## CHAPTER 1 ### The Man Who Caught Me
The first thing I heard was someone screaming my name.
The second was the sound of crystal shattering behind me.
Then the world tilted.
One moment, I was standing on the terrace of the Valdés estate, surrounded by white roses, champagne towers, and nearly two hundred beautifully dressed guests. The next, a pair of hands struck the center of my chest with enough force to lift my heels from the wet stone.
My eight-month-pregnant body flew backward.
The summer sky spun above me. Blue, white, blue again.
My left hand reached instinctively for my stomach. My right hand clawed at empty air.
There was no railing behind me.
Only a six-foot drop onto the lower courtyard’s marble floor.
I had enough time to think of my daughter.
Lucia.
Then two strong arms locked beneath my shoulders and around my waist.
My fall stopped so suddenly that the breath tore from my lungs.
The man who caught me staggered backward, turning his body so that his shoulder struck the wall instead of my head. Pain flashed across his face, but he never released me.
“You’re safe,” he said.
His voice was low, rough and terrifyingly familiar.
I looked up.
For several seconds, I forgot the party. I forgot the shove. I forgot the baby pressing hard beneath my ribs.
The man holding me had dark hair streaked with gray, a narrow scar across his left eyebrow and the same green eyes I saw every morning in the mirror.
“No,” I whispered.
His grip tightened.
“Elena.”
Only one person had ever said my name that way.
My brother.
Daniel Hart had been declared dead nine years earlier.
His car had been found at the bottom of a canyon north of Santa Barbara. The gasoline tank had exploded on impact. The body recovered from the wreckage was too badly burned for visual identification, but a watch bearing Daniel’s initials had been found on the driver’s wrist.
I attended his funeral.
I watched our mother collapse beside his empty coffin.
Yet Daniel was standing beneath the terrace of the Valdés estate, holding me as if he had never left.
“You’re dead,” I breathed.
“Not yet.”
Footsteps thundered down the side staircase.
My husband appeared first.
Rafael Valdés shoved past two servers, his tuxedo jacket open and his face stripped of its usual calm. He jumped the final three steps and dropped beside me.
“Elena!”
His hands moved over my arms, my face, my stomach.
“Are you hurt? Did you hit your head?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is the baby moving?”
I pressed my palm against the side of my belly.
For one horrible moment, there was nothing.
Then Lucia kicked hard beneath my hand.
A sob broke from me.
“She moved.”
Rafael closed his eyes briefly, pressing his forehead to mine.
“Thank God.”
More people descended into the courtyard.
My mother-in-law, Camila Valdés, appeared in a silver evening gown with one hand pressed dramatically to her throat. Her daughter Bianca followed behind her, pale and shaking. Arturo Valdés, the family patriarch, remained at the top of the stairs, leaning heavily on the carved cane he carried because of his supposedly failing heart.
Guests crowded the terrace above us.
Phones rose into the air.
“What happened?” Rafael demanded.
No one answered.
His eyes lifted toward the terrace.
“Who touched her?”
The softness vanished from his voice.
“Who pushed my wife?”
Bianca’s lips parted.
Camila looked toward her.
That tiny movement lasted less than a second.
I still saw it.
Daniel helped me sit upright against the wall.
Rafael turned toward him, as if only now realizing a stranger had been holding me.
“Who the hell are you?”
Daniel released me slowly.
“My name is Daniel Hart.”
The color drained from Rafael’s face.
Camila took one unsteady step backward.
Arturo’s hand tightened around his cane.
My brother looked directly at my husband.
“I’m Elena’s brother.”
A murmur swept through the guests above us.
Rafael stared at Daniel, then at me.
“Elena’s brother is dead.”
“So everyone keeps telling me,” Daniel said.
The live band had stopped playing. The only sounds were the distant ocean and the rapid clicking of cameras.
Rafael positioned himself between Daniel and me.
“You need to step away from my wife.”
“I just saved her life.”
“And now you’re going to explain why you’re here.”
Daniel’s gaze moved past Rafael toward Arturo.
“I came because someone invited me.”
Arturo’s expression remained controlled.
“I certainly did not.”
Daniel reached into the inner pocket of his dark suit.
Rafael’s security men moved instantly.
Three guns appeared.
Guests screamed and ducked.
Daniel froze with his hand inside his jacket.
