POV: Brooke

I sat in the sprawling living room of Spencer's hillside mansion, staring blankly at the dead autumn leaves blowing across the manicured lawn.

My heart twisted into a brutal, suffocating knot.

Seven years ago, I had stood in this exact room, joyfully picking out floral arrangements and acting as the future hostess, meticulously planning my wedding to Spencer Whitmore. I had sworn to myself that I would never step foot in this gilded cage of deceit ever again.

But a few hours ago, I had compromised.

Dr. Evans, the Whitmore family’s elite private neurologist, had stood before me with grim, uncompromising eyes.

"His brain has suffered a massive trauma, Brooke," the doctor had warned, his voice lowering into a grave whisper. "If you force the reality of your five-year marriage onto him now, the severe cognitive dissonance will trigger an extreme psychological stress response. Best case scenario, he slips into a permanent coma. Worst case, the blood vessels in his brain rupture."

Permanent coma. Rupture.

Those words had drained every ounce of blood from my face.

That was when Spencer had stepped in, offering a plan that sounded flawlessly logical, yet was undeniably laced with his own dark, selfish desires.

"Brooke, his memory is stuck seven years in the past," Spencer had said, his voice a smooth, comforting hum as he placed a hand on my trembling shoulder. "If we recreate his reality from seven years ago—if we live in this house, with you acting as my fiancée—his brain will relax in the familiar environment. The safety of that routine might naturally stimulate his lost memories to return."

A fake engagement. Playing the role of my own husband's future sister-in-law.

It was the most cruel, agonizing torture imaginable.

But I looked down at my phone, staring at the photo from the crash site—the image of Grant’s blood soaking into his ruined white shirt as he shielded me.

I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted copper. With red, tear-filled eyes, I agreed to Spencer's twisted game. As long as it brought my husband back to me, I was willing to drink poison.

By late afternoon, the sound of tires crunching against the gravel driveway signaled Grant's arrival.

Because this was the Whitmore family's ancestral estate, Spencer had used the excuse of "centralizing his medical care" to have Grant discharged and brought here.

When the heavy oak doors opened, I took a desperate, eager step toward the foyer, my heart hammering against my fractured ribs.

But the faint smile on my lips shattered instantly.

Stepping into the grand hallway wasn't just Grant, looking imposing and cold despite the stark white bandages wrapped around his forehead.

Clinging tightly to his arm was Olivia.

She had moved in with him. Using her status as his "current girlfriend" in his seven-year-old memories, she walked into the house with an air of absolute entitlement.

I watched as Olivia leaned heavily against Grant's broad shoulder, complaining softly about the chilly autumn wind. Grant didn't push her away. Instead, he reached out with his large, calloused hand—the hand that wore our matching wedding band just yesterday—and carefully pulled her trench coat tighter around her shivering frame.

A wave of pure, unadulterated jealousy ripped through me. My fingernails dug so deeply into my palms that the skin nearly broke.

Grant’s dark, fathomless eyes slowly swept across the foyer until they landed on me.

The temperature in the room plummeted.

He deliberately used a tone so formal, so guarded, it felt like a physical slap to the face.

"Brooke."

Just my name. Spoken like I was a stranger he was forced to tolerate.

But what I couldn't see was the violent war raging beneath his icy exterior. The moment his eyes locked onto me standing there in a soft, oversized sweater, it took every ounce of his willpower not to cross the room, pull me away from his brother, and crush me against his chest.

He didn't understand why his body craved the woman who was about to marry his brother. And that confusion only made him angrier.

Dinner that night was an absolute catastrophe.

To comply with the doctor's "situational recreation" therapy, I was forced to sit next to Spencer at the long mahogany dining table. I had to force a rigid, agonizing smile as Spencer played the role of the devoted fiancé.

Spencer reached over, smoothly tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear before pouring me a glass of expensive red wine.

"You look tired, darling," Spencer murmured, his voice loud enough to carry across the table. "Eat a little more."

