Chapter 2 The Tell

The reception was a business merger with champagne.

Nobody danced. They networked. Old men in Brioni suits clinked glasses with Dad while he sweated through his tuxedo, looking ten years younger now that Kaine Corp's money was legally tied to ours. Celeste was already gone. A text from her burner phone: _At airport. Thank you. I'll make it up to you._

Liar. She never did.

Damian hadn't said a word to me since the "I do." He was three conversations deep with a senator, one hand resting on the small of my back. Not possessive. Possessive would imply affection. This was marking territory. Like I was a new acquisition he hadn't audited yet.

"Mrs. Kaine," a waiter offered me a tray. "Champagne?"

I took it. I don't even like champagne. But Celeste drinks it like water. I was going to need to be very, very drunk to survive tonight.

"Celeste doesn't drink," Damian said without looking at me. He plucked the glass from my hand and set it back on the tray. "Allergic to sulfites. You told me. Three years ago."

The champagne sloshed. My heart didn't.

_Three years ago._

I forced a laugh. The one Celeste uses when she's caught in a lie - high, brittle. "God, Dame. You remember everything. I was testing you."

He finally looked at me then. Really looked. His eyes were gray, like a frozen lake. Nothing moved in them. "Were you?"

A photographer called, "Mr. and Mrs. Kaine! Kiss for the cover of Forbes!"

Damian's hand slid from my back to my jaw. He tilted my face up. His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, and for a second I thought he was going to expose me right there. Instead, he kissed me.

It wasn't a kiss. It was a cross-examination. Clinical. Measuring. He pulled back before I could even decide if I hated it.

"Perfect," the photographer said.

The second we were alone, Damian guided me to our table. No one else sat there. Just two place settings, two water glasses, and one black coffee, steam curling up from it.

He pushed the coffee toward me. "You've been trying to quit. For the wedding. New habit?"

Celeste drank four cups before noon. Black. No sugar. She said it was the only thing that kept her awake during Dad's board meetings. I drank tea. Chamomile. Because coffee made my hands shake.

I stared at the cup. If I refused, the game was up. If I drank it, I'd be jittery and sick on my wedding night.

I picked it up.

Damian watched. Not my face. My hands.

The coffee touched my lips. Bitter. Burnt. I swallowed.

And didn't shake.

Because I'd been practicing. Every morning for a month, after Celeste got engaged, I'd choked down black coffee until my body stopped betraying me. Just in case. Just in case she ran. Just in case I had to be her.

I set the cup down. Empty. "Habit's dead," I said, using Celeste's words. "Took you three years to notice."

Something flickered in his eyes. Not surprise. Satisfaction.

He leaned across the table, close enough that I could smell his cologne. Something expensive and sharp, like cedar and cold cash. "It did," he said quietly. "Three years ago, you told me you'd quit the day you stopped loving me."

My fingers went numb.

Celeste had never been in love with Damian. She'd called him "the human spreadsheet" and slept with Marco the night of the engagement party.

So who the hell had he been talking to for three years?

Before I could answer, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then stood. "Stay here. I have a gift for you."

He walked off. No explanation. No kiss goodbye. Just command.

I sat there, heart hammering against my ribs, staring at the empty coffee cup. My phone buzzed in the bouquet.

Unknown number: _Good girl. You passed the first test. But Lucien was always the better actor. Don't let Damian find out why he's really dead. - A friend_

Lucien. Damian's twin. The one the news said died in a boating accident two years ago.

I looked up.

Damian was across the ballroom, watching me. He raised his own coffee cup in a mock toast.

He hadn't taken a sip of it all night.