Chapter 1

"Vera... what are you even saying?" Chiara went white and stared at me in disbelief.

She clutched the white dress over her chest with one hand and pressed the other against the floor. Her voice shook. "I just... I just feel like I owe you... Why are you doing this to me?"

She closed her eyes, swayed, and fell backward.

My mother, Isabella, screamed and dropped to her knees, pulling Chiara into her arms. "Chiara! Her pills! Where are her heart pills? Go get them!"

Chaos erupted in the living room.

A staff member knocked over a glass. The butler ran upstairs, and Isabella knelt on the wool rug, shaking with sobs.

I stayed right where I was.

I'd seen this before.

Two families. Two fake heiresses playing the victim for sympathy.

But next to the other two, this one was stupid enough to be funny.

"Vera." Lucien Macchetti pushed up his glasses, his voice cold. "I understand you're resentful after spending 15 years out there on your own.

"But Chiara's illness is real, and she truly wants to give you back your place in this family.

"Provoking someone who could die at any moment is cruel. The Macchetti family doesn't tolerate that."

What a civilized brother.

No shouting, no swearing. Just a perfectly polite voice calling me cruel.

Lorenzo Falcone, standing to one side, spoke up too.

He was the heir to the Falcone family and my fiancé.

He looked down at me as if I were garbage.

"If you don't apologize to her right now, the Falcone family will call off our engagement tomorrow, whether your family agrees or not."

He looked so pleased with himself that I nearly laughed.

The month before, a European arms dealer had proposed a marriage alliance with me. The Vasiliev family had turned him down.

That dealer controlled several supply lines outright. He had enough manpower and weapons to grind 50 Falcone families into the ground.

And the insignificant Falcone family thought it could threaten me with an engagement.

I didn't argue with him. I took a wet wipe out of my pocket and wiped the finger that had just touched Chiara.

"Lorenzo." I looked up at him. "If you want out of the engagement, put out a statement. You don't need to report it to me."

I tossed the wipe straight into a trash can ten feet away.

"One more thing, while I'm at it.

"When Chiara fell, she put out her right hand to catch herself."

I looked at her, lying in Isabella's arms.

"And when someone's really having a cardiac event, their fingers turn purple. Yours look perfectly healthy."