Sitting directly across from us, Grant’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek.

He stared dead at Spencer’s hand lingering on the back of my chair. In Grant's amnesiac mind, I was a fickle, vain woman happily parading my relationship in front of him. But his heart—his heart was burning with a wild, rabid possessiveness that made him want to tear the dining table in half.

To mask his terrifying loss of control, Grant aggressively turned his attention to Olivia.

He picked up his knife and fork, meticulously cutting a piece of medium-rare Wagyu beef into bite-sized pieces. He then picked up a piece with his fork and brought it directly to Olivia’s lips.

"Here," Grant said, his voice dripping with forced, exaggerated tenderness.

Olivia practically glowed with triumph. She took the bite, giggling softly as a drop of peppercorn sauce smudged the corner of her mouth.

Grant lifted his thumb and gently, intimately, wiped the sauce from her lip.

Watching him use the exact same hands that had explored every inch of my body to pamper another woman made my stomach violently churn. A suffocating wave of nausea crawled up my throat.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't watch this for another second.

"Excuse me," I choked out, abruptly pushing my chair back. The heavy wood scraped loudly against the marble floor.

I didn't wait for a response. I turned and practically ran out of the dining room, fleeing the suffocating nightmare.

Because I ran, I didn't see what happened the second I turned my back.

Grant’s eyes violently tracked my retreating figure. His hand gripped his silver steak knife with such brutal, terrifying force that as he pressed down, the blade let out a sharp, ear-piercing screech, carving a deep, jagged crack straight through the center of his bone-china plate.

Midnight brought no relief.

My stomach cramped so painfully from stress and hunger that sleep was impossible. Throwing a thin silk robe over my pajamas, I crept downstairs into the cavernous, unlit kitchen to get a glass of warm water.

The house was dead silent, save for the hum of the refrigerator.

I poured the water, my hands still shaking slightly from the events of the day.

Just as I turned around to lean against the marble island, a towering shadow detached itself from the darkness.

Before I could even gasp, a large, impossibly hot hand shot out and clamped down on my wrist like a steel shackle.

The familiar, intoxicating scent of crushed cedar, mint, and raw male pheromones instantly enveloped me.

I shivered violently.

I looked up through the moonlight spilling through the window, crashing straight into Grant’s deep, predatory eyes. They were completely devoid of the cold indifference from dinner. Right now, they were dark, volatile, and rimmed with a dangerous, bloodshot red.

"Sneaking around in the dark, Brooke?" His voice was a harsh, gravelly whisper that sent shivers down my spine. His massive frame stepped closer, backing me flush against the cold edge of the marble counter. "Are you waiting for my brother, or just too guilty to sleep?"

The mocking cruelty in his tone sparked a flash of fierce, desperate anger in my chest.

I glared up at him, my eyes shining with unshed tears, my heart threatening to beat out of my ribcage.

"Since in your mind I am your brother's fiancée," I fired back, my voice trembling but defiant, "what exactly are you doing pinning me against a counter in the middle of the night, Grant?"

Grant’s jaw snapped shut.

Every logical instinct in his brain screamed at him to push me away, to step back from this dangerous, forbidden line.

But his body completely betrayed him.

He didn't let go of my wrist. Instead, his grip tightened.

Slowly, almost against his own will, he lowered his head. His face came so agonizingly close to mine that I could feel the ragged, scorching heat of his breath brushing against my parted lips.

He was so close I could feel the fine tremor of restraint vibrating through his heavily muscled arms.

"I'd like to know that too," Grant murmured, his gaze dropping to my lips. His voice was completely hoarse, laced with a tortured, self-loathing hunger he couldn't suppress. "I want to know why I'm losing my mind... why I have this sick, twisted reaction to my future sister-in-law."

POV: Brooke

In the dim, moonlit kitchen, Grant’s lips were less than an inch from mine.

