A black Rolls-Royce rolled up the driveway, and I pressed the binoculars harder against my eyes.

Sebastian Vale stepped out first. He was the billionaire who had paid my bills for three years, and the man who had never once called me his girlfriend.

He leaned into the back seat and lifted out a little boy. Three years old, maybe. Then he reached back in and offered his hand to a woman.

She took it. She stepped into the sunlight.

My stomach dropped.

She had my nose. My chin. Seventy percent of my face, and all of it softer. Gentler. I knew that face. It had been the wallpaper on Sebastian's phone since the day I met him: a teenage girl laughing at the camera.

I lowered the binoculars.

"Well," I said to the empty bedroom. "The original is back. The copy can finally retire."

I dragged my suitcase out of the closet and flipped it open.

Three years. No family dinners. No holidays with his mother. No title. Just a deposit on the first of every month. I'd figured out early that this wasn't a love story. It was a job. Great pay, zero chance of promotion.

So I grabbed my phone and typed.

**Please settle the final payment. Thanks.**

Thirty seconds later, my bank app chimed. One hundred thousand dollars.

I kissed the screen. Then I frowned at it.

"A billionaire," I muttered, "and he can't even throw in a condo as a going-away gift? Cheap."

I was zipping the suitcase when the door banged open.

The little boy stood there in tiny sneakers. He pointed straight at me, eyes huge.

"Two mommies!"

Footsteps hurried down the hall. "Noah, sweetheart, you can't just run into..."

The woman appeared in the doorway. She froze. Her lips parted.

I snatched my sunglasses off the dresser and shoved them on.

"Hello?" I squinted in her general direction and waved at the lamp. "Sorry, is someone there? My eyes are terrible today."

"I... I'm Serena. Serena Collins." Her voice was warm, a little shaky. "And you are?"

"Lily. Sebastian's cousin." I patted the air until I found the suitcase handle. "Distant cousin. Very distant. Practically a stranger."

"His cousin?"

"Lily."

That voice belonged to Adrian Hayes, Sebastian's executive assistant. Tall, crisp suit, wire-rimmed glasses. He was the most serious man I'd ever met. He had once corrected my grammar in a birthday card.

He'd been reaching to push his glasses up his nose. His hand stopped halfway there and hung in the air.

I stared at him through my dark lenses. *Help me.*

He lowered his hand slowly.

"Miss Bennett," he said, "is visiting from out of town. She's leaving today."

Serena's face softened. "Oh, you poor thing. Let me help you down the stairs."

She hooked her arm through mine before I could argue. Noah trotted beside us, tilting his head left, then right. Back and forth between my face and his mother's.

"Same," he announced.

"Common face," I said. "Very common. You'd be shocked."

"Where are you headed?" Serena asked.

"California. There's an eye specialist out there. World famous. He fixes..." I waved vaguely. "Eyeballs."

Behind us, Adrian carried my suitcase without a word.

When Serena turned to steady Noah on the landing, I reached back and jabbed Adrian's bicep with one finger.

Hard. Solid.

I leaned toward him and whispered, "Huh. You look so bookish. Who knew there was real muscle under there?"

His mouth pressed into a thin line. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He was fighting very hard to keep his professional face on.

He won. Barely.

Sebastian sat on the leather sofa in the living room, scrolling through his phone. He glanced up as we came in. Then he stood, walked over, and plucked the sunglasses straight off my face.

He studied me. "Why does your eyeshadow look like someone punched you?"

I'd cried a little upstairs. Just a little. Not that he'd ever know.

I pressed a hand to my chest and gazed toward the window.

"Because this house," I said, my voice trembling, "is where my youth lies buried."

Sebastian blinked. "Did you not get the character you wanted in that game again?"

For one second, I just stood there.

Then I laughed. I couldn't help it. Three years, and he truly thought my heart broke over a mobile game.

"Something like that."

He was already tapping his phone. "I'll have someone set up a trip to California. Go relax."

