Chapter 1

I went to the fire station to tell my husband I was pregnant.

Before I could open his office door, I heard his ex-girlfriend speak.

“Cole, I’m pregnant.”

My hand froze on the doorknob.

Silence held for several seconds. Then my husband's lowered voice came through.

"This isn't the place to talk about it."

"Then where is? Your house?" Sienna gave a bitter laugh. "Or should I ask Ava directly whether she minds her husband having a baby with his ex?"

The pastry box tipped in my hands. The cherry pie slid into the side, smearing cream over my fingers.

It was Cole's favorite. The pregnancy test was hidden beneath the napkins. I had planned to slide it toward him when he cut the pie and tell him we were finally having a baby.

Now another pregnant woman stood on the other side of the door.

"We don't even know if it's mine," Cole said.

My fingers went cold.

He hadn't said he had never touched Sienna. Only that he wasn't sure whose baby she was carrying.

"You know you're the only man I've been with lately," Sienna said.

"Sienna."

Cole's voice hardened.

"Do not make a scene at the station, and do not go near Ava."

"Afraid she'll find out?"

"She still hasn't fully recovered."

"It's been three years. How long are you going to use her injuries as an excuse?"

The scars across my back seemed to tighten.

Three years ago, my family's restaurant burned down. My father died in his office upstairs. A falling beam pinned me on the first floor while my clothes caught fire.

Cole ran into the building and carried me out.

Everyone said that if he had gone in one minute later, I would have died with my father. The fire destroyed my home and made Cole the town's hero.

For eleven months afterward, he stayed through three surgeries. Whenever pain kept me awake, he sat beside my bed all night.

The first time I took off my jacket in front of him, I shook from head to toe. He never flinched at the scars. He only pressed his forehead to mine.

"You're alive," he said. "That's enough."

Later, he proposed.

I had always believed that after fate took my father, it had at least left me Cole.

Sienna laughed behind the door.

"Did you actually fall in love with her?"

Cole said nothing.

I tightened my grip on the knob. I could walk in now and demand to know whose baby she was carrying.

Then Sienna spoke again.

"I didn't come back to discuss your love life."

The amusement vanished from her voice.

"Someone reopened the restaurant's books."

Footsteps moved sharply inside.

"Who?" Cole asked.

"I don't know. Maybe the insurance company, maybe the police. They contacted the bank and asked why I left town right after the fire."

"They don't have evidence."

"Are you sure?"

Sienna paused.

"What if Robert kept a second copy of the ledger?"

At the sound of my father's name, my heart seized.

"It's over," Cole said. "Don't bring it up again."

"Over?"

Sienna's voice rose.

"I took the restaurant's money, and you burned the ledger for me. Now they're investigating again, and you're telling me it's over?"

I stopped breathing.

Burned the ledger?

How did Sienna know what had happened before the restaurant caught fire? And why would Cole burn evidence for her?

"Keep your voice down," Cole warned.

"Why should I?"

She refused to back down.

"You started that fire, Cole."

My knees buckled, and my shoulder struck the metal cabinet behind me.

I clung to the doorknob and waited for Cole to deny it. If he said, Just once, "It wasn't me," I would open the door and believe the man who had carried me out of the flames.

But Cole didn't deny it.

He only said in a low voice,

"Shut up."

After a beat, he added,

"Ava can never know."