I could feel the ragged, scorching heat of his breath brushing against my skin, trembling with a heavy, suppressed desire. For one breathless second, I truly believed his subconscious had broken through the cage of his amnesia. I thought he was going to kiss me.

But then, as if he had just touched a live wire, Grant violently shoved himself away from me.

He took a massive step back, the dark hunger in his eyes instantly shattering. I watched his expression twist into a storm of extreme self-loathing and disgust.

"Stay away from me," Grant spat, his voice dropping to a freezing, gravelly whisper. "Don't make me think the woman my brother is bringing home into this family is just some desperate woman in heat."

The words struck me like a physical blow to the chest.

He didn't look at me for another second. He turned on his heel and strode out of the kitchen, his footsteps hurried and chaotic, leaving me completely alone against the cold marble counter.

I clutched my violently pounding chest, my tears falling silently, shattering against the back of my hand.

I suddenly realized a bitter truth: It’s hard to wake a person who is pretending to be asleep, but it’s entirely impossible to wake a man who is actively forcing himself to hate you.

The next morning, the tension in the house was thick enough to cut with a knife.

To maintain Dr. Evans's "situational recreation" therapy—and to satisfy his own twisted desires—Spencer cornered me in the foyer right before we were supposed to leave for the office.

"Fix my tie, Brooke," Spencer murmured, stepping into my personal space.

I swallowed the bitter lump of resistance in my throat. Standing on my tiptoes, I reached up, my fingers mechanically looping the expensive silk around his collar.

Just as I smoothed down the fabric, heavy footsteps sounded from the oak staircase.

Grant, dressed in a sharp, tailored charcoal suit, was walking down. He took in the intimate scene before us, and his footsteps faltered for a fraction of a second. His eyes darkened into a terrifying, stormy abyss, and I saw his knuckles turn bone-white as he gripped the banister.

But almost immediately, he masked the violent reaction with a cold, mocking sneer. He let out a low scoff, as if he found the sight of us utterly pathetic.

Seeing Grant approach, Olivia immediately bounced forward, eager to mark her territory.

"Oh, Grant, your lapel is a little crooked," she cooed in a sickly sweet voice, reaching her hands up toward his chest to mimic my exact actions.

However, the second Olivia’s manicured fingers were about to brush against his suit jacket, Grant violently flinched.

He jerked his shoulder back, taking a sharp step away from her, dodging her touch entirely.

The air in the foyer instantly froze. Olivia’s hands hovered awkwardly in mid-air, her face flushing a deep, humiliated red.

Even Grant looked briefly stunned by his own reaction. I saw his brows knit together in deep confusion, staring at Olivia's hands as if he didn't understand why his own body had just physically repulsed the touch of his supposed girlfriend.

"I'm fine," Grant said stiffly, clearing his throat and stepping around her.

After breakfast, Spencer insisted I accompany them to the Whitmore Group headquarters under the guise of a "corporate handover."

For the past five years, I hadn't just been Grant's wife. I was his most trusted VP, his absolute right hand in the boardroom. The Whitmore Group was as much my territory as it was his.

Inside the expansive CEO's office, Olivia was desperate to assert her dominance as the 'future lady' of the company. She bustled into the executive pantry and emerged holding a steaming cup of coffee.

"I made your favorite, Grant," Olivia chimed, placing the mug on his desk. "A caramel macchiato with three sugar cubes."

I was sitting on the leather sofa, reviewing a quarterly report. The moment I heard those words and smelled the artificial syrup, muscle memory took completely over.

I dropped the folder. Before I even realized what I was doing, I marched over to his desk, snatched the mug right out from under his nose, and dumped the entire contents into the sink.

"Hey! What are you doing?!" Olivia shrieked.

I ignored her. Moving with terrifying efficiency, I operated his private espresso machine, pulling a double shot of dark, bitter espresso. Then, without even looking, I opened the second drawer on the left side of his desk, bypassed the pens, and pulled out a small, unmarked silver pillbox.