"Sebastian," Serena said gently, "aren't you going to see your cousin off?"

He finally looked at the suitcase in Adrian's hand. His eyes stayed on it a beat too long.

"Getting away will be good for you," he said.

I smiled my brightest smile. "It really will."

The second the car door shut behind me, I kicked off my heels. One bounced off the seat in front of me.

"That's it," I declared, stretching my toes. "I am officially unemployed."

Adrian sat beside me, his tablet resting on his knee. He didn't look at it.

"He does care about you, you know," he said quietly.

I watched the mansion shrink in the window. The white columns. The second-floor balcony where I'd stood that morning.

"Does he care about me?" I asked. "Or about a face that looks like someone else's?"

Adrian didn't answer.

---

I spent two weeks in California. On day three, I lost the "travel companions" Sebastian had sent. They were really babysitters. Then I flew home to a small town in Pennsylvania.

I deleted his number. I sold the handbags I never used and the jewelry I never liked. Then I sat at my kitchen table with a calculator, adding up how many years I could live on my savings.

A lot of years, it turned out.

A lot of very quiet, very boring years.

By the second month, I was so bored I joined an online hobby community. That's where I met **IronLog**.

He posted workout logs. No face in his profile picture, just a barbell. Mine was a cartoon cat. We argued about dog breeds and video games. He hated my favorite game. I hated his opinions.

One night, after a terrible day, I typed: **Prove you actually lift. Pics or it didn't happen.**

He sent a photo. Shoulders down. No face. Just a white towel, a gym mirror, and a stomach carved like stone.

I nearly dropped my phone into my soup.

**Your abs just saved my terrible day,** I wrote.

He replied with: **...**

Then, three minutes later, he sent three more photos.

I laughed so hard my neighbor's dog started barking.

We talked every night after that. About his old golden retriever. About the lake in my hometown. About nothing, and everything.

Then he wrote: **Coffee? Somewhere public. You pick.**

I picked the diner on Main Street. I wore my red slip dress, the one I'd never been allowed to wear in Sebastian's world. Too loud, he'd said. Not her style.

I walked in grinning.

The man at our table, the corner booth by the window, wore a charcoal suit. Wire-rimmed glasses. He looked up from his coffee.

My smile died on my face.

The man who'd been sending me ab photos at midnight was Adrian Hayes.

He set his cup down very carefully.

"Hello, Lily," he said.

I slid into the booth across from him and studied his shirt. White. Buttoned all the way up to his Adam's apple, like it was holding him hostage.

Then I unlocked my phone and scrolled to last Tuesday's photo. Towel. Mirror. Abs.

I looked at the shirt. I looked at the phone. I looked at the shirt again.

"Okay. Serious question." I tapped the screen. "At work you look like an auditor. After work you look like the cover of a fitness magazine. Does your boss know?"

The tips of his ears went red. Fast. He picked up his coffee and held it in front of his mouth like a shield.

"Lily."

"IronLog."

He set the cup down. "Sebastian is sick. He's been looking for you."

And just like that, my romantic coffee date turned into a status report from my ex-employer.

My stomach turned cold. The handbags. The jewelry. The diamond bracelet I'd sold to a nice lady in Philadelphia.

He knew.

I flipped my phone around and pushed it across the table until it bumped his saucer.

"Here's the deal. You keep your mouth shut, or I forward every one of these to Sebastian. With captions."

"That's not why I..."

"Nope." I held up a finger. "Today is a private meeting. Two strangers from the internet. You don't report where I live, what I wear, or what I eat. Got it?"

His jaw worked. He opened his mouth again.

I raised my eyebrows.

He shut it.

We finished our coffee in a silence so thick you could spread it on toast. He paid. I let him.

That night, I typed out a long message. Half apology, half threat. I hit send.

A little red exclamation point popped up.

**This user is not accepting messages.**

I stared at it. "He blocked me. The audit man blocked me."

---

At seven the next morning, someone knocked.

"Package!" a man called.

