Chapter 1
"Wait."
I caught Adrian's wrist.
The priest stopped speaking. A black wedding band rested against my finger. I had felt a mark on the inside of it and wanted to turn it over. Adrian closed his hand around mine and slid the ring into place.
"Is something wrong?" the priest asked.
"No," Adrian said.
Adrian De Luca was thirty-five and the head of the De Luca family. Newspapers called him the chairman of a shipping company. The men around him called him Don, though never near a reporter. He was tall, with broad shoulders, black hair brushed back, and gray eyes that made people look away first. His black suit fit him perfectly. Up close, he smelled of cedar and tobacco.
Three years ago, I had known none of that. Trouble broke out on a street near my father's old business during a storm. People ran. Adrian stopped, put his coat around my shoulders, and led me somewhere safe. I thought about him for three years. He probably forgot the coat.
The priest asked if I would take Adrian as my husband.
"I do," I said, so fast someone in the back laughed.
Adrian glanced at me. I raised my eyebrows. At least I had said the right words. His mouth moved a little. I might have imagined it.
While the priest spoke again, I turned the ring with my thumb. Two letters came into view.
E.V.
My name was Nora Hayes. I painted for a living when I could find work. There was no E in my name.
A month earlier, Adrian had shown me my father's debts and the cost of my mother's treatment. He could pay both. He needed a wife beside him in public for one year. When I asked why he had picked me, he gave me one answer.
"Because you'll say yes."
I wanted to throw my drink at him. He was right. I needed the money, and I had loved him since that storm.
Applause filled the church. Adrian kissed me for one brief second. I was still thinking about the letters against my finger.
Outside, a photographer gathered everyone on the steps. My phone buzzed with a message from Mom. She was staying at St. Anne's Medical Center today. She had written, Stand up straight, Nora. You weren't this nervous when you played a sunflower in the school show.
I sent her a smile. Then I walked up to Adrian, who was listening to a man speak quietly.
"I need two minutes."
The man stepped away. Adrian followed me into a side room. I pulled off the ring and put it in his palm.
"Who is E.V.?"
His fingers closed around it. From the hall, I heard the photographer calling for us. Maybe a jeweler had made a mistake. Maybe those letters belonged to a grandmother. I would have taken almost any dull answer.
"Another woman?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Does she have a name?"
He placed the ring back in my hand. For the first time that day, he had trouble looking at me.
"Elena Voss," he said.
"Three years ago, I had that ring made for her."