The Billionaire Mistook Me for His Dead Fiancée

Thorne’s fingers tighten around my throat.

The world shrinks to a single, pulsing point of pain. My heart hammers so violently I can hear it in my teeth. Juno is beside me, shouting, pleading, pulling at his arm. I can barely hear her. Her words blur into a dull, rushing roar.

My vision darkens at the edges. Fraying into black. The air in the cathedral is suddenly too thick, suffocating me with the scent of melting wax and the sickening sweetness of funeral lilies. My lungs burn. They scream for oxygen.

For a terrifying second, my mind spirals. Is this how she died? The woman in the casket? Choked out by hands just like these?

Two security guards in dark suits step forward from the shadows of the nave.

Thorne doesn't even turn his head. He shoots them a single, peripheral look—so cold, so steeped in quiet violence—that both massive men freeze mid-step. They don't dare intervene. The entire congregation watches in stunned, breathless silence. Like they are witnessing a sacrifice.

My knees buckle. I'm slipping. The edges of the world are completely giving way.

Crack.

The sharp, echoing strike of wood against marble snaps through the church.

An old man steps out from the gloom. Augustus Ashbourne. The patriarch. His silver-tipped cane strikes the floor again, the sound vibrating straight through the soles of my shoes.

“Thorne.” Augustus’s voice is gravel and rusted iron. Commanding. Absolute. His face is carved from ancient stone, his eyes sharp and entirely unforgiving. “Let go. Are you planning to kill another soul at Ondine’s memorial?”

For a split second, Thorne doesn’t move. The beast inside him refuses to yield. His jaw twitches. His fingers remain clamped around my pulse, the heat of his skin searing into mine.

Crack. The cane strikes a third time.

Thorne’s hand falls away. Violently.

I hit the cold stone floor. Hard. Air rushes back into my lungs, burning like acid. I gasp, my coughs echoing harsh and ragged against the vaulted ceiling.

Augustus steps closer. The slow, deliberate tap-tap-tap of his cane stops right in front of me. He holds out a crystal glass of water. His hands are weathered, veins mapping rivers beneath translucent skin.

I take it. My hands are shaking so badly the water sloshes over the rim, freezing against my skin. I force myself to drink. The cold grounds me, easing the raw fire in my throat just enough to speak.

Augustus studies my face. His gaze is surgical. Peeling back my skin. “Child. What is your name?”

I press my thighs together to stop them from trembling. “Celeste.” My voice is a broken whisper. “Celeste Marlowe.”

A dangerous, suffocating hush falls over the room. The name rolls through the pews. It stretches. It twists. I feel a hundred pairs of eyes settle on my skin—heavy with disbelief, suspicion, and a very sharp, distinct fear.

I glance up. Thorne is staring at me. The pure rage in his storm-grey eyes is now fractured by a violent, disorienting confusion.

“Thorne,” Augustus says quietly, his breath rattling in his chest. “Let her leave. This isn’t her fault.”

Thorne stands over me. A towering shadow of bespoke Italian wool and suppressed violence.

“No.” His voice is flat. Terrifyingly calm. “She can’t leave.”

The words drop like lead weights. My core clenches.

Thorne turns his head slightly, not looking away from me, but addressing a sharp-jawed man in a navy suit standing near the front pew.

“Get her identity. Her address. Everything.” Thorne's tone leaves no room for negotiation. “I want it on my desk tonight.”

The lawyer simply nods. He pulls out his phone and starts typing immediately.

A fresh wave of ice floods my veins. This isn't just a funeral. I've stumbled into a deep, dark ocean, and I don't know how to swim.

Juno hooks her arms under mine. She hauls me to my feet. The cathedral spins, but I force my legs to lock. I force myself to walk.

Thorne doesn't stop us this time. But I feel his gaze burning into my spine the entire way down the aisle. Relentless. A promise of ruin.

....

We push through the heavy wooden doors. The bruised, angry sky above the city has cracked open. Icy rain pours down in sheets.

We stumble across the slick pavement. Juno shoves me into the passenger seat of her car and slams the door. The world outside instantly blurs, the rain streaking down the windshield like violent tears.

Juno’s hands are shaking so badly she misses the ignition twice.

“Celeste.” Her voice cracks. Mascara tracks run dark down her pale cheeks. “Oh my god. Do you have any idea what you just walked into?”

I press my cold hands over my face. My throat throbs, holding the exact shape of Thorne's fingers. “I don’t know anything.”

Juno drops her head against the steering wheel. She's hyperventilating. “The dead woman. Her name was Ondine Beaumont. She was Thorne’s fiancée.”

I stop breathing.

“She died three years ago,” Juno whispers, her voice shaking. “A yacht explosion in the Mediterranean. They only just recovered the body yesterday. Today was the memorial.”

My mind reels. The puzzle pieces smash together in chaotic fragments. I have his dead fiancée's face.

“You look exactly like her, Celeste.” Juno turns to me. Her eyes are wide with terror. “Exactly like her. That’s why he lost his mind.”

The car falls dead silent. Only the thunder of the rain hammers against the roof.

I pull my phone from my clutch. I need something solid. Something that belongs to me. I tap the screen. It glows to life, illuminating the lock screen.

It’s the blurry photo. Ten years old. A man’s silhouette, his back turned, half-lit by an amber streetlight. The man I just left standing in the cathedral.

I trace the blurry outline with my thumb. My pulse kicks into a low, frantic rhythm.

The Ashbourne family is coming for me. A billionaire who could snap my neck is going to tear my life apart tonight to find out who I am. He will find my address. He will find my debts. He will drag me into his world whether I scream or not.

I should be terrified. Every rational part of me is begging me to pack a bag and disappear before morning.

But as I stare at the photo, tracing the broad line of his shoulders, a dark, shameful heat pools in my stomach.

I’ve been hunting him in the shadows for ten years.

Now, he is hunting me.

And goddess help me... I am going to let him catch me.