Chapter 3

I didn't mention what I heard.

Not the next morning, when Ethan appeared in the kitchen at exactly 5:47 again, immaculate and impenetrable, as if tears were a concept invented by lesser species. Not during the car ride to Blackwell Tower, where he spent forty minutes on a call dismantling some CFO's quarterly projections with the warmth of a scalpel. Not during the three hours I spent being coached by Priya on "authentic-seeming spontaneity" for Thursday's gala.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it.

A woman in the east wing. Singing lullabies. Ethan crying.

The CEO who destroyed my father's company, who spoke in clauses and controlled every variable—that man had a secret so raw it made him weep in the dark.

I hated that it made him more human. I needed him to stay a monster.

Thursday arrived like a guillotine.

The Met Gala for Children's Literacy was the kind of event where the champagne cost more per glass than my weekly grocery budget and the guest list read like a Forbes ranking. Genevieve had delivered on her promise—the emerald Valentino fit like it had been grown onto my body, structured and devastating, with a neckline that suggested confidence I was actively manufacturing.

"You look..." Ethan paused at the foot of the penthouse stairs, adjusting his cufflink. His eyes traveled from my heels to my face with an expression I couldn't decode. "Appropriate."

"Every girl's dream compliment," I said dryly.

"I meant it as one." He offered his arm. "Shall we?"

The cameras hit us the moment the Maybach door opened. A wall of flashbulbs, a roar of voices shouting his name—Mr. Blackwell! Ethan! Over here!—and suddenly his hand was on the small of my back, warm and steady, guiding me up the stone steps like we'd done this a thousand times.

"Smile," he murmured against my ear. "You're madly in love with me, remember?"

"I'm a theater minor," I murmured back. "Watch me."

I turned to the cameras and smiled—the kind of smile that said this man is my whole world while my brain screamed this man is the reason my father is dead.

Inside, the Great Hall was transformed into a candlelit wonderland. Crystal chandeliers cast prismatic light across five hundred of Manhattan's most powerful people, all of whom seemed to know Ethan personally and all of whom stared at me like I was an equation they couldn't solve.

"Ethan!" A silver-haired man with the build of a retired linebacker clasped Ethan's hand. "And this must be the mystery woman. I didn't believe it when Marcus called—thought you'd die a bachelor."

"Nearly did," Ethan said smoothly. "Then Olivia spilled Pinot Noir on my Tom Ford, and I decided marriage was less expensive than dry cleaning."

Laughter. Easy, practiced, hollow.

I played my part. Touched his arm. Leaned into him when he spoke. Laughed at the right moments. Let my hand rest on his chest during a photo—feeling his heartbeat, steady as a metronome, while mine raced like a hunted animal.

"You're good at this," he said quietly during a lull, his lips barely moving.

"You're paying me five million dollars. I'd better be."

Something shifted in his expression—a flicker of... what? Disappointment?

Before I could analyze it, a voice cut through the crowd like a blade wrapped in silk.

"Ethan, darling."

I felt him tense. Every muscle, every tendon, locked into place.

I turned.

She was perhaps sixty, but the kind of sixty that money and fury preserve—cheekbones like architecture, silver-blonde hair swept into a chignon, wearing black Chanel like armor. Her eyes were the same storm-grey as Ethan's, but where his were controlled, hers burned.

Victoria Blackwell. His mother.

Or rather—the woman the world believed was his mother.

Because the woman singing lullabies in the east wing was someone else entirely.

"Mother," Ethan said. The word sounded like it had been extracted with pliers.

Victoria's gaze slid to me with the precision of a targeting system. She looked me over—hair, dress, ring, posture—and I watched her calculate my net worth, my pedigree, and my threat level in approximately four seconds.

"So," she said, extending a hand that expected to be kissed, not shaken, "you're the girl."

"Olivia," I said, shaking her hand firmly. "It's wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Blackwell."

Her smile was a closed door. "Victoria, please. We're family now." The word family carried the weight of a threat. "Though I must say, I'm surprised Ethan didn't introduce us sooner. Eight months of courtship, and I had to learn about you from a press release."

