Harper's POV:

I signed the papers on the kitchen counter where I'd made Connor breakfast this morning.

The pen kept slipping because my hands wouldn't stop shaking, so I had to grip it harder just to make my name come out right. Harper Blake. Except I wasn't going to be that anymore, was I? I'd go back to being Harper Lane, the girl from Montana who had nothing, the girl I'd tried so hard to leave behind.

"Done already?" Connor's voice came from behind me. "I thought you'd at least cry or beg or something."

I didn't turn around because I couldn't look at him without seeing Jenny's hands in his hair, her body pressed against his in our bed.

"Where do you want me to go?" My voice came out flat and dead.

"That's not my problem anymore, Harper." He walked past me and picked up the papers, flipping through them like he was checking if I'd signed every page correctly. "You can stay tonight if you want. I'm going to Jenny's place. But tomorrow morning I want you gone, and don't take anything that isn't yours."

Tomorrow morning. Less than twenty four hours to pack up a year of marriage, a year of believing someone finally wanted me to stay.

"Connor." I forced myself to look at him even though it hurt. "Did you ever love me? Even just a little bit at the beginning?"

He stopped walking but didn't turn around. His hand was on the doorframe and for just one second I thought maybe he'd say something that would make this hurt less.

"I thought I did," he said quietly, still facing away from me. "But then my father started treating you like you were the best thing that ever happened to him. He'd come home from work talking about you. Harper designed this, she should lead the new collection." His voice got louder and angrier. "Do you have any idea what that felt like? Watching my own father choose you over me?"

"I never asked him to do that," I whispered. "I was just doing my job."

"Just doing your job?" He spun around and his face was twisted with something that looked like hate. "You did way more than that, Harper. You made everyone love you. Poor Harper whose mother died, who worked so hard, who came from nothing." He laughed but it wasn't a happy sound. "You used your sad story like a weapon and it worked on everyone."

The words cut into me like glass. "That wasn't an act. That was my life. My mother did die. I did come from nothing."

"Yeah? Well maybe you talked about it too much." He grabbed his jacket off the chair. "Congratulations, Harper. You manipulated your way into a marriage and a career. I hope it was worth it."

He walked out and the door slammed so hard the walls shook.

I stood there staring at where he'd been, my chest so tight I couldn't breathe right. Was he right? Had I used my past to make people feel sorry for me without even knowing I was doing it? All those times James had asked about my childhood and I'd told him the truth, had I been manipulating him?

My phone buzzed on the counter. A text from a number I didn't recognize.

"This is Jenny. You're so bitter that you've blocked me? Well wanted your defeated ass to know Connor and I are going out to celebrate tonight. We're finally free of you."

I turned my phone off and shoved it in my pocket before I could read any more.

The apartment was too quiet now. I walked to the bedroom and opened the closet, pulling out my old suitcase from the top shelf. When I did, something fell and hit the floor. My mother's photo album.

It landed open to a page I knew by heart. My mother's face looking up at me, smiling even though she was so thin and sick in that picture. A piece of paper slipped out from between the pages. A letter in her handwriting that I'd forgotten was there.

"My sweet Harper," it started. "If you're reading this, I'm already gone."

I had to sit down on the bed because my legs went weak. I hadn't seen her handwriting in years. My throat closed up just looking at it.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't stay longer, baby. I'm so sorry I had to leave you. But I need you to know something. You're going to do amazing things. I know you think you're not strong enough but you are. You're the strongest person I know."

My hands were shaking so hard the paper rattled.

I pressed the letter against my chest and the sob that came out of me was ugly and loud. My whole body shook with it and I couldn't stop, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything except cry into my hands until my throat burned and my eyes were so swollen I could barely see.

My mother had been wrong. I wasn't strong. Strong people didn't let themselves get destroyed by men who never loved them. Strong people didn't trust friends who secretly hated them.

I don't know how long I sat there crying, but when I finally stopped, the sun was coming up outside the window. I folded the letter carefully and put it back in the album, then started packing. Everything I owned fit into two suitcases and a backpack. I didn't take the dresses Connor bought me or the jewelry or any of the expensive things. Just my clothes from before, my laptop, and the album.

