What We Pretend To Be

Dona Berisha has spent her entire life perfecting the art of being good.
The good daughter. The good student. The girl with carefully chosen friends, and a future everyone envies.
Her life is polished, predictable, and perfectly under control.
At least, that is what she lets people believe.
Ethan Astor knows a thing or two about pretending.
To the rest of the world, he is Vivian Astor's older brother. The dependable one. Charming, intelligent, and untouchable. The kind of man parents trust and strangers admire.
But when the sun goes down, Ethan becomes someone else entirely.
He trades expensive shirts for bloodstained wraps and perfect smiles for bruised knuckles. He spends his nights in underground boxing rings where nobody knows his last name and disappears onto empty roads with nothing but his motorcycle and a need for speed strong enough to drown out everything in his head.

Two people living double lives.
And two people who were never supposed to collide.

When Ethan catches Dona humiliating his younger sister, he immediately decides exactly what kind of person she is.
Spoiled. Cold. Cruel. Everything he hates.
Dona decides he is not much better.
Arrogant. Self-righteous. Infuriatingly convinced he knows her after one conversation.
Their first encounter ends with a promise neither of them says out loud. Stay away.

They almost succeed.

Until Dona finds Ethan one night in a place she was never supposed to be.
He is bloodied, bruised, barely standing, and surrounded by people who would do anything to make sure his world remains a secret.
For the first time, Dona sees who Ethan Astor really is.
And Ethan realizes she now knows something that could destroy everything he has spent years hiding.
Except Dona has secrets of her own.

Their arrangement is simple.
She keeps his secret. He keeps hers.
No questions. No involvement. No getting attached.

But secrets have a way of turning strangers into accomplices.
And accomplices into something far more dangerous.