dn't b

his eyes fixed on the white rose with predatory intensity. Every instinct

tepping into the room. Each footfall

could think. "I must have... I broug

alculating. "You brought

ed. It slip

t between his fingers. I watched his knuckles, the way they tightened

omach

y, and something in his expression shifted-a fla

don't unde

o the wastebasket and began unbuttoning his

e cold space between us like a chasm. My mind raced through the previous night-the te

f it ma

just yesterday, his voice clipped and distant as always. Yet the man who had held me

ed it? Was I

dn't before-the way he watched me across the breakfast table, the way his gaze followed my

eyebrow. The hesitation in his touch. The way he had asked about my childhood, my dr

never asked

I ran my fingers over the leather couch, searching for evidence that the night had been real. A faint trace of

e front door m

. Adrian had meetings until l

came again.

ephole. A man stood in the hallway-tall, dark-haired, weari

art st

as Ad

left for his meeting two hou

ce toward the peephole as though he knew I was watching. His eye

ly. "I know you're there

s voice, but softer. Kinder

bled as I unlo

t, and I saw it immediately-the small scar abo

" I wh

ce into something beautiful and heartbreaki

are

then back at my face. "May I come in? What I

an. To demand answers from the man I had married. But something

e waited years for this m

epped

pite the identical face. Where Adrian moved with rigid control, this man seemed almost

he said. "Adr

like a physical

"We share everything. Our face. Our DNA. Our rivalry." H

ripping the arms so hard my knuckles went whit

o refused to play by the rules. The one who built his own empire just to spite him

en w

cause I've loved you since before you ever knew my name. I watched you at charity galas, at parties, at that awful auction where

y he had held me afterward as though I were something precious. "It

Ye

n doesn

never can. My brother would destroy both of

, my voice finding its edg

miration. "No," he agreed softly. "You're not. That's why I'm here." He took my hands in his. "Y

husband's face, who had deceived

ouldn't let g