Chapter 1 1

Deliah Hines sat alone at the long marble dining table in their Manhattan penthouse. The silence in the room was heavy, pressing against her eardrums like deep water. She stared at the plate in front of her. The truffle risotto, Jere's absolute favorite, had gone cold hours ago. The creamy texture had congealed into a stiff, unappetizing lump, much like the feeling currently settling in the pit of her stomach.

She checked the time on her phone for the fiftieth time. 11:45 PM.

The candles she had lit three hours ago were now just pools of wax, the wicks drowning in their own melt. It was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that usually preceded a storm, or a funeral.

Deliah unlocked her phone again, the blue light harsh against her tired eyes. She opened Instagram, her thumb moving automatically, scrolling mindlessly to distract herself from the emptiness of the apartment. She didn't even know what she was looking for until she found it.

An anonymous account she had suspected before-one with no profile picture and a generic handle-had posted a new Story just four minutes ago.

Deliah's breath hitched. She tapped the circle.

The image filled her screen. It was low-light, intimate, taken at a table in a high-end restaurant. There was a single slice of cake with a candle, the flame blurring slightly in the capture. But it wasn't the cake that made Deliah's heart stop. It was the hand resting on the white tablecloth in the corner of the frame.

The caption was simple text overlaid in white: Finally back where we belong. Happy Birthday to me.

Deliah zoomed in on the hand. The skin was tanned, the fingers long and strong. On the wrist sat a Patek Philippe watch with a distinctive navy dial. She knew that watch. She had spent six months tracking it down for Jere as a wedding gift. And just below the thumb, there was a faint, jagged white scar-the result of a sailing accident when he was twenty.

It was undeniably Jere Bolton.

The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow. Today wasn't just a late night at the office. Today wasn't a board meeting that ran over. Today was Irina Collins' birthday.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, startling her. A text message from Jere appeared at the top of the screen.

Still wrapped up in negotiations. Don't wait up.

Deliah stared at the lie. It was so casual, so easy for him. She felt a cold numbness spread from her chest outward, freezing her limbs. She didn't cry. She didn't scream. She just felt... hollowed out.

She stood up abruptly. The legs of her chair scraped loudly against the expensive hardwood floor, a harsh, ugly sound that echoed in the vast room. She grabbed the plates to clear the table, her movements jerky and agitated. She needed to do something with her hands. She needed to clean the mess, hide the evidence of her pathetic waiting.

She stacked the plates too quickly. A crystal wine glass tipped over, rolling off the edge of the granite countertop and shattering on the floor.

Deliah instinctively reached down to pick up the shards. She wasn't thinking. She just wanted the mess gone.

A sharp, triangular piece of crystal sliced deep into her palm.

Blood welled up immediately, dark and thick, dripping onto the pristine white counter and the floor. Drip. Drip. Drip.

She stared at the red drops, mesmerizing in their brightness. She waited for the sting, the throb, the burn. But there was nothing. She realized with a detached horror that she felt absolutely no physical pain. The emotional agony of the betrayal had completely overridden her sensory nerves. Her body was in shock.

She walked to the sink and turned on the faucet. She ran cold water over the wound, watching the blood swirl into pink ribbons and disappear down the drain. It was fascinating, in a morbid way, how easily things could be washed away.

She opened the first aid kit with trembling hands. She wrapped the gauze tightly around her palm, pulling it until the pressure was uncomfortable, perhaps too tight, just trying to feel something.

She caught her reflection in the dark kitchen window. A pale woman with hollow eyes, standing in a kitchen that cost more than most people earned in a lifetime, waiting for a man who wasn't coming home because he was celebrating the birthday of the woman he actually loved.

She turned back to the sink and shoved the cold risotto into the trash disposal. She flipped the switch. The disposal ground loudly, a mechanical roar that drowned out the sound of her own shallow, ragged breathing.

She turned off the dining room lights, plunging the penthouse into darkness. She walked to the master bedroom, the space feeling vast and cavernous. She didn't change into pajamas. She just curled up on her side of the massive king-sized bed, clutching her bandaged hand to her chest, her eyes wide open in the dark, waiting for the elevator to chime.