Chapter 0001

Lacey

"You and your sister have to leave this house today," my stepmother said, calmly.

This was only the second week after my father's death and she's tired of pretending obviously.

"I agree," I replied.

"And you can’t come back. Ever," she added.

"I agree," I answered without hesitation, even though I could feel my heart fragmenting.

"You also need to give up your shares of your father’s company.”

"Fine.” I did my best to show not a sliver of emotion. "Anything else? Just get it over with."

"Oh, just one last little thing.” Her smile sent ice water dripping down my spine. “You will be marrying the eldest son of the Devereaux family."

I’d more or less predicted everything else, but that caught me off guard. "Why?" I asked.

"Because someone has to, and it’s not going to be me. And someone like you, an orphan, is the perfect match for a lowly tailor!" a smug voice came from upstairs.

I rolled my eyes at my stepsister Caroline’s comment, but decided not to dignify her with a response.

"Because we can't break the agreement,” My stepmother explained with a sigh, ignoring Caroline." The agreement requires our family to marry a daughter off, and Caroline already has a boyfriend."

So I need to marry a stranger I've never even met. Figures.

I wished I could refuse. I desperately wanted to.

But I really didn’t have much of a choice.

My grandmother was still lying in a hospital bed, and my little sister was about to start school.

I needed money.

"The money will be transferred to my account immediately after the marriage," I confirmed, looking my stepmother in the eye.

Half a hundred thousand. That's what she promised me. It was far less than what she had taken of my father's assets, but I knew I had the choice of taking it or being thrown out of this house penniless.

"Yes, as long as you agree," she replied.

I drew in a long, slow breath, trying to calm my nerves. "I agree."

"Wonderful." She placed the documents and pen in front of me. "Sign them."

I took the pen and looked around the room.

My little sister Tiffany was curled up in an armchair too big for her. She clutched a doll loosely in one sticky hand, but she wasn’t playing with it. She was only five years old—too young to understand what was happening, but old enough to understand that something was very wrong. Ever since my stepmother Julia had married my father, Tiff had understood she needed to stay well out of her way. I gathered what little courage I could muster and sent her a reassuring smile, then returned my attention to the rest of my home.

My home. I’d lived here my whole life. All twenty-two years of it. Long before my stepmother had come into the picture. Long before Tiff had been born, my mother had died, and everything had crumbled to ruins as I could only watch. I knew this house completely. Out the window a tree grew in the distance. It had been planted the year I was born, with notches on its trunk tracking my growth over the years. I’d grown up in this house. I’d grown up with this house.

And I was being forced out of it.

"Any more questions?" My stepmother asked. Her voice still sounded soft and sweet, but I knew she was growing impatient. There was a darker undercurrent to the words. Always was, with her. She just wanted to get rid of us as quickly as possible.

I shoved my thoughts aside. My hand shook ever so slightly as I signed my name along every dotted line she pointed out to me.

Lacey Sinclair. Soon to be Lacey Devereaux.

Half a million. That was all it had taken. For this money written on the paper, I’d let my father’s former mistress and her horrible children drive us out of our family. Our home. Our lives. I’d even sold my own marriage.

Pathetically.

“The promised wedding was supposed to be in two months, but for some reason they asked to move it up. Since you agreed, the wedding will take place in a week.” She had an understanding smile on her face.

A wedding?

A man I don't know, a wedding I don't care about. What does it matter to me when it takes place? It's not like I have anything to prepare for anyway.

I pushed the now-signed papers towards my stepmother. Stood up. Pushed in my chair. It screeched as it slid against the wood floor. The movements felt mechanical. I crossed the room and scooped Tiff up in one arm, then twisted the door open. I slammed it shut behind me before any of them could say anything else. None of them would ever see me cry.

Tiff and I spent that night in the hospital. It wasn’t particularly pleasant, having had to rush over in the pouring rain, both of us cold and shivering, and stayed with our grandmother overnight. I didn’t tell her what I’d agreed to do to pay her bills—not that it would have mattered, even if I had. She didn’t understand much of anything these days.

The next day, wearing our rain-soaked clothes, we staggered back to the awful little one-bedroom apartment I’d rented for the two of us. Tiff didn’t make a fuss, which I was grateful for. She was a good kid. She deserved better than any of this. She wandered off into the bedroom, doll still hanging limply from her hand, and closed the door. I’d managed to pick up some cheap toys and a few colouring books for her over the past week. Hopefully it was enough.

I was about to stretch out on the stiff couch that had been serving as my bed lately when I heard my phone buzz, informing me that someone outside wanted to get into the building. I groaned and let them in without a second thought—my furniture delivery, hopefully. My table and chairs were supposed to have arrived yesterday. I heard a knock on the door and got up to let the delivery person in.

I blinked. Looked at the figure in my doorway. Blinked again.

Whoever they were, they were not delivering my furniture. No—the man before me was clutching two large cloth bags clearly embroidered with the Empire Threads logo. I recognized the brand—luxury clothing, well-designed and quite popular, but well outside of my personal shopping budget.

“Um. Hello?” I managed.

“For Miss Sinclair.” The man, whom I noticed looked far more put-together and formal than the average delivery person, set the bags down.

“Wait, I—I’m sorry, sir, but I think there’s been some mistake.”

“You’re Lacey Sinclair?” He asked.

I nodded.

“And this is your apartment?”

I nodded again.

He smiled faintly. “Then there’s no mistake.”

Before I could protest further, he left, closing the door behind him. I knelt down to retrieve the bags in wonder, but just as my fingertips grazed the zipper, my phone went off again. I frowned. Someone else with a delivery. I buzzed them in and watched numbly as a short woman handed me a jewelry box and left without a word.

The rest of the day went on in much the same way—I let in more and more delivery people who were dressed too nicely and smiled too knowingly to be delivery people, and the items piled up. Fine jewelry. A few watches. Stunning clothes, all made by Empire Threads. Liquor and wine. Chocolates. More flowers than I had room for, bouquets of roses and lilies and peonies piling up inexplicably. I stopped asking if the deliveries were a mistake. I stopped saying much of anything, really, too stunned by the sheer volume of items seeming to pile up around me. I didn’t even get an answer as to why all of this was happening until Tiff walked out of her room, disrupted by the constant opening and shutting of the door.

She looked up at the flowers and smiled widely—the first smile I’d seen on her face in weeks. “What’s going on?” She asked, beaming.

“I… I don’t know,” I replied, lacking an answer myself.

The man at the door, tall and graying, smiled as he handed Tiff a bouquet of hydrangeas almost as big as she was. “It’s from your sister’s fiancé,” he told her.

I stared in disbelief as he left.

That night, when everything had finally settled, I stared up at my ceiling, stretched out on my uncomfortable couch in my uncomfortable new home. I tried to sleep, but just couldn’t bring myself to feel exhausted. There were too many questions whirling around my mind.

I had absolutely no idea what kind of person I was going to marry. Someone who was able to flood my apartment with an abundance of gifts, apparently.

I knew almost nothing about this man, but he certainly wasn't rich. If he was, there's no way Caroline would have let me have such a desirable fiancé. I know her and her mother too well.

Was he a con man?