Harris Croft and I were both stolen children. When his wealthy parents finally found him, he clutched my wrist, his grip like iron. “I want her to be my sister,” he told them, his young voice fierce. “I’m going to protect her for the rest of my life.” But years later, I didn’t want to be his sister anymore. I had fallen hopelessly in love with him. “That’s not an option, Taylor,” Harris said, his voice gentle but firm. The love I felt for him was a fire growing wilder each day. I couldn’t bear it. So, with a shattered heart, I left. Five years later, we met again. My boss shoved me into the seat next to a man at a dinner table. “You look just like Harris Croft’s long-lost love,” he whispered urgently in my ear. “He’s been searching for her for years, driving himself mad.” He gave me a hard nudge. “This is your chance. Play the part of the stand-in. You were made for this role.” I shook my head so hard my neck ached, wishing the floor would swallow me whole. “Absolutely not,” I hissed back. “He’s not interested in me. Not like that.” 1 I never, in my wildest dreams, imagined I would see Harris again like this. I was accompanying my boss, Mr. Davies, to a dinner with potential investors. He’d told me there was a notoriously difficult billionaire tycoon—worth hundreds of billions—that only I could win over. He’d even promised me a promotion and a hefty raise if I sealed the deal. I thought he was banking on my negotiation skills. I didn’t realize he was planning on taking a much darker, more desperate path. The moment we entered the private dining room, he pointed to the back of a man sitting at the head of the table, his words a conspiratorial hiss. “That’s him. Tonight’s deal is all on you. I’ve done my homework—you’re a dead ringer for the woman on Mr. Croft’s phone wallpaper. This is your big break, the classic stand-in story. You got this.” I only needed to see his back. I knew him instantly. The youngest heir to the Croft Corporation. My brother, in name only. Harris. I shook my head, a frantic, silent plea, already backing toward the door. “No way, boss. Absolutely not. He’s not my type.” My mind raced for an excuse. “I—I have a sudden stomachache. I have to go. Don’t try to stop me.” But Mr. Davies’s hand shot out, his grip surprisingly strong. He grabbed my wrist and dragged me forward, his voice a low, insistent growl. “Don’t you dare run off. How do you know if you don’t even try? I’ve looked into this. Harris Croft is famous for being an ice king. Women throw themselves at him, and he doesn’t even blink. It was his best friend, Carter, who let it slip one night when he was drunk. He said, ‘You idiots have no idea how to get to him. If you want to give him a gift, find the girl on his phone screen. He’s been looking for her like a madman, calls out her name in his sleep.’” Mr. Davies tightened his hold, practically frog-marching me to the table. “If you didn’t look so much like her, this opportunity would’ve never fallen into your lap. Now pull it together. The investment is counting on you.” For a man who only ever drank herbal tea and never worked out, he had a shocking amount of brute force. He propelled me forward and pushed me down into the empty chair to Harris’s left. He pressed a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stay seated, and plastered a greasy smile on his face as he began his sales pitch to Harris. He sounded like a pimp selling his prize girl. “Mr. Croft, this is the hidden gem of our company, Stella Crawford. Don’t let her age fool you; her capabilities are second to none. She’s the one who single-handedly cracked all of my toughest accounts.” My heart hammered against my ribs, so loud I was sure everyone could hear it. I cursed myself for not checking my horoscope before leaving the house. From the corner of my eye, I couldn’t stop myself from stealing a glance at the man I had thought about every single day for five years. His face was still devastatingly handsome, a single look enough to make my defenses crumble. He wore a pair of thin, gold-rimmed glasses that gave him an air of cool restraint, an ascetic appeal with a terrifying stillness that hinted at something wild just beneath the surface. My carefully constructed composure shattered. As I was frantically trying to figure out how to greet him after all this time, the man sitting to Harris’s right—his assistant—shot to his feet and glared at me. “Mr. Davies, what is the meaning of this?” he snapped. “Are you not aware of Mr. Croft’s rules? No woman sits next to him. Especially not one who’s surgically altered her face to look like… that. Are you that desperate to play the part of a substitute? Get out!” 2 He wasn’t wrong. I’d had plastic surgery. And I’d changed my name. I used to be Taylor. Taylor Croft. After I left the Croft family, I found my birth parents. Now, I was Stella Crawford. No wonder Harris hadn’t reacted when he heard my name. He sat there like an impassive stone statue, letting