Burning Love Chapter 1

To save the girl he had been mentoring, the man I loved handed me over to my worst enemy.

"If you just spend one night with Sebastian, Ruby will be saved."

Everyone in New York knew Sebastian hated my guts. During the years I was studying abroad, he turned the entire city upside down just to find me.

Yet Hugo still pushed me directly into his territory.

"Is your dignity really more important than her life?"

Inside the dark, sprawling mansion.

Sebastian lit a cigarette, the ember glowing faintly in the pitch black room.

"You finally came back to me."

But.

Who was the hunter, and who was the prey.

Who could really tell.

* * *

Hugo was the boy I grew up with.

After my mother passed away, Hugo was the one who paid for my tuition abroad. He pulled me out of my darkest depression and walked beside me every step of the way until we reached where we are today.

We founded a company together. We fought for our careers together.

He was the only light in my life, and falling in love with him felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Even though we never had an official proposal or a public announcement, everyone in our circle knew we were together.

He promised me that the second our company went public, he would put a ring on my finger. He would tell the whole world that I was the love of his life.

He used to hold my hands and make promises to me.

"Shelly, we are the closest people in the world to each other."

"We can never abandon each other."

But in the end, he was the first one to let go.

It was almost laughable.

When I found out Ruby had made a catastrophic mistake at work, my first instinct was to find Hugo. I wanted to discuss how we could minimize the fallout for the company and figure out a way to give Ruby a second chance.

Instead, I stood frozen outside his office door, listening to him use his softest, most gentle tone to comfort her.

"This is not your fault."

"You just graduated. Shelly should never have dumped so much responsibility on you. At the end of the day, this is her management error."

"Don't be scared. No matter how angry she gets, I will protect you."

A massive wave of agony hit me like a sledgehammer. In that split second, my entire reality shattered.

I shoved the door open and stared at the two of them standing intimately close together.

"Hugo, what the hell is this?"