Chapter 1

For three years, I cared for Lucian Montclair after the crash, married him in secret, and waited for the night he could finally see me standing beside him.

Instead, at the celebration of his recovery, my husband gave my place to his former fiancée.

“Mr. Montclair, who is the woman wearing your wedding ring?”

Every camera in the ballroom turned toward me.

Lucian looked directly into my eyes.

“That’s Elowen Hart,” he said. “She was my live-in aide while I was blind.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd.

A photographer waved me away from the stage.

“Staff need to stay out of the family shot.”

Seven days ago, Lucian had regained his sight after three years of blindness.

Tonight, he was supposed to tell the world I was his wife.

Instead, Seraphine Whitmore stood beside him wearing the Montclair family sapphire—the necklace reserved for the woman Lucian intended to marry.

I looked down at my wedding ring.

For three years, I had worn it on a chain beneath my clothes. That morning, Lucian had taken it from beneath my blouse and slid it onto my finger himself.

“No more hiding after tonight, Wren.”

Now he watched security guide me away from him.

He said nothing.

The reporter laughed awkwardly. “Your aide wears a wedding band?”

Lucian’s jaw tightened.

For one desperate second, I waited for him to correct the lie.

Seraphine slipped her arm through his.

“It’s a beautiful ring,” she said. “Perhaps Miss Hart is recently engaged.”

She knew.

She had seen that ring on Lucian’s hand during the worst months of his recovery. She had visited twice, both times leaving before sunset because his scars frightened her.

I had stayed through every night.

Lucian turned back to the cameras.

“Tonight isn’t about my former staff,” he said. “It’s about the woman who gave me a reason to return.”

Former staff.

My husband erased our marriage in two words.

The lights dimmed as Lucian stepped toward the microphone.

“There was one woman who stayed when I had nothing left to give.”

Lucian reached for Seraphine.

Applause erupted as she joined him beneath the lights.

“She read to me when the nights felt endless,” he said. “She taught me how to walk without fear. When I wanted to cancel my final surgery, she told me she would remember the whole world for me until I was ready to see it again.”

My fingers closed around my ring.

Those had been my books.

My hand around his.

My words, spoken while he traced my face in the dark, terrified he would never see it.

Seraphine had been in Paris that night.

Lucian had not confused us.

A server approached and offered me a silver tray.

“Would you mind passing these out?”

She had heard Lucian call me staff.

Everyone had.

I accepted the tray because refusing would create a scene, and some last foolish part of me still believed Lucian might repair what he had done.

He looked toward me again.

Our eyes met across the ballroom.

Then he took Seraphine’s hand.

“This woman never stopped believing I would find my way back,” he said. “And this Christmas, Seraphine and I will be married.”

The tray slipped from my hands.

Crystal glasses struck the marble and shattered at my feet.

Guests recoiled.

A woman pushed a folded napkin into my palm.

“Clean that up,” she whispered. “Before one of the family gets hurt.”

One of the family.

I looked at the man who had called me his wife when he could not see my face.

Now that Lucian could see me clearly, he watched me kneel at another woman’s feet.

He did not correct them.