Shadow Being

On the day I finally pried open the locked drawer in Marcus’s study, I didn't find a surprise anniversary gift.

I found a shrine to my father's business partner, Izzy.

Photos of a woman who looked exactly like me stared back.

That was when I realized my marriage was nothing more than an expensive lie. I wasn't his wife; I was a customized substitute for the woman he couldn't have.

The nightmare worsened when scalding soup was spilled at a restaurant.

Marcus didn't hesitate.

He threw his body over Izzy to shield her, leaving me to take the full force of the burns.

Later, while I lay in the hospital bandaged and in agony, he didn't come to comfort me.

He came to demand I donate a kidney to save Izzy.

"If we both needed a kidney, who would you choose?" I asked him, desperate for a lie.

"Izzy," he said instantly. "She has so much more to do."

He didn't know I was pregnant.

He didn't know that while he was begging me to save his mistress, the stress was killing his unborn child.

I wiped my tears and laughed.

"Okay," I said.

I signed the divorce papers and left them on his desk.

On top of them, I placed a medical report dated that morning: *Spontaneous Abortion.*

Then, I boarded a one-way flight to Montana and vanished, leaving him to wake up to a world where he had saved his mistress but killed his family.

Chapter 1

Olivia POV

It was a Tuesday when I finally pried open the locked drawer in Marcus’s study—the same day I realized my marriage was nothing more than a very expensive, very elaborate lie.

Inside, I didn’t find financial documents or family heirlooms. I found a shrine.

Photos of a woman who looked terrifyingly like me stared back from the glossy paper. Letters written in Marcus’s sharp, architectural handwriting were stacked neatly beside sketches of a house I had never seen. The dates went back years. Long before he met me. Long before he told me I was the only woman who ever understood him.

I stared at the woman in the photograph. Izzy Vance. My father's business partner. A woman I had admired. A woman who was currently downstairs at our dinner party.

My heart didn't break. It simply stopped.

I closed the drawer. I locked it. Then, with a terrifying sort of calm, I walked downstairs.

Just hours ago, I had given Marcus a vintage Patek Philippe watch for his birthday. I had spent six months tracking it down. In return, he had handed me a rock. A literal stone from a construction site. He called it "grounding." I called it a sign I was too stupid to read until now.

I walked into the dining room. Marcus was standing by the fireplace. He looked like a king holding court. He was forty, with the kind of silver-fox charm that made women lose their breath and their common sense. I was twenty-four. I used to think his age made him wise. Now I knew it just made him better at hiding things.

He was smiling. But that warmth wasn't directed at me.

He was smiling at Izzy.

"Olivia," Marcus said, spotting me. He waved me over. "Come here. I was just telling Izzy how much you two have in common."