TE BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND BRIDE

CHAPTER THREE

Avery's POV

The Blackwood estate had forty rooms. None of them was mine.

They gave me the smallest bedroom on the second floor, at the end of a long, cold hallway. Damian's rooms were in the east wing behind a locked door, and I was told, in writing, never to cross that hallway without permission. The maid who carried my suitcase would not meet my eyes.

"The wedding gifts?" I asked.

"Mr. Blackwood said to send them all back, ma'am."

"All of them?"

"Except the Senator's."

I nodded as if it didn't matter.

That night I lay on top of the sheets in my wedding dress, because I could not reach the ribbons by myself. I stared at a water stain on the ceiling shaped like Florida and turned Celeste's words over and over.

They know it was you.

Who knew about the lake? I had never told anyone. Not my parents, not a friend, not a diary. The only other person there had been the half-drowned boy who never saw my face.

Yet someone knew, and they had frightened my sister into running.

I thought of the thumb drive in my sock drawer, the ghost vendors, and Reginald's smile on the balcony. Some people do not like surprises.

Around three, I cut the ribbons with nail scissors. The dress dropped to the floor and lay there like a shed skin. I did not cry. I was too tired to make the effort.

At six, I went down to the kitchen. I did not plan to. My feet took me, the way they always did.

I found the coffee. I brewed it black, with one sugar, and I shook a pinch of cinnamon over the top. Then I stood at the counter with the warm cup in my hands, and the smell of it wrapped around me like a memory.

"Family isn't allowed in here, ma'am," said the cook, a round woman with flour to her elbows. Then she looked at the cup. "Oh. That is how Mr. Blackwood takes his."

"Is it?" I said too quickly.

"Since he was small." She smiled. "Nobody in this house ever remembers the cinnamon. His mother used to add it."

Something in my chest gave a strange, hard squeeze. I set the cup on a tray.

"Please bring it up to him. Don't say it came from me."

She left. The door swung shut. Then it opened again, and Damian walked in, already dressed in a black suit, holding the cup in his hand.

"Who made this?"

"The cook."

"She says you did."

"I watched her."

"You watched her add cinnamon." He took a slow sip. "No one outside this house knows to add cinnamon."

Sweat prickled under my collar.

"Celeste must have told me."

"Celeste never knew." His tone was mild. "I never told her."

Silence dropped between us like a steel door.

"I'm not a fool, Miss Vale."

"It's Mrs. Blackwood now," I said, and my voice trembled.

Something flared in his eyes, anger or something worse. He set the cup down.

"Do not learn my habits. Do not stand in my kitchen and play wife. You are not one. You are a piece of paper." He lifted the cup again and drained it in one long swallow. He slammed it on the counter so hard the spoon jumped.

"Tell the cook it needs more sugar."

He left. It did not need more sugar. I knew that better than anyone.

I sat down on a stool and pressed both hands over my mouth.

By the end of the first week, I knew the rules of my new life.

Breakfast was at seven. I ate alone. Dinner was at eight, and Damian did not come. The staff called me "the second bride" when they thought I couldn't hear.

Someone had taken my photograph down from the family gallery and hung Celeste's back in its place. I asked the housekeeper why. She said it was a mistake and never fixed it.

On Friday, Damian's cousin Sabrina came to dinner in red silk, wearing a smile with too many teeth. She was Reginald's daughter, and she had loved Damian since she was twelve.

"So you're the replacement," she said, swirling her wine. "How brave, eating in front of people."

My fork stopped halfway to my mouth.

"Sabrina," Vivienne snapped.

"It's a joke, Grandmother! Avery knows I adore her." She patted my hand. "Don't I, dear? We all admire how much you eat."

Damian sat at the head of the table, slicing his steak. He did not look up. He did not say a word.

I placed my fork on the plate. I stood, said "Excuse me," and walked out with my spine straight all the way to the hallway. Then I ran.

