Accidentally His

Chapter 1: FINDING THE MOLE

I was rolling on the bed with him, skin against skin, breath in knots, limbs tangled like some kind of fever dream finally made real... and then I saw it. Or didn’t see it. There was no mole on his back. I froze. Not visibly, not enough to make him stop, but somewhere deep in the marrow of my bones, something recoiled. Cold. Sharp. A split-second slap of panic that spread through my veins like frostbite. His back... god, it was beautiful. Golden. Smooth. Broad and clean and utterly wrong. I stared at the space where the mole should have been, that small, perfect mark just above the waistline, the one I’d memorized for five years, the one I built a version of love around. It wasn’t there. Just blank skin and the heavy rise and fall of his breath as he moved beside me, satisfied, warm, mine... and not mine at all.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. My throat locked, my heart raced, my thoughts turned to static. I pressed my lips to his shoulder like I was still present, still floating in the afterglow, but I was already falling through every layer of delusion I’d ever constructed. No mole. No confirmation. No proof. I had slept with the wrong man. I wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or disappear. Maybe all three. Instead, I laid still, naked and sticky and full of shame, trying to retrace every decision that led me here. I had done everything right. Worn the right dress. Said the right lines. Smiled with just the right tilt of my mouth. I’d worked for this. Prepared for it like war. And now, here I was, in bed with Jack Glasgow, and the only thing I could think was... where the f**k is the mole?

It should’ve been there. Five years ago, I was seventeen and drowning. Literally. I had jumped from a rock into a river to impress people I don’t even speak to anymore, and the current caught me like it had been waiting. I was gasping, kicking, spinning underwater like a coin tossed into a fountain, and then he was there. I didn’t know his name. He didn’t say a word. Just strong arms, wet skin, a face like carved stone. He pulled me to shore and walked away, and I remember lying there coughing river water, thinking I’d just met God’s favorite angel. But it wasn’t just his face. It was the mole. The small, dark mole on his back, left side, right above the waistband of his swim trunks. That was how I remembered him. That was how I found him again. Or thought I did.

Jack Glasgow. Billionaire heir. Media darling. The moment I saw his photo in that business magazine, something clicked. Same face. Same eyes. The kind of jawline you could get pregnant staring at too long. It had to be him. I didn’t even question it. I followed every article, every interview, every tagged photo. I mapped out his life with the precision of a stalker and the devotion of a believer. And I became what I thought he would want. Thin. Sophisticated. Sharp-tongued with soft lips. I taught myself to walk like I belonged in his world, to speak like I’d always been rich. I made myself the kind of girl a Glasgow would notice.

And he did. Jack noticed me.

I bumped into him at a gallery opening I wasn’t invited to. Made up some lie about being an art consultant. He laughed. Bought me a drink. Told me I had interesting eyes. I knew how to lean forward at just the right angle, how to smile like I didn’t know how stunning I looked. We had dinner the next night. And another. And then this.

His place. His bed. His hands. His mouth.

And no f*****g mole.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, feeling like I’d just swallowed a shard of glass. This was supposed to be the moment everything made sense. The full-circle c****x of a story I’d been narrating in my head since I was a teenager choking on river water and loneliness. But it wasn’t him. My whole body went cold. I glanced at him again, still beside me, scrolling through something on his phone, humming under his breath like we were just a couple who did this kind of thing all the time. I wanted to scream. I wanted to grab him and ask, where is it? But what would I say? I remember your back from five years ago when you saved me from drowning and I built my whole identity around it... so what happened to your mole? I’d sound insane. Because maybe I was.

I slid out of bed, trying to move casually, and grabbed his shirt from the floor. “Bathroom,” I mumbled. He nodded, didn’t even look up. I walked down the hall like it wasn’t caving in under me.

Inside the bathroom, I closed the door and locked it, then braced both hands on the counter and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked flawless. Smudged lipstick. s*x-flushed cheeks. Hair tangled in that perfect, slept-with-me way. I looked like the girl who got the guy. But I felt like the girl who just conned herself. I remembered that mole. I remembered it like it was tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. I had kissed it in my dreams. Fantasized about tracing it with my tongue. And it wasn’t there. So what did that mean?

I splashed water on my face, tried to breathe. Maybe it was removed. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was on the other side. But I wasn’t wrong. I had stared at that boy’s back for the three seconds he walked away, and I burned that mole into memory like it was the only real thing in my life. It was him. It had to be him. And yet… it wasn’t.

Jack wasn’t the one who pulled me from the water.

Which meant.... what? I had built five years of obsession on a misidentified face? On a coincidence? On a hope? I felt sick. My stomach churned like I’d swallowed the river all over again. I leaned over the sink, tried to breathe. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to go back in time and scream at myself to double-check before opening my legs.

But it was too late.

I’d already fallen.

And now I wasn’t sure who he was... or who I was without the fantasy.

I didn’t want to go back into the bedroom, but I also couldn’t stay here forever pretending I hadn’t just detonated the fantasy I’d built my entire womanhood on. So I dried my face, fixed the smudge in my lipstick like it mattered, and walked back out like everything was fine. He was still in bed, the sheets barely covering him, phone resting on his chest, eyes closed now. Breathing steady. At peace. I hated him for that. For how unbothered he looked. How right everything felt for him. I slid under the covers again and pressed myself into his side, head on his shoulder, hand grazing his stomach like I wasn’t dissecting every inch of his body in my mind. I needed to check again. Needed to be sure. I didn’t want to believe I got it wrong. So I told myself maybe I just remembered the placement wrong. Maybe it wasn’t on his back. Maybe it was higher. Lower. Maybe the lighting in that moment, that day, that memory was different. Maybe the mole wasn’t on the left side at all. What if it was the right?

I shifted a little, dragging my fingers lightly along his ribs, dipping lower toward his hip like I was being affectionate, not diagnostic. No reaction from him. Still breathing slow. Relaxed. I moved lower, tracing the curve of his waist, searching for something I already knew wasn’t there. My fingers touched the top of his thigh, skated across his skin. Nothing. I bit the inside of my cheek. Okay. Maybe it wasn’t on his waist. Maybe it was higher. Maybe I never saw his back fully that day. Maybe the mole was on his shoulder. Or his neck. Or somewhere stupid like his chest and I’d just projected it onto his back.

I shifted again, gently, like a cat in silk. My hand skimmed over his chest this time, slowly, casually, like I was drawing circles from habit. I searched every patch of skin my fingertips met. He stirred slightly and smiled, one eye opening to look at me. “Can’t get enough of me?” he murmured, voice rough with sleep. I laughed softly, and even to my own ears it sounded fake. Thin. But he didn’t notice. Men never notice when you’re smiling through a breakdown. I kissed his shoulder, gave him a little hum, and went back to my silent inspection. Then i found something, by the side of his arm.