I called a cab and when the driver asked where I wanted to go, I pulled out my phone and searched for flights leaving New York today. The cheapest one was to Los Angeles in two hours. $312 one way.

"JFK airport," I told him.

I watched New York pass by through the window and everything looked different now, smaller somehow, like it had never been mine to begin with.

At the Airport, I grabbed my things and got in line after I got my ticket. This was it. I was leaving everything behind and starting over from nothing, just like I did when I left Montana five years ago.

Except this time I didn't have any hope left.

Six hours later I landed in Los Angeles with $535 in my bank account and nowhere to go. I found the cheapest motel I could, a place that smelled like cigarettes and regret, and sat on the stained bedspread opening my laptop.

I applied to every fashion company in Los Angeles. One application after another until my eyes burned and my fingers cramped. By midnight I'd sent out over sixty applications.

I checked my email before trying to sleep.

Forty two rejections already.

I closed the laptop and lay down without even taking off my shoes. Tomorrow I'll be stronger, I'll figure it out.

But when I woke up three hours later from a nightmare where Connor and Jenny were laughing at me, I reached for my backpack to hold my mother's album.

It wasn't there.

I tore through my suitcases, checked every pocket, dumped everything on the floor.

I'd left it in the cab.

Harper's POV:

The motel clerk didn't look up when I asked if anyone had turned in a photo album.

"Lady, people don't turn in anything here." He was chewing gum loud enough that I could hear it popping between his teeth. "You lose something, it's gone."

I walked back to my room and stared at the stained carpet and the walls so thin I could hear everything happening next door, and something inside me snapped. I couldn't stay here. Not tonight, with the weight of everything pressing down on me until I couldn't breathe.

I grabbed my jacket and left.

The street was alive with neon lights and music pouring out of open doorways, people everywhere laughing like the world wasn't falling apart. I walked until my feet ached and my throat burned, and then I saw a sign that caught my attention.

Obsidian.

Sleek black letters above a doorway that looked like it cost a lot, with a doorman in an expensive suit, standing at the doorway watching for creeps and beautiful people streaming in and out.

I pushed through the door before I could change my mind.

Inside it was all purple light and bodies and music so loud I felt it in my chest. I made my way to the bar and ordered a vodka tonic because the woman next to me was drinking one and I didn't know what else to ask for.

The first drink burned going down. The second made the room softer at the edges. By the third I could almost breathe without my chest feeling like it was splitting open.

I was reaching for the fourth when someone knocked into me from behind and the glass tipped, spilling vodka all down the front of my shirt.

"Shit." I grabbed napkins from the bar and tried to wipe it off but it was already soaking through.

"Hey, you okay?" A hand touched my elbow, steadying me, and when I looked up my breath caught.

He was tall. So tall I had to tilt my head back to see his face. Dark hair that looked like he'd been running his hands through it. Sharp jaw. Eyes so dark they looked black in the low light. He wore a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up and I could see his forearms, tan and muscled with veins running under the skin.

"I'm fine," I said, but my voice came out shaky.

"You're not fine. Some asshole just knocked into you and didn't even apologize." He grabbed more napkins and handed them to me, his eyes scanning my face like he was checking if I was hurt. "Did any of it get on your skin? It can burn."

"No. Just my shirt."

"Good." He flagged down the bartender. "Get her a new drink. And put it on my tab."

"You don't have to do that," I said.

"I know." He looked at me with an intensity that made my stomach flip. "But I want to."

The bartender slid a fresh vodka tonic across the bar and the man picked it up, handing it to me carefully like he was worried I might drop it.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't mention it." He ordered whiskey for himself and leaned against the bar next to me and I could smell him, something clean and expensive that made me want to move closer. "You here with friends?"

"No...just me."

Something shifted in his expression-softened, maybe. "Rough night?"

"Something like that."

