Chapter 1

I’m a con artist.

And I fell in love with the heir to one of Manhattan’s oldest old-money families: Harrison Sterling.

To marry him, I invented a bloodline—the last daughter of a faded European noble house—and built a life out of carefully stitched lies.

I was naive enough to believe that if I was careful enough, I could con him into loving me for the rest of his life.

Until tonight, standing outside the heavy oak door of his club, I heard him talking with his friends.

“Harrison, I almost feel sorry for that fake socialite of yours. Can’t give you a baby, and your mother locks her out of the estate in a blizzard to freeze…” One of them swirled his drink and snorted. “When you’ve already had the snip.”

There was a drunken sneer in his voice.

Harrison swirled his whiskey, the ice clinking against the glass. “I promised Natalie her son, Leo, would be the only Sterling heir. So Evelyn can’t get pregnant.”

His friend laughed. “You’re still hung up on your brother’s widow? Then why the hell did you marry Evelyn?”

Someone else cut in. “Isn’t it obvious? When Natalie married his brother, everyone froze her out because she didn’t come from money. He married the con artist so she’d be Natalie’s human shield.”

“Poor Evelyn has no idea. From the very first day she showed up with that fake pedigree, you told everyone exactly who she was…”

————

The private room went quiet for a moment.

“Natalie has no family name behind her. She’d never survive in our circle. So I had to marry someone even more disgraceful—a con artist—and make sure the scandal was loud enough that my mother would turn every bit of her fire on Evelyn instead.”

Harrison’s voice was cold, like he was walking through the terms of a merger.

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to protect Natalie and her son’s position. As for Evelyn, she got the money she wanted, and I got my shield. Seems like a fair deal.”

His friend took a sip and smiled like he knew something. “If you can’t let Natalie go, just divorce the fake and marry her. Your brother’s dead. Nobody’s stopping you now.”

“Divorce isn’t part of the plan.” Harrison shot it down without even thinking. “I’m sending Natalie and Leo to Europe. When Leo comes of age, he takes over the company. I’m never having kids of my own. Leo is my son, as far as I’m concerned.”

The room erupted in laughter, whistles, and jeers.

I stood outside the door, cold all the way through.

No wonder that every time we went back to the estate in the Hamptons, the whole family—down to the staff—looked straight through me like I wasn’t there.

Only his mother ever looked at me, with that icy, appraising stare, and asked the same question like she was checking a box: “Still not pregnant?”

No.

So, every blizzard, there I was: thrown out past the front gates, freezing in the snow.

And every time, Harrison would rush home, wrap me in his coat, and rub my frozen fingers like it broke his heart.

And I would smile and say, “I’m not cold.”

So everyone had known I was a fraud all along.

I looked down at the ultrasound printout in my hand.

My fingertip brushed the tiny dark spot in the middle of it. If Harrison had had a vasectomy, then how was I pregnant?

I stepped into the shadows of the hallway and called a hacker I knew from the old days.

For three years, Harrison had guarded himself against me like I was a thief. Even my private doctor was someone he’d chosen. There was no way that doctor would ever tell me anything.

But back when I was running cons, I’d left myself plenty of back doors.

“Get into Harrison’s records at NewYork-Presbyterian from two years ago. I need the follow-up records from his surgery. Fast.” I kept my voice low.

In less than five minutes, an encrypted file landed on my burner phone.

It was all there in black and white: Harrison had the procedure two years ago. But afterward, he never came back for the follow-up semen analysis his doctor ordered.

In very rare cases, there’s something called spontaneous recanalization.

And that one-in-a-million miracle had landed on me.

I leaned back against the cold wall and let out a quiet laugh.

He’d gone to all that trouble to guard against me, even had himself fixed, and yet he’d been too arrogant to finish the job.

Slowly, I crumpled the ultrasound into a ball and dropped it in the trash.

I wanted a divorce.

My phone buzzed. A text from Natalie: Evelyn, let’s meet.

At the café, Natalie sat across from me, all poise. “Did you put Harrison up to sending me and Leo to Europe?”

“No.”

She laughed softly and slid a check to the middle of the table. “Divorce Harrison. Two million dollars. That’ll keep you comfortable for life.”

I pushed the check back.

She raised an eyebrow, her eyes full of contempt. “Not enough? You think you can fight me for him? Do you know how crazy he was about me in college? I’d say I was bored at midnight, and he’d rent out an entire old Broadway movie palace just so I could watch classic films. Someone was nasty to me once, and he went and smashed their sports car. Paid out hundreds of thousands without blinking.”

She lifted her coffee and looked down her nose at me. “Too bad I chose his brother in the end. I wanted real control of the Sterling Group, and his brother held the most shares.”

“Now his brother’s dead. Everything he had, Harrison included, comes back to me.”

She took out her phone and gave me a challenging look. “Since you won’t give up, how about a bet? Right now, we both call Harrison. I’ll say the dog he and I raised is sick. You say you’ve got a fever and you’re about to pass out. If he comes to me, you sign and get out. Deal?”

My fingers were ice cold as I called Harrison.

“Evelyn?” His assistant answered. “Mr. Sterling is in the middle of signing a ten-billion-dollar acquisition. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’ve got a fever, I think I’m about to pass out. Could you ask Harrison to—”

A pause on the other end. “He can’t step away from the company today. I’ll send a driver to take you to the hospital right now.”

The dial tone droned in my ear.

Natalie unhurriedly unlocked her phone. “Harrison, I think the puppy’s sick.”

“Where are you?” Harrison’s voice came through the speaker. “Cancel the rest of my day.”

“If you’ve got something important, really, don’t worry about me…” Natalie said, looking right at me, all consideration.

“There’s nothing else,” he cut her off, clean and quick.

Something in my chest wrenched.

Natalie took my phone and typed fast: Harrison, I was just in a car accident. It hurts so much. The message showed Delivered.

Ten minutes passed. The screen stayed dark.

Natalie slid the check back toward me. “You lose.”

I looked at her and suddenly laughed, low. And as I laughed, the tears came.

I’d thought I was a brilliant con artist. Turned out I was a complete fool.

“You’re right. I lost. Keep the money. I’ll have the divorce papers signed tonight.”