Chapter 2

I spent all night staring at that check.

One hundred thousand dollars. In my hands.

By morning, I'd made my decision. I couldn't afford not to take it.

I was stuffing my few belongings into a single suitcase when I heard the knock. Sebastian stood in my doorway, looking completely out of place in my run-down apartment building.

"You called," he said simply.

I had. At six AM, barely coherent from lack of sleep.

"I'm ready," I said, gesturing to my pathetic suitcase. "This is everything."

Something flickered in his expression as he looked around my tiny studio. The peeling wallpaper, the secondhand furniture, the window that didn't quite close.

Is that pity? Or something else?

"Let's go," he said.

The drive across town took us into a completely different world. Glass towers, pristine sidewalks, doormen in uniforms. Sebastian pulled into the underground garage of a building that probably cost more than my entire neighborhood.

"Top floor," he said as we stepped into the elevator.

The penthouse was breathtaking. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the entire city. Everything was white and chrome and perfect, like something from a magazine.

"This is yours now," Sebastian said, watching my reaction.

Mine? This place probably costs more per month than I made in a year.

"I can't afford this."

"You don't need to. I told you I'd take care of everything."

He walked to a hallway and gestured for me to follow. "The master bedroom."

The room was huge, dominated by a king-size bed with white silk sheets. But what caught my attention was the walk-in closet.

It was already full of clothes.

"I had someone stock it," Sebastian said casually. "Should be your size."

I ran my fingers over the hangers. Designer dresses, silk blouses, cashmere sweaters. Everything perfectly coordinated in neutral tones—cream, beige, soft gray.

The size is perfect. Not just close. Perfect.

"How did you know my measurements?" I asked.

Sebastian was looking at his phone. "Lucky guess."

Nobody's that lucky.

I pulled out a dress. It was beautiful, elegant, expensive. But it wasn't something I would ever choose for myself.

"They're all so..." I searched for the word.

"Refined," Sebastian finished. "You need to look the part."

"What part?"

"My companion. There will be events, dinners with business associates. You need to fit in."

Over the first week, Sebastian made his expectations clear. He hired an etiquette instructor who taught me which fork to use when. A speech coach who smoothed out my working-class accent.

"Why do I need to learn all this?" I asked one evening after a particularly grueling lesson on proper conversation topics.

Sebastian looked up from his laptop. "You need to adapt to this life."

"Whose life? Yours or mine?"

"Ours," he said, but something in his tone suggested there was a third person in this equation.

The someone he lost. She probably knew all these things naturally.

The strangest part was how Sebastian watched me during these lessons. Like he was waiting for me to transform into someone else entirely.

It was our second week together when I first heard the name.

Sebastian was cooking dinner—apparently he did this sometimes instead of ordering from expensive restaurants. He was making pasta, moving around the kitchen with practiced ease.

"Ana taught me this recipe," he said absently, then froze.

The wooden spoon clattered to the counter.

Ana. There it is.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "Just... a friend. From before."

But the way he said her name. The way his whole body language changed. That wasn't how you talked about a friend.

That's how you talk about someone you loved. Someone you're still in love with.

"She must have been a good cook," I said carefully.

"The best." His voice was soft, full of pain. "She was... she was perfect."

I started noticing other things after that. How some of the picture frames around the apartment were turned face-down. How Sebastian sometimes stared at empty spaces on the walls like something important was missing.

He's removed her photos. But he can't remove the memories.

My chance came during Sebastian's third week away on a business trip. He'd been traveling more lately, like being around me was becoming difficult.

I was dusting—trying to make myself useful in this pristine space—when I accidentally knocked over one of the face-down frames.

The photo that fell out took my breath away.

It was a woman with long dark hair, turned away from the camera. She was wearing a white sundress, standing on what looked like a beach. You couldn't see her face, but something about her posture, her silhouette, made my stomach drop.

She looks like me. From behind, she could be me.

I flipped the photo over. In elegant handwriting: "Forever, A."

A. Ana.

Ana who taught him to cook. Ana who was perfect. Ana who looks just like me.

I rushed to the bathroom mirror, staring at my reflection. Same dark hair, same height, same general build. In the clothes Sebastian had bought me, with the styling his instructors had taught me, I looked...

I look like I'm trying to become someone else. Someone who already existed.

What happened to her? Where is the perfect Ana?

I heard Sebastian's key in the door and scrambled to put the photo back. But my hands were shaking, and I wasn't fast enough.

"Iris?"

I spun around, the photo still in my hands.

Sebastian stood in the doorway, his face going through several expressions at once. Shock, pain, and something that looked almost like relief.

"You found it," he said quietly.

"I'm sorry. I was just cleaning, and it fell—"

"It's fine." But his voice was hollow.

He walked to the bar cart and poured himself a scotch. Then another.

I've never seen him drink before. Not like this.

"Sebastian, I should explain—"

"No need." He downed the second glass. "You were bound to find out eventually."

By the fourth glass, his carefully controlled Alpha demeanor was cracking.

By the sixth, he was staring at me with eyes full of anguish.

"She looked just like you," he whispered. "Exactly like you."

Looked. Past tense.

"What happened to her?" I asked softly.

Sebastian's hand tightened around the glass. "Car accident. Two years ago."

"Sebastian..."

But he wasn't hearing me anymore. The alcohol had stripped away all his walls, and suddenly he was moving toward me, his movements unsteady.

Before I could react, his arms were around me, and he was holding me against his chest like I might disappear.

"Ana," he whispered into my hair. "Why did you have to leave me?"

My heart broke a little. He wasn't holding me. He was holding a ghost.

"I found her," he continued, his voice thick with tears. "I found someone who looks just like you. But she's not you, is she? She'll never be you."

I stood there, frozen, as Sebastian Wolf—the powerful Alpha who commanded entire rooms with a look—sobbed into my shoulder.