He nodded like he understood without me having to explain, and we stood there drinking in silence for a minute. It should have been awkward but it wasn't. It felt easy in a way nothing had felt easy in days.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. "For whatever happened that brought you here alone."

The words hit me harder than they should have. Nobody had said sorry to me. Not Connor. Not Jenny. Nobody.

"It's not your fault," I managed.

"I know. But you look like you need someone to say it anyway." He took a sip of his whiskey and his eyes never left mine. "You want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Fair enough." He turned to face me fully and the purple light caught the sharp angles of his face, the scar through his eyebrow that made him look dangerous. "You want to forget about it instead?"

My heart kicked against my ribs. "How?"

"We could dance. Or we could get out of here. Go somewhere quieter." He paused and his voice dropped lower. "I'm not trying to be an asshole. I just... I saw you when you walked in and I haven't been able to stop looking at you since."

I should have said no. Should have finished my drink and gone back to that terrible motel room. But he was looking at me like I mattered, like I was something worth paying attention to, and I hadn't felt that in so long I'd forgotten what it was like.

"Okay," I said.

He held out his hand. "Come with me."

I took it and his fingers wrapped around mine, warm and rough and steady, and he led me through the crowd toward the back. Past the bathrooms to a door marked Private. He pushed it open and there were stairs leading up.

"I have a suite here," he said, glancing back at me. "We can just talk if that's all you want. No pressure."

"Okay."

We climbed the stairs and he swiped a keycard at another door, pushing it open to reveal a huge room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city. Dark furniture. A bed big enough for four people.

"This is where you live?" I asked.

"Sometimes. When I'm working late." He locked the door and turned to face me. "You want something to drink? Water? More vodka?"

"Water's good."

He went to the bar in the corner and poured two glasses, handing me one before sitting on the couch. I sat next to him, leaving space between us, and we drank in silence while the city glowed outside the windows.

"You don't have to tell me what happened," he said after a minute. "But if you want to, I'll listen."

Something about the way he said it, calm and steady and like he actually meant it, made my throat go tight.

I narrated my ordeal to a stranger. Everything Connor and Jenny made me go through.

His jaw tightened. "Jesus."

"Yeah."

"When did all this happen?" The way he held me, like he wanted to help take the pain away.

"Two days ago."

He set his glass down and turned to look at me, his eyes dark and angry but not at me. "He's a fucking idiot."

"You don't even know me."

"I know enough." He shifted closer and his hand came up to touch my face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone so gently I almost cried. "I know you came to a bar alone because you needed to feel something other than pain. And your husband huh? He's the biggest fucking idiot alive for letting you go."

A tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it and he wiped it away with his thumb.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Don't be." His hand slid into my hair and his forehead pressed against mine. "Don't ever be sorry for feeling something."

I didn't know who moved first. Maybe both of us. But suddenly my mouth was on his and I was kissing him like I was oxygen and he'd been drowning. His tongue slid against mine and I made a sound I didn't recognize, something desperate and hungry, and he groaned in response.

His hands moved to my waist and pulled me onto his lap so I was straddling him, and I could feel him hard beneath me. My hips rolled against him automatically and he broke the kiss with a sharp inhale.

"Oh no, we shouldn't be doing this," he said, his voice rough and strained. "We should stop." He was already leaning back.

"Don't stop." I replied pulling him closer to me. I wanted this, I wanted him.

He made a sound low in his throat and his mouth was on my neck, sucking and biting, his hands sliding under my shirt to cup my breasts. When his thumbs brushed my nipples I gasped and arched into him.

"Bedroom," he muttered against my skin. "Now."

He stood up with me still wrapped around him and carried me to the bed, laying me down so gently it made my chest ache. He pulled my shirt over my head and then my bra, his eyes going dark when he saw me naked from the waist up.

"Beautiful," he said, and it sounded like worship.

He bent down and took my nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, and I cried out and tangled my fingers in his hair. His hand moved to my jeans and unbuttoned them, sliding inside to cup me through my underwear.

"You're so wet," he groaned. "Fuck, you're soaked."

