Chapter 1

Kaleena’s POV

The salted caramel cupcake trembled in my hand. A single pink candle, unlit, was stuck in the cream caramel frosting at a hopeful angle. I'd spent forty minutes getting ready—my nicest dress, the one that made my chestnut hair look almost pretty, and I'd even scrubbed the charcoal out from under my fingernails. Tonight I wasn't just the quiet art student who blended into lecture halls. Tonight I was brave.

I rehearsed the words for the hundredth time under the dim hallway light. 'Elijah, we've been best friends for fifteen years, and I think... no, I know... I'm in love with you.' My stomach flipped. I could already picture the way his blue eyes would crinkle and how that perfect boy-next-door smile would spread across his face, and then he'd kiss me. He'd finally kiss me.

My phone buzzed. No message, just the time. 8:47 p.m. I was right on schedule. He'd be inside, probably playing video games or finishing up some hockey drills on his laptop. I'd surprise him with the cupcake—his favorite flavor—and then I'd say the words I'd been swallowing down since freshman year.

A flashback hit me as I reached for my keys. Move-in day, three years ago. I'd been drowning in boxes, sweat plastering my hair to my forehead, and then Elijah appeared in the doorway with that golden retriever grin. "Need a hand, roomie?" He'd hefted the heaviest box like it was nothing, laughing when I protested. "We're gonna be the best roommates ever, Kae. You and me, forever." That was the exact moment I fell. Hard. Irreversible.

I shook off the memory. 'Tonight I tell him.'

I slid my key into the lock and turned it. The door swung open, and I stepped inside with a nervous smile already forming.

"Elijah? I got you some—"

The words died in my throat.

The apartment was a disaster zone. Boxes were stacked against the walls, some already taped shut with black marker scrawled on them: 'Kae's stuff - living room. Kae's art - trash?' My sketchbooks, my charcoal sets, the canvas I'd been working on for months—all shoved into a crate near the door. My clothes were spilling out of a garbage bag in the corner.

But the thing that stopped my heart was the girl in the middle of the room.

Hayley Summers. Tall, platinum blonde, cold green eyes that flicked up at me with the barest hint of amusement. She was holding my mother's vintage jewelry box—the one with the little ballerina that used to spin when you opened it—and she was wrapping it in bubble wrap like it was a used coffee mug.

"Don't touch that," I heard myself say. My voice came out quiet, but there was something jagged underneath it.

Hayley didn't even pause. "Oh, you're here. Good. Saves us the trouble of tracking you down."

I looked past her. Elijah stood near the window, his back half-turned to me. He was wearing that stupid grey hoodie I'd bought him for his birthday last year. His jaw was tight. He wouldn't look at me.

"Elijah." My voice cracked. "What the hell is happening? Why is she here? Why are all my things—"

"I'm moving in tonight," Hayley announced, like she was commenting on the weather. She set my mother's jewelry box down on the counter and dusted off her hands. "Elijah already took you off the lease. You've got two hours to grab whatever you can carry and go."

The room tilted. I gripped the doorframe. "That's not funny."

"It's not a joke, sweetie." Hayley's smile was venomous. "You're out. I'm in. End of story."

I stared at Elijah's back, willing him to turn around, to laugh and tell me this was some kind of messed-up prank. He stayed frozen.

"Elijah," I whispered. "Look at me."

Nothing.

"Look at me!" I screamed it this time, and my voice echoed off the packed boxes.

He finally turned. His blue eyes were empty. Flat. Like someone had switched off the light behind them.

"Hayley's telling the truth," he said. His voice was so cold I barely recognized it. "You need to pack your things and leave."

The cupcake slipped. I fumbled, caught it against my chest, but the frosting smeared across my dress.

"Fifteen years," I choked out. "We've been friends for fifteen years, Elijah. You helped me move in. You promised—you promised—we'd always be roommates. What the hell is wrong with you?"

His jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

I gestured wildly at Hayley. "You're kicking me out for her? You barely even know her! She's been chasing you around campus like a—"

"Don't." Elijah's voice cut through me. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be. Just take your stuff, Kaleena. It's over. You need to leave."

