All I wanted was to drop off the last package and get to the school gates before the bell rang. I had been rushing all afternoon, my mind already skipping ahead to picking up Lucas. But the moment I stepped into the cavernous entrance hall of the Hart estate, the world seemed to stop. My feet froze on the polished floor. Then, a cold wave of panic washed over me.
The room was a display of aggressive wealth, filled with gleaming marble and crystal chandeliers that scattered light in every direction. But I wasn’t looking at the furniture. My gaze was locked on a portrait hanging on the far wall, illuminated by its own dedicated spotlight.
It was Anna. My wife.
The wife I had buried three years ago.
I blinked, waiting for the hallucination to fade, but the image remained sharp and clear. The only thing that didn’t make sense was the brass nameplate screwed into the bottom of the gilded frame. It didn’t say Anna Cole. It displayed a name I had never heard in my life.
Why did billionaire Eleanor Hart have a photograph of my wife in her foyer? And why, according to that plaque, had my wife lived her entire life under a false identity? The package in my hands, a simple cardboard box, suddenly felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. My delivery bag slipped from my shoulder, hitting the marble floor with a dull, heavy thud that echoed in the silence.
I walked closer, my heart hammering against my ribs. It wasn’t just a woman who looked like Anna. It wasn’t someone with similar features or a coincidental doppelganger.
It was her. I saw the specific curve of her smile, the one she gave me when I made a bad joke. I saw the way her eyes crinkled at the corners.
I even saw the tiny, star-shaped birthmark on her left cheek. Every single detail matched the woman I had married eight years ago. The same woman I had mourned every day for the last three years.
I forced my eyes down to the nameplate again. Evelyn Hart. Beloved Sister.
My throat closed up tight. The edges of my vision began to blur, black spots dancing in the periphery. I took another step. Then another.
I stopped directly beneath the painting. The woman on the canvas wore an elegant navy dress that looked nothing like the thrift-store clothes Anna used to wear. Her hair was styled in soft, expensive waves.
She looked younger in the paint. Maybe in her early twenties. But it was undeniably her.
Somewhere to my left, a heavy door clicked open. The sharp clack-clack of heels on stone approached.
“Can I help you?”
I turned slowly. A woman in a severe dark suit stood watching me. She was older than the woman in the portrait, perhaps in her late forties. Her hair was pulled back in a tight, no-nonsense bun, and her expression was carefully neutral. However, as her gaze landed on my face, her eyes sharpened with suspicion.
“I’m sorry,” I managed to say. My voice sounded wrecked, like I’d been screaming. “I’m here to deliver a package.”
I gestured vaguely to the box, but then my hand drifted back toward the wall. “But this photo…”
The woman’s face drained of color. She took three quick, stumbling steps backward, her composure shattering instantly.
“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice rising in pitch. She looked frantically between me and the portrait, her breathing becoming shallow and fast.
“My name is Ethan Cole,” I said, trying to keep my hands from shaking. “I’m just a delivery driver. But that woman in the painting…” I pointed a trembling finger at the canvas. “That’s my wife.”
The woman stared at me, her mouth slightly open. For a long, stretched moment, neither of us moved. The silence in the hall was deafening. Then, she turned sharply and shouted.
“Marcus!”
A side door swung open, and a man in a security uniform stepped out. He was broad-shouldered with a face like stone.
“Escort this man out,” the woman ordered. Her voice had turned icy, snapping back into a tone of command. “Immediately!”
“Wait,” I started, taking a step forward.
Marcus was already moving into my space, his presence looming.
“Ma’am, I’m not trying to cause trouble,” I said rapidly, backing away as the guard advanced. “I just need to understand why you have a painting of my wife in your house. Her name was Anna. Anna Cole.”
The woman didn’t respond, so I kept talking, desperate. “She died three years ago in a car accident. But that is her. I know it is.”
The woman’s face had gone from pale white to a sickly gray. She reached out and gripped the back of an antique chair to steady herself.
“Get him out,” she repeated, though her voice wavered this time.
Marcus took my arm. He wasn’t rough, but his grip was firm, immovable. I allowed myself to be guided toward the heavy front doors. My mind was spinning violently, trying to reassemble reality.
Nothing made sense. Anna had never mentioned money. She had never mentioned a connection to the Hart family or anyone wealthy. She had never talked about her past at all.
Whenever I had asked, she would just change the subject with that sad, sweet smile of hers, telling me that her past didn’t matter. She would say that only our future was real.
I was halfway to the door when I heard it.
“Wait.”
Marcus stopped instantly. I turned around.
The woman had followed us. She was trembling visibly now.
“You said…” Her voice broke, and she had to swallow hard before trying again. “You said she was your wife?”
I nodded slowly.
“And she’s…” The woman couldn’t seem to finish the sentence.
“Dead,” I said quietly. The word still tasted like ash in my mouth. “Yes. Three years ago. A drunk driver ran a red light. She died on impact.”
The woman’s knees buckled. She caught herself against the wall, sliding down slightly before straightening up. Marcus moved to help her, but she waved him off frantically.
“Is she alive?” she whispered, her eyes desperate, pleading for a different answer. “Please. Is Evelyn alive?”
“I don’t know anyone named Evelyn,” I said gently. “My wife’s name was Anna.”
The woman shook her head, tears spilling over her eyelids and running down her cheeks unchecked. “No. No, that’s…”
She looked up at the portrait, illuminated in its halo of light, and then back at me.
“That is my sister,” she said, her voice cracking. “Evelyn Hart. She disappeared thirteen years ago.”
She took a ragged breath. “I’ve been searching for her ever since. I hired private investigators. I checked hospitals. Shelters. Everywhere. But there was nothing. No trace. It was like she vanished into thin air.”
I felt the marble floor tilt beneath my feet. I reached out and steadied myself against the doorframe.
“That can’t be right,” I said.
But even as the words left my lips, a heavy realization settled in my gut. It could be right.
Anna had no family photos. No childhood stories about school or holidays. No old friends calling on her birthday. She had appeared in my life like someone who had just been born the day we met. I had always assumed she was running from a bad home or a traumatic past. I had respected her privacy and never pushed her to explain.
The woman took a shaking breath and seemed to physically pull herself together. She straightened her spine and wiped her eyes with a swift, practiced motion.
“My name is Eleanor Hart,” she said. “That portrait is of my younger sister. She would be thirty-five now. The painting was done when she was twenty-two. Right before she disappeared.”
Thirty-five. Anna had been thirty-two when she died three years ago. The math was perfect.
“I don’t understand,” I said. My voice sounded hollow, like it was coming from someone else. “Why would she change her name? Why would she leave all this?”
