Chapter 2

Tara moved in the next day. She didn't just take a guest room; she moved into my room, our room. Ethan let her.

I watched as she went through my closet, pulling out my clothes, my jewelry. She held up a silk dress, one of my favorites, and asked Ethan if she could have it. He nodded without a second thought.

Then she found the box. It was tucked away in the back of the closet, filled with Gabrielle' s things. A few dresses, some sheet music, a silver locket. Ethan had given it to me for safekeeping.

Tara opened it. She pulled out a simple white cotton dress and held it against herself. "She had such beautiful taste," she said, her voice soft and reverent.

"It would look better on you," Ethan said, his eyes filled with a tenderness I hadn't seen in five years.

She wore it to dinner that night. Sitting across the table from me, in my sister' s dress, she looked so much like Gabrielle it was unnerving. She was a ghost at my table, erasing me from my own life.

She was good at it, too. Subtle. A misplaced file on Ethan' s desk, and she' d hint that I must have been snooping. A scratch on his vintage record collection, and she' d look at me with wide, wounded eyes, saying nothing, which was worse. Ethan' s resentment toward me grew with each passing day.

I was fading. I could feel it. A faint, red thread had appeared on my wrist after my deal with Papa Legba, a visual timer. It was already starting to look transparent. I retreated to my music study, the one room Tara hadn't touched yet. It was my sanctuary within the sanctuary. I opened a hidden drawer in my desk. Inside was a small, worn photo album.

It was filled with pictures of Ethan.

Candid shots I' d taken over the years when he wasn' t looking.

Ethan laughing with a friend. Ethan asleep on the sofa, a book on his chest. Ethan staring out at the rain from his office window. Hundreds of photos, a secret history of my unrequited love. Underneath the album was a letter I' d written to him on our first anniversary, a letter I never gave him.

It was full of hope and love, a pathetic monument to my own foolishness.

I remembered our wedding day. Just before the ceremony, he had pulled me aside.

"Jocelyn," he' d said, his voice flat. "Let's be clear. This is a merger, not a marriage. I'm doing this for our families. Don't ever make the mistake of thinking this is about love. I will never love you."

I had nodded, my heart a cold, heavy stone in my chest. But I hadn't believed him. I thought I could change his mind. I thought my love would be enough.

For five years, I had been completely faithful to him. The public affairs were a sham, a carefully constructed facade to match his own. I paid actors to be seen with me, to create a story of mutual infidelity that protected my pride. I never touched another man. I couldn' t.

My body and soul belonged to Ethan. He just never knew it. He never wanted to.

A knock on the door startled me. It was Tara.

"Ethan said I could have this room now," she said, not unkindly, but with an air of finality. "He thinks it's best if you move into the guest suite downstairs."

She was smiling that innocent, Gabrielle-like smile.

"He said you wouldn't mind."