Playing with Fire: Trapped by My Sworn Enemy

Truth or Dare. The spinning bottle slowed to a halt, pointing dead center at Thorne. My sworn enemy.

Someone tossed the question into the air. "When was your first time?" Thorne's jaw locked.

A dark shadow settled over his sharp features. "Four years ago." Tristan leaned forward, whistling. "No way.

Was it that night?" "The one where you woke up with your back clawed to ribbons? What are you gonna do if you ever find her?" Thorne's cold, predatory gaze slid directly to me.

His teeth ground together with a faint, audible crunch. "I'll make her wish she was dead." The alcohol buzz evaporated from my bloodstream.

A shiver ripped down my spine, pulse hammering against my ribs. Because four years ago, the woman who dragged him into that bed… was me. And worse, I didn't just take his innocence.

I accidentally walked away with his kid. Chapter 1 My pulse flatlined the second I pushed open the VIP room door. Dead center on the leather sofa.

Legs crossed, casually swirling amber liquid in a crystal glass. Thorne. Who else could it be? A cold sweat pricked my scalp.

Roxy, my supposedly best friend, grabbed my arm, completely oblivious to my impending heart attack. "Sloane! Surprise!

I practically had to beg to get him here." "He even picked up your college diploma for you, remember? You guys haven't seen each other in years.

Go on, pour him a drink!" The muscles in my face cramped into something resembling a smile. Pour him a drink? Everyone in our social circle knew Thorne and I were sworn enemies.

Blood rivals. We grew up in the same neighborhood, breathing the same air, and fighting over every single scrap of oxygen.

I mastered Chopin; he immediately crushed Paganini on the violin.

I fought my way onto the varsity debate team; he sat on the opposing side at the state finals and shredded my arguments.

In high school, I accidentally ate a cupcake the head cheerleader baked for him. His retaliation?

He threw away a love letter a senior slipped into my locker, then marched straight to my mom and told her I was sneaking out with boys.

As Roxy loved to say, we were practically cursed. So, the second I grabbed my degree, I booked a oneway ticket to Europe.

I figured I'd never have to look at his arrogant face again. Yet here he was.

Lounging in a crisp, black buttondown, the top two buttons undone to reveal a sliver of pale collarbone. His dark, razorsharp eyes tracked my every movement.

My welcomehome party just morphed into an execution. I lowered myself onto the edge of a seat, crossing my arms tight against my chest.

A few rounds of shots later, some idiot brought out a bottle for Truth or Dare. It spun on the glass table, a blurry green tornado, before slowing. It stopped.

Dead center on Thorne. The room erupted. Tristan, his childhood buddy, slammed a hand on the table. "Let's make it juicy! Thorne.

When was your first time?" The music seemed to cut out. The heavy thumping bass faded into a deafening silence.

Every single person leaned in, desperate for gossip on the untouchable billionaire golden boy. My fingers clamped around my glass. My knuckles turned bonewhite.

The oxygen stalled in my throat. Time slowed to a crawl. Under the weight of a dozen stares, Thorne parted his lips. "Four years ago." Tristan's eyes went wide.

He slapped his thigh. "Holy shit! Four years ago? Wait." "Was it that night?

The one where you walked out of the hotel looking like you wrestled a wildcat?" Thorne didn't say a word. The muscle in his jaw ticked.

A suffocating, subzero chill radiated from his side of the booth.

Tristan, completely blind to the lethal glare fixed on the side of his head, kept digging his own grave. "You guys have no idea.

Three in the morning, four years ago, this guy calls me." "Tells me to bring him a fresh set of clothes. I showed up and nearly had a heart attack.

His arms, his back—completely covered in bloody scratches." "The buttons on his shirt were ripped right off. It was a massacre!

I asked him who did it, and he just stonewalled me." Static exploded in my ears. The world tilted on its axis. Four years ago. The chaos. The hotel room. Thorne.

The blistering heat radiating from his skin. The heavy, intoxicating scent of gin and cedarwood pinning me to the mattress. I remembered the dark hunger in his eyes.

The bruising grip of his fingers wrapping around my wrists, anchoring me down. And my own reckless desperation. Smashing my lips against his.

The slick friction of my nails dragging down his spine, drawing blood. Absolute, unhinged chaos.

That was the exact moment a violent truth slammed into my skull, waking me up to reality: I was the villainess in this twisted story.

Chapter 2 Visions of a mangled car wreck and my family's total financial ruin suddenly flashed behind my eyelids. I thought it was just a bad hallucination.