I set the black coffee and the stomach pill down in front of a completely stunned Grant.

"He has a mild allergy to artificial sweeteners," I stated coldly, my eyes fixed on Olivia. "And drinking sweet, milky coffee on an empty stomach triggers severe gastric spasms for him."

The office fell deathly quiet.

Grant stared at the black espresso—exactly how he took it—and the specific medication from his hidden drawer. I watched a tidal wave of shock and bewilderment crash through his deep, dark eyes.

I knew what he must be thinking. How could his brother's fiancée, a woman who supposedly spent all her time seven years ago obsessing over Spencer, know his most hidden physical boundaries and private habits with such terrifying intimacy?

But the vulnerability in Grant's eyes only lasted for a second.

He quickly built a fortress of arrogance around his confusion. He leaned back in his leather executive chair, looking up at me with a gaze so cold it burned.

"Well," Grant drawled, his lips curling into a toxic, deeply cruel smile. "It seems you thoroughly investigated every detail of my life just to secure your place in the Whitmore family. What a diligent, calculating sister-in-law I have."

The knife twisted violently in my heart.

Calculating.

Sister-in-law.

I had spent five years memorizing his every breath, loving him with every fiber of my being, and he reduced it all to a cheap, gold-digging scheme.

Grant’s cruel mockery was all the validation Olivia needed. Her wounded pride was instantly replaced by vicious arrogance.

"I'll go get some hot water for tea," Olivia muttered, grabbing a heavy ceramic mug.

She walked over to the water dispenser. I had turned my back, taking a deep breath to stop my tears from falling.

As Olivia walked past me, I heard the sharp, deliberate clatter of her high heels twisting against the hardwood floor.

"Oh!" she cried out in fake alarm.

I turned my head just in time to see her intentionally hurl the entire mug of freshly boiled, steaming water directly toward my face.

Time seemed to slow down to an agonizing crawl.

Grant was the closest to me. He was sitting right at the edge of the desk.

In that split second, I clearly saw his body react. His broad shoulders bunched, the muscles in his thighs flexing as he instinctively half-rose from his chair to shield me. It was the same physical reflex that had made him crash his car to save my life.

But then... he stopped.

I watched his jaw lock tight. A fierce, terrifying battle flashed across his dark eyes before an icy, deliberate mask slammed down over his features. His hands gripped the armrests so hard the leather groaned.

He forced himself to sit back down. He was actively choosing to sit there and watch me get hurt.

I closed my eyes, bracing for the agonizing, disfiguring burn.

Crash!

Instead of boiling water, I was violently yanked forward, slamming into a hard, protective chest.

A muffled, painful groan ripped through the air, followed by the shattering of the ceramic mug on the floor.

I opened my eyes in shock.

It wasn't Grant.

Spencer had lunged across the room, wrapping his arms tightly around me and spinning us around. He had used his own back and arm to take the full, devastating hit of the boiling water.

"Brooke... are you hurt?" Spencer gasped, his breathing heavy as he pulled back. He frantically checked my face and arms, completely ignoring his own soaked, steaming sleeve.

I stood there, trembling from head to toe. I shook my head numbly.

Before I could even thank Spencer, a sickeningly delicate sob echoed through the office.

"Grant! Oh my god, I was so scared! The mug just slipped!"

I looked past Spencer's shoulder and watched as Olivia ran behind the massive executive desk. Ignoring the shattered ceramic and the mess on the floor, she practically threw herself into Grant’s arms, climbing right onto his lap.

My breath hitched.

Grant didn't push her away. Instead, he wrapped his strong, protective arms around Olivia’s waist.

His dark eyes flicked over to me and Spencer for a fraction of a second—utterly devoid of empathy—before he focused entirely on the woman clinging to his neck.

"Are you hurt?" Grant asked Olivia, his voice a low, comforting rumble that sent a violent shudder down my spine. His large hand gently stroked her back to calm her fake trembling. "Did the splashing water burn you?"

