Chapter 1
Marlowe's POV
Everyone says I’m crazy.
My husband, Adrien, is Ashmont College’s most esteemed professor—suave, composed, and highly logical. I, on the other hand, am an investigative journalist whose nerves are fried by looming deadlines and too much caffeine. Yet, I insist there’s a woman who shares my exact face, who crawls out of our bedroom mirror every night and slips into my husband’s bed.
Our security cameras always "happen" to glitch at the crucial moments. My son avoids me like I’m a monster, and my neighbors claim they cheerfully greeted "me" in the driveway a few days ago—even though I don't even own a vintage pink dress.
Adrien has started dropping phrases like "psych evaluation" and "sole custody." If I let this drag on any longer, he’s going to personally commit me to a psych ward.
So tonight, I lied about flying to Chicago. Instead, I’m hiding in my own study—waiting for that identical face to crawl out of the mirror one more time.
At 3:00 AM on the third day of my "business trip," I fired off a thousand-word exposé on Big Pharma to my editor and rubbed my burning eyes. Thinking I was a thousand miles away, I wanted to check on Silas and Adrien sleeping—so I opened the home security app.
What I saw on the master bedroom camera made my blood run cold.
Silas wasn't in the room.
The surface of our full-length mirror rippled like water. A pale foot stepped out, followed by a woman.
"What the hell?" I leaned in, my fingertips turning to ice.
She was wearing a black silk nightgown—an anniversary gift from Adrien that I found too accommodating, so I had shoved it into the bottom drawer. Yet here she was, wearing it with intoxicating allure.
But what really made my stomach churn was when she turned her face toward the camera.
She had my exact face.
The same shoulder-length chestnut hair, the same freckles. But her movements lacked my usual sharp edges; instead, she moved with a sickly, docile grace.
She pulled back the covers, climbed into my bed, and curled into Adrien’s arms.
My husband didn't wake up startled. Completely naturally, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead.
Like a truly devoted married couple.
"Fuck this!" I knocked over my coffee mug, frantically dialing Adrien’s number.
"The number you have dialed is currently unavailable..."
Staring at the two tangled silhouettes on the screen, disgust and rage obliterated any remaining rationality. I grabbed my coat and rushed straight to the airport.
I was going to drag that bitch with my face, along with my hypocrite of a husband, right out of that bed.
Four hours later, I kicked open the door to the Calloway master bedroom.
"Where is that bitch?!" I screamed, my voice surprisingly shrill even to my own ears.
The figures in the bed bolted upright. Adrien sat up, and beside him was only our five-year-old son, Silas, rubbing his eyes in sheer terror.
No black silk nightgown. No woman.
I tore through the closet, frantically checking behind the mirror, kicked open the bathroom door, and dropped to the carpet to check under the bed—nothing.
"Marlowe? Aren't you supposed to be back tomorrow?" Adrien frowned. "What are you looking for? You’re acting hysterical and it’s frankly terrifying."
"Stop playing dumb, Adrien!" I pointed a shaking finger at his face. "Where is that woman who looks exactly like me? Don't tell me she vanished into thin air!"
"What woman? What are you babbling about?" He gave me a look of pitying sheer disbelief and sighed. "Here we go again. I told you not to take on these shady undercover investigative pieces—your paranoia has severely warped your grip on reality."
"Shut your condescending mouth!"
I yanked out my phone, fingers trembling as I pulled up the camera playback. "Look for yourself! At 3:00 AM! The two of you were just—"
