✅ Chapter 1: Sent Away Because I Loved Him
Twelve years old. That was the age I realized I didn't belong in the Blake family.
"You should be grateful we took her in," I heard Lady Lillian Blake—my adoptive mother—say behind the grand staircase.
"She's not even ours."
I froze, heart pounding. My fingers clutched the wooden pillar so tight my knuckles turned white.
I was just a child. An orphan they took in because my mother was once Lillian's best friend.
They gave me their name. Their roof. Their rules.
But never their love.
Except for Ethan.
Ethan Blake, my older brother. My sun. My entire world.
I heard footsteps and turned just in time to see him, tall and messy-haired, with a grin that made everything else fade.
"Why are you hiding again, Lia?" he asked, tossing me an orange.
"Got bored of spying on Mum?"
I tried to laugh. I really did.
He knelt beside me and ruffled my hair. "Don't let anyone make you feel like you don't belong, okay?"
If only he knew.
Because years later, when I was sixteen, everything changed. I didn't just love Ethan like a brother. I started to… love him in a way I couldn't admit.
And people noticed.
It started with looks. Then whispers. Then rumors.
"She's in love with her own brother."
"She flirts with him."
"Disgusting."
One morning, I was told I'd been enrolled in a school abroad.
No warning. No goodbye.
Not even to Ethan.
They put me on a plane that night.
Like trash they wanted to bury far away.
As the plane lifted into the sky, I swore to myself…
I will never love anyone the way I loved Ethan Blake. Not again.