Chapter 2

Night fell, swallowing the hotel room in pitch darkness.

Memories surged like a tidal wave, drowning me.

Eight years ago, I was a nobody singing in a bar. That was where I met Daisy Gilbert.

She sat in an inconspicuous corner, nursing a drink, listening to me sing for four hours straight. When my shift ended, she grabbed a handful of cash and stuffed it into my guitar case.

I looked up, startled, and found myself staring into a face of breathtaking beauty.

Daisy smiled at me. Her first words were not a greeting, but an observation.

"Hello. You look like a friend of mine."

I sat up in the dark hotel room, fumbling for a cigarette. The flame flickered, illuminating the smoke curling toward the ceiling.

That opening line had started our story.

It was also a curse, foretelling the shattered ending that awaited us.

Early the next morning, freezing water jolted me awake.

Daisy stood by the bed, dressed in a severe black suit, her face a mask of ice.

"Today is the anniversary of James's death."

A bitter laugh escaped me. I wiped the water from my face and silently changed into black clothes.

We arrived at an upscale private cemetery. Daisy placed a bouquet of white lilies before James Delgado's tombstone.

Two bodyguards stepped forward. Heavy hands pressed down on my shoulders, forcing me to my knees.

Daisy looked down at me, her sorrow mixing with a hatred so potent it burned.

"Tyler Harding, if it weren't for you, James wouldn't have died."

I knelt on the freezing bluestone slabs, offering no defense.

Daisy instructed the bodyguards to watch me, then turned and walked away without a backward glance.

As the click-clack of her high heels faded, I looked up at the tombstone.

In the black-and-white photo, James Delgado wore a flamboyant, dazzling smile. It felt like he was mocking me.

*Tyler Harding, you lost.*

I lowered my head, a wave of old pain crashing over my heart.

Three years since James died.

I admitted it. I had lost.

Thick fog began to roll through the cemetery, pulling my thoughts back into the past.

After that first night at the bar, Daisy and I became inseparable.

She was always there, waiting patiently for my shift to end. Eventually, my boss, eyes twinkling with gossip, asked if she was my girlfriend.

My face burned. I opened my mouth to deny it—I was a poor singer, she was a goddess—but Daisy beat me to it. She took my hand, interlaced our fingers, and nodded at the boss with a smile.

We didn't need a formal confession.

We just happened.

After hesitating for weeks, I decided to take Daisy to my rental apartment. I needed to come clean about my reality.

But the moment we arrived, disaster struck.

Creditors were banging on the door, screaming for repayment of the loan shark debt my father had left behind before running off with his mistress.

Inside, the house was a wreck. My younger sister, who suffered from a mental impairment, huddled in a corner, screaming, having wet herself in terror. My sickly mother lay paralyzed on the bed, sobbing, begging for a few more days.

When I pushed the door open, a thug grabbed me by the collar, demanding money I didn't have.

Daisy froze for a split second.

Then her expression hardened. She pulled out a black card.

"Let him go." Her voice cut through the chaos. "I'll pay the debt."

The thug's eyes bulged. He took the card, bowing and scraping as he led his crew away.

My mother wept, trying to drag her paralyzed body off the bed to kneel before Daisy. Daisy stopped her, supported her gently, then went to the corner to comfort my sister.

That was the day I learned Daisy was the heiress to the Gilbert Group.

When I walked her out that night, shame burned in my gut. I promised in a low voice that I would pay her back every cent.

Daisy just hugged me, her embrace warm and safe.

"Tyler," she whispered, "I like you. Your problems are my problems."

She was true to her word. She paid for my mother's surgery. Moved my sister to a high-end nursing facility where she finally found stability.

I worked like a madman, desperate to be worthy of her. I asked her what she wanted from me.