his assistant fend off the ambitious women who tried to get close, not even sparing me a single glance. The assistant, however, stared at my face as if he were examining a cheap forgery. “You’ve had work done, haven’t you, Ms. Crawford?” he sneered. “I studied medicine for a time. I can spot a scalpel’s work from a mile away. But you’ve all made a grave miscalculation. The woman in Mr. Croft’s heart cannot be replaced by some cheap imitation. If she could be, she wouldn’t be his one true love, would she? Mr. Croft doesn’t just avoid playing these pathetic stand-in games; he finds them utterly repulsive. You’ve walked right into a minefield. Now, are you going to leave, or do I have to have you thrown out?” I felt like I was sitting on a bed of nails. Why did everyone keep calling me his one true love? If only that were the case. In his eyes, I was only ever his sister. Nothing more. The truth is, Harris and I share no blood. We were both victims of child trafficking, and for three hellish years, we survived by clinging to each other. When I was beaten, he would wrap his arms around me, taking the sting of the whip on his own small back. When he was burning with fever, I would stay up all night, changing the cool, damp cloth on his forehead. When we were starving and managed to snatch a single packet of instant noodles, he would tell me to eat the noodles while he drank the broth. We lived in a place no better than a pigsty. One night, a snake bit me. Harris didn’t hesitate. He knelt, pressed his mouth to the wound on my foot, and sucked out the venom. “Am I going to die, brother?” I’d sobbed. He held me tight. “I won’t let you.” Then, his wealthy parents found him. I huddled in a corner, my world collapsing. This was it. We were going to be separated. But Harris clutched my hand, his knuckles white, and stubbornly told his parents, “I want her to be my sister. I’m going to protect her for the rest of my life.” His parents were hesitant. So he doubled down. “Then I’m not going back either. Where she goes, I go. No one is tearing us apart.” A wave of shock and joy washed over me. And just like that, I became the adopted daughter of the wealthy Croft family. Harris’s most beloved sister. And he did spoil me. He was just a boy himself, but he patiently taught me to read and write. Every tutor his family hired for him, he insisted they teach me too. He bought me the most beautiful clothes, the most popular toys. He even learned how to braid my hair. He transformed me from a dirty, scared little girl into a poised, eighteen-year-old young woman. Everyone in our social circle knew I was the girl Harris Croft held in the palm of his hand. They whispered behind our backs, “She’s not an adopted daughter; she’s the wife he’s been grooming since they were kids.” At the time, those rumors made my heart flutter. I secretly loved them. Because I was so, so in love with him. I dreamed of marrying him when we grew up, so we could be together forever. But when I finally mustered the courage to confess, Harris’s answer was a gentle, but devastating, blow. “That’s not an option, Taylor. You’re my sister. Always.” His words were like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing the hope that had burned so brightly in my heart. But I couldn’t extinguish the love. You can’t command your heart to stop feeling. I couldn’t bear the thought of watching him marry someone else, of another woman spending her life with him. This one-sided love would eventually twist me into someone bitter and ugly. My only choice was to leave. I thought maybe, with distance, I could finally tame the obsessive, all-consuming desire I had for him. I never imagined that five years later, this is how we would meet again. Mistaken for a shameless impostor by his own assistant. 3 I didn’t dare say a word, terrified that he would recognize my voice. In a way, this was for the best. He was just as the rumors described him: aloof, untouchable, utterly uninterested in the women who flocked to him. He had loyal subordinates to build his walls and keep the world at bay. I took a deep breath, swallowed the lump in my throat, and ran. The day I left five years ago, I swore I would never appear before Harris Croft again. Because seeing him, even once, would throw my world into chaos. I couldn't forget him. I couldn't stop loving him. Unrequited love is a lonely war, and it’s exhausting. It was better for us to go our separate ways, to never meet again. I found a nearby bar and started drinking, one glass after another, trying to quench the fire in my soul. So many nights, I would dream of him. In my dreams, I would secretly kiss Harris. All the things I never dared to do in reality, I did with a fearless passion in my sleep. The Harris in my dreams never rejected me. He would stroke my hair gently, letting me push him down anywhere, anytime. Like against the grand piano in the corner of the Croft family living room. After we were