Savannah Carlisle was marrying a billionaire heir for security, or so she thought. Yet on her wedding night, she finds herself waking next to the wrong twin - and her signature is already tied to the Pennington dynasty's deepest secrets. Now imprisoned in a mansion of lies, Savannah learns that she's been seeded with an heir long before she says, "I do." Her womb isn't hers. Her name has been rewritten. And the man who really possesses her is ringless - he wears her silence. By then, with a fabricated contract, a lost memory, and a media empire built on illusion, Savannah must untangle a legacy where love is leverage, and escape may cost everything, including the child she didn't sign up to bear.
Chapter 1 The Contract Bride
The warmth on her neck seemed wrong.
Not dangerous. Not cruel. Just... unfamiliar.
Savannah's eyes opened slowly as if surfacing from a dream that hadn't yet ended. Silk sheets lay soft and white, moonlight spilling across them. A slight throbbing of her head, like a warning. There was a weak, afterglow ache in her body - the sort that does not dwell on sleep.
And then she saw him.
The man lying next to her rolled over lazily in her direction, his voice already waiting. "Morning, darlin'."
Her stomach tightened. That wasn't Slade's voice.
Too laid-back, too slow, too steeped in Southern charm. A voice like honey on glass. Familiar-but not him.
She blinked as though her sight would right itself. But no. The man in her bed was not her husband.
He had the same kind of handsome. Identical jawline. Storm-gray eyes. But something shifted behind this man's smile. Something freer. Wilder. Dangerous in a way that Slade had never dared.
She sat up too fast. Tangled silk sheets around her legs. Her breath stuttered.
"Slade?" she asked, voice cracking.
The stranger grinned. "Wrong twin, sweetheart."
Her heart seized.
For a moment, there was only the sound of her heart hammering, the subtle slide of fabric, and the creak of the bed beneath her.
And then she moved.
She threw the sheets off and shuffled backward until her spine met the carved wood of the bed frame. The man did not attempt to follow. He just watched her, aroused, as if this were a scene he'd rehearsed."
The air grew colder. Her robe was draped over the bedpost. She grabbed it and spun it around her like armor.
Feet padded past outside the bedroom door. Too calm. Too close. Someone cleared their throat. A door closed down the hall.
She turned back.
But the man was gone.
And now the imprint on the pillow. And the smell of expensive cologne hung in the air - warm spice and something darker.
Her wedding band glistened in the moonlight.
Something in her buckled.
The marble floor was ice under her bare feet.
Savannah stalked down the hallway with her robe clutched at her throat, anger battling with nausea. It was a long corridor - an archive of old money and silence. Crystal chandeliers sparkled overhead like distant stars. Ornate mirrors clustered on all the walls, reflecting grotesque images of herself.
She wasn't alone for long.
Boone abruptly came into view in military fashion. The tie is already straight. Shirt crisp. Eyes unreadable.
"You're up early," he said as if this were breakfast talk.
Lorelei stood behind him in an archway, sipping tea with one perfectly arched brow.
"You're shaking," Lorelei said. "Bad dreams?"
Savannah ignored her. "Where is Slade?"
Boone paused for half a breath. "Still sleeping, I imagine."
"There was a person in my bed," she hissed.
Lorelei clicked her tongue. "Champagne dreams, sweetheart. We've all had them."
"He spoke to me."
"Stress can do that."
Savannah turned on Boone. "It was him. Not Slade. Someone else."
Boone gave her a long look. "You may be compensating your mind. Trauma and transition create... overlays."
"I know what I felt."
"Oh, you're newly married," Lorelei said, her voice thick with concern she did not feel. "Jet lag, nerves, champagne. Emotions make the body lie."
Savannah brushed past them, heart racing. Her hand landed on the polished brass of Slade's study door. She twisted the knob.
Locked.
Of course.
Lorelei's voice trailed after her like perfume. "Sometimes the mind protects us from things it is not ready to remember."
Savannah didn't answer.
She looked at that locked door as if it owed her a confession.
Still, no one mentioned the name of the man who had touched her.
Slade stirred his coffee as if it counted.
He sat in the library, surrounded by rows of books on power, legacy, and persuasion. A nauseating whiff of cold vetiver wafted through the air. Savannah had to decide now what came next.
He looked up with no urgency. "Did you sleep well?"
They were shaking at her sides. There was someone in my bed.
Slade sipped the cup and then placed it down. "Strange. You were solo when I looked."
"I know it wasn't you."
A faint smile. "The mind does funny things when there's pressure."
"I felt him," she said. "I saw him."
He stood up and walked forward, controlled and deliberate. He rapped a knuckle on her cheek - frigid, methodical.
"You're mine now," he said. "That's all that matters."
She wanted to scream.
She didn't.
Where she left the charger, it wasn't.
Savannah searched through velvet-lined drawers. Her phone was dead. Her memory was foggy. Her thoughts spiraled.
She opened the closet. Searched for a box marked "Guest 4." It was taped shut, sealed twice.
She tore it open.
Inside: Folders. Paper. A manila envelope.
A photograph slipped out.
Two boys. Identical. Suits. Cold eyes.
"The Brothers Pennington of the Empire: Slade & Cash Declare the Deal."
Her blood turned to ice.
She flipped the photo over. In gold ink:
One will inherit. One will disappear.
She slapped the photo on Boone's desk.
The glass cracked beneath it. Bourbon trembled.
"You lied to me."
Boone didn't blink. "We omitted."
"He was in my bed."
He was never supposed to be involved with any of this."
He tore the photo in half. Cash's face hit the floor.
"Forget that he ever existed," Boone said.
She stared at the torn paper.
Half a face. Half a truth. Her full nightmare.
The bathwater was too hot.
Savannah was transfixed, hugging her knees. Steam clouded the mirror. Ghosts in every corner.
She said, "I know what I felt."
But no one came.
And the silence - that horrible, gilded silence - said all we needed to hear.
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