I padded to the door and pressed my eye to the peephole. Black. Someone had a thumb over it.

Nope.

I backed away and called the front desk. "Hi, it's 4B. There's a guy outside my door who doesn't want his face seen. Can you send someone up?"

My phone buzzed while I was on hold.

**Adrian: It's Sebastian. He finished treatment last night and signed himself out. I couldn't stop him.**

I read it twice. Then I texted back.

**So you DID unblock me. Just to warn me about your boss.**

He didn't answer.

The building guy, Marty, showed up in a cardigan and checked Sebastian's ID like he was carding a teenager. A nurse in blue scrubs stood behind them holding an IV bag on a pole.

I opened the door a crack. "You can wait in the living room. Don't touch my snacks."

Then I went back to bed and pulled the blanket over my head.

---

I came out around noon.

Sebastian sat on my lumpy sofa in a coat that probably cost more than my car. His face was the color of printer paper. A thin tube ran from the back of his hand up to the bag.

I stopped in the hallway and pinched my wrist. Hard.

"Ow." I sucked in air through my teeth. "Okay. Not a nightmare."

He didn't laugh. He didn't even blink.

"Lily," he said, low. "What were these three years to you?"

Oh. Here it comes. The bracelet.

I folded my arms. "Seasonal inventory. Stuff goes out of style. You clear the shelves."

He shot to his feet.

The tube snapped tight. The needle tore free. Three bright drops of blood hit my pale wood floor.

"Oh my God. Sit down. *Sit down.*"

"I'll get gauze," the nurse said, already heading out to the car.

I grabbed his hand and pressed my thumb over the tiny hole. His skin was ice cold. With my free hand I dialed Adrian.

"Your boss is bleeding on my floor," I hissed. "Come get him."

"Daniel's on his way up."

Sebastian's phone lay face-up on the cushion. The wallpaper glowed. That laughing teenage girl.

For the first time, I looked closer.

She was wearing a navy varsity jacket. Gold letters across the chest.

My high school. My track team.

Wait. What?

The door burst open before I could think about it.

A man in a gray hoodie and a doctor's badge stormed in carrying a medical bag. He took one look at the blood and glared at me.

"Daniel Reed. His doctor. Also his friend." He knelt and swapped my thumb for gauze. "Do you know what you've done to him? He hasn't slept. He hasn't eaten. He looks like a ghost because of you."

I stared at him. "He doesn't eat. He doesn't sleep. And somehow the bill comes to me?"

"Lily..." Sebastian started.

"No. I need air."

I marched out and slammed the door behind me.

I made it four steps down the hall in my fuzzy socks. Then I stopped.

This was *my* apartment.

I turned around and eased the door back open. Quietly.

Daniel's voice floated out. "...and you still haven't asked her about the love letter? The one she put her own name on and handed to some jock?"

My hand froze on the knob.

Junior year. An unsigned letter tucked in my locker. Beautiful. Way too beautiful for any boy I knew. I'd been lazy, and Ryan Carter had been cute. So I copied it out, signed it *Lily*, and slipped it to him.

It worked. We dated for six weeks.

I sank against the doorframe and pressed my lips together.

Sebastian turned his head. Our eyes met.

"I bought this building," he said. "This morning."

I took in the coat. The cashmere. The watch.

"Wow," I said. "You're more generous to a whole building than you ever were to me."

His jaw tightened.

"But that's not what I want to talk about." I stepped inside and shut the door. "Answer the real question. The letter."

He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his eyes were red around the edges.

"I was sixteen. I walked up to you at a track meet and said hi." His voice cracked. "You pointed at your throat and shook your head. Like you couldn't talk."

I remembered. I'd done that to every boy who bugged me between races.

"I learned sign language for two months," he said. "Two months. And you were never mute."

Daniel winced.

"Then I wrote you a letter. Took me three days. And I watched Ryan Carter read it out loud in the cafeteria, telling everyone *Lily* wrote it for him."

