Chapter 2

Life afterward was easier than I'd expected.

Alexander was always busy, often away for days, and Hart Manor was so large I spent most of my time alone.

My mother-in-law Grace Hart came several times to criticize my coffee, posture, and smile. I accepted every complaint without arguing, so she soon lost interest and stopped visiting.

Three months later, Vivian sent me a message: [Lottie, I met the love of my life. I'm going to Aethelgard to get married. Stay with the Hart family for me. We'll switch back when I return.]

I read it three times, then deleted it.

A year later, Vivian texted again: [Aethelgard didn't suit me, so I went to Valoria. Are you doing okay?]

I didn't reply.

Two years later, the messages stopped.

One afternoon in the third year, I was drinking coffee in the back-garden gazebo when my phone buzzed.

An unknown number: [Lottie, I want to come back.]

I stared at it for a long time, then deleted it too.

The butler called, "Ma'am."

I looked up and saw the butler outside the pavilion.

"Mr. Hart is back. He's waiting for you in the study."

I rose and headed inside.

In three years, Alexander had never once called me to the study on his own.

The study door was half open. I knocked, got no answer, and pushed it open myself.

Alexander stood by the window with his back to me, an unlit cigarette between his fingers, the setting sun stretching his shadow across the floor like a gray scar.

"Close the door," he said.

I did, and he stayed silent until the sun had fully sunk and the room had gone dim. Then he said, "I got a call today. She said she was Vivian and asked why I hadn't contacted her in three years."

My blood ran cold.

"I told her my wife was doing just fine at home, so how could anyone be pretending to be her?" He turned to look at me. "Then she said that was her sister, Charlotte."

Neither of us had moved.

In the darkness, his blue eyes burned brightly as he asked, "What's your name?"

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

He walked over and took my hand.

Only then did I notice the handkerchief in his other hand, damp with warm water and makeup remover. Holding me still, he began wiping my face.

For three years, I'd spent an hour every day drawing my brows thinner, lifting the bridge of my nose with contour, and reshaping my lips to look like Vivian's. For three years, I'd never let him see my real face.

He wiped it away slowly and gently.

The first pass took off the foundation.

The second changed the shape of my brows.

The third returned my lips to their natural thinness.

When he finished, he stepped back and looked at me as a streetlight outside threw a dim yellow glow across my face.

"Alex," I said, my voice shaking.

He suddenly smiled.

It was only the faintest curve of his lips, but his eyes were red.

"You've been pretending for three years," he said. "Still not done?"

I froze.

He stepped closer and touched my face, his cool fingers brushing my cheekbone before resting at my jaw.

"I knew from the first day," he said. "Vivian has a mole on her earlobe. You don't. When you're nervous, you twist your fingers. She never did. When you smile, there's a dimple on the right. She never had one."

Tears spilled down my face.

"Then why did you...?" I asked.

He picked up where I left off. "Why didn't I expose you? Because you were the one I was waiting for all along."

I stared at him with wide eyes as he lowered his forehead to mine.

"That year I visited the Bennett house, I saw a girl in the garden feeding a stray cat behind the flower bushes," he said softly. "She smiled at me and whispered, 'Quiet. You'll scare the cat away.'"

I remembered at once.

Three years earlier, Vivian had sent me to pick roses for her photos, and I had ended up crouching in the garden to feed bread to a skinny stray cat. A tall man in a gray shirt approached from the corridor.

I shushed him with a finger to my lips.