Chapter One
1622 Words
Alexandra
The city looked different from the top floor of Kane Holdings.
Colder. Sharper. Like every skyscraper was watching me through glass and steel, waiting to see what kind of CEO I would become.
The office - my office, still strange to think about - was dim except for the soft amber glow from the corner lamp. The overhead lights were too harsh at this hour. Too revealing. I didn’t need clarity. I needed courage.
I leaned against the edge of the massive mahogany desk, hands gripping the wood behind me as if it could anchor me. My heels dangled slightly above the floor, a reminder that without them, I was shorter, softer - something I couldn’t afford to be tonight.
Across from me, Nicholas Carter stood in rigid silence.
Just as unreadable as the first day I met him.
His posture was perfect, his expression carved from stone, his gaze fixed on me with a kind of polite distance that would have unnerved anyone else. To me, it was… familiar. Comforting, even. Honest. Nicholas didn’t know how to fake warmth.
And yet he had once been warm with me.
Before he knew who I was.
Before everything tangled into the impossible mess I now had to fix.
I inhaled once, steady and shallow. My now sapphire blue eyes met his cobalt blue ones.
“Thank you for coming,” I began quietly.
His jaw flexed. He hadn’t wanted to come. He’d answered my summons only because I was publicly, officially, the CEO of Kane Holdings now. Otherwise, I doubted he would have stepped into this office at all.
“Speak,” Nicholas said, clipped and civil. “I assume this wasn’t a social invitation.”
Ouch.
Fair. But ouch.
I straightened slightly, letting some of my usual business edge reinforce my spine. “You’re right. This isn’t social. It’s a proposal.”
The smallest flicker passed through his expression. Wariness. Annoyance. Maybe curiosity. Hard to tell with him.
“A proposal,” he echoed, tone flattening.
“Yes.”
A beat.
Then, bluntly: “What kind?”
I exhaled, and before I could convince myself not to, I said it.
“Marry me.”
The silence that followed was glacial.
Nicholas didn’t blink. He didn’t shift. He just stared at me like he was waiting for the punchline.
“That wasn’t funny,” he said at last. Soft. Dangerous.
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Alexandra,” he said slowly, “if this is some twisted joke, end it now. I’m not the audience for it.”
“It’s not a joke.”
My voice didn’t waver. That surprised me.
Every instinct should have been screaming. Every rational thought should have been scrambling backward. But desperation had a way of sharpening the mind.
The board wanted stability. A partner. A symbol of reliability and maturity. The curse wasn’t letting me have any of that naturally - not without Nicholas, the only romantic exception I’d ever encountered. And no matter how much he pretended otherwise, the month we’d worked together had changed something between us.
Even if it had all shattered the moment he discovered who I was.
“This is a serious proposal,” I continued. “And it would benefit both of us if you’d just listen-”
“No.”
The word hit like a blunt force. My lips parted, my breath catching.
He’d rejected me before I even finished the sentence.
“No?” I repeated, stunned.
“I said no.” His tone dropped lower. “You don’t walk into my life, lie about who you are, manipulate the situation so you can play undercover heiress, and then expect me to smile and agree to something this absurd.”
“I didn’t manipulate-”
“You did.” His voice was calm. Distilled fury. “You worked under me for a month under a false identity.”
“For good reason!” I shot back.
“Oh, I’m aware,” he said coldly. “You wanted to ‘learn the company from the ground up,’ correct? How noble.”
The sarcasm made my stomach twist.
“Nicholas, I-I wasn’t trying to deceive you. I just wanted to understand the company without being treated differently-”
“Then you should have told me the truth.”
Something ugly flickered in his expression, a shadow of the betrayal he refused to speak aloud.
We had grown close. Not romantically, but I had seen glimpses of the real Nicholas behind the marble. And now that was gone.
“I trusted you,” he said softly.
The words punched the air out of my lungs. He rarely spoke in first-person vulnerability. Hearing it now felt like theft.
