Chapter 1

Three nights before the wedding feast, Lorenzo Barone was taken off the road on his way to collect my gown.

He came back alive. He came back with no memory of me, and every time a soul mentioned the union of our bloodlines, he'd go pale and drop where he stood.

The Family's tame clinic called it a second self, something the abduction had cracked open in him.

And as it happened, I'd just learned I was carrying. The doctor told me: maybe the child could wake the man who'd once loved me so much.

I took the word of it and went to find him, full of hope, only to catch him laughing low with his running crew.

"Lorenzo, you're a piece of work. Fake a whole broken mind just to duck out of your own wedding feast. What's next, a third act, a fourth."

"Never. I love Adriana. I'll trick her this once, that's all. Once I've had ten more, I'm done."

"That's your ceiling? Ten won't even get you through the whole book. If you ask me, keep the act running another year. It's not like Adriana Falcone's going to be promised to anyone but you."

His voice went cold and he cut them off.

"I can't stomach seeing her hurt that long. Move. Line the girls up for me. I want the beautiful ones, untouched, a fresh one every three days. And don't you dare put a crack in the wedding for me and Adriana."

Hands shaking, I tore the doctor's word to pieces, turned, and booked the procedure at the clinic myself.

…

When the doctor saw me come back through her door, she took it for some new pain somewhere in me.

The moment she understood what I'd come to do, she couldn't believe it.

"This child was so hard for the two of you to make. If you go through with it, it could set off your betrothed's condition. It could make it far worse."

I shook my head with a bitter smile.

"If I told him the truth, he's the one who'd never rise from that bed again."

After all, he was still lost in the thrill of moving through a garden of women without letting one petal touch his skin.

For the life of me, I couldn't understand how the man who'd wept and begged me to seal the vow could fake a sickness to deceive me.

She couldn't talk me out of it, so when it came time to mark the consent, she insisted on calling Lorenzo, demanding the heir's word before the deed.

"Miss Falcone, this child isn't only yours. Even if his condition means he doesn't want it now, he should come and put his hand to this for you, stand with you through it. And if there's some misunderstanding, the two of you could settle it face to face."

I rested my hand lightly against my belly and stopped arguing.

Because my body had never made this easy. A child was never a thing I could count on.

Lorenzo had known all of it. He'd broken with his own blood, defied the Barones to their faces, just to bind himself to me.

Now that I was giving up the child, he really should come. He should see it off, this one last time.

But the moment the doctor spoke, he scoffed down the line.

"How much did Adriana Falcone put in your hand to run this play? I've told you. I don't know the woman. I'm not bound to her, not by any pact."

"Do me a favor and pass this along. Stop using these little schemes to force a union out of me. Whether the thing is even mine is anyone's guess."

The dead dial tone and his heartless laugh rang together through the silent room.

I marked the consent myself and closed my eyes.

When I woke, there were messages waiting on my phone.

All from Lorenzo.

【Whatever we used to be, that's the past. Now I'm me and you're you. Instead of paying people to put on shows and trick me, you'd do better to pack your things and get clear of my holdings, fast.】

He was very considerate. He'd taken a fully furnished place for me in the same block, ready to walk into.

He'd even covered the first month against the door.

And so I wouldn't grow suspicious, he'd struck a full year's arrangement with the landlord in his own name.

【For the sake of the time we knew each other, the debt's forgiven.】

I looked at that small bloody mass of a thing they'd taken from me, and answered him calm.

【Fine. Thank you.】

Let that rent stand as the last shred of anything he'd ever answer for, for this child.

For the three days I lay in that clinic, he didn't reach for me again.

But his feed lit up every day, all bright lights and liquor.

As if he meant to claw back every year of wild youth he swore he'd surrendered because of me.

I knew. He was posting it for me to see.

The other account, the one he didn't know was mine, couldn't see any of it at all.