I kept right on straddling Thorne, treating him like a mechanical bull. He had spent his entire life bullying me; it was finally my turn to be the tyrant.

The drug burning through his veins made his breathing ragged. A heavy flush stained his sharp cheekbones.

His eyes were completely glazed over, dark and unfocused, as muffled, desperate sounds slipped past his lips. Even the small mole at the corner of his eye was damp with sweat.

His fingers dug brutally into my waist, dragging me flush against him.

But his words remained a lethal threat. "When I sober up, I'm going to kill you." That threat snapped me awake. It was a direct quote. From a novel.

And in that exact novel, he really did kill me. The realization slammed into my brain. I wasn't hallucinating.

I was the vicious, cannonfodder villainess in a billionaire romance novel. And my sworn enemy, Thorne? The male lead. We were childhood rivals.

I supposedly harbored a toxic, secret crush on him, bullied the sweet female lead out of jealousy, and actually drugged him to force myself into his bed. My ending?

Total bankruptcy and a miserable, early grave. A sheet of icecold sweat broke out across my spine. I really was insane enough to drug him. There was no time to process the trauma.

Ignoring the very rigid, very excited problem trapped beneath me, I scrambled off the mattress and bolted. Survival first, hot guys second.

I booked a redeye flight out of the country that exact night and permanently blocked his number. Tristan, oblivious to the danger, kept pushing. "Seriously, Thorne.

What are you gonna do when you find her?" The air in the VIP room flatlined again. The frantic, erratic hammering of my own pulse was deafening. I watched Thorne pick up his glass.

He tipped his head back, draining the bloodred liquid in a single, fluid motion. He set the crystal down on the table. Clink.

The corner of his mouth ticked upward, but the smile never reached his dead, pitchblack eyes. "I'll make her wish she was dead." Maybe it was my guilty conscience, but the second the words left his mouth, his gaze swept over me.

A slow, chilling drag. His threat dropped like a live grenade. A second of dead silence, followed by a wave of rowdy laughter. "Holy shit, you're serious! How exactly?

Give us the details…" Tristan and the guys howled, clutching their stomachs. I sat paralyzed. It felt like invisible fingers were crushing my windpipe.

I couldn't squeeze out a single drop of laughter. Roxy bumped my shoulder. "Sloane, you good? You look like you're gonna puke.

You haven't smiled all night." I didn't smile because I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate. I forced the corners of my mouth up. A stiff, unnatural twitch.

I had no idea it was his first time! No wonder he was so aggressive and entirely clumsy back then. If I'd known, I wouldn't have jumped him even if you held a gun to my head!

Desperate to shift the spotlight, I grabbed the first excuse I could think of. "Just stressed about work.

This new design project is a nightmare." "The client is demanding as hell, and I've already revised the blueprints five times." "Who's the client?" Roxy asked. "A new tech startup.

Zenith." The word barely left my mouth before Tristan's head snapped over. He jerked his chin toward the couch. "Well, damn.

What are the odds?" Tristan grinned. "That's the firm Thorne started two years ago. Sloane, you two really are cursed.

You move back to the States and walk straight into his crosshairs!" Chapter 3 A loud ringing echoed in my ears. Zenith Tech. Thorne founded it?

Completely independent of his family's massive empire? No wonder my background checks came up empty when I took the account. I almost choked on my own oxygen.

Was it too late to call my boss and quit? But this was our whale client. Landing this project meant a bonus big enough to let me rot on a tropical beach for years.

Pride was expensive; I needed the cash. I forced a painfully bright, corporatekissass smile and raised my glass in his direction. "Looking forward to working with you, Mr.

Thorne." I didn't dare look at his face. But the weight of his stare felt like a physical pressure against my skin, heavy and dark. Two days later.

I clutched my design portfolio to my chest and stepped into the CEO's office at Zenith. Thorne sat behind a massive desk.

He was staring down at something in his hands, but the second I walked in, he flipped it facedown against the mahogany. The movement was so fast I couldn't catch a glimpse.

He looked up, jutting his chin toward the chair across from him. "Have a seat, Sloane." The flat, strictly professional tone loosened the knot in my chest.

He wore a perfectly tailored silvergray suit today, a pair of goldrimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his straight nose. He looked cold, calculated, and entirely untouchable.

He had changed. He wasn't the vicious, arrogant boy who used to make my life hell anymore. He had grown into a lethal, composed predator. We dove into the blueprints.