The guilt gnawed through me, but I swallowed it.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I truly am. But this-this proposal, it could help both of us. If you would just let me explain-”
“No,” he repeated. “I won’t listen. I won’t be used for your image.”
He stepped back, distancing himself both literally and figuratively. “Congratulations on your new title, Ms. Kane. But don’t summon me like this again.”
“Nicholas please, just give me a minute-”
But he was already halfway to the door.
He didn’t slam it.
Nicholas never slammed doors.
He simply walked out, the sound of his retreat deliberate, final, devastating.
The silence left behind was tidal. I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Every muscle was frozen, locked in shock that felt too heavy for my ribs.
I wasn’t expecting him to say yes.
I wasn’t expecting warmth.
I wasn’t expecting forgiveness.
But I had expected him to wait. To listen. To at least give me a chance to justify the insanity of what I’d asked.
Instead, he’d walked away as if the very idea of marrying me - even contractually - was an insult he couldn’t tolerate.
My throat tightened, but I forced myself to breathe.
Think.
How did I end up here?
How did we end up here?
The cursed girl making impossible propositions to the only man the curse didn’t touch.
My heart thudded, slow and deep, the weight of the moment pulling me backward, farther and farther, until memory swallowed the room whole.
---
A Month and a Half Earlier
“Stop fussing with your hair,” Cassandra said from across the bedroom. “You look fine.”
“I look frazzled,” I corrected, squinting at my reflection. “And stressed. And like a girl who’s about to sneak into her own family company under a fake name.”
“It’s not fake,” she argued, sliding on a pair of heels that matched her burgundy-wine eyes. “It’s just… selectively incomplete.”
“Selective deception,” I muttered.
“Selective strategy.”
I glared at her in the mirror. “You sound like a corporate pamphlet.”
“Thank you. I work hard.”
I laughed despite myself. Cassandra always knew how to drag me out of my spirals - or at least distract me from them long enough to keep me functioning.
Her apartment buzzed with energy: warm lights, expensive candles, too many handbags, too many shoes. Classic Cassandra.
She plopped onto the bed, smoothing the hem of her dress. “Okay, Alex. Sit. Breathe. Deep inhale. Now tell me your problem.”
I sat on the small vanity stool. “Which one? The undercover-operation-of-the-century problem? The ‘your recommendation letter better be flawless or this will blow up in our faces’ problem? Or the curse problem?”
She groaned dramatically. “The first two aren’t problems; they’re opportunities. And the last one we’ve known about for years.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m used to it.”
“Doesn’t mean you should avoid fun because of it,” she shot back.
I sighed, running a hand through my dark waves. “It’s not that I avoid fun. Bars just… increase the probability of accidental entanglements.”
“Accidental?” Cassandra snorted. “You act like romance jumps out of shadows to grab you.”
“Sometimes it does!” I insisted. “This curse has no shame.”
She laughed so loudly I had to throw a pillow at her. “Alexandra Kane, please. You need this night out. And you promised you’d actually stay the whole evening this time instead of ghosting after an hour.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I hate that you keep count.”
“And I hate that you keep running off mid-conversation because some random guy flirts with you and you panic like he’s holding a bomb.”
“That’s because he is holding a bomb,” I corrected. “You know exactly what happens if I let things go too far.”
The reset.
Twenty-four hours after any romantic spark, the universe wiped the other person’s memory clean.
Confessions vanished.
Connections evaporated.
Flirting erased.
They forgot everything.
I never did.
As if that wasn't enough, I had to pay with pain. Physical pain.
Cassandra’s expression softened. “I know, Alex. But… it’s one night. And this is your last weekend before working under a terrifyingly competent department head for a whole month.”
I groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
“Oh, I’ll remind you. Because I’m very proud of the flawless recommendation letter I submitted. You are officially entering Strategic Development as ‘Alex Rivers,’ talented industry hire with strong credentials and no nepotistic ties whatsoever. You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” I said genuinely. “Really.”
“I know.” She winked. “Now let’s go drink. You’re tense, and tension is bad for your pores.”
- Writer
