Chapter 1

I had ten million followers and a legal podcast that drew more than a million live listeners every week. The last call-in segment before my vacation was supposed to be routine — an intern, a nervous voice, a question I'd answered a hundred times.

"Ms. Harrington, I wanted to ask — what's the legal threshold for bigamy?"

I smiled into the mic. "Go ahead."

"I'm in love with my boss. He's already married, but it's a private marriage — no one at the company knows. Everyone assumes I'm the wife." Her voice trembled in all the right places. "He's so good to me. When people at work gave me a hard time, he fired a senior executive — someone who'd been with him since the beginning — just to protect me. He even threw me a wedding, to make my dream come true. I love him. But I'm scared. Could what we're doing be a crime?"

I frowned, choosing my words carefully. "The bar for bigamy is high. You'd need to present yourselves as husband and wife in public and live together long-term. What you're describing is morally wrong, but it isn't criminal."

I paused, letting my voice soften. "Still — stepping into someone else's marriage is a mistake. You're young. Walk away before you do real damage to yourself."

The girl laughed. Quiet, edged with something wrong.

"Really? Well, that's a relief. Thanks so much — Mrs. Sterling."

The last two words were so soft the chat didn't catch them.

But I did.

A bolt of cold went straight down my spine. My pen clattered onto the desk.

Julian and I had a private marriage. No one outside a handful of lawyers knew.

And two weeks earlier, Julian had fired the senior engineer who'd been with Sterling Dynamics since day one. When I'd asked him about it, he'd only said, flatly: "People move on. He wasn't keeping up. Don't contact him again." At the time I'd assumed the man had crossed some line. I hadn't pushed.

Now dread was wrapping around my ribs like a vine.

I ended the stream early, drove straight to Sterling Dynamics, rode the elevator up to the executive floor. His phone went to voicemail four times in a row.

I pushed open his office door without knocking.

Julian was at his desk, perfectly composed, jaw sharp, eyes cold. When he saw me, his mouth tightened.

"What is this — checking up on me?"

I loved this man. I had loved him for seven years. I opened my mouth to say something calm, something rational.

Then I caught the reflection in the glass panel on the side wall.

Between Julian's knees, the profile of a woman.

I don't remember crossing the room. I remember hauling her out from under the desk and finally getting a look at her face.

Vivienne Ashford. Julian's new personal assistant.

That was where I'd heard the voice before. The intern on my show had been her.

Vivienne was shrieking. Julian grabbed my wrist and snarled, "Let go of her."

I wouldn't. My fingers were locked in her hair. His eyes went flat and arctic. He pried my hand open one finger at a time. My knuckles cracked. Something in my index finger gave way.

He shoved me off and gathered her against his chest like I was the intruder.

"Why?" My voice barely worked.

Julian kissed the top of Vivienne's head. Then he looked at me, and his voice was bored.

"Fine. You want the truth? I'm bored of you. Bed got stale. You're loose. She's younger, tighter, more alive. I'm in love with her."

The words went through my chest like a blade.

Tears blurred everything. I bit down on my lip until I tasted copper, raised my hand, and slapped him across the face with everything I had.

Julian touched his cheek. His voice dropped into something quieter and more dangerous.

"Feel better? Good. Then get out before you embarrass yourself further."

Vivienne stepped in front of him, pointing at me with a trembling finger. "Ms. Harrington, please don't be violent. Really, I wanted to thank you — the legal information you gave me was such a relief."

Julian laughed under his breath and pulled her closer.

Security escorted me out of the building.

The storm broke the second I hit the street. I was soaked through in thirty seconds. I don't remember driving home. I don't remember much of anything until I woke up in a hospital bed.

Julian walked in with a face like a thundercloud.

"Clara. You're a grown woman. Faking sick again?"

"I'm not—"

"I'm tired of this act. It's nauseating."

He wasn't wrong that I used to do it. A scratchy throat would turn into a dramatic cough so he'd cradle me in his arms. A low-grade fever would have me whimpering into his shirt so he'd stay up all night watching me sleep. Back then he'd sit on the edge of the bed and feed me broth at 3 a.m. and look at me like I was something precious.

"I didn't—" I started.

He was already checking his phone. Vivienne was calling. He walked out without another word. Three minutes. That's how long I rated.

After he left I searched his name online.

Vancouver. A three-hundred-million-dollar wedding. Helicopters scattering rose petals over a vineyard estate, a full orchestra, every executive at Sterling Dynamics flown in for the weekend. Vivienne in a Harry Winston diamond-sewn gown worth a couple million, walking through a sea of white flowers toward Julian.

Julian and I hadn't had a wedding.

When we got married, we were broke. The kind of broke where you split a grocery-store bagel for dinner and slide half to a mouse that lives behind the radiator. We were living in a basement apartment in Bushwick with a hole in the ceiling that dripped whenever it rained.

He proposed in that apartment. He got down on one knee on the water-stained carpet, holding a ring he'd bought at a drugstore for two dollars, his eyes wet and burning.

"Clara. I know I'm broke. But I swear to you, I'm going to give you the life you deserve. Marry me."

I couldn't even get a yes out. I just nodded until my face hurt.

I wore that two-dollar ring for seven years. Still had it on, right now, in the hospital bed. I'd worn it through every livestream even though my subscribers roasted me for it. Cheap. Tacky. An embarrassment.

Turns out the cheap thing in this story wasn't the ring. It was seven years of my love.