He pulled my jeans and underwear off in one move and spread my legs, kneeling between them. His hands ran up my thighs and he looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"Tell me what you want," he said.

"You. I want you."

He stood up and unbuttoned his shirt, letting it fall to the floor. His chest was all hard muscle and tan skin with scars across his ribs that made him look dangerous and real. He unbuckled his belt and pushed his pants down and when I saw him naked I forgot how to breathe.

He was huge. Thick and hard and already leaking.

He grabbed a condom from the nightstand and rolled it on, then moved back onto the bed and positioned himself between my legs. The head of him pressed against my entrance and he paused, his eyes searching mine.

"You sure?" he asked.

"Yes."

He pushed inside slowly and I cried out because he was so big it burned. He gave me a second to adjust, his jaw tight like he was holding himself back, and then he started to move.

Long slow strokes that dragged against every nerve ending. He pulled almost all the way out and then pushed back in deep, so deep I felt him everywhere, and I wrapped my legs around his waist to pull him closer.

"Harder," I gasped. "Please."

He groaned and his hips snapped forward, faster now, harder, and the sound of our bodies coming together filled the room. His hand slid between us and his thumb found my clit, rubbing in circles, and the pleasure built so fast I couldn't think.

"Come for me," he said, his voice rough in my ear. "Let go."

The orgasm hit me like lightning. My entire body tensed and then shattered, waves of pleasure crashing through me so intense I couldn't breathe. He followed right after with a groan, his body going rigid as he emptied himself inside me.

We lay there breathing hard and tangled together, his weight pressing me into the mattress in a way that felt safe. Protected.

He rolled off me and pulled me against his chest, his hand stroking my hair.

"Stay," he said quietly. "Please stay."

I nodded because I couldn't speak, and he pulled the blanket over us.

I fell asleep with his heartbeat steady under my ear, and for the first time in days I didn't dream about Connor or Jenny or everything I'd lost.

When I woke up the sun was streaming through the windows.

I turned my head and my breath stopped in my throat.

He was still asleep next to me, one arm thrown over his head, his face relaxed in a way it hadn't been last night. In the morning light I could see him clearly. The sharp line of his jaw. The scar through his eyebrow. The way his dark hair fell across his forehead.

He was beautiful.

And I didn't even know his name.

Harper's POV:

I left before he could wake up and see the regret on my face. Maybe I could pretend it hadn't happened. Pretend it was just a dream and I hadn't let a stranger make me forget who I was.

The hotel hallway smelled like expensive cologne and leather, nothing like the cigarette motel I'd paid for with my last real money, and I moved fast because if I slowed down I'd have to think about what I'd just done. My shirt still smelled like him. My legs were shaky. I could still feel where he'd been inside me and I hated that my body wanted to go back.

When I got back to the motel, the sun was already burning through the smog and the clerk was different from last night. This one was a woman with bleached hair and nails so long they clicked against the keyboard when I asked if anyone had turned in a photo album.

"Nothing here, honey." She didn't even look up.

I went to my room and sat on the bed that smelled like old smoke and tried not to think about the bed I'd just left. The one that smelled clean. The one where a stranger had made me forget my name for a few hours.

My phone's buzzing sound distracted me.

I should have ignored it but I didn't because I was stupid and part of me still hoped maybe Connor had realized he'd made a mistake. Maybe he was calling to say he was sorry.

The screen lit up with a notification from social media.

I'd deleted social media apps two days ago but notifications still came through and when I saw the preview my stomach dropped so fast I thought I might throw up.

Connor Blake is engaged to Jenny Hart.

I opened the app before I could stop myself.

The photo loaded slow, pixel by pixel, like the universe wanted to drag out my suffering. Connor was in a sui, and Jenny in white with a ring on her finger that was bigger than the one he'd given me. They were kissing and her hand was on his chest, showing off the diamond.

The comments were already flooding in. Congratulations. You two are perfect together. About time.

I scrolled and my hands were shaking so bad the phone almost slipped.