Without realizing it, he leaned forward. The physical distance between us shrank. The air in the room grew dense.

He was close enough that the crisp, icy scent of mint and cedarwood drifted across the desk, wrapping around me. Exactly the same as my memory.

He reached out to point at a structural flaw on the floor plan. The warm pad of his index finger grazed the back of my hand. I yanked my arm back like I'd touched a hot stove.

The air in the office immediately solidified. His dark eyes shifted from the paper, locking onto my face through his lenses.

The silence stretched. "All those years abroad," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "You finally decided to come back.

How long are you staying?" "Just until the project wraps," I replied. His jaw tightened. "Fine." The single word cracked like a whip in the quiet room.

There was an undercurrent of resentment I couldn't decode. And was that the sound of him grinding his teeth? Before I could figure it out, a soft knock interrupted us.

A young woman walked in, balancing a tray with a steaming mug. "Your coffee, Mr. Thorne," she murmured, her voice trembling slightly. Ivy.

The pure, innocent female lead of the novel, currently slumming it as a Zenith intern. The gravitational pull of the plot was truly terrifying.

Right on cue, Ivy's foot caught on invisible air. She let out a tiny gasp, lunging forward directly toward Thorne.

The scalding coffee splashed violently across his expensive suit. "I'm so sorry! I'm so, so sorry! I didn't mean to!" The blood drained from her delicate face.

Tears immediately welled up in her big doe eyes. I braced myself. I was fully prepared to watch the ruthless billionaire tear her to shreds. But he didn't.

Thorne just frowned, his tone flat and unreadable. "Get out." It was cold, sure. But compared to the vicious way he usually handled incompetence?

That was practically a love confession. See? The male lead's infinite patience for his destined girl. No wonder the novel was literally called The Clumsy Beauty and Her Billionaire.

Chapter 4 But according to the plot, shouldn't they already be together by now? Why were they acting like total strangers? Wait, how did the novel describe it again?

Strangers in public, swapping spit until their lips bruised in private. Thorne stood up and headed into the private lounge to change.

A minute later, his voice carried through the cracked door. "Sloane. Bring me the cufflinks from the desk." The nerve of this guy. When did he even take them off?

I hesitated for a fraction of a second, then snatched the silver metal from the mahogany and pushed the door open. Inside, Thorne was barechested.

He had just tossed the ruined, coffeesoaked shirt aside. The warm overhead lighting caught the hard, carved lines of his broad shoulders and narrow waist.

The sharp, defined ridges of his abs and the deep Vline dipping below his waistband slammed right into my line of sight. My throat went bonedry.

An audible, humiliating swallow tore from my throat. We had already crossed every physical boundary four years ago, but an intense, blistering heat still flared across my cheeks.

Shit. I'm going to get a nosebleed. Don't look. Do not look.

If I didn't know I was the designated villainess in this universe, I would swear this arrogant bastard was actively trying to seduce me.

After all, his lethal genetics were exactly why I lost my damn mind and jumped him four years ago. But the male and female leads were destined for each other.

My only job was to stay out of the blast radius. I had zero interest in playing the suicidal third wheel.

I slammed the cufflinks onto the marble counter, staring fixedly at the wall, and spun around to leave. A sudden ringtone shattered the tension. An upbeat, familiar intro.

Every Star Fell on My Head the Day I Met You. It used to be my absolute favorite song. Thorne's ringtone?

I distinctly remembered him mocking me over it in high school. "Who even memorizes a title that obnoxiously long?" Why the hell was this ruthless billionaire using it now? "Sloane.

Answer that." Thorne casually slid into a fresh white buttondown, leaving his collar and chest exposed. First the cufflinks, now his personal secretary.

I wasn't his damn assistant! I pressed my lips together, muttering beneath my breath. "Highmaintenance jerk." Whatever. The guy signing my agency's checks was God.

I didn't have the luxury of rebelling. I grabbed the vibrating phone and shoved it toward him. He suddenly leaned down. The physical distance between us vanished.

His lips brushed a millimeter from my ear, his voice a low, vibrating hum. "What did you just call me?" My molars ground together. I plastered on a bright, plastic smile. "Nothing.

You're hearing things." The corner of Thorne's mouth hitched up. He tapped the speaker button.

The second the line connected, Tristan's frantic voice exploded into the room. "Holy shit! Thorne, you're not gonna believe this! Blaise just got exposed.

The guy has a secret kid!" "The kid's already three! The entire family is in absolute meltdown right now!

