Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN HE DRAGGED HOME
At eleven forty-seven on a cold November night, Emily Carter began pounding on her sister's front door.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
“Olivia! Please!”
The porch light revealed what darkness tried to hide. Emily's pale sleepwear was torn at one shoulder. Bruises shadowed her cheek and both forearms. Her long brown hair hung across a face swollen from crying.
The door opened.
Olivia barely had time to say her name before Emily collapsed against her.
“Please,” Emily sobbed into her shoulder. “Don't let him take me back.”
Olivia caught her younger twin beneath the arms and pulled her inside. They were twenty-nine years old, born eleven minutes apart, and so similar that strangers still confused them. The same brown eyes. The same height. The same narrow scar near the chin from a childhood bicycle crash.
But no one looking at them now would have mistaken their fear.
Emily shook so violently that her teeth struck together. Olivia held her face between both hands and saw finger-shaped bruises beneath the makeup her sister had tried to wash away.
“Did Logan do this?”
Emily could not answer.
The front door burst inward.
Logan Carter stormed into the entry hall wearing a dark cashmere coat over expensive black clothes. Anger sharpened his handsome face.
“Emily!”
The woman nearest the doorway recoiled. Her loose hair fell across her face as she backed into the dim hall.
Logan crossed the room, seized her arm, and dragged her toward the open door.
“You're coming home. Now.”
She stumbled after him without fighting.
Logan looked over his shoulder with a thin smile. He believed fear had restored the order he understood.
Neither woman spoke as the door closed.
Twenty minutes later, inside Logan's luxurious living room, he shoved the woman away from him. Warm light glowed over cream furniture and dark hardwood, making the room look peaceful enough for a magazine.
“Thought you could run from me?” he asked.
She lowered her head.
Logan stepped closer. “Look at me when I'm speaking to you.”
She lifted her face slowly, hair still hiding one side.
He raised his hand.
He expected the familiar flinch—the shoulders folding inward, the eyes closing before the blow.
This time, an arm snapped upward.
Her hand caught his wrist in midair.
Logan froze.
He tried to force his arm forward. Her grip tightened, turned his wrist away from her face, and held it there with calm, practiced strength.
His arrogant smile vanished.
The woman straightened. Every trace of the frightened posture disappeared.
Logan took one step backward, but she did not release him.
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“What the hell...?” he whispered.
For the first time, he looked at the woman he had dragged home—and was no longer certain she was his wife.
