“And who am I?”

Christian Moretti asked the question so quietly that I almost missed it.

Behind me, twenty people were waiting for an answer.

My former fiancé was standing beside the woman he’d just kissed.

His mother was watching from the far end of the lounge.

And the man whose heart I had broken seven years earlier was looking at me as though I had just reopened a wound he’d spent years learning to live with.

I swallowed.

“You’re the only man in this room who ever loved me without asking what I could give him.”

Christian didn’t move.

But his expression changed.

Not much.

Just enough.

“That’s a dangerous thing to say to someone you abandoned.”

“I know.”

“Especially tonight.”

“I know that too.”

Behind us, Julian laughed.

It was a strange sound.

Too loud.

Too sharp.

“Well, isn’t this adorable?”

I turned.

Julian was approaching with Camila holding his arm.

“Elena, sweetheart, I said you could find a man. I didn’t say you could dig up a corpse.”

Christian’s eyes hardened.

“Walk away, Julian.”

Julian stopped.

For one beautiful second, he looked genuinely frightened.

Then he remembered he had an audience.

“Oh, come on. We’re friends.”

“We were.”

The two words landed like a slap.

Julian glanced at me.

“What’s going on?”

I looked back at Christian.

Seven years earlier, I had been twenty-four and working toward my doctorate at Columbia.

Christian had been twenty-two.

Brilliant.

Reckless.

The youngest heir of the Moretti empire.

We met in a university laboratory after he accidentally knocked over a container of experimental polymer samples.

He offered to replace everything.

I told him he couldn’t afford the six months of research he’d destroyed.

He laughed.

Then he spent the next four months helping me rebuild it.

We fell in love somewhere between midnight experiments and terrible vending-machine coffee.

For eleven months, I believed I had found the person I would grow old with.

Then his father summoned me to the Moretti family estate.

And everything changed.

I had never told Christian what happened that afternoon.

Not even when I ended our relationship.

Not even when he stood in the rain begging me to explain.

Not even when he said, “Tell me you don’t love me, Elena. Look me in the eyes and say it.”

I had said it.

And watched something inside him die.

Now, seven years later, Christian stood.

He was taller than I remembered.

Broader.

There was a thin scar beside his left eyebrow that hadn’t been there before.

He looked at Julian.

“Your engagement is over.”

Julian snorted.

“That’s not your decision.”

“No,” I said.

“It’s mine.”

I removed the diamond ring from my finger.

A fourteen-carat emerald-cut stone Julian had presented at a charity gala while photographers recorded my reaction.

He had never asked what kind of ring I wanted.

I held it out.

“Here.”

Julian stared.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Take it.”

“Elena, we’re getting married in twelve hours.”

“No.”

His face darkened.

“Do you have any idea how much tomorrow costs?”

“Twelve million dollars, according to your mother.”

“Exactly.”

“Then perhaps you should have considered that before turning our engagement into a drinking game.”

Someone behind him coughed.

Camila lowered her head.

Julian stepped closer.

“You’re embarrassing me.”

I almost laughed.

“That’s an interesting accusation.”

He reached for my wrist.

Christian moved.

He didn’t shove Julian.

He didn’t raise his voice.

He simply caught Julian’s hand before it touched me.

“Don’t.”

Julian froze.

For several seconds, the two men stared at each other.

Then Julian pulled away.

“You think you can steal my bride?”

Christian looked at me.

“No one steals Elena.”

Something inside my chest broke open.

Because seven years earlier, he had said almost exactly the same thing.

Back then, his father had offered me five million dollars to disappear.

When I refused, he’d shown me photographs of my parents.

My father walking home from school.

My mother buying groceries.

Our small house in Queens.

Then he’d placed a folder on the desk.

Inside were documents suggesting my father’s pension could be frozen through a fabricated financial investigation.

He’d smiled.

“Love is expensive, Miss Vale. Your family cannot afford it.”

I left Christian the next morning.

And I had spent seven years hating myself for it.

Julian suddenly laughed again.

“Fine. You want freedom? Take it.”

He opened his arms.

“Go home with Christian. See how long that lasts.”

I looked at Christian.

He was still watching me.

Waiting.

Not claiming me.

Not rescuing me.

Simply waiting for my choice.

“Would you take me somewhere?” I asked.

His jaw tightened.

“Where?”

“Somewhere nobody knows my name.”

For a moment, I thought he would refuse.

Then he reached into his pocket and took out his phone.

“Bring the car around.”

Julian’s face changed.

“Christian.”

Christian ignored him.

Camila stepped forward.

“Elena, please. You’re making a terrible mistake.”

I turned toward her.

“Camila, you can have him.”

She blinked.

“What?”

“Julian. The wedding. The Rossi name. Everything.”

I placed the ring in her palm.

“Congratulations.”

Then I walked toward the elevator.

Christian followed.

The doors were almost closed when Julian shouted something that made my blood turn cold.

“You think Moretti will still want you when he finds out what your father did?”

The elevator stopped.

Christian pressed the button to reopen the doors.

His expression was terrifyingly calm.

“What did you say?”

Julian smiled.

And for the first time that night, I understood that my former fiancé knew a secret I had never told anyone.

“Ask Elena,” Julian said.

“Ask her why your father really died.”

Christian went completely still.

His father had died in a private plane accident six years earlier.

An accident investigators had never fully explained.

Christian slowly turned toward me.

“Elena.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Because Julian had just connected two events that should have had nothing to do with each other.

My father’s sudden retirement.

And the death of the most powerful man in the Moretti family.

Christian stepped into the elevator.

The doors closed.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then he looked at me.

“Tell me everything.”

Before I could answer, my phone vibrated.

An unknown number.

One message.

DON’T GET INTO HIS CAR.

A second message appeared.

THE MAN WHO THREATENED YOUR FAMILY SEVEN YEARS AGO WASN’T CHRISTIAN’S FATHER.

And then a photograph loaded.

It showed Julian Rossi standing beside a man I had watched being buried six years earlier.

Christian’s father.

The photograph had been taken yesterday.