Chapter 1

The first thing I noticed when I woke was that I couldn't move my legs.

The second was my husband standing at the foot of my bed.

“Ryan?”

My voice barely came out.

Something was wrong.

My tongue felt too large for my mouth. My chest burned with every breath, and when I tried to lift my hand, my fingers only twitched against the sheets.

Ryan watched me struggle.

He didn't come closer.

“What's happening?”

He glanced at his watch.

That was when I became afraid.

“Ryan.”

The bedroom door opened.

A woman walked in.

Serena.

For eight years, I'd told myself I had learned to live with the sight of her.

I hadn't.

She was wearing cream silk and carrying a glass of champagne.

Champagne.

At three in the morning.

In my house.

“She's awake?” Serena asked.

“For now.”

I stared at Ryan.

For now?

“What did you do?”

Serena smiled.

Ryan didn't.

That frightened me more.

I tried to sit up again. Pain tore through my chest.

“Call an ambulance.”

Neither moved.

“Ryan, please.”

My husband looked at me with the same expression he used when terminating an employee.

Detached.

Almost bored.

Something cold slid through me.

“What did you give me?”

Serena took a sip of champagne.

“You really are slow.”

“Serena.”

Ryan's warning was quiet.

“What?” She shrugged. “She's dying anyway.”

My heart slammed against my ribs.

No.

I looked at Ryan.

Eight years.

Eight years of marriage.

Eight years of swallowing every humiliation because that was what a good wife did.

I had accepted Serena when Ryan brought her to our wedding pregnant with what he'd claimed was his child.

I had endured the whispers.

The photographs.

The nights he didn't come home.

I had smiled through family dinners while Serena sat across from me wearing jewelry my husband had bought her.

When my grandfather died, Ryan held me while I cried.

When my father became ill, Ryan took over more responsibilities at Bennett Group so I could care for him.

When my brother Daniel died—

My breath caught.

Ryan had arranged the funeral.

He had held my hand beside the grave.

“Why?”

For the first time, something appeared in his eyes.

Impatience.

“You refused to sign.”

The documents.

He had put them in front of me yesterday.

Another restructuring, he'd said.

After years of transferring voting rights and shares into trusts Ryan claimed would protect the company, I had finally refused.

“I told you I wanted my lawyer to review them.”

“And I told you that wasn't necessary.”

A laugh escaped me.

It sounded broken.

“So you're killing me?”

Ryan's jaw tightened.

“You weren't supposed to wake up.”

I stared at the man I'd loved for more than a decade.

“You'll go to prison.”

Serena laughed.

Actually laughed.

“For what?”

She walked toward the bed.

“For murdering me.”

“Natalie.” Her smile widened. “Nobody murdered you.”

She picked up the prescription bottle from my bedside table.

“You've been struggling since Daniel's death. Everyone knows that.”

My blood went cold.

“No.”

“The depression. The sleeping pills. Your grief.” She sighed theatrically. “Poor Natalie. She simply couldn't take it anymore.”

I looked at Ryan.

He said nothing.

“You planned this.”

“Not like this,” he said. “You made things difficult.”

Something inside me finally shattered.

Not my heart.

That had broken so many times there couldn't have been much left.

Something else.

The part of me that had spent eight years making excuses for him.

“Was any of it real?”

Ryan looked away.

That was answer enough.

Serena sat on the edge of my bed.

“Would you like to know something funny?”

“Enough,” Ryan said.

“No. She deserves to know.”

Serena leaned closer.

“I wasn't pregnant with Ryan's baby at your wedding.”

I stared at her.

“What?”

“I was pregnant.” Her smile was almost gleeful. “Just not by him.”

My mind couldn't make sense of the words.

Ryan had humiliated me in front of three hundred people because he couldn't abandon his unborn child.

I had married him anyway because he'd promised me his responsibility to Serena didn't change what existed between us.

“You lied.”

“For eight years,” Serena said. “And you made it so easy.”

My eyes burned.

“Get out.”

“Oh, Natalie. You still don't understand.”

She bent toward me.

“Ryan needed to marry you.”

Needed.

Not wanted.

Needed.

“Your grandfather would never have given the Colemans the access they wanted otherwise. But his sweet granddaughter marrying into the family?” She smiled. “That opened all sorts of doors.”

I looked at Ryan.

Bennett Group.

My shares.

My grandfather's trust.

All those documents.

Oh God.

“What have you done?”

“What you should have let me finish yesterday,” Ryan said.

“My family—”

“Your family?” Serena interrupted.

Something in her expression changed.

“You should worry less about the company and more about what happened to them.”

My pulse stumbled.

“What does that mean?”

Ryan's head snapped toward her.

“Serena.”

She ignored him.

“Your father's illness. Daniel's accident. Even your grandfather—”

“Shut up.”

The command cracked through the room.

Everything inside me stopped.

I looked from Serena to my husband.

“No.”

Neither spoke.

“No. Daniel's car went off the road.”

Serena smiled.

“Did it?”

I couldn't breathe.

Ryan moved toward her. “That's enough.”

“You killed my brother?”

My voice broke.

Ryan didn't answer.

“You killed Daniel?”

“He should have stayed out of things,” Serena said.

A sound came from somewhere inside me.

I tried to get out of bed.

My body wouldn't obey.

I wanted to claw her face.

I wanted to scream.

I wanted my brother.

Daniel had been twenty-seven.

He had called me three times the night he died.

I hadn't answered because Ryan and I had been fighting.

The room blurred.

“I'll kill you.”

Serena laughed.

“With what?”

She leaned down until her lips were beside my ear.

“You know the funniest part?”

I could barely hear her over the pounding in my head.

“You could have stopped all of this at the wedding.”

Darkness crept into the edges of my vision.

The wedding.

Ryan arriving with Serena.

My mother begging me not to cause a scandal.

Ryan promising everything would work out if I trusted him.

And me—

Stupid, obedient me—

saying yes.

If I could go back...

Just once.

I wouldn't marry him.

I wouldn't forgive anyone.

I wouldn't give them a single thing.

My eyes closed.

“Natalie?”

Someone was calling me.

A woman's voice.

“Natalie, sweetheart, open your eyes.”

I forced them open.

Bright sunlight blinded me.

I gasped.

My mother stood over me.

Young.

Healthy.

Alive.

Behind her, a white wedding dress hung from the wardrobe.

My wedding dress.

“Thank goodness.” She smiled. “You fell asleep.”

I couldn't speak.

She checked her watch.

“Come on. We need to finish getting you ready.”

My heart stopped.

“Ready for what?”

She frowned.

“For your wedding.”