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
/1/132159/coverbig.jpg?v=bbaa1dd903763ebecc2804abbf0b7df5&imageMogr2/format/webp)