Chapter 1

My husband satisfactoryd my twin sister in our bed.

Our anniversary bed. Egyptian cotton. Two thousand thread count.

I stood in the doorway, eight weeks pregnant, holding a gift box with his engraved watch inside.

The box hit the floor before I did.

"Clara." Lucas sat up, not rushing to cover himself. "You're home early."

Not I'm sorry. Not this isn't what it looks like.

Just: you're home early.

Like I'd interrupted a business meeting.

Vanessa didn't even pull the sheet up. She stretched, catlike, her body a mirror of mine but somehow, in his eyes, always the superior version.

"Hey, sis," she said. "Surprise."

The room smelled like her perfume. Chanel No. 5. The one Lucas bought every Christmas—I'd assumed for me.

I now realized I'd never seen the receipt.

"How long?" My voice didn't sound like mine.

Lucas swung his legs off the bed, reaching for his pants with the calm efficiency of a man who'd done this before.

"Clara, let's not do this right now."

"How. Long."

He sighed. The sigh of a man inconvenienced.

"Does it matter?"

Vanessa answered for him. "Since before your wedding, actually."

She examined her nails—my nail color, my ring style, everything about her a slightly sharper version of me.

"He proposed to me first, you know. I said no. Wasn't ready for the Blackwood cage." She smiled. "So he found the next best thing."

I looked at Lucas. Waiting for the denial.

He buttoned his shirt. Slowly. Deliberately.

"She's exaggerating," he said.

But he didn't look at me when he said it.

I pressed my hand against my stomach. The tiny life inside me, the secret I'd been saving for tonight's anniversary dinner.

The dinner reservation at Per Se. The one I'd waited three months to get.

The engraved watch: To Lucas, my forever. —Clara.

Forever. What a stupid word.

"I'm pregnant," I said.

The words fell into the silence like stones into water.

Lucas froze, one cufflink halfway through his sleeve.

Vanessa's smirk vanished.

For three seconds, nobody breathed.

Then Lucas looked at Vanessa. Not at me. At her.

As if checking her reaction. As if her feelings about my pregnancy mattered more than mine.

"Well," Vanessa said, recovering first. "That complicates things."

"It changes nothing," Lucas said quickly. Too quickly.

He crossed the room, reaching for me. His hands—the same hands that had just been on my sister—cupped my face.

"This is good news, Clara. An heir. My mother will be thrilled."

An heir. Not a baby. Not our child.

An heir.

I stepped back from his touch.

"Don't," I whispered.

"Clara, be reasonable—"

"You satisfactoryd my sister. In our bed. On our anniversary."

My voice cracked on the last word.

He had the audacity to look annoyed.

"You're being dramatic. Vanessa and I have history. You knew that when you married me."

History. That's what he called it.

I looked at Vanessa, still lounging in my sheets, watching the scene with the detached amusement of someone watching reality television.

My twin. My blood. The person who shared my face but none of my loyalty.

"Get out of my bed," I told her.

She raised an eyebrow. "Technically, it's Lucas's bed. He paid for it."

Lucas stepped between us. Protecting her. From me.

"Vanessa, get dressed," he said softly. Gently. The way he never spoke to me.

Then he turned back to me, his voice hardening.

"We'll discuss this in the morning. When you've calmed down."

Calmed down.

I was carrying his child, and he wanted me to calm down.

He walked Vanessa to the guest room. I heard them murmuring in the hallway. A low laugh. His.

I stood alone in my bedroom, surrounded by the evidence of his betrayal.

Her earring on his nightstand.

Her lipstick on his collar, tossed over the chair.

A second phone, half-hidden under his pillow, buzzing with her name.

I picked it up. No password.

He hadn't even bothered to lock it.

Three years of messages. Photos. Plans.

And one text from his mother, Helena, sent six months ago:

"When are you going to tell Clara the truth? The arrangement can't last forever. Vanessa is getting impatient."

Arrangement.

My marriage was an arrangement.

I sank to the floor, the phone clutched in my shaking hands, and read the text that would shatter what was left of my world.

Helena's reply to Lucas, three words:

"After the heir."