"Luca, Luca! My husband is back! Hide on the windowsill, quickly! Take your time though—this is the 18th floor, don't fall!"
"Ahhhh!"
New York, Hilton Hotel.
The setting sun streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of a room on the 18th floor. A handsome man suddenly shouted and opened his eyes.
"Where am I?"
The room looked like a lavishly decorated space: artistic paintings, crystal chandeliers, and an old-style TV. The metal plaque on the opposite wall read "Hilton Hotel."
"Has the Hilton opened a branch in the afterlife?"
He kicked his legs up, trying to spring up from the bed like an athlete.
But the moment he exerted force, a sharp pain shot through his waist. Damn, he couldn't help but groan, rolling off the bed onto the carpet.
Thud!
The intense pain jolted him fully awake.
"Pain? I'm not dead? I'm really not dead?"
The man lay on the soft carpet, his eyes filled with surprise and confusion.
His name was Luca. He was sleeping soundly earlier when suddenly, a frantic voice had screamed by his bed: "Luca, Luca! My husband's back, hide on the windowsill!"
Startled, Luca jumped up, instinctively climbing onto the windowsill. Once outside, the cool breeze hit him, and he snapped out of it. "Wait, I'm at home. Why am I hiding?"
Then it clicked: yesterday at a bar, his friends had played a prank.
They had recorded a very intense wake-up alarm—"My husband's back!"—to see who would fall for it the next day.
Unfortunately, he had fallen for it. Damn it.
Just as he was about to get back inside, he slipped and fell from the 18th floor. Splat!
"Did I not die? That can't be—I fell from the 18th floor."
Suddenly, he noticed a stranger in the mirror opposite him.
A handsome man with messy, dark brown hair hanging over his forehead, giving off a devil-may-care, rugged charm. His deep-set eyes and high nose bridge, coupled with piercing black pupils, radiated an intensity far beyond his age.
"Whoa! Who's this handsome guy?"
Luca scratched his head, and the guy in the mirror did the same. The warm, slightly greasy feeling of his fingers made him shudder, and suddenly, memories flooded his mind.
Luca Cassev Dominguez Kelly, born in Brazil in 1982, twenty years old.
He started playing soccer at six and joined the youth training team at fifteen, helping his club win the Brazilian Youth Cup.
At seventeen, he was selected for Brazil's U-20 national team and played in the 1999 FIFA World Youth Championship, scoring a critical goal in the finals and making waves in the soccer world.
Real Madrid had even offered him a contract for 5 million euros.
Unfortunately, on the eve of his move abroad, he was in a car accident that left him with a fractured spine.
The injury paralyzed his lower body, and it took him a full year of bed rest to recover.
During that time, his height shot up from 180 cm to 186 cm, but his once-prized speed became mediocre, and his coordination significantly declined.
The team doctors and coaches told him he could never play soccer again.
The former Luca was devastated.
He began drinking, getting into fights, and frequenting nightclubs. In less than six months, he squandered all his savings.
Unable to sustain himself in Brazil, his sister Kate brought him to the U.S., where he lived off her.
"A fallen genius?"
Luca looked at the man in the mirror and smirked.
Though he appeared a bit worn out, there was no denying the man was a stunner.
"From now on, I'll live for you. Don't worry, I'll make sure we live well, and I'll take good care of your—no, our—sister!"
*Ring, ring, ring!*
A loud ringtone interrupted his thoughts.
He steadied himself on the edge of the bed and found a Motorola flip phone. Under the blanket, he also noticed two women fast asleep.
Luca shook his head. The previous owner of this body hadn't fully recovered from his back injury and was still playing around like this. No wonder the phrase "No pain, no gain" applies here.
"Hello, Cathead!" he answered.
As soon as he flipped open the phone, a furious voice came through.
"Damn it, Luca! Where are you?"
"Sorry, ma'am, may I ask who you are?" he replied in fluent English, cutting her off mid-rant.
The woman on the other end was momentarily stunned but then shouted even louder, "Luca, Luca! You idiot, are you high again?"
Luca frowned, glanced at the contact name—Nina.
A middle-aged woman's image popped into his head: Nina Hester, his sister Kate's manager. A strict, old-fashioned, but responsible woman.
She had always disliked Luca, the freeloader, and constantly pressured Kate to hire a new assistant.
But Kate refused, insisting on keeping Luca by her side.
Nina had no choice but to tolerate him.
However, the former Luca had been a terrible assistant.
He often hid his drinking, womanizing, and partying habits from his sister and never did anything serious.
Today was the opening of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, and Kate was supposed to walk the runway. But at the venue, she realized she'd forgotten her hat.
Luca had used the excuse of going home to get the hat, but instead, he rented a hotel room with two women, drinking and popping pills. In the end, he got so high that he completely forgot about the hat.
"Damn it, Luca! I don't care how high you are! You have ten minutes—TEN MINUTES—to bring Kate's hat backstage, or I'll fire you, got it?"
Nina sounded like she was about to explode.
"Nina, I was just joking. Don't worry, I'll get the hat to you in ten minutes," he said, quickly hanging up.
Then, he spotted the hat on the bedside table.
It was a pink women's round hat with sparkly rhinestones, small and delicate—a custom piece, clearly.
"Why does this hat look so familiar?"
Suddenly, he remembered an entertainment headline: *Victoria's Secret Show Disasters: The Worst Outcomes in History*.
In 2002, during a Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, there had been an accident.
Brazilian supermodel Kate Kelly had performed poorly, and afterward, Victoria's Secret terminated her contract.
It was rumored that due to an assistant's mistake, Kate had been missing a hat during her walk.
In a supermodel's runway show, every piece—clothes, accessories, hats, shoes—is critical. Without one, the whole look is incomplete.
Kate, being a perfectionist, had been thrown off her game, and her runway walk had lost its usual confidence.
After the incident, fashion magazines criticized her lack of adaptability, claiming she wasn't up to supermodel standards.
Not long after, Victoria's Secret canceled her contract, cutting short a promising career.
The hat in those news photos looked identical to this one.
"Huh? I only saw that article once. Why do I remember it so clearly? Did my memory improve?"
Whatever. Right now, I'm Luca Dominguez Kelly, Kate's brother. I need to help her.
*Vroom, vroom, vroom!*
As the sun set, a red Ferrari roared down the coastal avenue, quickly merging into the bustling traffic, becoming a streak of light in the big city.
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**New book, please add to favorites and recommend, thank you!**
(End of Chapter)