He Chose Her, So I Faked My Death novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Two Rings in the Safe
Imogen finds her husband's secret safe on their fifth anniversary, calls her brother to make her dead, and is slapped in front of the room when she names the collection as hers.
There were two wedding bands in my husband's safe, and I had never worn either one.
The first was engraved with a P and an L and the word forever.
The second sat on top of a contract with one line underlined in red.
If Imogen finds out, she takes the fall.
I was still holding the pregnancy test I had planned to give him at dinner.
It was our fifth anniversary.
I had only gone into Preston's study to hide his gift behind our wedding portrait.
That morning Preston had left a coffee on my drafting table with a note: "Eat something, babe. I'm proud of you."
The gift was a pair of cufflinks I had designed myself, with tiny diamonds set in the pattern of his heartbeat from our wedding night.
The portrait swung out on a hidden hinge.
Behind it was a steel door with a keypad.
I tried our wedding date. Denied.
I tried his birthday. Denied.
Then I typed Lydia Harcourt's birthday, and the lock opened.
That should have been enough to break me, but it was only the first thing I found.
Inside were a black velvet box, a leather journal and a thick folder stamped with his law firm's seal.
I opened the journal first.
"Married Imogen at the courthouse today. The board wants a steady CEO with a settled marriage. Lydia cried all night. I told her it's only paper."
"Ember's new collection cleared forty million. Imogen doesn't need credit. She'd do anything for me. Lydia will carry the name better."
"If the Halcyon scandal ever surfaces, the paper trail ends at the designer's signature. Imogen signs whatever I put in front of her."
My hands began to shake.
Ember was the anonymous designer who had pulled Ames Jewels out of bankruptcy.
The whole fashion world wanted to know who Ember was.
Ember was me.
Every sketch, every stone, every night I worked until sunrise.
In the folder I found a transfer making me personally liable for diamonds from the Halcyon mine, a mine I had never set foot in.
Under it was a second paper, giving every Ember design to Lydia Harcourt, effective tonight.
My signature was on both.
I remembered the night he slid those pages across the bed, kissing my shoulder.
"Just insurance forms, babe. Sign where the tab is."
I made it to the bathroom before I was sick.
I knelt on the cold marble with the test in my fist, so hard that the plastic cracked.
Two pink lines.
I had tied a silver ribbon around it.
I had pictured his face when I set it in front of him.
Instead I was the shield, the name on the paper, the wife he kept so another woman could stay clean.
I rinsed my mouth and washed my face.
Then I went back and put everything in the safe exactly as I had found it.
My hands were steady now.
I took out the phone I had hidden for five years and called a number I had sworn never to dial again.
My brother answered on the second ring.
"Imogen?" Nathan's voice was rough. "Five years of nothing, and now you call."
"I need to die," I said. "I need you to make it real."
He was quiet for a long moment.
Nathan Radcliffe never asked a stupid question, which is why my family's whole empire answered to him now.
"Seventy-two hours," he said. "The coast highway, Saturday at midnight. Bring nothing anyone can trace."
Then, lower: "Did he hurt you?"
"Not yet. He's about to."
I hung up.
My other phone buzzed on the desk with a text from Preston.
"Wear the red dress tonight. Lydia has a big announcement. Smile for me, babe."
I looked at myself in the dark window, in a silk robe, pregnant and betrayed, and I smiled at him anyway.
Five years ago I gave up the Radcliffe name for a man who never once asked me my last name.
At the courthouse I wrote my full name on the license right in front of him, and he never looked at the line.
I had thought that meant he trusted me.
Tonight the ballroom was gold and glass.
Preston stood beside me with one hand on my back, stiff and correct, and told me not to look so tense.
"Be nice to Lydia tonight," he murmured. "This matters to her."
Across the room Lydia floated in ivory, laughing with two magazine editors.
She saw me and waved like we were friends.
The host took the stage.
"For five years, you've asked who Ember is. Tonight, you get your answer. Please welcome Miss Lydia Harcourt!"
The room applauded.
Lydia climbed the steps, and a velvet cloth slid off a glass case behind her.
Lifeline.
A necklace of rose diamonds cut in the line of a heartbeat, earrings, and a bridal tiara I had redrawn forty times.
I had designed it at our kitchen table at three in the morning for the vow renewal Preston promised me this year.
"This collection," Lydia said, one hand on her heart, "is about a love that waited years to be spoken."
Preston laughed softly to the investor next to him. "She's brilliant. She always was."
I walked through the crowd, and I heard him say my name, and I did not stop.
I stopped at the foot of the stage.
"Lydia," I said, loud enough for the front tables. "If you designed Lifeline, tell everyone what is engraved inside the necklace clasp."
Her smile slipped.
"Every Ember piece carries a signature," I said. "You need a loupe to read it. Go ahead and read it out."
Nobody in the room moved.
Lydia's eyes filled with tears, perfect and bright.
"Imogen, why are you doing this? I know things have been hard for you."
"It says I.R.," I said. "Those are my initials. Have someone check."
A hand closed on my arm and pulled me back.
Preston's face was white.
"Stop," he said through his teeth. "You're embarrassing yourself."
"She took my work, and you watched me draw every line."
He turned to the crowd and raised his voice.
"My assistant has been under terrible strain. She isn't well. I apologize to everyone."
Assistant.
"I am your wife," I said.
His hand moved so fast that I never saw it.
My head snapped sideways, my ear rang, and I tasted blood.
The whole ballroom gasped.
"Get out," Preston said quietly.
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