I stared at the unbelievable scene unfolding right in front of my eyes.

The man who had bled half to death to save me just a few months ago was now holding the very woman who had tried to disfigure me, asking if she was okay.

In that singular, devastating moment, the last remaining spark of hope in my heart completely froze, then shattered into unrecognizable dust.

The Grant who loved me with his life was truly dead. The man sitting in that chair was a stranger who couldn't even offer me basic human decency.

I took a deep, shuddering breath. I blinked away the tears I had been holding back for days.

"I'm fine, Spencer," I said softly.

For the first time since this sick charade began, I didn't push Spencer away. Instead, I reached out and gently held his uninjured arm, my voice dead and devoid of all the desperate hope I had carried since waking up in the hospital.

"Your arm is burned," I told Spencer, turning my back entirely on the man sitting at the desk. "Let's go get you treated."

I didn't spare Grant another glance. I didn't yell. I didn't try to prove my innocence or expose Olivia's vicious trick.

I simply walked out of the office with Spencer, letting the heavy mahogany door click shut behind me, completely shutting Grant out of my world.

POV: Spencer

The sharp, sterile smell of antiseptic in the corporate medical lounge was suffocating, but I barely noticed it.

I sat on the edge of the examination table, my jaw tight as the company medic carefully peeled away the ruined, soaked fabric of my dress shirt. The skin on my right forearm was blistered and an angry, raw red.

Every time the medic dabbed the burn ointment onto my flesh, a searing pain shot up my arm.

But compared to the dark, violent thrill currently thrumming through my veins, the physical agony was absolutely nothing.

I looked down.

Brooke was sitting on the small stool right beside me. She was utterly silent, her face pale, her beautiful eyes fixed on my wound. But for the first time in five years, she wasn't looking at me with that impenetrable wall of ice and defense. For the first time since she woke up in that hospital, she had willingly grabbed my arm and walked by my side.

Grant, you absolute fool, I thought, a twisted, triumphant sneer curling in my mind as I looked at her soft profile.

He had spent five grueling years melting the ice around Brooke’s heart, building an impenetrable fortress of a marriage. And today, with a single cup of boiling water and his own arrogant, amnesic pride, he had taken a sledgehammer and smashed it all to pieces. He had practically gift-wrapped my woman and handed her right back to me.

The medic wrapped the white gauze around my arm, the silence in the room pulling my mind backward, plunging me into a memory I had spent the last seven years desperately trying to bury.

Seven years ago.

The exact timeline my idiotic brother’s brain was currently trapped in.

Back then, Brooke had been mine.

I could still vividly remember the blinding sunlight pouring into my penthouse, illuminating the custom-designed, five-carat diamond engagement ring I had slipped onto her finger. We had been weeks away from the wedding of the century.

And then, in a single, catastrophic night, I had destroyed my entire universe.

It was a massive corporate gala celebrating the firm's international acquisition. As the heir apparent to the Whitmore empire, I had been surrounded by vultures, investors, and ambitious climbers. I remembered accepting a flute of champagne from a new marketing intern—a girl named Chelsea.

Within twenty minutes of finishing that glass, a heavy, paralyzing wave of heat had crashed over my nervous system.

My vision had blurred. My pulse had roared deafeningly in my ears. A toxic, synthetic haze had completely hijacked my cognitive control. I had stumbled away from the ballroom, dragging myself to my private suite upstairs, desperately trying to clear my head.

I blacked out.

When I finally regained consciousness hours later, my skull was splitting with an agonizing migraine.

And lying right beside me in the king-sized bed, with her clothes deliberately scattered across the floor in a perfect visual trap, was Chelsea.

I was paralyzed by the sick, nauseating realization that I had been drugged and framed by an intern who wanted to blackmail her way to the top. I knew, with absolute certainty, that my body had been too incapacitated to even touch her. Nothing had happened. It was a flawless, vicious setup.

