The divorce papers were scattered across the marble when my husband dropped to his knees beside me and screamed my name as if he could frighten death out of the room.
Chapter 1
My heart had already begun to fail. Every beat came late, then too fast, then not at all, while the chandelier above me dissolved into a blur of gold. For six years, Nathan Mercer had been the calmest man I knew—a billionaire hospital investor who could fire a CEO before breakfast and attend his father’s funeral without shedding a tear.
Now his hands were shaking against my face.
“Claire. Look at me.”
I tried to tell him the papers were signed. That he could finally have the divorce I believed he wanted.
Nathan bent until his forehead touched mine. Tears landed warm against my cheek.
“I never wanted the divorce.”
The words barely reached me.
“Six years,” he whispered. “I loved you from the other side of that hallway for six years because I thought that was what you asked me to do.”
Nothing made sense. Nathan had slept in another bedroom since our wedding night. He had avoided touching me, endured gossip about another woman, and treated our marriage with the chilly courtesy of a business arrangement.
Then he said the words I had waited six years to hear.
“I love you.”
Footsteps crossed the foyer.
Nathan didn’t notice, but I did.
His cousin, Julian Mercer, approached in a charcoal suit and crouched beside us. He looked down at me without alarm.
“The poison takes a while,” Julian said conversationally. “Thallium usually does.”
Nathan’s head snapped up.
Julian smiled. “Her migraine capsules. Tiny doses since March. A dead wife’s voting shares are much easier to manage than a divorced wife’s.”
I tried to warn Nathan, but my lungs had forgotten how to make words. The last thing I saw was my husband’s face changing from grief into horror.
The last thing I heard was Nathan saying, “I love you, Claire. I always—”
Then darkness.
And the smell of vanilla.
I woke choking on the scent of my own shampoo.
Sunlight flooded a bedroom I hadn’t used in two years. The blue comforter beneath my hands had been ruined by a wine stain long ago, yet there it was, spotless.
My phone read March 14.
I stared at the date.
Thirty days before I died.
On the nightstand sat an amber prescription bottle.
CLAIRE MERCER. MIGRAINE RELIEF. ONE CAPSULE DAILY.
I carried it into the bathroom with two fingers and vomited.
When I looked into the mirror, I was thirty-one again—or still thirty-one. My cheeks were pink. My heart was strong. I was alive.
Downstairs, a door closed.
“Claire?” Nathan called. “Your attorney confirmed eleven o’clock.”
The divorce appointment.
I gripped the sink and understood what I had been given.
Thirty days.
I knew who murdered me.
And this time, I wasn’t signing anything.
Nathan was pouring coffee when I entered the kitchen barefoot in my robe. His dark suit was immaculate, his expression unreadable.
“You aren’t dressed.”
“I’m not going.”
The coffee stopped halfway into the cup.
“To the lawyer?”
“I canceled it.”
For three seconds, Nathan Mercer forgot how to breathe.
Then his mask returned. “If you need more time, take it. If you’d rather I leave while the paperwork is handled, I’ll stay somewhere else.”
Even now, he was offering me an escape.
I had spent six years mistaking restraint for rejection.
“Nathan, at 9:42 this morning, Hartwell Manufacturing is going to halt trading after investigators uncover false receivables.”
His eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Claire—”
“Wait six minutes.”
At exactly 9:42, his phone rang.
Then another phone.
Then the study line.
Nathan ignored all three.
“What is happening?”
“I need thirty days before I explain. Until then, fire the household staff, change every lock and security code, and don’t let anyone touch my food, drinks, or medication.”
His expression became frighteningly still.
“Someone threatened you.”
“I don’t have proof.”
“Who?”
“Nathan—”
“Tell me who.”
His hand rose toward me, stopped inches from my shoulder, then dropped. Even terrified, he was afraid to touch me without permission.
“Give me thirty days.”
“You can have thirty years.”
The answer escaped him before he could hide it.
Then the front door opened.
Only family knew the code.
Julian walked into our kitchen carrying two coffees and smiling.
“Morning, cousin.”
Every hair on my arms lifted.
He set one cup in front of me and kissed my cheek.
“You look pale, Claire. Still taking those migraine pills?”
I looked directly into the eyes of the man who had watched me die.
And smiled.
“Every day.”
That afternoon I flushed all but six capsules and sealed the remaining pills as evidence. I worked as a manuscript and document authenticator for an auction house; I had spent my career recognizing forged signatures, altered paper, counterfeit ink.
And suddenly one sentence from my death refused to leave me alone.
I loved you from the other side of a hallway because you asked me to.
I had never asked Nathan to stay away.
Which meant someone else had told him I had.
Nathan’s study had always been private. In my first life, I had respected that boundary.
The woman who respected locked doors had died.
I found the key beneath his desk lamp.
Inside the locked drawer were six years of me.
A grocery list in my handwriting. A movie ticket. A broken hair clip I’d thrown away in Milan. A cocktail napkin from our honeymoon with a ridiculous sketch I’d drawn while waiting for dinner.
There was even a blurry photograph of me asleep in the library.
Beneath everything lay an envelope.
For Claire.
I had just touched it when Nathan appeared in the doorway.
He saw the open drawer.
For the first time in our marriage, I saw genuine terror on his face.
“Claire.”
“You kept my grocery lists.”
His jaw tightened.
“You kept a broken hair clip.”
“It was all I was allowed to have.”
The words exploded from him.
Silence followed.
Nathan closed his eyes as if he had betrayed himself.
Then he quietly shut the drawer and left.
I opened the envelope alone.
The letter was dated eleven days earlier.
Claire,
If you’re reading this, something has happened to me. I need you to know I have never been unfaithful to you. The photographs were staged. I traced the payments.
You’re also being poisoned.
I had hair from your brush tested. Thallium.
I need ten more days to gather proof. If I die before then, take the evidence from safe-deposit box 41 and leave New York.
I’m sorry I was never brave enough to tell you the rest.
Nathan.
I sat on the bathroom floor holding the letter against my chest.
In my first life, Nathan hadn’t been ignoring my murder.
He had been trying to solve it.
And Julian had killed me before he could.