"The relationship moved quickly," Ethan said, his hand tightening almost imperceptibly on my waist. "I wanted to be certain before—"

"Before what? Before I could object?" Victoria's laugh was crystal and cyanide. "Darling, I only want what's best for you. For the company. For the legacy."

That word again. Legacy. I'd heard my father use it too, right before everything collapsed.

"Olivia," Victoria said, turning to me with surgical charm, "tell me about your family. Ethan's been remarkably tight-lipped."

The floor dropped out from under me.

"My family is small," I said carefully. "My grandmother raised me after my parents passed."

"Passed." Victoria tilted her head. "How tragic. And your father—what was his name?"

The question was a landmine disguised as small talk.

"James," I said, because lying about a dead man's name felt like a sin even I wouldn't commit.

Victoria's eyes narrowed—just a fraction. Just enough for me to notice. "James. How common." She sipped her champagne. "Well. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to get acquainted."

She drifted away into the crowd, leaving a wake of expensive perfume and quiet menace.

"She knows something," I whispered to Ethan.

"She always knows something," he muttered. "That's what makes her dangerous."

"More dangerous than you?"

He looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something in his eyes that wasn't control or calculation.

It was fear.

"My mother built Blackwell Industries from nothing after my father died," he said, voice low enough that only I could hear. "She has spent thirty years turning this company into an empire. And she will destroy anything—anyone—she perceives as a threat to it."

"Including your wife?"

"Especially my wife."

A waiter passed with a tray of champagne. I reached for a glass, then stopped—remembered. Six weeks. I grabbed sparkling water instead.

Ethan noticed. His brow creased slightly, but he said nothing.

The rest of the evening blurred—handshakes, small talk, the choreographed dance of people performing wealth for each other. But I felt Victoria's eyes on me all night. Tracking. Cataloguing. Waiting.

At eleven, we left. The Maybach was silent on the drive home. Ethan stared out the window, his jaw working.

"You did well tonight," he finally said.

"High praise from the man who called me 'appropriate.'"

A beat. Then: "I meant what I said, Olivia. My mother is not someone to underestimate. Whatever you're hiding—and I know you're hiding something—make sure she doesn't find it before I do."

My blood chilled. "I'm not hiding anything."

He turned to look at me. Those grey eyes—searchlights, scalpels, storm clouds.

"Everyone hides something," he said quietly. "The question is whether the secret is worth the cost of keeping it."

The car stopped. He got out. I sat for a moment, alone in the leather-scented dark, my hand pressed against my stomach.

Six weeks. A lentil-sized secret. A five-million-dollar lie.

Inside the penthouse, I headed for my room—but stopped.

The east wing hallway was dark. The door at the end was ajar.

Just barely. An inch. A sliver of warm light spilling onto the marble floor.

I heard it again. The lullaby. Soft, broken, wandering between notes like a mind losing its way.

And then a different voice—not Ethan's. A woman's. Younger. Sharper.

"She can't stay here forever, Ethan. The doctors said—"

"The doctors don't decide." Ethan's voice, raw. "I decide."

"She doesn't even know who you are half the time!"

"She's my mother, Claire. My real mother. And she stays."

Silence. Then the younger woman—Claire—spoke again, her voice cracking.

"And what about Victoria? If she finds out Eleanor is still alive—"

"Victoria won't find out. Because no one in this building is going to tell her."

The door began to close.

I pressed myself against the wall, heart slamming, barely breathing.

Eleanor. His real mother. Alive. Hidden.

And Victoria—the woman the world calls his mother—doesn't know.

The door clicked shut. Footsteps receded.

I stood in the dark hallway, the pieces rearranging themselves in my mind like shrapnel forming a new weapon.

Ethan Blackwell wasn't just a CEO who needed a fake wife.

He was a man hiding his real mother from the woman who stole her identity.

And I—the daughter of the man Victoria's company destroyed—was now living inside the lie.

My phone buzzed.

Enjoying the show, Olivia? The east wing has more secrets than you think. Ask Ethan about Eleanor. Ask him what Victoria did to her. And ask yourself—whose side are you really on? —V

I stared at the screen until the words blurred.

Then I typed back: What do you want?

This time, V replied instantly.

The same thing you do. To burn the Blackwells to the ground. Starting with the one you married.