Chapter 1

Eight years after my husband,Don Damien Vestrani, was killed in a shootout, my best friend, Celeste Marlowe, was gone too.

I coughed up blood when the news reached me, but I still forced myself to her funeral.

In the visitation room, someone leaned in close to my brother, the one handling the funeral arrangements, and murmured under his breath.

"When are you going to tell your sister the truth?"

"Celeste has loved Damian in silence all these years. She deserves to be buried beside him—as his wife,his Donna."

My feet stopped as if they had been nailed to the floor.

I watched my brother, Julian Ashford, run his fingertips gently across Celeste's memorial portrait, his voice hoarse.

"Damien never wanted anyone to know."

"I married Celeste because I gave him my word. That I'd look after her and the boy for him."

"I'll have Celeste buried beside Damien. It's what they both wanted."

That double plot. My husband had chosen it himself, on the highest ridge of Forest Hill Cemetery.

And all along, the woman he had meant to lie beside was never me.

The triple betrayal of blood, friendship, and love shattered me in a single breath.

The room went dark, and I fell backward.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a wedding gown, standing at the altar of the church.

Celeste stood in her bridesmaid's dress, her eyes rimmed red, gazing at Damien.

"May the two of you have a long life together."

I stayed silent for a few seconds, then tore off my veil and ran out of the church without looking back.

"Sloane!"

I had barely reached the doors when Julian, closest to me, caught my wrist.

After our parents died in that "incident," he was the only blood I had left in this world.

And yet even he had been keeping the truth from me.

Julian's brow furrowed as he pulled me back.

"Today of all days is not the time for a tantrum."

His grip was hard enough that my tears came almost at once.

Damien caught up to us, his face full of concern.

"Sloane, what's wrong?"

"Is there something you're not happy with? Tell me. I'll fix it."

He was exactly as I remembered him.

Tender, attentive. The kind of man in whom you couldn't find a single flaw.

He had been the same in my last life.

Every dollar that moved through the Vestrani ledgers, I knew about.

Every meeting he took out of state, every trip to Europe. He told me himself, before he went.

Even the secrets only a Consigliere had any right to hear, he laid at my feet without holding a single one back.

And yet this near perfect man had been tangled up with my best friend the whole time.

For forty years he had conspired with everyone I loved to keep me in the dark.

I sniffed hard and forced it all down.

"Damien. I'm not marrying you. We're through."

Damien's composure cracked in an instant.

"Sloane, what has upset you? Just tell me."

"Whatever it is, I can change it. Please. Just tell me."

He stripped himself of every ounce of pride.

so completely that even the guests grew uncomfortable, and started murmuring behind their hands.

"That is Don Damien, and she still won't have him?"

"You don't think she has someone else, do you?"

Julian's face darkened, his anger just barely leashed.

"Look at what Damien's spoiling has done to you."

"I honestly don't know what game you're playing. Half the great families on the East Coast would give anything to marry a daughter into the Vestranis,and not one of them has managed it."

His sentence broke off, and his eyes drifted, of their own accord, to Celeste, a few paces away.

She was staring at me like everyone else was. Startled.

But beneath the surprise, buried very deep, was something that looked almost like hope.

I curled the corner of my mouth into a mocking half smile, met Damien's eyes, and asked him softly.

"I'll ask you once. Have you lied to me?"

Something flickered in the back of his eyes. A flash of panic.

But his answer came steady.

"Of course not."

"How could I ever lie to you?"

The words had barely left his lips when the sky beyond the church split open into blossoms of fireworks, light spilling down in ribbons, beautiful beyond belief.

By the schedule, this was the exact moment we should have finished our vows and kissed in front of every guest.

But now, that whole blazing sky was nothing to me but the punchline of some enormous, cruel joke.

I looked at Damien, and I laughed.

Then I turned, gathered my skirts, and ran out of the church.

By the time I got home, one of my Louboutins was gone, lost somewhere behind me.

Like a wounded child, I hid myself in the deepest cabinet at the back of the walk in closet.

Half an hour later, they came home.

Maybe they had forgotten my old habit of hiding in cabinets. Maybe the things they had to say had waited long enough.

They swept the upstairs in a hurried search and decided I wasn't there.

The next thing I heard was Damien's voice, dropped low into a snarl.

"I told you. I told you to find some excuse, any excuse, not to show up at that wedding. Why couldn't you listen?"

Celeste choked back a sob.

"I'm her best friend, Damien. If I hadn't been there, do you think she wouldn't have wondered?"

"Don't you shout at me. Do you think it was easy for me, standing there watching you marry someone else?"

Julian's voice cut in, low and heavy.

"Enough. Don't blame Celeste. She's already been through enough."

"If we're blaming anyone, blame Sloane for being spoiled. Leave her alone. She'll come to her senses in a few days."

He paused, and then he asked.

"Damien. Are you certain you want to marry Sloane? There's still time."

Damien cut him off without hesitation.

"I've told you. Sloane is the one I love. What happened with Celeste was an accident."

"An accident? Damien, put your hand on your heart and say that again. If it was really an accident, why did you come to me last night?"

The words had barely left Celeste's mouth when she doubled over, clutching her belly, and cried out.

"My stomach. Oh God, my stomach."

"Celeste!"

"Celeste!"

In a flurry of panic, Damien and Julian rushed Celeste to the hospital.

Once they were gone, I pushed the cabinet door open.

My face was already ice cold with tears.

I pulled out my phone and called an old friend.

"That asset management post you mentioned. The one in Oslo. Five year contract. I'll take it."

"Yes. I can be on a plane in three days."

Norway.

Far from this land soaked through with family blood.

Far from every single person I had once believed I could give my life to.