The Billionaire Mistook Me for His Dead Fiancée

Juno’s grip is iron on my wrist. She drags me up the stone steps of St. Perpetua’s before I can dig my heels in.

"Just ten minutes, Celeste," she murmurs, her shoulder checking the heavy wooden doors. "We show our faces, we’re out. It’s not even someone I was close to."

We step inside. The world instantly presses down on us.

Gothic arches soar overhead, trapping the thick, cloying scent of lilies and melting wax. Stained glass bleeds crimson and bruised blue light across rows of silent mourners.

Click. Click. My heels strike the black-and-white tiles. Too loud. Too fast. I shrink behind Juno's shoulder, my palm smoothing the hem of my black dress. My skin prickles. Every rational part of me is screaming to turn around and bolt.

Then, the hush in the room sharpens.

It feels like stepping into a frozen lake. Heads turn. Necks crane. The low hum of whispered condolences stops mid-sentence. The only sounds left in the cavernous space are the shuddering sobs of a woman in the front pew and the heavy, unsteady chime of the church clock.

My eyes pull toward the altar. I can't stop them.

White lilies. Flickering pillar candles. A polished mahogany casket.

And next to it—a photograph displayed on a gilded easel.

I freeze. My lungs stop working.

The woman in the picture has golden-brown curls. Storm-grey eyes flecked with green. A small, unmistakable mole sitting just beneath her left ear. Her smile is gentle, caught off guard by the camera.

I have never seen her before in my life.

But she is me. She looks exactly like me.

Ice coats my spine. A cold sweat breaks out across my nape. I force myself to look away from the easel, only to find a sea of strangers staring at me. Some gape openly. Others press manicured hands over their mouths.

A frail woman near the front row pushes herself up. Her hair is as white as the funeral flowers. Her hands shake violently as she points a crooked finger in my direction.

"Ondine?!"

Her voice is cracked. Raw. It slices through the dead silence.

The name echoes off the stone walls. My thighs lock together. My pulse slams against my ribs, a trapped bird battering a cage.

Juno’s nails bite into my forearm.

"Fuck," she whispers. The color entirely drains from her face. "Celeste, we need to go. Right now."

We backpedal toward the exit. My heart hammers a frantic rhythm in my throat. But before my hand can brush the heavy iron handle of the door, the crowd parts. It ripples open like a wound.

Someone is coming.

A man. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in an immaculate, blacked-out Italian wool suit. His hair is ink-dark, swept back from a ruthless brow. His face is carved from ice and pure shadow.

Every step he takes is deliberate. Silent. Predatory.

He doesn’t look at Juno. He doesn’t look at the crowd. His storm-grey eyes—sharp as broken glass—are locked entirely on me.

My breath snags. The church spins, but it has nothing to do with the dead woman or the staring crowd.

It's him.

Not a rumor. Not a ghost. Him.

The man from a rain-slicked street in the West Village ten years ago. The man who shoved me out of the path of a speeding car and vanished. The man whose newspaper clippings are currently locked in a wooden box under my bed.

Thorne Ashbourne.

I have watched him from the shadows for a decade. I have played piano in candlelit halls halfway across the world just to stop thinking about him. And now, he is walking right toward me.

My panic roars. I need to run. But my legs turn to lead. I am rooted to the spot, entirely consumed by the gravity of him.

He clears the distance in three massive strides.

Before I can take a breath, his hand shoots out. Large. Cold. Unforgiving.

His fingers clamp around my throat. He shoves me back, hard.

My spine slams into a marble pillar. The impact punches the air from my lungs. White stars explode at the edges of my vision.

His grip tightens, his thumb pressing directly over my wildly fluttering pulse. The metallic glint of a Patek Philippe watch flashes at his wrist.

The scent of expensive scotch and bitter winter air washes over me. Intoxicating. Suffocating. His eyes bore into mine, ripping me open, searching for a ghost. I see the raw, festering wound there. The rage. The violent, consuming grief.

I claw at his wrist. My short nails bite into his warm, solid skin. My lungs burn for oxygen, but a sick, shameful thrill shoots straight to my core. He is touching me. "Let her go!" Juno’s voice cracks in panic. She grabs his arm, pulling with all her weight. He doesn't even flinch. He's a stone wall. "She’s not—she’s not Ondine, I swear!"

He ignores her. His attention never leaves my mouth. My eyes. The mole beneath my left ear.

His jaw ticks. The knuckles of his hand whiten against my skin. The beast inside him is fully awake, vibrating with the urge to either crush my windpipe or devour me whole. The entire church holds its breath.

He leans in closer. His thighs brush my skirt. The heat radiating off his body is a furnace.

"Who the hell are you?" His voice is a low, deadly vibration against my skin. "And why are you wearing her face?"