But before I could even drag myself out of the bed to throw the scheming woman out, the door to the suite clicked open.

The memory of that exact second still made my chest violently contract.

Brooke stood in the doorway.

She was wearing a stunning evening gown, holding a massive bouquet of red roses she had brought up to surprise me for closing the deal.

I would never, for as long as I lived, forget the look in her eyes. The shock. The devastating betrayal. The instantaneous, absolute shattering of her trust.

The roses slipped from her trembling fingers. The heavy bouquet hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud, the crimson petals scattering across the floorboards like drops of fresh blood.

"Brooke... wait..." I had scrambled out of the tangled sheets, my head still spinning violently from the drugs.

I reached out for her, desperate to explain. I wanted to scream that I was spiked, that it was a trap, that I hadn't touched the woman in the bed.

But I hesitated.

I was young, arrogant, and poisoned by the pride of being a Whitmore. Facing the woman I loved, I felt a suffocating sense of humiliation. I didn't want to admit in raw, ugly detail that I, the untouchable Spencer Whitmore, had fallen victim to a cheap, sordid trick by a twenty-two-year-old intern. I stammered. I tried to shield her from the ugliness of the corporate trap, thinking I could handle it quietly later.

That single moment of arrogant hesitation cost me my life.

"Don't touch me," Brooke had whispered.

There were no hysterical tears. There was only a cold, terrifying fury that completely eclipsed her sorrow. She reached down, ripped the custom diamond ring off her finger, and hurled it directly at my face with all her strength.

The heavy diamond clipped my cheekbone, cutting the skin and drawing a drop of blood before clattering into the dark corner of the room.

"We're done, Spencer. You disgust me."

She turned and walked away. And she never looked back.

I spent the next few months descending into a manic hell. I fired Chelsea, I destroyed her career, I recovered the security footage proving I had been drugged, and I stood in the pouring rain outside Brooke’s apartment, begging for her forgiveness.

But Brooke’s pride was absolute. Her heart had turned to stone.

And while I was drowning in the ashes of my own mistakes, Grant stepped out of the shadows.

My quiet, righteous younger brother. The man who had secretly harbored a burning, forbidden obsession for his future sister-in-law for years.

He didn't care about the scandal. He put on the armor of a devoted savior. He used his unwavering, sickeningly perfect patience and absolute devotion to slowly, meticulously heal Brooke's broken heart. He gave her a safe harbor when she was drowning, and eventually, he legally made her his wife.

For five agonizing years, I had to stand on the sidelines like a defeated dog. I had to clench my fists and watch the woman I loved walk down the aisle toward my own brother. I had to watch him kiss her at family dinners. The daily torture of being a mere bystander in her life was a thousand times worse than the burn currently searing my arm.

"Spencer."

A soft, hesitant voice pulled me sharply out of the nightmare of the past.

I blinked, the sterile white walls of the medical lounge coming back into focus. The medic had finished bandaging my arm and quietly slipped out of the room, leaving just the two of us.

Brooke was looking up at me, her eyes lingering on the thick white gauze wrapped around my forearm.

"Does it hurt?" she asked, her voice carrying a trace of genuine guilt.

I stared into her beautiful eyes, the dark, predatory ambition in my chest finally breaking free from its five-year cage.

I reached out with my uninjured hand, gently brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. She stiffened slightly, but she didn't pull away.

I smiled—a bitter, yet fiercely determined smile.

"As long as you're willing to stay by my side, Brooke," I murmured, my voice low and thick with emotion, "this pain is absolutely nothing."

Because the real pain hadn't even started yet.

Grant had personally smashed his own marriage. He had physically driven the love of his life straight into my waiting arms.

And I couldn't wait for the day his amnesia broke. I couldn't wait to see the look on his face when he remembered everything, only to realize he had personally handed his wife to the brother he hated.

That cremation of Grant's heart was going to be a spectacular show.