Chapter 1

The sterile scent of the hospital room was a constant.

Forty years.

Forty years I, Ethan Miller, had been married to Olivia Hayes.

Everyone in Denver thought we were the golden couple.

Rockies Brew Co., my craft brewery, was a success. Our life looked perfect.

Now, Olivia was seventy. Cancer was eating her.

Her breaths were shallow.

She looked at me, her eyes clouded with something more than pain.

"Ethan," her voice was a dry whisper.

I leaned closer. "I'm here, Liv."

"The boys," she said. "Liam. Noah."

Our sons. My pride.

"They're not yours, Ethan."

The words hung in the air. Cold. Sharp.

My heart, already weak, hammered against my ribs.

"What are you saying, Olivia?"

"They're Jake's."

Jake Riley. The musician. Her high school flame. The one her prominent family despised.

"Jake Riley?" I repeated, the name tasting like ash.

She nodded, a tear escaping, tracing a path through the wrinkles on her cheek.

"I was pregnant when I asked you to marry me. I couldn't face my parents. Jake had nothing."

So, I was the solution. The stable provider. The respectable cover.

Forty years of my life, a carefully constructed lie.

The door opened.

Liam and Noah walked in, not with grief, but with an air of... expectation.

Behind them, Jake Riley. Older, lines etched on his face, but still with that roguish charm Olivia must have seen.

"Dad," Liam said, but his eyes were on the brewery, on my legacy.

Noah just looked at Jake, then at Olivia, a silent understanding passing between them.

Jake stepped forward. "Ethan. Olivia told you."

It wasn't a question.

My "sons" looked at me, their expressions unreadable, or perhaps, I just didn't want to read them.

They were here for the inheritance. For the brewery.

Olivia had planned this. Her final act.

My world, the one I thought I knew, shattered.

I felt a crushing weight on my chest. This wasn't just grief.

Betrayal. Deep, cutting betrayal.

I had loved them. Raised them.

And they were all in on it.