Chapter 2

The anonymous text lodged itself in my mind like a splinter.

From that day on, I watched him. Carefully.

And his kindness didn't stop.

In the mornings, there was always a warm breakfast waiting — light flavors, the way I preferred. In the evenings when I worked late, he'd be in the sitting room when I finally came out, and there was always a glass of warm milk on the table. He'd even noticed I hated cilantro, and every time we ate together, he quietly plucked it out of my food before I had to ask.

But there were cracks in the picture.

Late-night calls that made his voice go cold in an instant. He'd see me come near and end the conversation quickly, muttering something about work, telling me not to worry about it. When I tried to draw him out, he'd deflect with an easy smile and change the subject.

"Sophie, stop letting yourself be naive." Vivian was back from her trip, and she wasn't softening this. "Elite family alliances don't come with real feelings attached. All this warmth from him — it's probably calculated. He gets what he wants after the wedding, and then you'll see who he really is."

I didn't want to believe it.

But the text. And those calls. And the way his eyes went flat sometimes, when he didn't think I was looking.

One afternoon, I told him I was dropping something off at Vivian's, then doubled back to the estate.

The door to his private study was ajar. His voice came through it — lower than usual, stripped of everything warm.

"Don't worry. I'll follow the plan. After the wedding, the Harrington clean energy portfolio will be mine."

My whole body went cold.

The blood seemed to stop moving.

Vivian had been right. Every careful gesture, every well-timed kindness — it had all been a performance. And the goal was always the same: what my parents had built.

I walked out of the estate without making a sound.

The wind was sharp against my face. Tears came before I could stop them.

I opened the anonymous text again, staring at the number. And then I saw it — the area code, the format. It matched Marcus Ellsworth's number. Almost exactly.

Was it Marcus who'd sent this? Or had Ethan told him to?

After what I'd heard through the study door, I pulled back.

I stopped touching the breakfasts he left out. When he waited up for me in the evenings, I'd text ahead to say a friend was picking me up. When he tried to talk, I gave one-word answers and found reasons to be elsewhere.

I was afraid of how easily his warmth could reach me, even now that I suspected it was false.

He didn't seem to notice the distance, or if he did, it didn't change his behavior. He was still there. Still consistent.

When I caught a cold and ran a fever, he sat beside my bed through the night, pressing a cool cloth to my forehead, his voice soft with something that sounded like guilt. "I should've taken better care of you. This is on me."

It was so convincing. I kept second-guessing myself.

I decided to test him.

At dinner, I kept my tone casual. "Ethan — my father's renewable energy portfolio has been getting a lot of attention lately. Several firms have been reaching out about partnerships. Might be worth your time to look at it. I left the files in the study. The desk drawer."

His reaction was barely there — a flicker in his eyes, quickly gone. Then he reached over and touched my hair lightly, voice warm.

"You don't need to worry about any of that, Sophie. I'm not going to let anyone touch the Harrington assets. That's my job."

He made no move toward the study. Not that evening, not later.

If he'd been planning to take the portfolio, why wouldn't he jump at a direct invitation?

Before I could untangle it, the anonymous texts started again. This time, there was a photo attached.

Ethan, standing with a woman I didn't recognize. She had her hand wrapped around his arm, smiling up at him. He was looking at her — and the expression on his face was the same one he wore when he looked at me. Or perhaps something even softer.

My fingers went cold around the phone.

"Who is this?" My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "What exactly have you been lying to me about?"

The moment he saw the photo, his face shut down completely.

He took the phone from my hand in one motion. "Who gave you this? Don't believe any of it."

His reaction was too sharp. Too fast.

I couldn't sleep. In the middle of the night, I picked up his phone from the nightstand. I tried what I assumed would be his passwords — his own birthday, the founding year of Blackwood Group. Wrong, wrong.

On impulse, I entered my own birthday.

The screen unlocked.

I scrolled through the photos. There was nothing. No trace of the woman. No suspicious messages. Nothing that looked like evidence of anything at all.

I put the phone down and stared at the ceiling.

Who was telling the truth?