The Contract Said No Strings Attached (Charlotte) novel Chapter 1

Zion, Platinum Hotel.

“So hot… help me…”

Rebecca staggered down the hotel hallway, one hand pressed to the wall, sweat dripping down her brow and vanishing instantly in the suffocating heat. She’d just knocked out that disgusting pig who tried to assault her, but now her vision was swimming. Every breath burned; the world spun around her, and she was barely holding herself up.

Up ahead, she caught a glimpse of a door slightly ajar. Without thinking, she pushed it open and stumbled inside.

All she wanted was to find a bathroom and douse herself with cold water. But as she crossed the threshold, she froze—there was a man lying on the bed.

“A… a man?” Her voice was little more than a tremor.

Her legs buckled. It felt as if she were burning up from the inside, desperate for relief, for anything that could quench the fever raging through her veins.

She barely registered what she was doing as she climbed onto the bed, drawing herself toward the man.

His eyes snapped open, dark and bottomless.

“You’ve got a death wish or something?” His breath was hot against her cheek, his voice low and cold as steel.

In that moment, as their eyes met, something inside Rebecca shattered and surged all at once—a tidal wave crashing in her chest.

The dim light spilled across the stranger’s face, defining the sharp cut of his jaw and the hard lines of his body. His presence grew clearer, more imposing, even as the room spun around her.

Somewhere in the darkness, survival instincts overpowered fear and shame. After a moment’s hesitation, Rebecca leaned down and pressed her lips to his, silencing his protest.

Their mouths met in a desperate kiss. Desire flared between them, a wildfire of need and tangled limbs.

The man’s self-control snapped. He tried to push her away, but his legs wouldn’t move—paralyzed, powerless.

Before Rebecca could utter a word, Hogan’s expression darkened as he caught sight of the marks on her neck and arms—evidence she couldn’t hide.

His anger erupted. “Rebecca, have you no shame? Running around dressed like that—you’ve disgraced the Foster family!”

“Everyone in Zion knows you’re engaged to the Browns, and yet you sneak off to a hotel with some stranger? Have you lost all sense of decency?”

Rebecca shrank back, fingers curling in the cold morning air as her father’s accusations crashed over her.

Not long ago, it had come out that Rebecca wasn’t related to the Fosters by blood. She was the imposter, the switched-at-birth mistake. The family had thrown themselves into finding their real daughter.

The moment Katherine was found and welcomed back as the true Foster heiress, Rebecca’s world collapsed. No one wanted to hear her side of the story or care about how she felt. She was invisible now—an outsider.

And in this moment, there was nothing she could say to defend herself.