Chapter 1

AURORA

"Your husband is fucking my sister."

The wine I'd just lifted to my mouth went straight down the wrong pipe. I coughed hard, pressing a napkin to my lips, eyes watering as I stared across the booth at the man who had said it.

Kieran Vale didn't blink.

I had to have misheard him. The restaurant was loud. The jazz band in the corner was loud. My own pulse was suddenly very loud. One of those things had scrambled his words in my head.

Because what he just said was impossible.

Rhett would never do that to me.

"Mr. Vale." I lowered the napkin with careful fingers, the way you handle glass when you've already dropped one that day. "If this is some kind of twisted joke, I'm not laughing."

"Do I look amused to you?"

He didn't. Kieran Vale had the kind of face that looked carved out of winter. Still, that didn't mean he had his facts straight.

"My husband adores me," I said. The words came out firmer than I felt. "He wouldn't do what you're accusing him of."

"I thought the same about Noelle." His jaw tightened for a split second. "Eight weeks ago."

Noelle.

Hearing her name in his mouth made something cold crawl up my spine. Noelle Vale. My baby sister. The woman I'd raised after our mother died. The woman who stood in my kitchen last Sunday, licking frosting off a spoon, telling me how jealous she was of what I had.

She was the only family I had left.

"You're wrong," I whispered, but the sound barely made it out.

Kieran studied me with eyes that had seen too much. I wanted to slap them off his face.

"Eight months, Aurora."

The number landed in my stomach like a stone dropping into deep water. "Stop."

"Eight months and you never felt anything was off?"

"I said stop." My chair scraped the floor as I pushed back. "I'm going home."

"Sit."

"I don't take orders from strangers."

"Sit. Down."

Something in the way he said it, flat and quiet and finished, pinned me where I stood. I sank back into the seat before I could tell my knees not to.

He folded his forearms onto the table, leaning in. "Think, Aurora. Eight months ago. Something shifted between you and Rhett. Didn't it?"

I opened my mouth to argue.

Nothing came.

Eight months.

The memories came rushing in whether I wanted them or not. Noelle moving to our part of the city "for work." Noelle at our house every weekend. Noelle laughing a little too loudly at Rhett's jokes. I'd been so relieved she was close again. I thought we were finally healing from the years she spent across the country.

And Rhett. Still bringing me coffee in bed. Still leaving sticky notes on the bathroom mirror. Still telling me I was the best thing that ever happened to him.

But his hands on me.

Four months since he'd last reached for me in the dark. Four months of "I've got that early meeting, babe" and "my back is killing me" and "let's just hold each other tonight." I'd read articles. I'd blamed stress. I'd blamed myself.

Stop. I pressed my nails into my palm under the table. He's trying to break you. Don't let him.

"Even if things cooled off in my bedroom," I said, keeping my chin level, "that doesn't mean anything you're saying is true."

Kieran reached into his jacket and placed a slim leather folder on the white tablecloth.

He opened it.

Three photographs. Full color. Sharp enough that there was no room to pretend.

My husband's hand on my sister's throat. My sister's mouth on my husband's. A hotel room I didn't recognize but Rhett clearly did, because his wallet was on the nightstand.

I knew that wallet. I'd bought him that wallet for our second anniversary.

The jazz band kept playing. Somewhere nearby a woman laughed. The world went on being itself while mine quietly caught fire.

"These were taken yesterday afternoon," Kieran said, voice level.

"No." I shoved the folder back across the table. "No. Rhett was in meetings all day yesterday. He texted me pictures of his lunch. He called me on his way back to the office."

Kieran didn't move. He just watched me.

"He called me," I repeated, and I hated how high my voice went. "From the parking garage. I heard the elevator."

"I'm sure you did." He slid the folder back into his jacket. "He's good at this. Very good."

Good. Like Rhett was a tradesman practicing a craft.

"I'll give you the chance to see with your own eyes," Kieran said. "If I'm making this up, you'll know by sundown tomorrow. And if I'm not..." His gaze held mine. "At least you'll stop lying to yourself."

I don't remember agreeing. I don't remember saying anything at all.

But somewhere between his words and the valet handing me my keys, I nodded.

---

I don't know how I made it home without hitting something.

My hands kept shaking on the wheel. I ran a red light. A cab driver screamed at me and I didn't even flinch. The whole way back I kept whispering it like a prayer.

Rhett loves me. Rhett loves me. Rhett loves me.

He was home when I walked in. Of course he was. Standing at the stove in his sweatpants, stirring something that smelled like garlic and butter, the radio playing some old song he knew every word to.

He turned and his whole face lit up.

"There she is."

He pulled me into his arms right there in the kitchen. Kissed me like a man who had been waiting all day. Held my face in both hands and looked at me like I was still the only woman in the world.

See? my brain begged. Look at him. Look at him.

I kissed him back and searched for something. Guilt. A hitch in his breathing. The ghost of another woman on his skin.

I found nothing.

Nothing except the man I married.

"How was the meeting?" he asked, pulling back to study me. "You look tired, babe."

"Long," I managed. "You know how clients are."

"Mm." He kissed my forehead. "Sit. Eat. I made that pasta you like."

I ate. I smiled. I laughed at the right places. I told him about my day and watched his eyes crinkle with interest and I thought: A man who can fake this well is not a man who loves you.

Then I thought: A man who loves you doesn't need to fake anything.

I couldn't decide which one was tearing me apart more.

That night in bed, I rolled toward him. Rested my hand on his chest. Let my fingers drift lower.

He caught my wrist with a gentle, apologetic squeeze.

"Aurora, baby." His voice was soft. Tender. The sound of a man who had never done anything wrong in his life. "I've been dead on my feet all week. Rain check? When the Hamilton deal closes, I'm taking you away. Just us. I promise."

"Okay," I whispered into the dark.

"I love you, you know that?"

"I know." I turned my face into the pillow so he couldn't see my mouth tremble. "I love you too."

He kissed the back of my neck and rolled over.

I lay there with my eyes wide open and listened to his breathing even out and I kept wondering how a man could lie so sweetly and so completely to the woman wearing his ring.

Or maybe he wasn't lying.

Maybe Kieran was.

I clutched that possibility against my chest like it was oxygen and I waited for sunrise.

---

In the morning Rhett kissed my cheek while I pretended to still be asleep.

"Big day at the office, babe. Don't wait up. I love you."

I kept my eyes shut until the front door clicked closed.

I didn't move until the clock on the wall read eleven.