**Ethan's POV – Flashback, Age 16**
I was supposed to be in a meeting.
My father had brought me along to one of the Marrow Foundation's weekend galas—a parade of donors, dignitaries, and legacy families, all clinking glasses over white linen and tax write-offs. I wasn't expected to speak. Just observe. Learn. Become.
But halfway through the morning briefings, I slipped away.
I wandered through the east wing of the estate, away from the noise and the glass smiles. My feet carried me—almost on instinct—to the one place no one ever went anymore: the old annex library. It was quiet there. Dusty and forgotten. Filled with fading leather and cracked spines that no longer smelled like money, but memory.
And that's where I saw her.
Sitting cross-legged in the sunken chair by the stained-glass window, her head tilted just slightly, a book resting open in her lap. She didn't look up. Didn't hear me enter.
She was maybe nine.
She looked like she'd stepped out of a painting. Her hair was pinned up carelessly, little wisps falling softly around her temples. Her dress didn't fit quite right—too formal, too stiff for someone who so clearly didn't care for attention.
But there was something about her presence that made the entire room feel... softer. Still.
I didn't move.
I just stood there, watching—like a thief of quiet moments.
Not in a creepy, teenage-boy kind of way. Not even in an infatuated way. It was something quieter than that. Like watching a scene in a movie you weren't supposed to see—but couldn't look away from.
Then she smiled—at something in the book—and I remember thinking:
**She looks like she's dreaming with her eyes open.**
And then it hit me.
I *knew* her.
Not by name—not yet—but by *lineage*. I'd overheard one of the aides mention it earlier in the hall.
**Carpenter.**
Daughter of Dr. Carpenter. The genius researcher who was funded by the Marrows.
The same man who, years ago, had changed my life.
My hands clenched slowly at my sides.
I hadn't thought about it in a long time. Not really. The surgeries. The constant fear. The seizures. The weight in my mother's eyes. And the way it all—*miraculously*—ended.
Because of him.
Because of *her father*.
He was the one who found the anomaly. The one who proposed a treatment no one else believed in. A rare neurological disorder, they'd called it. Silent, slow, and deadly. I was twelve when the worst of it hit. My mother stopped sleeping. My father stopped working. Everyone began preparing for a version of life *without* me in it.
And then came Dr. Carpenter.
After my successful surgery,my family—especially my grandfather—didn't believe in owing anything to anyone. Especially not something as serious as a life.
It was Victor Marrow, the patriarch, who made the deal. Something behind closed doors. Something silent. A promise made on my behalf.
At the time, I didn't know the details.
Only that *something* was given.
Promised.
Maybe years in advance.
And now, standing in that dusty library, watching the daughter of the man who saved my life smile at a book no one else cared about...
I realized what that deal had cost.
**Her.**
I left before she could see me. Quietly. Carefully.
Back to the world where my name meant power and hers meant *debt*.
She never knew I was there that day.
She never knew that I watched her, stunned by the way she fit so naturally into the silence.
But she intrigued me from that moment on—more than any heiress or sharp-tongued debutante ever could.
There was *weight* in her stillness.
*Substance* in her quiet.
And now, years later—after her parents were gone, after our families conspired to make her mine—I couldn't stop thinking about that moment. That girl. That borrowed peace.
---
### **Present Day – Switzerland**
I stared out over the icy lake from my apartment window in Geneva, hands shoved into the pockets of my coat, the cold biting through the glass.
My phone buzzed quietly on the desk behind me. Another email. Probably something from the board.
But my mind wasn't on business.
It was on *her*.
Zoey.
The girl from the library.
The girl who didn't know she saved me before I ever knew how to live.
The girl who was never supposed to be dragged into this family, into our shadows and expectations and hidden contracts.
They had offered *her.*
Even if no one had called it that back then.
And now, I'm supposed to sit here across the ocean, pretending it doesn't matter?
Pretending I don't *owe her everything*?
Pretending I didn't fall for her long before she ever knew my name?
It's insane—how much I want her to be mine completely, utterly, painfully...
Yet here I am.
Running from her.
Avoiding contact. Avoiding *her gaze*. Avoiding the chance that she might see through me and realize how far gone I already am.
Because if she ever knew...
If she ever understood just how deeply I'd always wanted her—
She might never forgive me.
And I'm not sure I'd survive.
To be continued.