Chapter 1

JULIETTE

On the day my husband's brother was buried, I asked him for a divorce.

Sebastian stared at me like I had spoken a different language. "Because I took a slap meant for Delphine?"

Delphine. He said her name so gently, like it belonged to something breakable.

I smiled, and I felt how cold it was on my own face. "Yes. That's exactly why."

A single slap should not have been enough to end a marriage. But the mark on Sebastian's cheek that night had said everything the rest of the family refused to see. He had stepped in front of his own sister in law without a single moment of hesitation, and every person in that room had gone quiet watching him do it. Every person except me. I had simply stood there, holding my glass of wine, wondering how many other rooms he had done that in without me ever noticing.

Three nights earlier, on our wedding anniversary, I flew out to surprise him.

I had planned the whole trip in secret. New dress, late flight, a reservation at the restaurant where he proposed. Instead of finding him at the hotel, I found him at the rooftop bar downstairs with two of his friends, and I stopped just past the doorway when I heard my own name.

"Sebastian, man, running off on your anniversary again? That's cold. Juliette doesn't deserve that."

"You think I want this?" Sebastian sounded tired in a way I had never heard from him at home. "If I don't stay away from her tonight, she's going to start asking questions I can't answer."

"Her who?" The second friend's voice dropped low. "You mean Delphine? Sebastian, she's pregnant with Griffin's second kid. Are you seriously still hung up on your own brother's wife?"

Sebastian didn't answer that directly. "What about Juliette. You two keep acting like I'm the villain here. Aren't you worried Adrian Kingsley is going to come find out how I treat her?"

"He won't." The first friend laughed under his breath. "She married you. That ended whatever she had with him. He blocked her number three years ago and never looked back."

"She's not stupid," the second friend said. "Sooner or later she's going to notice you flinch every time Delphine walks into a room."

"She hasn't noticed anything in three years," Sebastian said. "Why would tonight be different?"

I did not go inside. I turned around and walked back through the hotel lobby on steady legs, and it was only in the elevator that I noticed my own hands were shaking.

I had suspected someone for a long time. I had never once guessed it was Delphine, the woman I had greeted with a hug at every family dinner for three years.

By the time I stepped outside, it had started raining, and I let it soak straight through my new dress without bothering to run for cover.

I flew home to Rosemont that same night. Two days later I was burning with fever. On the third day, before I had even fully recovered, Griffin Hartwell died in a skydiving accident that Delphine had begged him to try with her.

The funeral was held a week after that.

I barely slept those seven days. When it finally ended and I walked out through the cemetery gates, my body kept moving while the rest of me stayed somewhere back by the grave.

Our driver was waiting at the car.

"Home," I told him, and closed my eyes.

"The Hartwell house, or your place?" Milo asked carefully.

"Mine."

The funeral was over, but I already knew the real trouble at the Hartwell family was only just getting started. Griffin had been the oldest son, the one everyone expected to run Hartwell Industries one day, and he was gone because Delphine had insisted on an extreme sport neither of them had trained for properly. His parents had not forgiven her yet, and from what I had overheard at the wake, they were not planning to start anytime soon. I had no interest in watching my husband defend her through that storm. I had my own life to hold together.

The car door on the other side opened before Milo could pull away.

Sebastian slid in first, dressed in a black suit that fit him too well for a day like this. Something uncertain crossed his face when he looked at me.

"Heading home?" he asked.

"Mm."

That was when I saw Delphine behind him, a small boy balanced on her hip.

Oliver was four years old, round faced, too young to understand why everyone around him kept crying. He climbed straight into the car like it was already his. "Aunt Juliette, can we get a ride?"

I looked at Sebastian.

He pressed his mouth into a thin line. "My parents are still furious with her. Can Delphine and Oliver stay with us for a while, just until things calm down?"

When I did not answer right away, he added, "You always said you wanted kids someday. Consider this practice."

I almost laughed out loud in the middle of a funeral procession. Instead I looked out the window and said nothing at all.

So he would drop his brother's widow and her son at our house, then go home to face his own family's anger by himself. How generous of him.

"Say something," Sebastian said, watching my face.

"What would you like me to say?"

"That you're not upset. That this is fine."

"It's fine," I said, and it came out so smoothly that even I almost believed it.

Rosa had the guest room ready by the time we arrived, which meant Sebastian had already called ahead before asking me anything.

I showered, changed, and slept until nine that night without dreaming. When I woke, my phone was already ringing. It was Harper.

"I drafted the agreement exactly how you asked," she said. "Want me to have it delivered?"

"No need," I said, my voice still thick with sleep. "Just bring it yourself tomorrow."

"You're moving fast on this. Sebastian isn't perfect, but are you sure this is really what you want?"

I sat up and switched on the lamp beside the bed. My head felt clear for the first time in days.

"I'm sure, Harper. I watched him defend her in front of the entire family without blinking, and that was the easy part to forgive."

"Then what wasn't?"

I looked toward the window, out at Delphine's silhouette moving behind the guest room curtains upstairs, Oliver's small shape running circles around her.

"Three nights ago I found out he's been in love with his own brother's wife since before Griffin ever married her," I said. "And standing at that cemetery today, I saw someone I haven't spoken to in three years, watching me from the trees like he'd been waiting the whole time to see if I'd finally leave."

"Wait." Harper's voice went sharp. "Watching you from where? Who?"

"I'll explain tomorrow," I said. "Bring the agreement. Bring coffee too. I have a feeling I'm going to need both."

"Fine. But you owe me the whole story the second I walk through that door."

"Deal."

I hung up, set the phone face down on the nightstand, and sat there in the dark a while longer, listening to Oliver's small feet running back and forth across the guest room floor above me.

I had not imagined him. I was certain of that much. Whoever Adrian Kingsley had become in three years, he had stood at the edge of that cemetery long enough for me to feel it, and he had left before I could decide whether I wanted to walk toward him or away.