Chapter 1

I signed the divorce papers in a hospital gown, barefoot, three hours after my miscarriage — while my twin sister Vivienne sat in my husband's lap in the next room, wearing my perfume.

Alexander Steele didn't even look up.

"Hurry up, Sera," he said, scrolling his phone. "Vivienne has a dinner reservation."

Four years of marriage. Two miscarriages. One sister who wanted everything I had.

I signed.

My hand didn't shake. That surprised me.

"The settlement—" his lawyer began.

"I don't want his money," I said. My voice came out strange, stripped of something vital, like a house after a fire. "I want the deed to my mother's clinic in Vermont. That's all."

Alexander finally looked at me. Those grey eyes, the ones I'd loved since I was nineteen, swept over me with the warmth of a tax audit.

"Take it," he said. "It's worthless anyway."

Vivienne giggled from his lap, twirling a strand of platinum hair — my color, my exact shade, because we were identical in every way except the parts that mattered.

"Don't be mean, Alex," she cooed, nuzzling his neck. "Sera's had a rough day."

A rough day.

I'd lost our baby this morning. Our third attempt. The danger pregnancy his own doctor had warned me could kill me, but which I'd endured because Alexander Steele wanted an heir, and I wanted to save a marriage that was already a corpse.

The cramps had started at 4 AM. I'd called him. He didn't answer.

He was with her.

I found out later — from a nurse, not from him — that Vivienne had called the hospital pretending to be me, redirecting all updates to her phone. She'd known about the miscarriage before I'd even stopped bleeding.

And she'd used those three hours to comfort Alexander. To hold him. To whisper that she'd always been the stronger twin, the one who could carry his legacy.

I watched her now, curled against him like a cat who'd swallowed something living.

"Sera, darling," Vivienne said, her voice dripping with that particular sweetness that had fooled everyone since we were children, "I know this is hard. But Alex and I... we've been fighting our feelings for so long. It's better this way. You deserve someone who truly loves you."

She looked at Alexander with adoring eyes. He pulled her closer.

I remembered the first time I'd suspected. Six months ago. A hotel receipt. Her lipstick on his collar, a shade I didn't wear but she did — a detail so small, so deliberate.

I'd confronted him. He'd called me paranoid. Hormonal. Unhinged.

"Your sister is family," he'd said coldly. "She's helping me through a stressful merger. Unlike you, she actually understands business."

Vivienne had a degree in manipulation, not finance. But Alexander couldn't tell the difference. No one ever could.

We were identical twins, but Vivienne had spent our entire lives making sure she was the better copy.

The lawyer slid the finalized papers across the table. Done.

I stood, my legs unsteady. The hospital gown gaped at the back. I didn't care.

"One more thing," I said from the doorway.

Alexander looked up, impatient.

"Your mother's emerald ring. The one you gave me on our wedding night. The one that's been in the Steele family for five generations." I pulled it from my finger. It left a pale indent, a ghost of four years. "Vivienne's been asking about it for months. I'm sure she'll take good care of it."

I placed it on the table with a click that echoed.

Vivienne's eyes lit up. She reached for it immediately.

Alexander caught her wrist. "Not yet," he murmured. But his gaze followed the ring, not me.

I walked out of that room, out of that hospital, out of that life.

The Vermont air would be cold this time of year.

Good.

I needed to feel something that wasn't him.

What I didn't know — what I wouldn't discover until a pregnancy test in a gas station bathroom three weeks later turned positive — was that Alexander Steele's last heir was already growing inside me.

And what Alexander didn't know was that the "worthless" clinic in Vermont sat on land containing high-grade high-purity high-value high-demand high-yield lithium deposits worth more than his entire empire.