Chapter 1

Right in the middle of my engagement party, my cousin—who always loved to play the innocent, clumsy victim—"walked into the wrong room" and ended up in my fiancé's bed.

Clutching the blanket to her chest, her voice trembled.

"Grace, I swear I didn't mean to. All the hotel doors look exactly the same..."

It was the exact same script.

Eight years ago, when I brought my first love, Daniel Brooks, home to meet the family, she also "accidentally" walked into the wrong room, claiming it was "too dark to see."

I called her bluff right then and there. "You might forget a room number. But without a key card, how exactly did you get through a locked door?"

Chloe, who had been fake-crying a second ago, went deathly pale.

My mother, Linda, immediately shoved Chloe behind her, pointing a furious finger at me.

"Chloe has always been a little slow and confused, you know that!"

"She's already terrified, and you're trying to humiliate her in public? How can you treat your own family like this?"

That familiar, crushing suffocation clawed its way up my throat.

Forcing my hands to stop shaking, I looked at the man I had loved for the past six years.

"Ethan. How do you want to handle this?"

I had been dating my boyfriend in secret for six years.

It wasn't because I was ashamed of him. Quite the opposite. Ethan Carter was devastatingly handsome and the CEO of a publicly traded tech company. More importantly, when he looked at me, it was like no one else in the room existed.

The problem was my cousin, Chloe.

When Chloe was thirteen, her parents died in a car crash. Linda couldn't bear the thought of her orphaned niece going into the foster system. Feeling a profound duty to her late sister, she took Chloe in and raised her as her own.

From that day on, I became the outsider in my own home.

Linda constantly reminded me that I was already capable and smart, which meant I needed to step aside and yield opportunities to the poor, orphaned Chloe.

Once, Chloe stood in the doorway of my bedroom and casually murmured, "Grace, your room is so pretty."

That very night, Linda moved my things into a cramped storage closet down the hall.

When I won the highest award at a state-level academic competition, Chloe climbed into Linda's lap, her eyes red and brimming with tears.

"I'm just born stupid. I'll never be able to make Aunt Linda proud of me."

Linda immediately locked my trophy in a cabinet and warned me not to mention the award to our relatives. She even forbade me from listing it on my college applications.

I was at the top of my high school class. My grades were easily competitive enough for Harvard or Yale.

But Linda managed to get my login credentials. Posing as me, she withdrew my applications to every top-tier university.

By the time I found out, the regular decision deadlines had passed. She had committed identity theft and wire fraud to sabotage my future, but I was trapped.

Left with no options, I was forced to follow Linda's arrangement and apply to the same state community college as Chloe.

"I worry about Chloe being out there on her own," Linda had justified. "If you two are at the same school, you can take care of her."

Chloe stood next to her, rubbing her teary eyes. "Grace, please don't be mad at Aunt Linda. You can always take a gap year and reapply. I'll take good care of myself."

Linda stroked Chloe's hair, her face glowing with maternal pride. "Look how understanding Chloe is. You should learn a thing or two from her, Grace."

For the next four years, I worked multiple part-time jobs to pay for Chloe's tuition.

Meanwhile, she wore designer clothes, spent the allowance Linda gave her, and went around telling everyone how cold I was, claiming I refused to interact with my family.

After college, I got a boyfriend, Daniel. I brought him home to meet the relatives.

That night, Chloe "accidentally" walked into the wrong bedroom and adamantly claimed she and Daniel had slept together.

Without missing a beat, Linda told me to give my boyfriend to her.

"You're smart, Grace. You'll never have trouble finding a man. Chloe really likes Daniel. Just let her have him."

Daniel looked sick to his stomach. He repeatedly swore he hadn't touched her, that she had stripped off her own clothes and climbed into his bed.

But he couldn't handle Linda and Chloe's hysterical crying. He was terrified of marrying me and being permanently tied to such a toxic, manipulative family.

In the end, he broke up with me.

Heartbroken and exhausted, I packed my bags and moved to New York. Unless there was a major emergency, I never went back to Millbrook.

In New York, I found Ethan. He was the reward I finally got after surviving all those bitter years.

But I knew exactly what kind of person Chloe was. If I had something, she had to take it. If she couldn't take it, she would destroy it.

So, I kept Ethan a secret from my family for six entire years.

I thought I had hidden him well enough.

Until Chloe showed up unannounced in New York, waiting outside my apartment building in Queens just as Ethan was dropping me off.

The second she laid eyes on him, she froze. Her gaze glued itself to him, refusing to let go.

Pure reflex kicked in. I yanked my hand out of Ethan's grasp.

It was an instinctive panic—if I didn't admit he was mine, maybe she wouldn't target him.

"Grace, who is this?" Chloe asked, a sweet smile spreading across her face as her eyes tracked from Ethan's expensive watch down to his custom shoes. Her eyes practically gleamed.

Ethan politely extended a hand, about to introduce himself. "Hello, I'm Grace's—"

"He's my coworker. Ethan Carter," I blurted out.

Ethan's hand stopped mid-air. The warmth in his eyes instantly died.

"Oh, a coworker." Chloe took his hand, her fingertips lightly tracing his palm as she gave him a sugary, lingering smile. "Hi, Ethan. I'm Grace's cousin, Chloe."

The next day, Ethan texted me, asking me to meet him at a quiet coffee shop downstairs from his office.

As the glass door clicked shut behind us, he stood in front of me, his voice dangerously low.

"Why am I a secret?"

I bit my lip, completely at a loss for words. How could I possibly explain that I had a parasitic cousin who wanted to steal every good thing in my life, and I was terrified she wouldn't spare him?

When I didn't answer, Ethan's gaze darkened. There was a barely perceptible tremor in his voice.

"Tell me the truth. Am I a secret lover you're ashamed to admit? Or are you afraid people will think I'm some guy you're seeing behind your family's back?"

My head snapped up. I couldn't believe his mind had gone to such a dark place.

I opened my mouth to explain, but my phone buzzed.

A text from Chloe.

[Made you a special homemade lunch! Text me your office address, I'll bring it right up.]

I knew exactly what she was really after.

[Don't bother. We have a corporate cafeteria.]

[Are you embarrassed of me?]

My fingers hovered over the screen for a second before I typed back:

[Yes.]

The screen showed "typing..." for a long time, but no reply came.

I knew it. She had locked onto Ethan.

Looking up at Ethan's tense face, my heart was a chaotic mess of panic and dread.

I tested the waters. "Ethan... what did you think of my cousin, Chloe?"