What If

They say money buys happiness. They lied. My name is Mikaela Vasilios. I'm 21, I'm a triplet, I'm 5 feet tall with long brown hair I have to cut every week, and I live in a house where perfection is not a request - it's a rule. My mother, Eliana Sánchez, is Spanish and a psychologist. She can read your lies before you speak them. My father, Apollo Vasilios, is Greek and a lawyer. He can argue you into believing you are wrong even when you are right. Together, they are intimidating as hell. And then there's my older brother Adrian. 23 going on 24. Senior in my college. Overprotective to the point of psychotic. No boy is allowed near me or my sisters, Kylie and Natasha. He scares them away, pays them, threatens them - I don't know. All I know is at 21, I've never had a boyfriend. While my sisters giggle over secret texts with his best friends, I sit alone. The third wheel. The single one. The "problematic" one. I was tired of it. So at 4AM, I went for a run to clear my head. I ran until my lungs burned. And on my way home, I slipped. Twisted my ankle. Fell on the cold pavement and cried - not just from the pain in my foot, but from everything. That's when the red BMW stopped. He got out. Tall. Curly hair. Ocean-blue eyes. Tattoos on his right hand. A voice so deep it made me shiver. He didn't ask if I was okay like a stranger would. He picked me up like I already belonged to him. "I'm Reece," he said. "Montague." And in that moment, with tears on my face and dirt on my gym clothes, I knew my perfectly normal, perfectly controlled life was about to be ruined. In the best way possible.