Evelyn's POV
The engagement ring felt wrong on my finger.
I stared at the massive diamond catching light from my childhood bedroom window, and my stomach twisted into knots. Tonight, I'd officially promise myself to Marcus Kane. Tomorrow, we'd announce the wedding date. Next month, I'd become Mrs. Kane, and my parents would finally smile at me the way they used to smile at Isabelle.
My dead sister. The golden child. The one they actually loved.
"Stop it," I whispered to myself. Isabelle had been gone five years. This awful jealousy needed to die with her.
I smoothed down my red dress—Isabelle's favorite color, not mine—and took a shaky breath. Downstairs, Manhattan's elite were drinking champagne worth more than most people's cars. They were celebrating me. Finally, after twenty-seven years of being the forgettable Whitmore daughter, I was doing something right.
So why did I feel like I was walking toward my own funeral?
My phone buzzed. Marcus: Where are you? Your father wants to make the toast.
I grabbed my clutch and headed downstairs. The mansion's hallways felt longer than usual, each step echoing too loud. Family portraits lined the walls—my parents' wedding, Isabelle's graduation, Isabelle's debutante ball. There was one photo of me, tucked in the corner: high school graduation, where I stood alone because Isabelle had been "too sick" to attend.
She'd died three months later.
The ballroom blazed with crystal chandeliers and too many people wearing fake smiles. I spotted my mother immediately—Catherine Whitmore, draped in diamonds, laughing with Senator Morrison's wife. She saw me and her smile tightened. Not warm. Not proud. Just... relieved I'd showed up.
"There's my beautiful bride!" Marcus appeared at my elbow, his hand clamping around my waist. His cologne was too strong, making my head spin.
"Sorry, I was just—"
"Your father's waiting." He steered me toward the center of the room where my father stood, champagne glass raised. Dr. Victor Whitmore, brilliant CEO, loving father to one daughter. The one in the ground.
"Everyone!" My father's voice boomed. "Thank you for celebrating this joyous occasion. My daughter Evelyn has brought such happiness to our family by accepting Marcus's proposal."
Polite applause. Some of the older guests looked confused, probably trying to remember which daughter I was.
"To the happy couple!" My father raised his glass higher. "May your love be as eternal as—"
Marcus's phone buzzed in his pocket. Once. Twice. Three times.
He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and his whole face changed. Lit up. Excited. The way he'd never looked at me.
"Sorry, I have to take this." He kissed my cheek—cold, quick—and disappeared into the crowd before I could respond.
My father continued the toast. People drank. Someone congratulated me. I smiled and nodded, but my heart was hammering.
Twenty minutes passed.
Marcus didn't come back.
My mother appeared beside me, her perfume suffocating. "Where's Marcus?"
"He got a call."
"During your engagement toast?" Her lips pressed thin. "That's unacceptable."
For once, we agreed.
"I'll find him." I set down my untouched champagne and moved through the crowd. No one stopped me. No one noticed the bride-to-be searching for her missing groom.
The mansion had forty-two rooms. Marcus could be anywhere—the library, the study, the garden terrace. But something pulled me toward the East Wing. The quiet section. The place we never went.
The hallway grew darker. Colder. My heels clicked against marble floors. Then I heard it.
A sound.
Soft. Strange. Coming from behind a door I hadn't opened in five years.
Isabelle's memorial room.
My parents had transformed her bedroom into a shrine after she died. Her ballet trophies. Her paintings. Her clothes still hanging in the closet like she might come back and wear them. It was creepy and sad, and I avoided it because being inside felt like drowning.
But that sound—a laugh? A gasp?—was definitely coming from inside.
My hand touched the doorknob. Cold metal against my palm.
This was crazy. Marcus wouldn't be in there. No one went in there. The room was sacred. Untouchable. My mother vacuumed it personally every week, keeping everything exactly as Isabelle left it.
The sound came again. Definitely voices now. Low. Intimate.
My heart stopped.
No.
No, Marcus wouldn't—
I turned the knob and pushed.
The door swung open silently.
Moonlight streamed through the windows, casting silver shadows across Isabelle's white furniture, her lace curtains, her antique bed.
The bed where Marcus Kane was tangled in sheets with a woman.
Her back was to me, long dark hair spilling across the pillows. Marcus's hands in that hair. His mouth on her neck. Neither of them had heard me enter.
Ice flooded my veins.
The woman turned her head.
My brain short-circuited.
I knew that face. The small scar above her left eyebrow from when we'd crashed our bikes at age seven. The beauty mark on her cheek. The exact curve of her smile.
Impossible.
The woman in bed with my fiancé had my dead sister's face.
"Hello, Evelyn," Isabelle said, her voice flat and wrong. "I'm home."
The champagne glass slipped from my hand and shattered against the floor.