy couple in their joyous moment, I tugged my mask back into its spot and had just turned to go to the bathroom to calm down when I met a brick wall of a man to the face.

I fell back as I landed harshly on my elbows and as on the ground.

“Hey!” I shouted, irritated as I rubbed my sore arms and hopped up. When I faced the offender, my eyes went wide.

The man had dark smothering eyes and dark hair. Underneath his black suit was a wall of muscle, his white shirt was left messy and untucked. The first two buttons of his collar were undone with just a hint of the tan skin underneath. He had a small black freckle underneath his right eye and the realization hit me like a truck.

“Sorry,” I said reluctantly, as I got to my feet. I pushed my sunglasses as far back on my face as I could and hoped to whatever universe was out there that he hadn’t recognized me.

I tried to move around his tall figure to leave, but he stepped in front of me. I frowned and stepped the other way, but he blocked my path for the second time.

I was so not in the mood for this.

“Get out of my way,” I snapped, arms crossed.

“Say please,” he smirked.

I grabbed my wrist to prevent my instinct from punching him in his smug face. Instead, I breathed out to calm my temper as I looked up at him through the tinted sunglasses.

“Please,” I hissed through my teeth.

“By all means,” he said as he moved to the side with a grand flourish of his arm. I eyed him, and the path he made for me to the exit, and before he could change his mind, I darted past.

I should’ve known better.

As fast as a viper, he snatched my wrist, and I yelped as I was yanked backward. A large warm hand on my back stabilized my balance, but the stranglehold on my temper was gone.

“What do you think you’re doing? Let me go!” I struggled against his firm grip on my wrist, but it was useless. He had always been stronger than me. The warmth of his hand on my back vanished, and I couldn’t stop him as he plucked the sunglasses right off my face.

He finally let me go, leaning back with that d*mn smirk on his face. He twirled my sunglasses in one hand as I glared at him.

“You weren’t even going to say hello, Addie?” he said with a mocking pout. “I’m hurt.”

“Give them back, Damon!” I shouted. A few guests turned to look at us, and I flinched, trying not to draw any more attention. NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

Damon Steyn. Ashton’s half-brother who’d always been a pain in my *ss.

Ashton, Damon, Corinna, and I had been forced into playdates as children. I might have said we were childhood friends if he hadn’t been a jerk who had tormented me since I was five.

Damon’s dark eyes flickered over me, unimpressed. “You came to an engagement party dressed like that?”

I flushed as I looked down at the business suit I’d been planning to wear to my meeting in New York. I glared up at him defensively.

“I wasn’t invited,” I said bitterly at the reminder.

Damon shrugged, “Neither was 1, but I don’t look like I’m going to work.”

I ground my teeth at how flippant he was.

“You already knew didn’t you?” I stepped into his personal space. “You knew what they were planning.”

“How could I ever guess that my girlfriend would suddenly get engaged to my brother? I’m quite shocked,” he said calmly.

“Funny,” I snapped, “you don’t look shocked.”

He leaned down until I felt his warm breath on my cheek.

He opened his mouth to reply, but a bunch of girlish giggles reached my ears.

I jumped back as three very familiar girls rounded the corner with champagne glasses in their hands.

“Damon!” the woman in a short green dress called out. “I didn’t know you were here. You should’ve come to see me.”

“Leila, Veronica, Melanie,” Damon leaned back from me with a polite smile on his lips.

Veronica giggled as she stumbled forward to clutch at his arm.

“You didn’t come to see me,” she pouted, batting her eyelashes.

I tugged on my mask, stepping back and hoping to escape the situation before anyone else recognized me, but I was too late.

“Adelaide?” Melanic stepped forward, a huge grin on her face. “Is that you?”

I swore the universe had it out for me.

I turned back, arms crossed as I faced the three drunk women and Damon, my mortal enemy since I was five.

“It is!” Leila gasped, as she threw herself forward. She took one look at me and burst into giggles. “But what are you wearing? Did you forget this is supposed to be a formal affair, Addie?”

I bristled.

“Oh, give her some slack, Leila,” Veronica giggled as she let go of Damon to face me as well. “She probably thought it was a costume party and got mixed up. Your costume is a little lacking, though. Addie. What are you supposed to be? A CEO? A librarian?”

I smiled calmly, despite the strong instinct I had to slap them and hope they fell into one another like dominos.

“Oh, you like it, Veronica?” I said with a mini twirl in my flats, “I came as a professional, something you’ll never be.”

Their smiles dropped.

Damon snickered behind his hand as Veronica’s face flushed. She stepped forward, furious..

“Well, I didn’t have to sneak into my own sister’s engagement party. Everybody knows you’ve always been jealous of Corinna,” Veronica snapped.

“That’s right,” Leila said, nastily.

Melanie stepped right into my face with a snarl. “That’s why Ashton chose her and not someone like you.”

I heard the sound of my last shred of sanity as it snapped. Maybe that’s why I did something so incredibly stupid and reckless.

“I don’t want Ashton! I already have a fiance!” I declared.

The three reeled back like I had struck them. Veronica regained her senses first.

“Then who is it?” she said snobbishly. “Show everybody this mystery fiance then.”

It was at this point as I was sweating bullets in front of the three of them that I realized I had dug myself into a massive hole.

My eyes shifted around nervously and coincidentally, I had met Damon’s dark orbs.

Well, the hole was already dug. Might as well get a bigger shovel.

I latched my arm around his wrist and pulled him to my side. He went too easily, and had I not been. facing the eruption that was my emotions, I’d have noticed that. But I didn’t.

“Damon is my fiance!” I announced loud enough for everyone to hear.

The three women eyed us, stunned.

“And we’re getting engaged today as well.” I added, facing their aghast faces.

“Is that true?” Veronica mumbled, blinking rapidly as she turned to Damon for confirmation.

Damon looked at me and I silently begged him to play along. Something flashed behind his eyes and he turned to the three girls with a smirk.

He said one word that dropped my heart to the floor.

"No."