I glanced at the kitchen. Could I fit in the cabinet under the sink? Maybe if I folded myself in half.

"The necklace," he went on. "The silver one with the little star. I made it myself. You gave it to your roommate."

"She liked stars..."

"I stayed up two nights beating that game for you. Every level. And you blocked me the next day."

Each sentence landed like a brick on a growing pile. Every one of them said the same thing. *Look how heartless you are.*

I let the pile sit there. Then I asked the only thing that mattered.

"Whose kid is Noah?"

The room went silent.

Sebastian closed his eyes. "Mine."

My fingers curled into my palm.

"He was born before you and I started. I was drunk one night. Serena looked..." He swallowed. "She looked like you. I thought she was you."

"And now?"

"I brought them home so the two of you could meet. Get to know each other."

Daniel quietly reached for a throw pillow and held it over his own face.

I looked at Sebastian. Really looked. The pale skin. The red eyes. The man who had never ended a single thing in his life.

He didn't want to choose. He'd never even thought about choosing.

I tilted my head.

"So what is this, Sebastian? Do you want a relationship?" My voice came out calm. Too calm. "Or are you building a museum of girlfriends with matching faces?"

His lips parted.

And behind me, someone knocked on the door again.

The knock was the nurse. She hurried in with a roll of gauze and a fresh needle. Nobody in the room looked at her.

Sebastian still hadn't answered my question.

Daniel lowered the throw pillow. His face was red. "Oh, come on. Just tell her. Tell her about the bathroom floor."

"Daniel," Sebastian warned.

"Seven years ago he cut his wrist because you dumped him." Daniel flung the pillow onto the sofa. "I found him. I was the one holding the towel."

My smile had been hanging on by a thread. The thread snapped.

I turned to Sebastian. "Explain that. Right now."

"Lily..."

"No. Listen to me." I held up one finger. "I'll own the letter. I copied it, I signed my name, I was a lazy sixteen-year-old. Guilty. But I am not claiming a relationship that never happened."

He stared at his bandaged hand for a long time.

"Seven years ago, I emailed you proof that Ryan was cheating. Screenshots. Hotel receipts." His voice was flat, like he'd rehearsed this in his head a thousand times. "A week later, you added me online. You said you wanted to get back at him. Together."

"I said that."

"You did. We talked every night for six months. Then one day you told me you were sorry. You still loved Ryan." He swallowed. "That same month, my father cut me off because I refused to study abroad. No money. No apartment. And the girl I loved picked the guy who cheated on her."

The nurse quietly taped the new needle in place and slipped out.

I laughed. It came out ugly.

"Okay. Let's go point by point." I counted on my fingers. "One. I never got an email from you. Two. I never added any account of yours. Three. I never dated you. Not online, not offline, not in a dream."

"Lily."

"Four." My voice climbed. "I dumped Ryan after six weeks junior year. He came crawling back senior year with roses, and I was an idiot. I found out he was cheating in our *fourth year*. Not from you. From a girl named Jenna Morales, who showed up at my door crying and holding his hoodie."

Sebastian's head lifted slowly.

He grabbed his phone, tapped through screens, and turned it toward me. An old chat app. A contact named **LilyBee**.

I took it from him.

My track photos. My trip to the Outer Banks. My twentieth birthday post, the one with the lopsided cake.

Then I scrolled down and went cold.

Me in flannel pajamas, hugging a coffee mug, no makeup. Nobody had that picture. I'd sent it to exactly one person.

"Where did you get this?"

"You sent it to me."

I didn't answer. I pulled up my own old social account on my phone and set the two screens side by side on the coffee table. Daniel leaned over my shoulder.

LilyBee had told Sebastian my parents screamed at each other every Sunday. That I bombed my chem final. That I had "plans" every Friday at seven.

Every Friday at seven, I'd been on a date with Ryan.

The hair on my arms stood up.

"You never met this person," I said slowly. "Not once. In six months?"

