Chapter 1

“Your mother was the other woman. So what does that make you?”

Adam Sanchez asked me that as he slid a ring onto my finger. He’d had it made for me. For three weeks, he’d been telling me to keep Saturday night free.

I’d spent the whole drive over wondering how he was going to propose.

“Adam,” I said, “what are you talking about?”

“It makes you the other woman too, babe.”

He turned the ring until the stone sat straight. Then he looked up, and I realized he’d been waiting for me to take him seriously.

“I want you to stay with me,” he said. “We’d just have to keep it quiet.”

“Quiet from who?”

“My new secretary. At the shipping office.” That was where the Sanchez family conducted the business it could put on paper. “She’s smart. She’s beautiful. I want to marry her.”

I looked down at the ring. He still had my hand in his.

“Then what am I supposed to be?”

His face softened. For a second, I thought he’d heard himself.

“Your mother knew exactly what she was agreeing to,” he said. “She made it work. Why can’t you?”

……

For a while, I sat there looking at the ring. Adam had parked beneath the Sanchez shipping office, in the garage his father used when he wanted to come and go without being seen. I’d thought Adam wanted some privacy to propose.

“My mother made her own choices,” I said at last. “I won’t be anyone’s mistress.”

“Is that so?”

He gave a short laugh. I knew that laugh. I’d heard him use it on men who thought they could walk away from one of his father’s deals.

“Then we’re done.”

“Fine.”

I’d made myself that promise after my mother died. I’d never told Adam about it. Until that night, I hadn’t imagined I’d need to.

He reached over and smoothed my hair back from my face.

“Don’t be silly. How do you think you’d get by without me?” His hand lingered at my temple. “They went after your mother online until she killed herself. Your father still won’t admit you’re his. I’m the reason nobody in this city laughs at you to your face.”

I let out a quiet laugh of my own. He knew exactly how my mother had died. I’d told him in bed one night, with the lights off, because I couldn’t bear to see his face while I said it. He’d held my hand then, too.

What he didn’t know was that my mother’s sister had found me.

Aunt Caroline ran a shipping network of her own overseas. Men who made appointments weeks in advance to see Adam’s father took her calls in the middle of dinner. When she found me last week, she asked if I wanted to go back with her.

I said no. I told her I had someone here.

I picked up my phone. Caroline’s last message was still on the screen.

If you change your mind, you know how to reach me.

I typed beneath it.

Aunt Caroline, I’ve made up my mind. I’ll go with you.

Her reply came before I’d put the phone down.

Good. I’ll send the jet for you in three days.

I’d been looking forward to telling Adam about her. I’d pictured the two of us going overseas together one day so he could meet the only relative who’d ever come looking for me.

I blinked, and a tear landed on the ring he’d just put on my finger.

Adam brushed the next one away with his thumb.

“See?” he said. “I say we’re done, and you’re already crying. Imagine how you’d feel if I actually walked out.”

I turned my face toward the window.

“Throwing a fit won’t get you anywhere with me,” he went on. “You don’t want to end up alone again, do you? Then do what I’m asking.”

When I didn’t answer, he reached for the ignition. His fingers were on the key when he stopped.

“One more thing. From now on, you ride in the back.”

I turned to look at him.

“She asked me to keep the passenger seat for her. I gave her my word.” He glanced down at the seat I was sitting in. “You know I keep my promises. I told you I’d take care of you for the rest of your life. I can still do that once I’m married.”

He said it as though he’d found a way to give both of us exactly what we wanted.

“We’re getting married at the courthouse in three days,” he added. The smile on his face was the first one that evening he hadn’t aimed at me. “I had to ask her more than once before she said yes. I can’t go upsetting her again. She doesn’t let me talk her around the way you do.”

He leaned back in his seat, still smiling.

“She says she’s a red rose. If I want the flower, I have to put up with the thorns.”

Three days. I wondered what time Caroline’s plane would leave. I hoped I’d already be in the air when he stood beside his secretary and said his vows.

I pressed the buckle to release my seat belt, then braced a hand on the seat to turn toward the door. Something sharp went into my palm.

I jerked my hand up. A small earring came with it. The stud had been wedged in the seam beside the buckle, its post sticking straight up. I pulled it free, and blood welled in the puncture.

“How could you be so careless?” Adam snapped.

For a second I thought he meant my hand. I almost told him it was nothing. I’d said it to him so many times that the words were already on my tongue.

He took the earring by the stone and held it up to the light.

“That’s her favorite,” he said. “You know how she is about germs. She’ll be furious if she finds out you got blood on it.”