The Chen family mansion blazed with lights, each crystal chandelier casting prismatic rainbows across the marble floors. Shanghai's elite mingled in the grand ballroom, their designer gowns and tailored suits a parade of wealth and status. Champagne flowed freely, and the air hummed with polite laughter and strategic networking.
In the center of it all stood Athena Chen, feeling like a fraud in her own home.
"Smile, darling," her stepmother Victoria hissed, gripping Athena's arm with manicured nails that dug into soft flesh. "You're embarrassing the family with that sullen face. It's your eighteenth birthday, for heaven's sake."
Athena forced her lips upward, the motion mechanical and hollow. Around them, guests she'd never met congratulated her father on his "lovely daughter," their eyes sliding past her with thinly veiled disdain. She knew what they saw....an overweight girl in an ill-fitting dress, a disappointment compared to her elegant stepsister Stephanie, who held court near the bar in a stunning red gown that hugged her perfect figure.
"There she is! The birthday girl!" Stephanie glided over, her voice honey-sweet and poisonous. She pressed a champagne flute into Athena's hand, her smile razor-sharp. "You must be parched, sister dear. I had them make you something special."
Athena stared at the pale liquid, suspicion prickling her spine. Nothing Stephanie did was ever kind. But Victoria was watching, and so was her father across the room, his stern face already set in disapproval as if waiting for her to fail some invisible test.
"Thank you," Athena murmured, accepting the glass.
"Drink up!" Stephanie encouraged, her eyes glittering with something dark and eager. "You only turn eighteen once."
The first sip tasted bitter, chemical. Athena's nose wrinkled, but Victoria's warning glare kept her from setting it down. She took another small sip, then another, each one sitting heavy and wrong in her stomach.
"I need some air," Athena said quietly, setting the half-empty glass on a passing waiter's tray.
"Don't be ridiculous," Victoria snapped. "Your father is about to make a speech. You will stand here and look grateful."
But the room had begun to tilt, the chandeliers blurring into streaks of light. Athena's skin felt too hot, too tight. A strange fog crept into her mind, making her thoughts slow and syrupy.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
"I don't feel well," she managed, her tongue thick in her mouth.
"You're fine," Victoria said dismissively, but Stephanie's satisfied smirk told Athena everything she needed to know.
They'd done something to her drink.
Panic clawed through the growing haze. Athena stumbled backward, her vision swimming. She needed to get away, needed to think, needed....
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Her father's voice boomed across the ballroom. Alexander Chen stood on the raised platform, microphone in hand, every inch the powerful CEO. "Thank you all for joining us tonight to celebrate my daughter Athena's eighteenth birthday."
Polite applause rippled through the crowd. Athena swayed on her feet, fighting to stay upright.
"Athena has always been... a unique child," her father continued, his tone carefully neutral in a way that cut deeper than any insult. "Tonight marks her entry into adulthood, and with it, certain responsibilities to this family and our legacy."
The room spun faster. Athena's knees buckled, and she clutched at a nearby chair for support.
"Are you alright, dear?" An elderly woman touched her shoulder, concern creasing her powdered face.
"Bathroom," Athena gasped. "I need...."
She didn't finish. Her legs moved on autopilot, carrying her away from the crowd, away from her father's speech and Stephanie's triumphant gaze. The hallway stretched endlessly before her, doors multiplying and shifting. Her phone....where was her phone? She needed to call someone, needed help, but her purse was back in the ballroom and her pockets were empty.
"There you are!" Stephanie's voice echoed from behind her, too cheerful, too loud. "Come on, sister. I've arranged something special for you. A real birthday present."
Athena tried to run, but her limbs felt like lead. Strong hands...security guards?....gripped her arms, guiding her forward even as she mumbled protests.
"The car's waiting," Victoria's voice drifted from somewhere. "Take her to the Grandeur Hotel. Room 1108. Make sure she gets there safely."
"No," Athena slurred, trying to pull away. "Don't....please...."
But the world was fracturing, reality sliding away like water through her fingers. She was aware of movement, of being bundled into a car, of Shanghai's neon lights streaking past the window in a kaleidoscope of color. Her head lolled against the cool glass.
What had they given her? And why?
The hotel lobby was a blur of marble and gold. Someone was holding her up....a man in a black suit who kept his face carefully neutral as he guided her into an elevator. Numbers glowed on the panel: 3... 5... 7... 11.
The elevator dinged. Eleventh floor.
"Room 1108," the man said to someone. "As requested."
Athena's eyes wouldn't focus. She caught glimpses...a long hallway, plush carpet, the metallic gleam of a door handle. Then she was stumbling forward into a dark room that smelled of expensive cologne and leather.
The door clicked shut behind her.
She stood swaying in the darkness, her drug-addled mind struggling to process where she was and why. A hotel room. They'd brought her to a hotel room. But why? What did Stephanie and Victoria want?