I couldn't breathe. All those movie nights curled up on the couch together. Study sessions that turned into pizza at 2 a.m. The inside jokes no one else understood. The way he'd always pull my hair when he walked past, just to annoy me. I thought those things meant something. I thought I meant something.

But I'd been wrong. So completely, devastatingly wrong.

"You're a coward," I said, my voice shaking. "You couldn't even tell me yourself. You had to let her do it. You're not the person I thought you were. You're not even a person at all."

Something flickered in his eyes—pain, maybe, or guilt—but it was gone before I could name it.

"Two hours," Hayley repeated, tapping her watch. "Tick tock."

I grabbed my backpack from the pile of my things. I didn't even look at what I was leaving behind. My canvases. My sketchbooks. The stupid little ceramic frog Elijah had won for me at the county fair. My mother's jewelry box, still sitting on the counter where Hayley had left it, the ballerina trapped inside and waiting to spin.

The cupcake fell from my hand. It hit the floor with a soft, wet sound. Red frosting splattered across the hardwood—right where Elijah and I used to sit cross-legged and eat takeout and talk about nothing.

He didn't even flinch.

I slammed the door so hard the hinges screamed.

...

The bus shelter was useless against the rain. It came down in sheets, sideways, soaking through my dress until the fabric clung to my skin like a second layer of grief. I huddled under the little metal roof and tried to stop shaking.

My phone screen was blurry with water droplets. I scrolled through old texts with numb fingers, desperate to find the moment it had all gone wrong.

Elijah: Rain check on valentine's dinner? Practice ran late. Sorry, Kae. Make it up to you. 

That was six months ago. He'd never made it up. There was always another practice, another game, another excuse.

Elijah: You're the best roommate ever. Don't know what I'd do without you. 

Three weeks ago. Had that been a lie too?

Elijah: Found this sublet downtown, luxury building. Might be good if you ever need a change of scenery. Just in case. 

Sent two weeks ago, with a link attached.

A sublet. He'd been planning this for weeks. Maybe longer. I'd been so blind, so desperate to see love where there was only convenience, that I'd missed every sign.

"I'm such an idiot," I whispered to the rain.

The link was still there. I clicked it. A luxury apartment building downtown, the kind of place that probably cost more per month than I made in a semester. I had no money for a hotel. No friends close enough to crash with. No family to call.

So I took the subway.

...

The building was all glass and steel, the kind of place where the doorman looked at my soaked dress and muddy shoes like I was a stray cat that had wandered in from the alley. I dripped all the way across the marble lobby. The elevator ride up to the penthouse took forever, each floor dinging softly, and I caught my reflection in the polished doors. Mascara streaked down my cheeks. My hair was plastered to my skull. I looked exactly as broken as I felt.

I stepped out onto the top floor and faced the heavy black door. My knuckles hit the wood twice, a pathetic sound.

The door swung open.

And there he was.

Raiden Blackwood.

Tall. Messy black hair. Grey eyes so sharp they could cut glass. A thin scar cut through his left eyebrow, making his already dangerous face look even more like a threat. He was wearing a tight black shirt and grey sweatpants, leaning against the doorframe like he'd been expecting me all along.

"Donovan," he said. His voice was low, rough around the edges. "You're late. I expected you twenty minutes ago."

I forgot how to speak. Raiden Blackwood was the captain of the rival hockey team. He was my bully—the guy who'd spent two years mocking my clothes, my art, my complete inability to walk past the rink without slipping on ice. He'd made my life a living hell on campus. And now he was standing here, in a luxury penthouse, acting like my arrival was a scheduled appointment.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" My voice came out as a stammer. "How did you even know I was—"

He didn't answer. His grey eyes swept over me, taking in the ruined dress, the smeared makeup, the trembling hands. Something flickered across his face. Not amusement. Something softer. Weirder. Almost like...

Relief.

He reached out and grabbed my wet wrist. His fingers were warm, impossibly warm against my frozen skin.

"Get inside," he said. Not a request.

He pulled me into the penthouse, and the heavy door slammed shut behind me. The lock clicked. The sound of it echoed through my bones.

I was trapped.

And Raiden Blackwood was looking at me like I was the answer to a prayer he'd never said out loud.