I found the library empty except for a small, fierce figure by the window, a black cane across her lap.

"Sit," Vivienne said.

I sat.

"You are quiet," she said. "But quiet women are usually the ones counting." Her eyes pinned me. "Tell me, child. What do you want from my family?"

"Nothing."

"Everybody wants something."

I swallowed. "I want to be useful. I am a financial analyst. If Damian would let me see the company's books..."

"He won't."

"I know."

"But I will." She dug into her sleeve and pressed a small brass key into my palm. "The old records room is in the basement, behind the wine cellar. Ten years of Blackwood ledgers, on paper. My husband trusted nothing he couldn't hold." Her voice dropped. "Someone in this house has been robbing us for years. I am too old and too weak to prove it. I think you can."

"Why me?"

"Because on your wedding day, when the priest said the wrong name, I watched your face. You did not look like a bride feeling sorry for herself. You looked like a girl searching for something."

I wanted to tell her everything. But Celeste's warning still rang in my ears.

"Thank you," I said, and closed my fist around the key.

On Saturday night, I waited until the great house went silent. Then I crept down the back stairs in my socks with a small flashlight.

The basement smelled of mildew and pipe tobacco, the ghost of a man dead ten years. A dehumidifier hummed in the wine cellar, dripping into a bucket. Behind the racks stood a steel door. The brass key turned with a soft click.

Rows of black binders lined the shelves, each stamped with a year. I pulled the ledger from three years ago. Then four. My fingers raced down the columns.

There they were. The same ghost vendors from my report, but now with signatures. Approval numbers. Authorization codes. And one payee that came up again and again: Harbor Line Consulting.

I read the approval code, and my stomach dropped through the floor.

Every payment carried the same digital signature.

Not Reginald's. Not the finance director's.

Damian's.

I sank to the concrete with the binder in my lap. Damian Blackwood, Chief Executive. Someone was stealing from Blackwood Global, and every stolen dollar pointed straight at him.

"Or," I whispered, "someone is using his name."

I ran my flashlight over the shelf. Beside the binder I had taken lay a clean rectangle in the dust, the size of another ledger. Someone had pulled it out. Recently. The dust around the gap had not yet settled.

I was not the first person here tonight.

Behind me, the overhead light snapped on.

Damian stood in the doorway in a white shirt open at the collar, his hair rumpled, his eyes flicking from my face to the binder in my arms. For one long second, neither of us moved.

"What," he said, very slowly, "are you doing in my father's records room?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Give me that."

He crossed the room in three strides and tore the ledger from my hands. He read the page. Then he read my face. I watched something black creep across his own.

"You've been working with Celeste."

"No!"

"You came here to spy on me." He seized my wrist. His grip stopped short of pain, but not by much. "Did she promise you a share of what she stole?"

"Damian, please, let me explain..."

"Who gave you the key?"

I clamped my lips shut. I could not hand Vivienne to him.

"Answer me!"

"I can't." Tears slid down my face, and I despised them. "I only wanted to help. I swear."

"Help." He laughed, short and ugly. "Everything about you is a lie told with a straight face. The coffee. The cinnamon. Every strange thing you say. What are you hiding, Avery?"

Everything, I wanted to scream. And you have never looked at me long enough to see.

"Nothing.”

"Get out." His voice went quiet, which was worse. "If you touch these records again, I will send you back to your parents with nothing."

I ran. The door slammed behind me. I did not see him lower himself to the dusty floor with the ledger open on his knees, staring at his own signature.

I only saw my bedroom door at the end of the hall.

It stood open.

My drawers hung half out. My suitcase lay slit down the middle like a gutted fish. My clothes were scattered across the carpet. I dropped to my knees at the dresser and yanked open the sock drawer.

Every pair of wool socks was there.

The thumb drive was gone.

I stared into the empty drawer. Someone had walked through my room while I was in the basement. Someone who knew exactly where to look.

And from the shadows of the hallway behind me, a floorboard creaked