A sound made her freeze...the soft rustle of fabric, the creak of bedsprings. Someone else was in the room.
"Who's there?" a male voice cut through the darkness, sharp and commanding despite an edge of confusion. "How did you get in here?"
Athena tried to answer, tried to explain, but her knees gave out. She pitched forward, and then strong arms caught her, keeping her from hitting the floor.
"What the hell?" The man's voice was closer now, his breath warm against her hair. "Are you drunk? Who sent you?"
"Please," Athena managed, her words barely coherent. "Help me... they drugged... I don't know..."
She felt him tense, heard the sharp intake of breath. Then he was lifting her, carrying her somewhere soft....the bed. Athena's eyes fluttered open just enough to catch a glimpse of sharp features silhouetted against the city lights filtering through the window. Handsome. Cold. Unfamiliar.
"I'm calling security," he said, reaching for something...a phone?
But then Athena's hand caught his wrist, her grip surprisingly strong despite the drugs coursing through her system. The moment their skin touched, something electric passed between them, making them both freeze.
The man stared down at her, his expression shifting from annoyance to confusion to something else entirely. "What..."
Athena couldn't explain the sudden warmth that flooded her, chasing away the cold panic. Couldn't explain why this stranger's presence made her feel safe when nothing else did. The drugs were taking over completely now, pulling her under, and she was too tired to fight anymore.
"Don't leave," she whispered, not understanding why she said it, why she meant it.
The man's jaw clenched. His hand, which had been reaching for the phone, hesitated. Athena saw the war playing out across his face....duty versus something else, something neither of them understood.
"This is insane," he muttered, but he didn't pull away.
The last thing Athena remembered before the darkness claimed her completely was the feeling of his hand still caught in hers, and the strange, inexplicable certainty that her entire life had just changed forever.
Six hours later
Athena woke to blinding sunlight and immediate, crushing regret.
Every muscle in her body ached. Her head pounded with a vicious hangover that couldn't be from the half-glass of champagne she remembered drinking. And she was naked...completely, terrifyingly naked....under silk sheets that definitely weren't hers.
Memory crashed back in fragmented pieces. The party. Stephanie's champagne. The fog in her mind. The hotel room. The man.
Oh god. Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Athena's eyes flew open, and she immediately regretted it as the luxurious hotel room spun into focus. This was not her bedroom. This was not her house. And the masculine cologne on the pillow next to her...still warm, recently vacated...confirmed her worst fear.
She'd slept with someone. She'd been drugged and brought here and....
Panic clawed up her throat. Athena sat up too quickly, clutching the sheet to her chest, her eyes desperately scanning the room. Designer suit jacket draped over a chair. Men's watch on the nightstand, the kind that cost more than a car. No sign of the man himself.
On the pillow next to her, a single note in sharp, masculine handwriting: "This never happened."
Athena's hands shook as she picked it up, the expensive cardstock crisp between her fingers. This never happened. As if she was something shameful to be erased, forgotten, denied.
Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them back furiously. She didn't have time to fall apart. She needed to get out of here, needed to go home, needed to figure out what the hell Stephanie and Victoria had done to her and why...
Her clothes were folded neatly on a chair...someone had picked them up, arranged them carefully. The thoughtfulness of the gesture somehow made everything worse.
Athena dressed with trembling hands, each movement sending fresh waves of soreness through her body. Evidence. This was evidence of what they'd done to her. She needed to remember, needed to piece together the fragments of last night, needed to understand....
But her mind was a frustrating blank after entering the room. She remembered the stranger's voice, the warmth of his hands, the inexplicable safety she'd felt. But his face remained shadowed, just out of reach of memory.
She stumbled to the bathroom and immediately wished she hadn't looked in the mirror. Bruises marked her collarbone....not violent, but undeniable. Her hair was a disaster, mascara smudged beneath red-rimmed eyes. She looked exactly like what she was: a ruined girl, a scandal waiting to break.
Her father was going to kill her.
No...worse. Her father was going to disown her.
And Stephanie and Victoria had planned it all.
The realization hit with crystalline clarity. This was their endgame. Drug her, put her in a compromising position, create a scandal so devastating that her father would have no choice but to cut her off completely. Whatever inheritance her mother had left her...the one she'd overheard Victoria whispering angrily about....would be forfeit. Stephanie would get everything.
Athena's reflection stared back at her, and for the first time in her life, she saw something dangerous flicker in her own eyes. Not the meek, obedient daughter. Not the girl who absorbed cruelty with patience and swallowed her anger.
Someone new. Someone who refused to be destroyed.
But first, she had to survive what came next.
Athena splashed cold water on her face, finger-combed her hair into something approaching presentable, and walked out of the Grandeur Hotel with her head high and her heart hammering.
She didn't know it yet, but the man whose bed she'd shared....the man with the cold voice and warm hands.....was the most powerful person in Shanghai.
And she'd just become his biggest secret.