Chapter 1

The smell of disinfectant burned my nose as I walked into Marcus's hospital room. My husband looked like a stranger lying there, all skin and bones under the white sheets. The cancer had eaten away at him for months, but today felt different. Today felt final.

"Evelyn," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "Close the door."

I did as he asked, my heels clicking softly against the cold floor. The sound echoed in the sterile room, mixing with the steady beep of his heart monitor. I pulled the plastic chair closer to his bed and sat down, folding my hands in my lap.

"What is it, Marcus?"

His eyes found mine, and I saw something I hadn't seen in years. Fear. Real, bone-deep terror of what was coming. Death had a way of making even the worst people want to clean their slates.

"There's something I need to tell you." His hand reached for mine, fingers cold and shaking. "Something I should have told you seventeen years ago."

Here we go. I kept my face neutral, expectant. Like a good wife should.

"It's about the girls," he continued. "About Isabella and Serena."

My heart didn't skip a beat. I'd been waiting for this conversation for so long that it felt almost anticlimactic. Still, I tilted my head and gave him my full attention.

"What about them?"

Marcus closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. When he opened them again, tears were streaming down his cheeks.

"Isabella isn't your daughter, Evelyn. She's mine and Chloe's."

I let my mouth fall open slightly, just enough to sell the shock. "What are you talking about?"

"When you were in the hospital giving birth, and Chloe was there too..." His voice cracked. "I switched them. I switched our babies."

The monitors continued their steady rhythm as I processed his words. Or pretended to. In reality, I was thinking about how pathetic he looked, how small and weak. This was the man who had destroyed my life? This shriveled thing attached to machines?

"You switched them," I repeated slowly, letting my voice shake. "You mean Serena is..."

"Serena is yours. Your real daughter. And I gave her to Chloe while you got mine and Chloe's child."

I pulled my hand away from his, standing up so quickly that the chair scraped against the floor. The sound was sharp, angry. Perfect for the moment.

"Why?" The word came out strangled, which wasn't entirely an act. Even though I'd known this for years, hearing him say it still hurt. "Why would you do that to me? To us?"

Marcus tried to sit up, but the effort sent him into a coughing fit. When it passed, he looked up at me with desperate eyes.

"I thought... I thought if Isabella grew up with you, with your love and attention, she'd have a better life"

"You gave my daughter to Chloe?" I let the anger seep into my voice now. This part was easy to fake because the rage was real, even after all these years. "Do you know how she treats Serena? How she's always treated her?"

Marcus flinched. "I know. God, I know. That's why I'm telling you now. We can fix this. We can tell the girls the truth and—"

"Fix this?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You think you can fix seventeen years of lies? Seventeen years of me loving a child who isn't mine while my real daughter suffers?"

The words tasted bitter in my mouth, but they weren't true. Isabella was mine in every way that mattered. I'd raised her, loved her, been there for every scraped knee and broken heart. But Marcus didn't need to know that I'd figured out his little game years ago.

You have no idea what you've really done, I thought, watching him cry. No idea at all.

"Evelyn, please," he whispered. "I'm dying. I need you to forgive me. I need to know you'll help me make this right."

I stared down at him, this man who had shared my bed for eighteen years, who had fathered my child and then stolen her from me. Who had made me play house with his bastard while my real daughter grew up unloved and unwanted.

Except that wasn't what had happened. Not really.

But he would never know that.

"I don't know if I can forgive you," I said quietly, sinking back into the chair. "This is... this changes everything."

"I'm going to change my will," Marcus said quickly, grasping at hope like a drowning man. "I'll leave everything to you and Serena. Your real daughter. And maybe we can help Isabella understand, help her reconnect with Chloe—"

"Isabella loves me," I interrupted. "She's called me Mom for seventeen years. You want to destroy that too?"

Marcus's face crumpled. "I just want to do the right thing before I die."

The right thing. I almost laughed again. The right thing would have been not sleeping with his brother's wife in the first place. The right thing would have been not switching babies like we were living in some twisted soap opera.

But Marcus had never been good at doing the right thing.

"I need time to process this," I said finally. "This is... it's too much."

"Of course." He squeezed my hand again. "Take all the time you need. But Evelyn? Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for not hating me."

I looked down at our joined hands and felt nothing but cold satisfaction. He thought he was confessing his sins, clearing his conscience before he met whatever came after death. He thought he was finally being honest with me.

He had no idea that I'd been playing a longer game than he could possibly imagine.

I've been waiting seventeen years for this moment, I thought. And now it's finally time.

The door to the room suddenly swung open, and we both turned to look. Chloe Webb stood in the doorway, her face pale as paper. Her eyes darted between Marcus and me, and I could see the exact moment she realized what she'd walked in on.

She'd heard everything.