Chapter 1 - Six Months
"I only want his money. Six months after the wedding, I'll divorce him."
Nathan Whitcomb stopped outside his bride's dressing room with a velvet box in his hand. He had come to give Sloane Avery the pearl earrings his mother wore on her wedding day. Instead, he heard her laughing at him through a door left open an inch.
"He thinks I love him," Sloane said into her phone. "The poor idiot cried when he proposed. Graham, don't start worrying now. He'll sign anything once we're married."
Nate stared at his reflection in the gold-framed mirror across the hallway. Thirty-seven years old. Owner of three hotels. A man who could negotiate a deal with twenty attorneys in the room, yet had somehow missed the truth sitting beside him at dinner every night.
"And the sister?" the voice on the phone asked. Nate recognized Graham Pike, his company's chief financial officer.
Sloane lowered her voice. "Rachel won't know what happened until the money's gone. Stop calling me. I'm wearing a wedding dress."
A chair scraped. Nate stepped behind a marble column as the door swung wider. Through the crack he saw Sloane in white satin, radiant beneath a crystal chandelier. She admired herself in the mirror, the same soft smile she wore when she told him she wanted to grow old with him.
His fingers closed around the velvet box until the hinge bit his palm.
"Five minutes, beautiful bride," the wedding coordinator called from downstairs.
Sloane blew a kiss toward the phone. "By tonight, I'll be Mrs. Whitcomb. Then we're rich."
Nate walked toward the chapel without making a sound. His chest hurt, but the feeling underneath the hurt was frighteningly clear. He would not marry her. And he would not let his sister pay for Sloane's little performance.
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He had reached the stairwell when his phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number said: MARRY HER, OR RACHEL GOES TO PRISON.
