Chapter 4

I took a sip of my champagne, my face an impassive mask as I watched Jaxson slide the wedding band onto Mirelle's finger.

The cheap metal didn't just bind the two of them together; it was the final, definitive period at the end of my twenty-year devotion.

Two decades of childhood summers on the Cross estate, private school dances, and a planned future—all of it buried right here in this tacky rented banquet hall.

Stepping forward, I looked at the flushed, triumphant couple and offered a polite, hollow smile.

"I've attended your wedding," I said calmly.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a flight back to New York to catch."

Jaxson froze. The self-satisfied smirk melted off his face, replaced by a flash of genuine, unadulterated panic.

He thought I would cry. He expected me to cause a scene, to throw a hysterical fit at the altar like the obsessed, grieving widow he had painted me to be.

He never anticipated that I would just accept it and walk away.

But if I left now, convinced he wasn't the billionaire heir... how was he supposed to get his trust fund back?

"Wait!" Jaxson blurted out, stepping away from his new bride.

He suddenly pressed the heels of his hands to his temples, squeezing his eyes shut in a laughably theatrical display of agony.

"Wait, Bryndis... have we... have we met before?"

I stared at his pathetic attempt at portraying a man recovering his lost memories, a sliver of amusement curling in my chest.

"You must be mistaken," I replied, my voice cool and dismissive.

"We've never met before this week. As I finally realized, you just happen to look exactly like my late husband."

I handed his exact words back to him.

Jaxson's jaw tightened. He was furious that I was throwing a wrench in his script, but he was trapped by his own amnesiac persona. He couldn't just drop the act and yell at me.

"But... images..." he stammered, pointing vaguely at the floral arrangements.

"My head is flooded with these flashes. A wedding. I remember... there were mounds of lilies of the valley. And you... you were wearing a custom mermaid-cut gown."

Listening to him casually weaponize the details of our wedding, a fresh wave of venom flooded my veins.

I had spent an entire year planning that wedding down to the last silk ribbon, believing I was marrying my soulmate. And my reward?

He took me to the Caribbean, faked his death on our honeymoon, and left me to be eaten alive by the media. I miscarried his child while drowning in absolute despair, severely traumatized and blamed by society for his "tragic drowning."

And the whole time, my grieving husband was comfortably sharing a bed with his mistress.

I blinked, pulling myself from the memories, and found Jaxson looking at me with wide, manufactured desperation.

"I'm really trying to piece it all together," he pleaded, taking a step toward me.

"Don't leave yet. Better yet, take me back to the ancestral estate. Let me see my parents. If I just look around, maybe I can—"

"I highly doubt that," I interrupted, flashing a razor-sharp smile.

Jaxson blinked. "What?"

"I poured my heart out to you days ago. I listed all of those exact wedding details trying to jog your memory, remember?"

"You clearly just had a little too much to drink at your reception and confused my grief-stricken rambling for your own memories."

Before he could argue, I delivered the final blow.

"A woman doesn't just fail to recognize the love of her life. My husband is dead. You are really, truly not him."

Jaxson's face paled, completely short-circuiting. But before he could scramble for another lie, Mirelle snapped.

"He obviously is!" she shrieked, lunging forward to grip his arm.

I turned my chilling gaze to Mirelle, locking eyes with her.

"Is he?" I tilted my head, my voice carrying effortlessly over the quiet murmurs of the wedding guests.

"Just the other day on your porch, you were swearing up and down that he was just a regular guy. You called me a delusional stalker for even suggesting he was the Cross heir. Why the sudden shift, Mirelle? Did you miraculously catch amnesia, too?"

Mirelle's face went chalk-white. She opened her mouth, but the words died in her throat.

She wanted the billionaire lifestyle so badly she could taste it. If Jaxson couldn't prove his identity and reclaim his assets, she'd be legally bound to a broke, unemployed fraud drowning in debt.

But because she had spent the entire week aggressively insulting me and denying his identity to 'protect her man,' she couldn't confess the truth without exposing them both as malicious liars.

The banquet hall descended into a thick, buzzing silence as the guests exchanged confused, judging whispers.

Suddenly, the screech of a chair being shoved back violently shattered the tension.

Kian, who had been sitting at the front table, bolted to his feet. He pointed a trembling, furious finger squarely at my face.