My Fiancé Faked His Death for a Rich Heiress

The sky over Seattle was the color of a bruise that morning. Low clouds, no sun. The kind of gray that sits on your chest and stays there.

I stood on the front porch of the heritage house with my palm flat against the doorframe. The wood was rough and cool under my hand. I knew every crack in it. Every warped plank. My mother used to sit right here in her wheelchair, watching the maple tree drop its leaves in October. This house was the last place she'd been happy.

Now there were men in hard hats on the lawn.

Three black SUVs idled at the curb. A crew of maybe eight guys moved around the property with clipboards and cameras, measuring things, photographing things, like the house was already gone and they were just cataloging the wreckage. A man in a charcoal suit walked up the front path toward me. Tall. Polished. The kind of man who wore expensive shoes to a demolition site.

"Ms. Pierce." He stopped at the bottom porch step and held out a folded document. "Victor Holt, Holt and Associates. This is a court-issued demolition order. The property has been legally acquired by a private buyer. You have seventy-two hours to vacate."

I didn't take the paper.

"This house isn't for sale," I said. "It was never for sale."

Victor Holt had the kind of face that didn't move much. He just tilted his head slightly, like I was a minor inconvenience he'd already budgeted for. "The deed transfer was finalized last week. The buyer intends to convert the property into a private wedding venue." He tucked the document into my hand anyway. "I'd strongly advise you to read that."

I looked down at the paper. My fingers found my mother's silver locket without me telling them to. I pressed it between my thumb and forefinger, the way I always did when I needed to hold onto something real.

Behind Victor, his crew started photographing the front facade. One of them measured the porch railing with a tape measure.

"Get your people off my porch," I said.

Victor Holt pulled out his phone and made a call.

Then a fourth SUV rolled up. Sleek. Black. It stopped in front of the maple tree, and the driver got out first to open the rear door. A man stepped out.

He was wearing a half-fitted tuxedo jacket, the kind you wear when a tailor is still working on it. The tailor was actually right behind him, still holding a pin cushion. The man straightened his cuffs. He turned toward the house.

He looked up and found my eyes.

The locket slipped from my fingers and swung against my collarbone.

Devin Sullivan was dead. I had watched them lower a casket into the ground. I had worn black for six months. I had cried until I couldn't anymore, and then I had gone to Alaska and let the Bering Sea try to finish the job.

Devin Sullivan was dead.

But the man walking toward me across my lawn had his jaw. His posture. That particular way he tilted his head when he was about to say something he'd already rehearsed.

He stopped at the foot of the porch steps and smiled. Faint. Familiar. Like we'd seen each other last Tuesday.

"Camille," he said.

My mouth wouldn't open.

"I know this is a shock." He said it gently. Patiently. The way you talk to someone who's overreacting. "I had to disappear. The situation was—it was complicated. I needed to rebuild. You wouldn't have understood at the time, but I did it for both of us."

I still hadn't spoken. I was looking at his hands. His suit. The tailor hovering behind him with a tape measure.

A white Range Rover pulled up.

The woman who stepped out was striking. Red blazer, dark hair, crimson lipstick applied like armor. She moved like someone who owned every room she'd ever walked into. A white poodle trotted beside her on a thin leather leash.

She looked at me the way you look at a stranger blocking the door to a restaurant you've already booked.

"Devin." Her voice was smooth and flat. "Is the trespasser being handled?"

Devin touched her arm briefly. "Give me a moment."

He pulled me to the side of the porch. His voice dropped.

"I want to make this easy for you," he said. "I'm prepared to offer a monthly allowance. Generous. You'd vacate the property, and we'd maintain a—private arrangement. It's a good offer, Camille. Better than you'd get fighting this in court."

I looked at him for a long moment. My hand drifted up to my shoulder without thinking. Right where the scars started.

"I spent two winters on a crab boat in the Bering Sea," I said. My voice came out quiet. Almost gentle. "Bering Sea. You know what that does to a person?"

He blinked.

"I did that for you," I said. "To pay your medical bills. For a cancer you never had."

He opened his mouth.

"Get off my porch," I said.

His jaw tightened. He turned and looked at Gianna.

She walked up the steps without being asked. She looked at me once—just once—then reached out and unclasped my mother's locket from around my neck in one clean motion. I was so stunned I didn't move.

She bent down and fastened it around Buster's collar. Then she straightened up and smiled at me. Bright. Contemptuous.

"Lovely little trinket," she said. "It suits him." She looked over her shoulder at Victor Holt. "File the injunction."

Buster trotted down the porch steps. My mother's face swung at his throat.

I stood completely still.

Something in my chest went very quiet. Not numb. Not broken. Just—still. Like the moment before a temperature drops below freezing and everything locks into place.

I watched them walk back toward their cars.

I let them.