Chapter 1

The crystal chandelier's glare stabbed at my eyes.

Richard Nolan's hand gripped my shoulder like steel, forcing me to bend over in front of a gray-haired old man whose eyes were dull and cloudy.

"Mr. Grant, this is my daughter, Claire Nolan. She just turned twenty and is very well-behaved," Richard said.

My stomach twisted, and icy chills crept through my veins.

I caught Sophia Nolan's smug laugh and my adoptive mother's impatient push. "Claire, aren't you going to greet Mr. Grant? You're lucky he's taken a liking to you."

Lucky?

A man old enough to be my grandfather was leering at me, scanning me from head to toe and practically stripping me with his eyes.

I was shaking all over.

Just as I was being shoved toward that fat, greasy hand, a cool, magnetic voice cut through the air like ice tossed into boiling oil, instantly silencing the entire banquet hall.

"Mr. Nolan, did you even ask for my permission before touching someone under my protection?"

*****

"Claire, don't be so shameless!"

My adoptive mother's screech cut through my ears, dragging me out of the mess caused by the real heiress's return and back to reality.

Sophia Nolan, the girl who swapped lives with me for twenty years, was nestled next to my adoptive mother, eyeing me as if she'd already won.

She was flaunting my favorite designer dress, while I was stuck in a cheap T-shirt and jeans from a street stall.

The day I got booted from the Nolan family, they only let me take one suitcase.

"Mom, Claire didn't mean anything by it," Sophia murmured sweetly, but there was poison in her eyes. "She's just gotten used to roughing it outside. She hasn't learned how things work around here yet."

She made it clear I was an outsider.

Richard took a drag on his cigar, his brows knit tight. "Sophia's right. Claire, you've been with the Nolan family for twenty years, and we've always treated you fairly. Now the company's cash flow is in trouble, and it's time for you to pitch in for the family."

My stomach dropped, dread clawing at my chest.

"What... do you mean?" I asked.

"Mr. Grant, the one you've met before," Richard said, blowing out a smoke ring, his tone brooking no argument. "He's very satisfied with you. At next week's banquet, your marriage will be settled."

It was like my brain exploded. I couldn't think at all.

That greasy old creep in his fifties, notorious for being a player?

"No!" I screamed, my voice cracking. "I won't agree! You can't do this to me!"

"How dare you!" Richard slammed his hand on the table, his face twisted with rage. "You live under our roof, and now you won't do this one thing to pay us back? You think you're still some kind of spoiled little rich girl? You're nothing. Absolutely nothing."

My adoptive mother let out a cold laugh. "A fraud like you, getting to be Mr. Grant's woman? That's luck you couldn't buy in eight lifetimes. Don't push your luck!"

The way this family looked at me chilled me to the core.

All that talk about twenty years of raising me? Just a transaction. Plain and simple. Priced and paid for.

Now, I was just another commodity, put up for sale.

I spun around and bolted, with Sophia's phony sympathy and my adoptive parents' angry yelling chasing after me.

I had nowhere to go. My only thought was to run, just get away.

The rain came out of nowhere, drenching me completely. I stood there, soaked and miserable, right outside the iron gates of a mansion.

This was the Shaw Mansion, next door to the Nolans—everyone in Metropolis City knew the Shaw family.

The person I needed was Alexander Shaw, the man in charge of the Shaws.

He was the kind of powerhouse even my adoptive father had to grovel to. The real crown prince of Metropolis City—cold-blooded, sharp, and dangerous as hell.

But he was also the guy who'd always looked out for me, the neighbor who watched me grow up.

I was shaking all over, not sure if it was from the cold or from sheer terror.

I was out of options.

I mustered all the strength I had and rang the doorbell.