That Dlist actress who had his baby showed up at the estate today with the kid." "And guess what? Damn it, Blaise didn't even let them through the gates!

He had security drag them out." "She threw the DNA test right in his face, and he still refused to acknowledge them!" A cold jolt hit my chest. Blaise. I knew him.

He was a notorious playboy in our social circle; the running joke was that he changed women faster than he changed his designer watches.

Thorne slowly, methodically adjusted his collar. He stared straight ahead, his expression entirely deadpan. "And?" he asked. He sounded like he was inquiring about the weather.

Tristan paused for a second on the other end before continuing. "They got thrown out on the street without a single cent.

They're done in this city." "At best, they're blacklisted from the entire industry." I gripped the phone. The blood drained from my fingertips, leaving them icecold.

This was the reality of the ultrarich. Absolute, unfeeling extermination. Cut the weeds at the roots, and never leave a trace of a problem behind.

Chapter 5 Tristan finished his rant, his tone suddenly shifting into a teasing drawl. "Hey, Thorne. What if one day an illegitimate kid showed up at your door?

What would you do?" Static flooded my ears, drowning out the ambient noise. My lungs seized. A sick, twisted anticipation knotted in my stomach.

If he actually had a secret child, how exactly would he execute the problem? Thorne slowly raised his gaze.

His dark eyes locked onto mine, devoid of warmth. "That is an impossibility." A cold, hollow drop echoed in my chest. An impossibility.

Was it because he was too clinical, too careful to ever slip up?

Or was it because, if a mistake like that ever did happen, he would erase it with a cruelty that made Blaise look like a saint? My brain forcefully shut down that train of thought.

A layer of icy sweat slicked my spine. "Why are you panicking?" His stare pinned me to the spot. I forced my vocal cords to work. "I'm not." I wasn't panicking.

I was drowning in guilt. Because I did have his secret child. His supposed impossibility was currently a living, breathing reality. "Is that so?" He leaned in.

The suffocating scent of mint and cedarwood swallowed the oxygen in the room. He stopped inches away, leveling his gaze with mine.

My bloodless face reflected in his pitchblack pupils. "Sloane." The syllables scraped against my eardrum, a low, dangerous vibration. "Are you sure you aren't… remembering something?" A second later, his large hand clamped around my wrist.

He dragged my palm forward, pressing my trembling fingers flat against the bare, heated ridges of his abdomen. "Or…" His lips hovered a millimeter from the shell of my ear. "Do you have something you want to confess?" The heat of his breath sent a violent shudder down my spine.

A fullbody tremor wrecked me. Did he know? No, four years ago he was completely out of his mind on that drug. He couldn't possibly know who dragged him into that bed.

A dull ache throbbed in my throat. I yanked my hand back, clutching it to my chest, and shook my head hard. "No." I stumbled backward. "Mr.

Thorne, if the blueprints are fine, I'm leaving." I didn't wait for a dismissal. I bolted out of the lounge like the building was on fire. I just needed to survive this contract.

Book a flight. Escape back to the UK. If Thorne ever found out I was the one who assaulted him four years ago, and that I secretly gave birth to his kid, he wouldn't just ruin me.

He would put me in the ground. The night deepened, the city breeze carrying a sharp chill. I stood on the curb, aggressively refreshing my rideshare app.

Over a hundred people in the queue. Suddenly, the screen lit up. [ Poppy ] A warm wave washed over my chest, instantly melting away the suffocating tension of the past hour.

I swiped to answer. "Hey, sweetie." The soft, milky voice of my daughter drifted through the speaker. "Mommy, when are you coming home?

Poppy misses you." My ribs expanded with a profound, unconditional warmth. "I miss you too, baby." "Mhm… you have to come back soon, okay?" "I will.

Be a good girl and wait for me." I couldn't stop the soft, genuine smile stretching across my face. I pressed a kiss to the receiver. "Love you, Poppy." I ended the call.

The lingering warmth of the smile was still plastered on my face as I pivoted on my heel. Smack. I slammed facefirst into a wall of solid muscle. I stumbled back, gasping.

I jerked my head up. Dead, pitchblack eyes stared down at me. Thorne. When the hell did he come outside? He had been standing directly behind me in the dead silence of the night.

Under the harsh glow of the streetlamp, the shadows on his sharp features were absolute murder. My heart violently jumpstarted, hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

How much did he hear? Chapter 6 The drive back was dead silent. He had practically shoved me into the passenger seat of his car.