rescued, he loved to sit with me there, his hands guiding mine over the keys. Those were beautiful, sun-drenched memories. In my dreams, I loved pinning him against that piano, taking off his gold-rimmed glasses, and unbuttoning his shirt. He would always have that faint, lazy smile on his lips. He would lean in, his breath warm against my ear, and whisper wickedly, “You want to kiss me? How badly?” “Desperately,” I would answer through tears. His voice would drop to a low, seductive murmur. “Then I’ll let you. Alright?” The dream blurred the lines of reality, giving me a courage I never possessed when I was awake. I would pull off his tie and use it to blindfold him, feeling bold and reckless. “Okay,” I’d say. “But you can’t move.” But every single time, just as my lips were about to touch his, I would wake up. I’d throw my pillow across the room in frustration, then close my eyes, trying desperately to recall the feeling of his voice in my ear, to slip back into the dream and finish what I started. It never worked. I was drunk. And my drunken fingers did something stupid. I logged into my old, private social media account. I hadn’t touched it in years. It was a secret diary, filled with all the forbidden thoughts and feelings I’d had for Harris since I was a teenager. It was the chronicle of my lonely war. I had tried to bury it, to never look at it again. But seeing Harris tonight had stirred up a storm inside me. I couldn’t stop myself. I typed out a new post. [Everyone says I’m his irreplaceable, long-lost love.] [If only that were true.] [But I’m the only one who knows the truth. To him, I can only ever be his sister.] I had no idea that this small, drunken act was about to cause an earthquake. 4 Suddenly, my phone rang. It was Mr. Davies. “Stella, where are you? Get to a bar called ‘Serendipity’ right now! Harris Croft is on his way there as we speak. This is your last chance! He didn’t get a good look at you before. Once he sees your face, you’re in!” I was slumped over the bar, my head spinning. “Boss, please,” I slurred. “Let me go. His assistant already warned me off. The stand-in trick isn’t going to work.” He wasn’t listening. “What do you know? Even the toughest guys have a soft spot if you’re persistent enough. There’s no such thing as a failed substitute, only one who didn’t try hard enough. He might resist once or twice, but seven or eight times? Can he really remain unmoved? Trust me, I know men better than you do. When you can’t have the real thing, even a picture is enough to quench the thirst.” His voice dropped to an excited whisper. “Listen, I have inside info. A minute ago, Harris suddenly shot to his feet, so agitated he crushed a wine glass in his hand. His assistant asked him what was wrong, and Harris’s voice was trembling when he said, ‘She’s online. She’s nearby.’ Turns out, his long-lost love just logged into an old, dormant social media account and posted something. After he saw it, he forgot all about dinner, personally traced the location, and found out she was at a bar nearby. He’s rushing over there now, looks like he could fly.” Mr. Davies was practically giddy. “I bet she doesn’t want to see him, otherwise why would she stay away all these years? When he gets to the bar and finds out she won’t go back with him, that’s your moment. That’s when you strike.” The world snapped into focus. Harris was coming here? Who gave my boss the audacity to say something so insane? Wait. Harris found my private account? That meant all my teenage angst, my unrequited love, my possessive desires… it was all laid bare for him to see. My head throbbed. I wanted to delete every single post, to erase every trace of my secret heart. I scrambled off the barstool and headed for the exit, desperate to escape. I hadn’t even reached the door when I heard Harris’s voice, cool and controlled, cut through the noise of the bar. “Lock this place down. I don’t want so much as a fly getting out.” His assistant was right behind him, promising, “It’s done, sir. I have guards at the front and back doors. We’ll find Miss Taylor this time, I guarantee it.” Then, he spotted me. His face twisted in disgust. “You again? Are you deaf? Still haven’t given up? Get lost.” A guard next to him spoke up. “Mr. Hanson, Mr. Croft just said not even a fly gets out.” Hanson pointed a dismissive finger at me. “She’s the exception. This woman is trying to pass herself off as Miss Taylor’s stand-in. The man he wants to see the least right now is her.” Harris hadn't seen me. The moment his assistant said my name—Stella—the gaze that had been sweeping the room, the gaze that was about to land on my face, slid right past me. His body language was a clear, brutal message: he had no interest in a substitute. He walked straight to the bar, holding up his phone to the bartender. “Have you seen the girl on this screen?” With my head bowed, I fled. No one stopped me.
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