I saw a comment that caught my attention. "Wait, wasn't he just married?" and Jenny herself had replied with a little heart emoji and the words "Sometimes you don't know what you have until you find what you've been missing."

I threw the phone across the room and it hit the wall and cracked but I didn't care because I couldn't breathe. My chest was tight and my throat was closing and I wanted to scream but nothing would come out.

He'd waited two days after I signed those papers to propose to her.

I doubled over and pressed my face into my knees and tried to remember how to breathe like a normal person but all I could see was that ring. That smile. The way he'd never looked at me like that, not even on our wedding day.

The worst part was I wasn't even surprised anymore.

I'd known. Somewhere deep down I'd known he never loved me. But seeing it like this, seeing proof that he'd moved on before I'd even left the city, made it real in a way that hurt worse than catching them in bed together.

I heard notifications on my phone from where it had landed near the bathroom door.

I crawled over and picked it up. The screen was shattered but it still worked and there were three new emails.

All rejections.

I laughed and it came out bitter and broken because of course they were rejections. Of course nothing was going to work out. Why would it? I was Harper Lane from Montana who'd never deserved any of this in the first place.

I was still reeling in my defeat when I saw a new message from a company that's popular in LA

Novare Group.

My heart jumped into my throat because I'd applied there yesterday and hadn't expected to hear back so fast. I clicked it and held my breath while it loaded.

"Dear Ms. Lane, Thank you for your application to Novare Group. We'd like to invite you for an interview tomorrow at 2pm. Please confirm your attendance. Best regards, Novare Group HR Team."

I read it twice to make sure it was real.

An interview. A real interview at a company I'd researched and knew was big, the kind of company that could actually pay me enough to change my life.

I typed back "I'll be there" so fast I almost sent it without checking for typos.

Then I opened a new tab and searched Novare Group to prepare.

The first result was a news article from three days ago. I clicked it and started reading about the owner, some guy named Hardin Wolfe who'd built the company from nothing, and the article called him ruthless and brilliant.

"Whoosh that's interesting," I mumbled, scrolling to get more information about him. There was a photo but it was blurry, taken from far away at some event, and I couldn't really see his face.

I bookmarked it and kept researching. Found their website. Looked at their recent collections. Read every article I could find.

By the time the sun started setting I knew everything there was to know about Novare Group except what the owner looked like up close.

I fell asleep on top of the covers with my laptop still open and when I woke up it was morning and my neck hurt and I had six new rejection emails.

But I also had an interview in five hours.

I showered in the tiny bathroom that barely had water pressure and put on the one professional dress I'd brought with me. Black, simple, the kind of thing that said I was serious without trying too hard.

My hair wouldn't cooperate so I pulled it back tight and my hands were still shaking when I called a cab because I couldn't afford to be late.

The building was downtown, all glass and metal, the kind of place that made you feel small just looking at it. I walked through the lobby and my heels clicked too loud against the marble and everyone looked like they belonged here except me.

The receptionist was pretty in that effortless way rich people are pretty and she smiled when I said I had an interview.

"Fourth floor. They're expecting you."

The elevator was glass too and I watched the ground disappear beneath me and tried to remember how to breathe normal.

The fourth floor opened into a waiting area with white furniture and abstract art that probably cost more than my entire life and a woman in a gray suit told me to have a seat.

I sat and my palms were sweating so I wiped them on my dress.

Five minutes passed, then the door opened and the woman in the gray suit said "Ms. Lane? He's ready for you."

I stood up and followed her down a hallway that felt like it went on forever and she knocked once before opening the door to an office that was bigger than my motel room.

"Good luck," she said, and closed the door behind me.

I turned around to face whoever was about to interview me and my entire body went cold.

He was sitting behind the desk in a black suit with his sleeves rolled up and when he looked up at me his eyes went dark with recognition.

It was him.

The man from the club. The man who'd kissed me like I mattered. The man whose bed I'd run from this morning.

And he was smiling like he'd been waiting for me.

"Well, Ms. Lane," he said softly, "we meet again."