CHAPTER 1 Her Millionaire Twin Sold Her as a Blind-Date Freak Show—Until Chicago’s Billionaire Don Revealed the Fake Fiancé, the Stolen Charity Money, and the Sister Who Needed Her Name to Stay Rich
Her Millionaire Twin Sold Her as a Blind-Date Freak Show—Until Chicago’s Billionaire Don Revealed the Fake Fiancé, the Stolen Charity Money, and the Sister Who Needed Her Name to Stay Rich
Caroline Reed knew the date was a mistake the moment the man across from her smiled at his phone before he smiled at her.
It was not the nervous, hopeful smile of a man meeting someone new. It was not even the shallow, disappointed smile Caroline had learned to recognize from strangers who decided in half a second that a woman like her was too large, too soft, too visible to deserve tenderness. This smile was sharper than that. Jason Pierce looked amused before she had said a word, as if the joke had already landed somewhere Caroline could not see.
Rain slid down the tall windows of The Bellwether, one of those impossible Chicago restaurants where the chandeliers looked like frozen fireworks and the wine list arrived bound in leather. Outside, Michigan Avenue glowed under storm water and headlights. Inside, everything was white tablecloths, polished silver, and people pretending money could purchase dignity.
Caroline sat very still in the velvet booth, one hand wrapped around the stem of her water glass, the other tucked beneath the table where Jason could not see her fingers shaking.
“You’re Caroline,” Jason said, dragging his gaze down her emerald wrap dress and back to her face. “Wow. Your sister really didn’t exaggerate.”
The words were not openly cruel. That made them worse. They gave him the coward’s luxury of pretending she had misunderstood.
Caroline forced herself to breathe through the pinch in her chest. “Cleo said you were interested in meeting someone real.”
Jason laughed softly. “Oh, I’m very interested in real.”
He adjusted his phone beside the silver wine bucket. The screen faced them at a perfect angle, propped up like an extra guest at the table. Caroline noticed the little red dot glowing near the top, but she told herself not to be paranoid. She had promised herself tonight would be different. She had promised herself she would not arrive already apologizing for existing.
At twenty-six, Caroline had spent half her life being treated like the “other” Reed twin. She and Cleo had been born four minutes apart with the same hazel eyes, the same chestnut hair, and the same heart-shaped face. But while Cleo had grown into a size-two lifestyle influencer with a penthouse, a millionaire fiancé, and more than three million followers, Caroline had grown into a woman whose body changed under the strain of polycystic ovary syndrome, grief, stress, and years of swallowing pain because no one wanted to hear a fat woman describe loneliness.
Cleo wore designer gowns on rooftop terraces and sold her followers the illusion of effortless living. Caroline wore cardigans to her accounting job at a West Loop logistics firm and quietly caught mistakes other people were too careless to notice. Cleo was photographed holding champagne on yachts. Caroline balanced books, sent money to their mother’s assisted-living facility, and bought her dresses online because boutiques in Chicago had a way of pretending women her size were invisible.
Still, when Cleo had called three nights earlier, sounding warmer than she had sounded in years, Caroline had wanted to believe her.
“Car, listen,” Cleo had said. “I know I haven’t always been fair. But I met someone who’s tired of plastic women. His name is Jason Pierce. Junior partner at a hedge fund. Smart, handsome, and he specifically said he likes women with curves.”
Caroline had nearly laughed, because those exact words often meant nothing. But Cleo had softened her voice in a way that reached back into childhood, before filters and sponsorship contracts and cruel little comparisons at family dinners.
“You deserve to be seen,” Cleo had whispered. “Let yourself be happy for once.”
So Caroline had chosen the emerald dress instead of the black one. She had put on red lipstick with trembling hands. She had taken a cab through the rain and told herself that maybe her sister, the person who shared her face and blood, had finally decided to love her without needing an audience.
Now Jason lifted his glass of scotch and said, “Cleo told me you have a great sense of humor.”
Caroline’s stomach tightened. “I try.”
“Good. That’ll help.”
Before she could ask what he meant, the waiter arrived, elegant and stiff in a black jacket.
“Are we ready to order?”
Caroline glanced down at the menu, grateful for something ordinary to do. “I think I’ll have—”
“She’ll have the house salad,” Jason interrupted. “No croutons, dressing on the side. I’ll take the dry-aged ribeye, rare, with the truffle potatoes.”
The waiter froze long enough for Caroline to feel the humiliation settle over the table like spilled wine. At the booths nearby, conversations dipped and rose again, but not before several heads turned.
Caroline looked at Jason. “Excuse me. I didn’t agree to that.”
Jason leaned back, smiling wider. “Come on, Caroline. I’m helping. Cleo said you were trying to make better choices.”
“My body is not your order to place.”
For the first time, Jason’s smile slipped. Not much, but enough for her to see the irritation beneath the performance. He tapped the back of his phone with one manicured finger.
“Careful,” he said. “You’re coming off defensive.”
May you like
The word defensive unlocked something cold and terrible in her. Caroline looked at the glowing red dot again. The phone was not just recording. Comments were moving across the screen so quickly that they blurred into white streaks.
She heard her own voice, small and distant. “What is that?”
