Chapter 1

I went to Adrian's apartment to say yes to his proposal. He was throwing my toothbrush into a cardboard box.

It landed on the book beside his bed. My pajamas and slippers were underneath. I held a slip of paper with yes written on it. Three days earlier, he'd asked me to marry him.

"What are you doing?"

Adrian pushed the box toward my feet. "We're over. Take your things."

For eleven months, I'd spent most weeks here. I led brand strategy at Vale Hotels, where Adrian was a consultant and my mother, Victoria, was chair. He'd asked me to keep us private until his work was settled. I'd believed him.

Now he wouldn't even ask me to sit down.

"You asked me to marry you three days ago." I held up the paper. Its edge had gone soft in my hand. "At least tell me what happened."

He saw yes, took the paper from my fingers, and laid it on the box.

"You had to write down one word and bring it here." He pressed at the box flaps, leaving a corner of the paper exposed. "Lenora, you're thirty-five. You still wait for Victoria to decide where you sit at your own family table. Did you think getting married would make someone else hold your place for you?"

I'd told only Adrian how my mother looked at me after my father died, as if deciding whether I deserved a place at Vale. That night he'd held my hand and said I didn't need a title to prove I belonged.

I pulled my hand away from the box. "What does my mother have to do with you putting me out?"

His jaw tightened. At the window he murmured, "Just for now," as though he were talking himself into it. When he turned back, his face had gone still.

"You don't want a husband," he said. "You want someone to tell you every day that it doesn't matter your mother never chose you. I can't keep doing that."

There was no audience. He looked straight at me and used the fear I'd trusted him with. I swallowed my tears before he could use them too.

"Then why ask me to marry you?"

His eyes dropped to the paper on the box. His fingers curled, then opened. "I wanted to marry you. But now I have a better choice."

I almost asked who it was. Instead I stared at him. He could change his mind. No reason he gave later could take those words back.

I reached for my coat and saw the open drawer. Inside a black velvet box lay the silver cuff links I'd given him. The first time he wore them, I'd folded his sleeves back for him.

"Give me the cuff links."

Adrian came over and shut the drawer with his palm. "They were a gift."

He'd packed my toothbrush but wanted to keep my gift. I set my key on the box, pulled the paper free, and lifted it. The book pressed into my wrist. He didn't help.

At the door, he called my name. His voice had dropped. "Don't tell anyone we were together."

"Including my mother?"

"Especially her." He opened the door for me.

In the elevator, a message arrived from Adrian: Don't tell anyone about tonight. Or about us.

I kept it. I didn't answer.

That night, Victoria called. Usually she wanted to discuss a project. Now she wanted me at the flagship hotel in forty-eight hours for a "family-only ceremony."

"What ceremony?"

I heard glasses touch at her end of the line. "You'll find out when you arrive. Don't be late, Lenora."