Chapter 1

At ten o'clock in the evening, Ethan drank the water I poured for him.

At midnight, I pushed open his bedroom door.

My footsteps fell silently on the cashmere carpet.

Ethan was already deep asleep.

I switched on the nightstand lamp with practiced ease.

My fingertips, bathed in the soft glow, traced the lines of his brows and eyes — slowly, deliberately.

He seemed to find it ticklish. A small frown creased his forehead.

I paused, but I wasn't afraid.

I'd slipped sleeping pills into his water more times than I could count. I knew the dosage exactly.

Before six in the morning, he wouldn't wake. Not a chance.

Sure enough, his breathing soon settled back into its deep, steady rhythm.

I switched off the lamp and kicked off my slippers.

I lifted the corner of the duvet and slipped inside.

Ethan always slept on his back.

I nestled against him, resting my head on his arm, circling my arms around his waist, burying myself deep in his embrace.

Sometimes I truly wished the world had only night.

Then Ethan would belong to me alone.

But that was pure fantasy.

At five in the morning, my watch vibrated once.

I woke almost instantly and silenced the alarm.

The room was still wrapped in darkness.

I carefully sat up and ran my fingers through his hair.

Then I got up and went back to my own room.

Dawn was nearly here.

I wasn't particularly sleepy anyway, so I went straight to wash up.

The mirror showed a pale face staring back at me.

Only then did I notice — my lips were swollen and sore, visibly flushed.

I touched them. A sharp sting.

Strange...

I frowned.

Had I been running a fever lately? Was this a cold sore coming on?

It was winter break. Classes were wrapping up at university one by one.

I packed early and moved back home from the campus dorms.

Ethan had been swamped lately, always working late. But he still kept the promise I'd pestered him into making when I was little — home by half past ten, every night without fail.

That evening, I was curled up on the sofa working on a finals assignment.

The front door lock turned, and Ethan walked in.

He'd clearly been at a client dinner. The faint scent of alcohol clung to him.

Even the way he bent down to change his shoes was half a beat slower than usual.

My gaze landed on him and stayed there, stuck, like it had nowhere else to go.

Drunk, Ethan was somehow even more beautiful.

While his head was bowed, I let my eyes trace hungrily over his sharp brow bones, the faint pink at the corner of his eyes, and his lips — flushed with color, soft-looking.

I'd written in an essay when I was very small that my brother was a great beauty.

He'd corrected me seriously at the time: beauty was for women.

But I stubbornly believed it then, and I still believe it now. Ethan is beautiful.

I was still lost in these scattered thoughts when Ethan suddenly straightened up and stumbled.

I dropped my laptop and rushed over to catch him.

Slowly, carefully, I helped him to the sofa.

His dress shirt was already a mess — tie hanging loose, the hem untucked. The way he'd slumped into the seat exposed a strip of his waist, lean and taut.

I swallowed involuntarily.

"Zoe."

At that moment, Ethan called my name.

"Hm?"

I snapped back.

"Could you grab me some hangover pills?"

"Oh — sure!"

I hurried to the cabinet to rummage through it.

When I came back, he'd already fallen asleep.

He must've been warm, because he'd pulled off his tie. His collar was wide open, revealing a broad expanse of chest.

My brain felt like it was boiling — too hot to think.

I stood there for a long moment, then pulled out my phone and took a photo.

Ethan shifted.

I startled, shoved the phone behind my back.

Guilty as anything, I called out to him: "Ethan?"

"Mm?"

He opened his eyes, gaze slowly focusing.

He thanked me, took the pills from my hand.

After he swallowed them, he made his way unsteadily to the bathroom to shower.