Cheap cabernet, four hours of sleep, and the kind of exhaustion that makes bad ideas seem reasonable led me to type one reckless sentence online: “At this point, if some rich lunatic wants to kidnap me, he can have me—as long as there’s no morning commute.” Twelve hours later, I woke in a strange bedroom with a steel cuff around my wrist. Standing beside the bed was a six-foot-two stranger who looked more frightened of me than I was of him.

Chapter 1

For a moment, I simply stared. The room belonged in a magazine: carved walnut furniture, heavy cream drapes, a fireplace big enough to roast livestock, and morning light spilling over an antique rug that probably cost more than my retirement account. Then the chain clinked when I moved, and whatever admiration I had for the decorating disappeared.

“Who are you?” I demanded. “And why am I chained to your bed?”

The man’s entire face turned scarlet. “I—I’m sorry.”

I blinked. Of all the possible responses from a kidnapper, an apology had not been high on my list.

Then something even stranger happened. Pale letters appeared in the air above his shoulder, translucent as reflections on glass.

He finally did it. He kidnapped the substitute because he’s too scared to face the woman he actually loves.

Another sentence floated beneath it.

All that money, all that property, and the poor fool still can’t speak to a woman without turning red.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again. The words remained.

“Wonderful,” I muttered. “Either I’ve been kidnapped into a romance novel or corporate accounting finally broke my brain.”

The stranger looked alarmed. “Are you hurt?”

That did it. I had spent eleven years working for a regional insurance company in Chicago, where men who had never opened an Excel file explained my own reports to me. I had survived reorganizations, performance reviews, “urgent” Sunday emails, and a vice president who called unpaid overtime “showing ownership.” I was forty-two years old, chronically tired, underpaid, and apparently trapped inside a ridiculous story with a handsome billionaire who apologized after committing felonies.

Something inside me snapped in a surprisingly cheerful direction.

I caught his wrist.

Before he understood what I was doing, I pulled him off balance and sent him sprawling across the mattress. He was twice my size, but surprise is a wonderful equalizer. I leaned over him while his eyes widened.

“Let’s start over,” I said sweetly. “Hi. I’m Grace Parker. You kidnapped me. That was illegal and stupid, and we will discuss it. But first, what’s your name?”

“E-Ethan.”

“Ethan what?”

“Ethan Caldwell.”

Another glowing comment sailed past.

She isn’t supposed to act like this.

I almost laughed.

Apparently I was a stand-in. Somewhere in this absurd universe existed another woman who looked enough like me to inspire Ethan Caldwell to build his criminal fantasy around the wrong brunette. The comments explained the rest in fragments. Ethan was heir to Caldwell Industries. He had been obsessed since childhood with a girl who once found him crying and gave him a peppermint. Too damaged to approach her directly, he had apparently chosen me as rehearsal.

A peppermint.

I had known men who required less therapy after combat.

I looked down at Ethan. “So I hear somebody bought your eternal devotion for one piece of candy.”

His face went from red to nearly purple. “How do you know that?”

“Long story.”

I leaned closer. “If I give you a whole jar, do I get the house?”

His mouth opened. No words came out.

The glowing comments erupted.

Who is this woman?

Ethan, breathe.

She just destroyed twenty chapters of emotional angst in three minutes.

I smiled despite myself. “Ethan, unlock the cuff.”

His eyes dropped to the chain. Shame moved across his face so quickly it sobered me. “I didn’t intend to hurt you.”

“You scared me. That counts.”

“I know.”

The answer was quiet and immediate.

I sat back. “Then fix it.”

For several seconds, he did nothing. Then he reached into his pocket and produced a key. His hand trembled so badly he missed the lock twice before the cuff finally sprang open.

I rubbed my wrist. “Thank you.”

His expression changed at those two words. Not much, just a flicker, but I saw it: surprise so deep it looked almost like pain.

Then Ethan backed away from the bed. “You must be hungry.”

“I could eat.”

“I’ll make something.”

“You have staff.”

“I know.”

He fled anyway.

I sat alone, staring after him while the comments rolled lazily through the air. Apparently the terrifying male lead of this story had just freed his hostage because she asked, then escaped to the kitchen because conversation frightened him more than prison time.

I should have been planning my escape.

Instead, I looked around the enormous bedroom, thought about my apartment with the broken radiator, the reports waiting on my laptop, and Monday morning’s 8:00 meeting.

“Not yet,” I whispered.

Twenty minutes later, Ethan returned carrying a tray himself. On it sat a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup, still steaming, with carrots cut into perfect little coins and parsley scattered across the top.

He set it down without meeting my eyes. “If it’s bad, the chef can make something else.”

I tasted it.

It was excellent.

“Ethan.”

He stiffened.

“This is wonderful.”

His eyes lifted cautiously. “Really?”

There was no fishing for praise in the question. There was disbelief.

“Really. The broth is rich, the chicken’s tender, and unless you keep a grandmother hidden in the pantry, you clearly know what you’re doing.”

The faintest smile touched his mouth.

Then a new line appeared in the air.

For anyone who forgot: his stepmother spent twenty-five years telling him he ruined everything he touched.

My spoon stopped halfway to my mouth.

More words followed.

She told him his mother died because he was born. She convinced him he was weak, incompetent, unstable, and impossible to love.

I looked at the man across from me.

For the first time, I did not see a billionaire, a kidnapper, or some fictional brooding hero. I saw a boy who had grown into a powerful man without ever being allowed to believe the power belonged to him.

Ethan noticed my expression and immediately lowered his head.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

I set down the spoon.

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

That answer hurt worse than anything else he could have said.

I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine. “Then here’s our first house rule. You don’t apologize for existing.”

He stared at me.

Behind him, one final comment appeared.

Grace doesn’t know it yet, but Ethan isn’t the real danger in this house.