Chapter 1 - THE MAN THEY NEVER EXPECTED TO SEE
The champagne glass hit the marble floor before I even got both feet inside my ex-husband’s wedding reception.
CRASH.
Every conversation around us died.
The bride stared at the man holding my hand.
My ex-husband looked like he had just seen a dead man walk through the door.
And that was when I knew I had made a terrible mistake.
Or maybe the best one of my life.
“Keep smiling,” Julian whispered.
“What?”
“Claire. Keep. Smiling.”
So I did.
I smiled while a waiter rushed over with a towel. I smiled while two hundred wedding guests turned to stare at us. I smiled while Mason, the man who had spent seven years married to me and the next eighteen months pretending I had never mattered, slowly lowered the champagne flute in his hand.
His face had gone white.
Not jealous.
Not angry.
Terrified.
That wasn’t part of the plan.
The plan had been simple.
Show up.
Look gorgeous.
Bring an even more gorgeous man.
Make Mason regret the handwritten sentence he had added to the bottom of my invitation.
I hope you’ll come alone. I think that would be best for everyone.
I knew what it meant.
Come alone so everyone can see you have no one.
Come alone so I can stand next to my younger, shinier replacement and prove that I won.
Come alone so I can humiliate you one final time.
So I hired Julian Hart.
Thirty-four years old. Six-foot-two. Dark hair. Gray eyes. Theater actor. Professional event companion when acting jobs were slow.
He had looked at Mason’s invitation in the coffee shop and grinned.
“This guy sounds charming.”
“You have no idea.”
“What’s my backstory?”
“We’ve been dating four months.”
“Where did we meet?”
“Bookstore.”
“Too safe.”
“Farmers market?”
“Worse.”
I laughed for the first time in days.
Julian leaned across the table.
“Tell them we met because you stole my cab.”
“I don’t steal cabs.”
“You do tonight.”
That was all he was supposed to be.
A handsome stranger.
A prop.
A little revenge in a tailored black suit.
Except now the bride was looking at him like he knew where the bodies were buried.
I tightened my hand around his arm.
“Why is she staring at you?”
Julian didn’t answer.
Across the ballroom, Vanessa pressed one hand against the table to steady herself.
Beautiful Vanessa.
Perfect Vanessa.
The woman Mason had sworn was “just a colleague” right up until I found hotel charges from Chicago on our joint card.
Her lips moved.
I couldn’t hear what she said.
But I saw the word.
Julian.
Beside her, Mason snapped his head toward her.
Then toward us.
And suddenly he started walking.
Fast.
Julian’s smile never moved.
But his body went rigid.
“Do you know them?” I whispered.
He exhaled slowly.
“Unfortunately.”
My stomach dropped.
“From where?”
Mason was almost on us now.
Julian leaned closer to my ear.
“Claire, whatever he says next, don’t let him get you alone.”
I stared at him.
“What the hell does that mean?”
Then Mason stopped three feet away.
He didn’t look at me.
He looked directly at Julian.
And with a voice barely above a whisper, my ex-husband said,
“Julian Reyes.”
I turned toward the man I had hired.
“Reyes?”
Julian finally stopped smiling.
May you like
And Mason said the sentence that changed the entire night.
“You were supposed to stay gone.”