A phantom wire pulled tight across my chest, right on the verge of snapping. I pressed my shoulder against the window, pretending to be fascinated by the blur of neon city lights.

But I could feel the physical weight of Thorne's stare dragging across my profile.

The confined space of the car was completely saturated with the icy, cedarwood scent of his cologne. The pressure was suffocating. I sat frozen, praying for the driver to floor it.

The car finally rolled to a stop outside my hotel. My lungs expanded. I immediately reached for the door handle. "Sloane." The syllables rasped from his throat, completely raw.

My hand froze on the leather. I didn't look back. My spine locked into place, waiting for his next move.

Heavy seconds ticked by. "Does he treat you well?" The question was low, forced through clenched teeth. My brain shortcircuited.

I whipped my head around, staring at him blankly. "Who?" The muscle in Thorne's jaw ticked.

Behind his goldrimmed glasses, his eyes were pitchblack and absolute zero. "Your man," he ground out. "Colin." Colin? The realization hit me like a freight train.

Thorne thought I was on the phone with Colin? Colin was my senior in college. We met in the chess club, and he always looked out for me.

We hung out a lot for tournaments and became solid friends. He moved to the UK right after graduation.

In a massive coincidence, when I fled to London, we actually ended up as neighbors. Thorne seriously thought we were a couple? The tight wire across my chest finally slacked.

Thank God he didn't hear Poppy's voice. I parted my lips. The truth sat right on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it back down. Why should I explain? Let him misunderstand.

It was the perfect firewall. It would permanently sever any lingering connection between us. "Yeah.

He treats me great." "How long have you been together?" My mouth moved faster than my brain. "Four years." A harsh, hollow laugh scraped out of the man beside me. "So you didn't even bother sticking around for your diploma." "You just chased him across the ocean?" His voice dropped an octave. "You even had your entire family immigrate for him?" …Sorry, Colin.

I chanted a dozen apologies to my old friend in my head, but I needed to use him as a human shield right now.

I dug my fingernails into my palms and forced a nod. "Pretty much." Thorne's breathing violently hitched.

In the dead quiet of the car, the horrifying sound of his teeth grinding together echoed loud and clear. The temperature plummeted to absolute zero.

A long, suffocating minute passed. A bitter, selfdeprecating smirk twisted his lips. "You play with people for sport.

I don't know what else I expected from a woman like you." Excuse me? I shoved the door open and practically fell out of the car, speedwalking into the hotel lobby.

When the hell did I ever play with his feelings? And why did he look so damn wrecked? I didn't expect to run into Colin at the tech summit a few days later.

He was the keynote speaker representing the European sector. After the panel wrapped up, he spotted me and walked over, a warm smile on his face. "Sloane.

What a coincidence." "Colin." He checked his watch. "It's almost lunchtime. Want to grab a bite? Cora is meeting me here.

She's been nagging me about you, says she misses you." I opened my mouth to say yes, but a sheet of ice sliced through the conversation. "Mind if I join?" Thorne materialized right next to me.

His hands were shoved into his tailored slacks, his expression completely blank. Chapter 7 Colin blinked, then flashed a polite smile. "Of course.

It's an honor to have you join us, Mr. Thorne." I stared blankly at the floor. The atmosphere at the table was suffocating from the second we sat down.

Colin, ever the gentleman, slid the leatherbound menu toward me. I picked two random items just to get it over with.

He took the menu back and tacked on a few more dishes for the table. The moment the waiter set the plates down, the temperature around Thorne plummeted.

His dark, glacial stare locked onto Colin. "This is how you treat her?" My pulse spiked. The silver fork nearly slipped from my grip.

Colin looked completely blindsided. "You didn't know she's allergic to shellfish?" Thorne's voice was deadly quiet.

The blood drained from Colin's face as his shoulders dropped. "I'm so sorry, Sloane. I… I honestly had no idea." Thorne dragged his gaze to me, a slow, freezing sweep.

Guilt punched me in the gut, and I immediately looked away. Using Colin as a human shield was a massive mistake. I mentally begged the clock to speed up. Just eat. Eat and run.

A few minutes later, a figure appeared at the edge of our booth. Cora slid into the seat next to Colin, casually wrapping her arm around his. Her bright eyes landed on me. "Sloane!

We have to go shopping this afternoon." Then, her gaze shifted. "Oh, who's this?" A second later, Cora's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree.

She stared at Thorne like she had just cracked a massive code. "Wait, is this Poppy's—" Blaring, redalert sirens went off in my skull