“Tell your men to relax,” he said. “I’m reaching for an invitation.”
Rafael lifted one hand.
The guards did not lower their weapons, but they stopped advancing.
Daniel removed a cream-colored envelope sealed with dark red wax.
The Valdés family crest was stamped on the flap.
He tossed it onto the stone between us.
Rafael picked it up.
Inside was a formal invitation to the evening’s celebration. Beneath the printed details, someone had written a message by hand.
I could not see the words.
Rafael read them twice.
His jaw tightened.
“What does it say?” I asked.
He folded the card.
“Nothing.”
“Rafael.”
“Not now.”
Daniel gave a humorless laugh.
“That habit of yours is going to get her killed.”
Rafael surged toward him.
I caught my husband’s sleeve.
“Stop.”
A sudden tightening gripped my lower abdomen.
I gasped.
Every face turned toward me.
Rafael knelt immediately.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Another cramp followed, deeper than the first.
Daniel checked his watch.
“She needs a hospital.”
Camila descended the last step.
“Our family physician is already on the property.”
“No,” Daniel said.
Camila’s eyes hardened.
“No?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Do not let Dr. Sloane examine you.”
Rafael turned sharply.
“Why?”
“Because she’s been giving Elena medication that was never prescribed by her obstetrician.”
Silence settled over the courtyard.
I stared at him.
“What medication?”
Daniel did not answer immediately.
Instead, he looked toward the terrace.
“Your wife was pushed thirty seconds after the security cameras covering this courtyard went offline. The family physician has been altering her medical records. Someone mailed me an invitation that told me exactly where to stand tonight.”
He pointed toward the shadowed archway from which he had emerged.
“This wasn’t an impulsive attack.”
Camila’s composure cracked.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I know Elena has been dizzy for six weeks. I know she’s had gaps in her memory. I know she was told pregnancy hormones were causing the confusion.”
My skin turned cold.
I had told no one about the memory gaps except Rafael and Dr. Sloane.
Not even my closest friend knew.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Daniel crouched in front of me.
“Because someone has been drugging you.”
Rafael seized him by the collar.
“You don’t get to disappear for nine years and walk back into her life with accusations.”
Daniel did not resist.
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“Then give me one reason not to have you arrested.”
“Because the person who pushed Elena is still standing above us.”
Everyone looked up.
Guests moved away from the terrace edge.
I searched the faces.
Business partners. Celebrities. Politicians. Family friends.
Then I saw a woman in a white dress retreating through the ballroom doors.
Her blond hair was pinned beneath a diamond comb. A server stumbled as she brushed past him.
I recognized her.
Vivian Price, Rafael’s former fiancée.
“Vivian,” I whispered.
Rafael released Daniel and turned.
Vivian disappeared into the house.
Bianca began to cry.
“She was standing beside Elena before it happened.”
“That doesn’t mean she pushed me,” I said.
“She hates you,” Bianca replied too quickly.
Daniel watched her carefully.
“Maybe.”
Bianca flinched.
Rafael shouted for the gates to be sealed.
Security guards moved across the grounds. Guests protested as doors were locked and cars were stopped at the driveway.
My cramps continued.
An ambulance was called, but Daniel insisted we leave in his vehicle instead.
“I’m not putting her in a car with you,” Rafael said.
“Then take her yourself. Just don’t tell Dr. Sloane which hospital.”
Rafael stared at him.
Something passed between them.
Fear.
Recognition.
Or guilt.
My husband lifted me into his arms.
As he carried me toward the service entrance, my hand brushed against something caught in the folds of my gown.
A bracelet.
Thin gold links. A single black pearl.
I knew it well.
Camila wore it to every major Valdés family event because Arturo had given it to her on their twentieth anniversary.
I closed my fingers around it before anyone else could see.
At the doorway, I glanced back.
Camila was standing in the courtyard.
Her left wrist was bare.
But she was not looking at me.
She was staring at Daniel.
And Daniel was staring at Arturo.
The old man remained at the top of the staircase, leaning on his cane as though he could barely stand.
Then one of the guests bumped into him.
For a fraction of a second, Arturo released the cane.
He did not stumble.
He did not sway.
He stood perfectly straight.
Strong and steady.
When he realized I was watching, he slowly reached for the cane again.
That was when Lucia stopped moving.
May you like
And a warm trickle of blood ran down the inside of my leg.
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