"She always said nobody could know." His knuckles whitened around the edge of the cushion. "I drove to your campus one time. To surprise you. You were walking out of the library holding Ryan's hand."

"So you just left."

"I thought you'd chosen him. Again."

I pressed my palms over my eyes.

"Do you still have Jenna's number?" Daniel asked.

---

It took a full day.

Jenna answered on the second try and sent us a folder she'd kept "in case I ever needed to sue him." Old chats. Screenshots. Ryan's lazy little habits.

He typed "lol" with a period after it. He never capitalized "i." He signed off every late-night message with *later, champ*.

At two in the morning, Sebastian found the same sign-off in LilyBee's messages. Eleven times.

Then Jenna found the slip. LilyBee had once complained about "my stupid shoulder from pitching." I'd never pitched in my life. Ryan had played baseball for four years.

Sebastian sat frozen on my sofa. He didn't move. He barely seemed to be breathing.

Daniel's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. Nothing came out.

I swallowed hard against the sour taste rising in my throat.

"So let me get this straight," I said. "I got played by Ryan. You got played by Ryan pretending to be me. And now you're here asking *me* to pay you back for your youth?"

Sebastian flinched like I'd slapped him.

His hair stuck up on one side. His shirt was wrinkled. The man who'd once fired a chef over cold soup looked like a kid who'd lost his parents at the mall.

Something in my chest pinched.

I crushed it.

"I'm sorry it happened to you. Really." I sat on the arm of the sofa, out of his reach. "But that debt isn't mine. I won't carry it."

"I know," he whispered.

"You don't. So here's the rest." I drew a breath. "Three years ago, my mom got sick. Insurance covered the hospital. It didn't cover the nurse, the rent, or groceries. I needed money fast."

Daniel shifted on the floor.

"I picked a rich guy. Some trust-fund kid. I thought I could handle him." My mouth twisted. "He wanted to impress you. So he slipped something in my drink and delivered me to your hotel room like a fruit basket."

Sebastian's eyes shut.

"It was pouring that night. I could barely sit up. And you didn't touch me." My voice wobbled. "You put a blanket on me and sat in the chair until the sun came up."

"You kept asking for your mom," he said hoarsely.

"Yeah. Well." I cleared my throat. "That's how we started. I was grateful. I still am. And I never once pretended it wasn't about money."

"I knew that."

"But grateful doesn't mean I'm okay with another woman and her kid walking into my life whenever you feel like it."

He reached for my hand. I let him hold two fingers.

"Sebastian." I looked straight at him. "Will you marry me?"

The silence went on so long that Daniel got up and walked into the kitchen.

"My family has an arrangement," Sebastian said at last. "I'm not in a position to break it. But I'll love you. I'll take care of you. Always."

There it was.

My mother had heard those exact words once. She'd believed them. Then she'd raised me alone in a two-bedroom rental and cried in the laundry room where she thought I couldn't hear.

I slid my fingers out of his.

"Your love comes with a lot of terms and conditions," I said softly. "I'm not renewing my subscription."

---

I packed a backpack. Phone charger, wallet, Mom's old cardigan. Nothing he'd ever bought me.

Adrian's car idled at the curb. He was already out, holding the back door open.

"Where are you..." he began.

"Don't."

His hand tightened on the door frame.

"Don't find me for him. Don't find me for anyone." I pulled out my phone and opened the airline app. My flight home to Millbrook. Departing Friday.

I tapped **Change Flight**. Then I typed in a city I'd never been to. Somewhere with salt air and nobody who knew my face.

Portland, Maine. Tonight.

Adrian watched me do it. He didn't say a word.

I climbed into the car and caught the door before he could close it.

"He can keep missing his fake girlfriend," I said. "The real one isn't coming back."

The door clicked shut.

Adrian walked around and slid into the driver's seat. He didn't start the engine.

Instead, he looked at me in the rearview mirror. His glasses caught the streetlight.

"Lily," he said quietly. "There's something about that hotel night you don't know."