Chapter 1

I had been sleeping with my secretary for three years.

Every day, I dragged him into bed.

Another time, when we were still locked together and neither of us was giving in, lines of comments drifted across my eyes.

[Here we go. The vicious fake heiress still doesn't know her good days are about to end.]

[Julian Crowe has it so bad. He's the Hales' own son. Getting swapped at birth wasn't enough. He grew up, and he still has to sell himself to the woman who took his nest.]

[A few more days. The DNA test comes out. He comes home, he meets our Lila, and the two of them slap this woman across the face.]

[Lila is the endgame. The good heroine and the real heir. Perfect.]

Julian Crowe was my chief of staff.

At seven in the morning he got up off my bed, bare-chested, and reached for the shirt on the chair. There were scratches down his back. I had put them there last night.

I watched him do up the buttons from the head of the bed.

His fingers were long. Bottom to top, one at a time, he closed everything I had pulled open. He knotted the tie, and he was Mr. Crowe again, the man who didn't leak a drop in a board meeting.

"Coffee's in the kitchen," he said. "You have a nine o'clock, Ms. Hale."

"Mm." My voice was lazy, used up. "The west-side lot. I want the plan this afternoon."

"All right."

He got to the door, stopped, and looked back. I thought he was going to say something. He only asked, "Tonight. Do you want me to come?"

"Mm."

That was the rule.

Three years ago his mother was critically ill, short two million. He knelt outside my office with a stack of medical files. Three hours.

I said I could give him the money. The condition was that he was mine for three years.

He agreed.

I had always thought it was a good deal.

His work was the best in the company. So was he, in bed.

I paid. He delivered. Nobody owed anybody.

That night, a line drifted across my eyes.

[Here we go. The vicious fake heiress is still all over Julian. She has no idea her good days are about to end.]

I thought my eyes were playing tricks.

The second line followed.

[This is the woman who bought the real heir for three years with two million. Remember this face, sisters. The day she gets thrown out of the Hales, come back and dig her grave.]

A chill went through me.

Julian stopped and asked what was wrong.

I said it was nothing. I told him to keep going.

The words kept coming. They rolled across my eyes, line after line, like someone had opened a live chat on the back of them.

[Julian has it so bad. He's the Hales' own son. Getting swapped at birth wasn't enough. He grew up, and he still has to sell himself to the woman who took his nest.]

[A few more days. The DNA test comes out. He comes home, he meets our Lila, and the two of them slap this woman across the face.]

[Lila is the endgame. The good heroine and the real heir. Perfect.]

I stared at the words DNA test for a few seconds.

Then, for the first time in three years, I pushed Julian off.

"Not tonight."

He stopped. His throat worked, like it cost him.

"All right." A few seconds later he pulled a smile, hauled me in from behind, and set his chin in the crook of my neck. "Then I'll just hold you. Sleep. That's all."

He paused. Heat against the back of my ear.

"We'll see how long you last."

"Don't." I found an excuse I thought sounded decent. "You've been running too hard. Your mother has another checkup. Get some rest."

The comments blew up.

[I'm going to be sick. She's lying. She heard something, didn't she?]

[Playing the good woman. The vicious side character is laying her exit.]

[Julian, don't believe her! She's bored and she wants to dump you, and she's dressing it up!]

I nearly choked. I wanted to explain to Julian, and I had no way to say I could see the words.

He went quiet against my back for two seconds. Then he rolled, braced himself over me, and covered me completely.

"Worried I'm tired?" His breath hit my face. "Who wouldn't let me stop last night?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I." He bent his head. His nose brushed my ear. His voice dropped. "Sabrina Hale, since when do you care if someone's tired? That's not you."

I pushed him. He didn't move.

At the company, I said one thing and he didn't add a second. In bed, he never listened to reason.

"Keep this up," he said, and bit my earlobe, unhurried, "and I'll think you're leading me on."

The comments filled the screen, furious.

[Leading him on? She's paying for it!]

[Wake up, real heir. She didn't get good. She got scared!]

[Wait for Wednesday. The lab. The report hits, she dies in public, and we'll see if she's still leading anyone on!]

I went still.

DNA test. Those words, the second time today.

This time they had given the day and the place.

If the test was real, who had gone and done it behind my back?

My head got worse.

I stopped trying to reason with Julian. I took a pillow and went to the guest room.

I couldn't hold out against his body.

Stay in that bed, and we were going to end up having sex again.