Chapter 4

Outside the hospital doors, I pulled off the waitress uniform I had been using to hide who I was and dropped it in a trash can.

Underneath, I was dressed in a designer cashmere blouse, perfectly tailored to fit.

Today marked the last day of my arrangement with Julian Sterling.

Everyone thought I was just another waitress scraping by.

What nobody knew was that I ran Vincent Luxury Hotels, the country's most exclusive hotel chain.

Years before, I had built a company in Washington and made it work, and that was where I met Julian Sterling, a giant of Wall Street investment and the head of Sterling Holdings.

He'd been chasing after me for three whole years.

And I had turned him down anyway, because I chose my family and I chose Edward.

Julian did not take it badly. He looked at me and said it plainly. "You have been out there building a company for years, and neither your father nor your fiance has ever once asked how you were holding up.

"They are going to fail you. I would bet everything on it. Give it three months. Go find out whether that clueless husband and that father of yours are worth what you keep spending on them. If they aren't, come back to me."

So I kept my name to myself and went back to them, because I wanted to see what my marriage and my family were actually made of.

And it went the way Julian said it would, because Richard and Edward looked at the woman they thought I was and treated me like dirt.

It took until now for me to understand who could stand beside me as an equal and be trusted.

******

I called a car and rode out to Sterling Manor on Fifth Avenue.

The car had barely stopped when my phone rang, and it was Julian.

There was a smile in his voice that he was not bothering to hide. "Stella, I have a surprise for you."

I did not follow. "What kind of surprise?"

"The kind only the two of us will understand. You'll have it any minute now."

He hung up right after.

I put my phone away, still not following, and I had just reached the stone steps when Ralph, the butler, came hurrying out.

He saw me and stopped dead where he stood. "Ms. Stella Vincent? What are you doing here?"

I smiled, "Why shouldn't I be here?"

Just then, the roar of a sports car echoed behind me.

An Aston Martin pulled up to the front door.

The door swung open, and a woman stepped out, dressed in a couture gown and wearing sunglasses.

Ralph put on a smile at once and went over to meet her. "Ms. Daisy Vincent, welcome back."

It was Daisy.

She was supposed to be dead.

I spun around, and there she was, alive, standing in front of me.