Elena POV

My father has never said my name inside his own house.

Tonight, he says it four times before I even take off my coat.

"Elena. Sit down. Elena, listen to me. Elena, look at me."

I stand in the middle of the Vance mansion's marble hall. It's eleven at night, and I still smell like hospital soap. Twenty minutes ago, I was sitting beside my grandmother's bed at Hartwell Specialist Clinic, listening to the machine that breathes for her. Then my phone lit up with a number I was never allowed to call.

DAD.

I'm twenty-four years old. I'm a florist with a cracked phone, a late rent bill, and forty poundsuntil Friday. I don't belong in this hall, and everyone in it knows it.

"Your sister is gone," he says.

He holds out a folded note. His hand is shaking. Arthur Vance, the man who once fired a driver for being two minutes late, is shaking like a leaf.

I read the note. It's written in Alyssa's round, pretty handwriting, with a tiny heart over the i.

Daddy, I can't do it. I refuse to spend my life in a cold house with a monster in a mask. I left with someone who actually knows how to have fun. Don't look for me. Sell the yacht or something. —A

"She ran away," I say slowly.

"The night before her wedding." His voice cracks. "Ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Twelve guests. One priest. And Alexander Sterling."

Everyone knows that name. The billionaire who hasn't been seen in public for five years. The man who wears a black mask. The man who, people whisper, once destroyed a business partner over one small lie.

I've read the stories online. He's a monster. He's a ghost. He burned down his own building for the insurance money. He hasn't left his mansion since his face was ruined. Nobody knows what's true, and that's exactly what makes him so scary.

I also know why my father is sweating. Vance Holdings is drowning. The banks want four hundred million poundsby Monday. Sterling Group promised to save us, but only if Alexander Sterling marries a Vance daughter.

"Then call him," I say. "Tell him the truth. Ask for more time."

My father laughs. It's an ugly sound. "Alexander doesn't give time. He gives punishment. Last year, a supplier lied to him about a delivery date. That company doesn't exist anymore." He wipes his forehead. "If Sterling walks away, I'm finished. Do you understand me?"

"I understand. But why am I here?"

He looks at me then. Really looks at me, maybe for the first time in ten years. It isn't how a father looks at his daughter. It's how a man looks at a tool he just found in a messy drawer.

"You have her face," he says.

My stomach drops.

Alyssa and I are identical twins. We were born ten minutes apart, and that was the last thing we shared. Our mother died soon after, and my father was already married to Celeste, who wanted a baby more than anything. So he kept one twin and hid the other.

He kept Alyssa. The loud one. The one who cried like she was already demanding something.

I got Grandma Nora's tiny apartment above a flower shop and a birth certificate that says FATHER UNKNOWN.

Alyssa got piano lessons, a nanny, and the Vance name. I got dirt under my nails and a grandmother who loved me enough for ten people.

I've seen my sister exactly three times in my life. The last time, we were sixteen. I was standing outside a charity gala, holding a delivery of roses for my boss. Alyssa walked past in a green silk dress and looked straight through me, like I was a window.

"No," I say.

"You will put on the dress."

"I won't marry a stranger under my sister's name. It's fraud. It's—"

"It's business." He steps closer, and his voice goes soft, which is worse than shouting. "Who pays for Hartwell, Elena? Four thousand poundsa day for that ICU bed. Who has paid it for three years?"

My mouth goes dry.

"I did. Quietly. Because your grandmother is the only decent person I ever wronged." He straightens his cuff. "One phone call from me, and she moves to a public ward. No private ventilator. No specialist. You know what happens to a woman in her condition there."

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

I stare at him. My father, in a two-thousand-dollar suit, has just told me he cares about my grandmother and that he'll let her die. In the same breath.

For one wild second, I think about running. Out the front door, into the rain, anywhere. But I know where that road ends. It ends in Room 412, with an empty bed and a machine that has gone quiet.

I think of the green line on the monitor. Grandma Nora's hand, thin as paper. The soft hiss of her ventilator, in and out, in and out.

That sound is the closest thing I have to home.

"How long?" I whisper.

"One year. Just until the deal is safe. Then Alyssa comes back, and we swap quietly. Nobody will ever know."

"And if he finds out?"

His smile disappears. "Then we all burn, Elena. But your grandmother burns first."

For twenty-four years, I waited for my father to want me. Now he finally does, and it's the worst moment of my life.

By two in the morning, I'm standing in a guest room I have never seen, and a stylist named Bettina is pinning me into my sister's wedding gown. She won't look at my face. Nobody in this house will. They are paid too well to ask questions.

My father puts a sheet of paper on the dresser. It's covered with Alyssa's signature, written twenty times.

"Practice," he says. "You'll sign the marriage contract at the church."

I practice. Alyssa's loops are big and showy. Mine come out small and careful, like a schoolgirl's. He makes me do it again. And again. And again.

"Three more things," he says, counting on his fingers. "Alexander hates noise. He hates being touched. And he hates lies more than he hates both. Keep your mouth shut and your head down."

Then he tosses a pair of long white silk gloves on the bed.

"Your hands are rough. Alyssa's are soft. Keep them covered at all times."

I look at my hands. They are small and strong, cracked from cold water and thorns. They have wrapped a thousand bouquets. No one has ever called them beautiful.

I pull the gloves on anyway.

"Please," I say. "Let me see Grandma before the wedding. Just five minutes."

"There's no time."

"If she wakes up and I'm not there—"

"Your grandmother doesn't wake up, Elena." He says it flat, like he's reading a price tag. "She hasn't opened her eyes in eight months."

The words hit harder than a slap. I hold the edge of the dresser until the room stops moving.

Grandma Nora always said the same thing when the world got heavy. Spine straight, sweet girl. Bend like a stem. Never break like glass.

I straighten my spine.

"And this," my father says, as if nothing happened. He hands me a slim new phone.

"Alyssa's number. She hates talking, so you barely talk. When he asks a question, smile.

When he gives an order, say yes. Don't be clever. Don't be kind. Alyssa is neither."

"You want me to be cruel?"

"I want you to be her."

He leaves. The door clicks shut. Bettina slips out after him.

I'm alone in front of a tall mirror.

The woman inside it wears silk and lace and a cathedral veil. Her waist is tiny. Her shoulders shine. She looks like a princess on a magazine cover.

She looks exactly like Alyssa.

Only her eyes are different. They're tired and scared, and completely mine.

"I'm sorry, Grandma," I whisper. "I'll be good. I promise."

Under my arm, tucked inside the corset, is my own cheap phone. I slid it there when nobody was looking. It's the only thing in this room that belongs to me.

It buzzes against my ribs.

I pull it out. Unknown number.

Hi, twin. I found your number in Dad's desk years ago. Curious, right? Anyway, have fun being me! One tip: Alexander has cameras in every hallway and half the rooms. I saw them when I visited. He watches EVERYTHING. Smile! xoxo

The screen goes dark.

In it, I see my own face, white as the dress.

Somewhere far away, in a huge cold house, a man is waiting for a wife who doesn't exist.

And he's going to watch me pretend to be her.