The invitation hadn't been hard to forge. Just a single glance at the embossed lettering had made her stomach twist. Kai Lennox & Brielle Hartley. The perfect couple. The power merger. The fairy tale. And all of it built on the bones of the girl he left behind.
Ariella Vale stood at the top of the marble staircase in a velvet-black gown that clung to her body like smoke. Her lips were blood red. Her identity? Untraceable. Her name now was Aria St. James, and the woman in the mirror smiled like she wasn't a ghost walking into her ex-lover's engagement party.
She walked down the stairs slowly, like she belonged because once she did. The ballroom was everything she remembered from her former life.
Chandeliers dripped gold light onto champagne glasses. The Hartleys knew how to throw an event that looked like money and reeked of secrets. Everywhere she looked, there were polished smiles stretched tight over sharp teeth.
And at the center of it all — him.
Kai stood tall in a charcoal-gray suit, perfectly tailored to the body she once memorized with her mouth. His dark hair was slicked back, jaw shaved, but the same quiet power hummed beneath his skin. The room bent subtly around him like it always had.
But he was different and colder. As if somewhere deep inside, the part of him that used to love her had been cut out and cauterized.
He didn't see her yet. His hand rested on the small of Brielle's back, the daughter of the man who ruined her family. The one who orchestrated her "accident." The woman who would become his wife.
Aria took a sip of champagne. Her throat burned. You're not here to mourn, she reminded herself.
You're here to watch him burn.
"Excuse me," a voice said behind her. Low. Curious. Male. "Are you with the Hartley side or the Lennox side?"
She turned slowly.
The man was tall, dressed in navy, and wore confidence like a tailored suit. A stranger. Or… almost.
But no.
His eyes were wrong. Too light.
Not him.
"Neither," she replied with a small smile. "I'm just here for the champagne and drama."
The man chuckled. "In that case, you're in the right place. That couple has enough scandal between them to fund a gossip magazine."
Aria tilted her head, amused. "And what's your take?"
He glanced toward Kai. "I think Lennox is still in love with someone else."
Her heart stuttered. "Is he?"
"Maybe. Or maybe he just hates being owned."
"By Brielle?"
"No," the man said, handing her another glass of champagne. "By the past."
It wasn't until she excused herself and walked toward the terrace that she felt it him.
The air changed. Thickened.
She could feel his gaze on her like heat. Not recognition, no that would be too easy but something else.
A pull.
A fracture.
An instinctive hunger he didn't yet understand.
Aria didn't turn around. She stepped out into the night and leaned against the stone balustrade, letting the evening air touch her skin. She heard footsteps a second before his voice.
"I haven't seen you before."
God. That voice. Smooth, deep, with the same edge that once whispered filth into her ear as she came apart in his hands.
She forced herself to smile as she turned. "I'm not important."
He stared at her too long, too intently. His brow furrowed.
"You seem familiar."
Aria raised her glass. "Do I?"
Kai stepped closer. He towered over her, and she hated how her body still remembered the curve of his hip, the warmth of his breath.
"Have we met before?"
She laughed softly. "Are you using that line on all your guests tonight?"
"No," he said simply. "Just you."
For a moment, they stood in silence. He kept watching her, something behind his eyes flickering pain? memory? want And then he said, "You smell like rain."
Ariella's heart stopped.
He used to say that to her. Back then. When he buried his face between her legs and told her he'd never get enough.
"I wouldn't know," she said with a careless shrug. "I haven't been caught in a storm lately."
Kai stepped even closer. Close enough to touch. "That wasn't meant to be a line."
"Shame," she whispered. "It almost worked."
Their eyes locked.
His hand hovered at his side, like he didn't know whether to touch her or arrest himself. His voice dropped a notch lower. "What's your name?"
Ariella tilted her head, smile sharp as glass.
"Wouldn't you like to know."
She left him standing there as she disappeared into the crowd. She didn't look back. She couldn't. Her hands were shaking.
He felt her.
Even without memory. Even without truth. His soul still felt her.
And that… that was both her greatest weapon and her most dangerous temptation.
She had a plan.
A timeline.
Revenge.
But now she knew something vital. Kai Lennox wasn't as gone as they'd made him. And neither was she.