Eleanor POV
The apartment smells like death and old coffee.
Eleanor has been standing in the same spot for ten minutes, staring at Catherine's empty bed. The sheets still have the shape of her mother pressed into them. The pillows still smell like her. Three days. That's how long Catherine has been gone and Eleanor still can't bring herself to wash anything.
She should be packing. That's what people do after someone dies. They pack up the life and donate it or throw it away or pretend it never mattered. But Eleanor can't seem to move her hands. Can't seem to do anything except stand here and wait for Catherine to cough from the back bedroom like she did for the past two months.
Catherine won't cough again.
Eleanor forces herself to walk to the bed. The mattress sags where Catherine lay. Eleanor slides her hand underneath, feeling for loose springs or money or whatever people hide when they're dying. Her fingers brush something that isn't supposed to be there.
Paper.
An envelope.
Eleanor's name is written on the front in Catherine's handwriting. Not the shaky writing from the last few weeks. This is older. The letters are careful. Deliberate. Like Catherine had something important to say and wanted to make sure Eleanor could read it.
Eleanor sits on the bed. She doesn't open the envelope. She just stares at it like it might explode.
Something in her already knows this is bad.
She tears it open.
The letter inside is three pages long. Eleanor starts reading and her vision goes fuzzy after the first sentence.
My dearest Eleanor, I am not your mother. I have never been your mother. But I have loved you like one for twenty-six years and I need you to know why I lied.
Eleanor drops the paper.
Her hands are shaking too much to hold it.
She picks it back up. She reads again. Slower this time. Word by word. Like if she reads slowly enough, the words will say something different. Like the meaning will change if she just concentrates hard enough.
Catherine was not her real mother.
Eleanor was switched at birth.
Her real family is the Nashes. Billionaires. Heirs. The kind of people who live in houses with swimming pools and private schools.
Eleanor reads about a nurse. About negligence. About a baby mix-up that no one caught. About Catherine working in the Nash household thirty years ago and discovering the truth and deciding that instead of fixing the mistake, she would steal a baby.
She would steal Eleanor.
The letter says Eleanor's real name is Eleanor Nash. Eleanor's real parents are Marcus and Victoria Nash. Eleanor's real life was supposed to be everything Catherine's wasn't. Money. Power. Belonging.
Instead, Catherine took her and raised her in this apartment that smells like old carpet and cheap coffee. Taught her to clean other people's houses. Let her work double shifts at the diner. Let her pretend she was nobody important because that was easier than raising her as somebody that mattered.
Eleanor keeps reading.
There's more. There's always more when someone dies and leaves a letter.
Catherine explains about the other Eleanor. The one she didn't take. The one who grew up thinking she was Eleanor Nash because she was supposed to be Eleanor Nash. Except she wasn't. She was an orphan from the hospital. She was someone's discarded baby who got lucky and ended up with a rich family by accident.
That Eleanor is dead.
The letter says she died five years ago. Car accident. Catherine never believed it was an accident. Catherine never said anything because what good would it do? Bringing up the truth wouldn't bring that Eleanor back. It would only destroy two families at once.
Eleanor reads the last part of the letter twice.
Whatever you do with this truth, know that your life was worth living. That's more than most people get.
Eleanor is supposed to cry. She knows she's supposed to cry. But instead, she just sits there feeling like gravity has changed. Like the floor doesn't exist anymore and she's just falling through space and pretending it's normal.
She's not Eleanor the nobody.
She's Eleanor Nash. Heiress. Rich. Important.
The thought makes her stomach turn.
Eleanor moves to the floor and keeps reading. The letter mentions documents. Hospital records. Birth certificates. A will naming Eleanor as the true heir to fifty million dollars. Catherine says it's all in a box under the loose floorboard in her closet.
Eleanor crawls to Catherine's closet. Her knees are shaking. Everything is shaking. She finds the floorboard. It comes up easily. Underneath is a metal box.
Inside the box is a life that isn't hers.
Certificate of Live Birth, dated thirty years ago. Eleanor Nash. Father: Marcus Nash. Mother: Victoria Nash.
Hospital records. Handwritten notes from a nurse. A description of how she was switched. How a negligent nurse mixed up two babies and no one noticed until Catherine did.
A death certificate dated five years ago. For Eleanor Ashford. Age: 25. Cause of death: acute blunt force trauma sustained in motor vehicle accident.
Eleanor Ashford. The girl who lived Eleanor Nash's life. The girl who was supposed to marry someone named James Ashford to seal some business deal that was arranged before either of them were born.
That Eleanor is dead.
And now Eleanor is supposed to become her.
Eleanor doesn't realize she's crying until her hands are wet. She's sitting on the floor of Catherine's closet holding documents that say she's rich and important and she's sobbing like her heart is trying to escape her body.
Three weeks.
According to a handwritten note in the box dated from two weeks before Catherine died, Eleanor has three weeks before a wedding. She's supposed to marry someone. Some billionaire she's never met. Some man who was promised a different Eleanor thirty years ago.
Eleanor stands up. She walks to the mirror hanging on Catherine's bedroom wall.
The girl looking back at her is ordinary. Brown hair that never holds a curl. Light brown eyes. A tired smile that comes from years of waking up too early and working too hard. She looks like someone who cleans houses for a living. She looks like someone who works double shifts at a diner. She looks like someone the world has already decided doesn't matter.
That girl cannot be Eleanor Nash.
That girl cannot marry a billionaire.
That girl cannot own fifty million dollars.
Eleanor hears her phone buzz. She ignores it. Her phone buzzes again. And again. Someone is calling her. Someone has her number. Someone is trying to reach her about something.
Eleanor picks up the phone because ignoring it makes her feel like she's still in control of something.
It's a lawyer. His name is Mr. Peterson. His voice is gentle and careful like he's talking to someone who might break. He says he needs to meet with Eleanor about her inheritance. He says it's urgent. He says there are documents she needs to sign and decisions she needs to make.
Eleanor's mouth is dry.
She tells him yes. She tells him she'll meet him. She tells him she'll bring the documents Catherine left.
After she hangs up, Eleanor sits on the bed and stares at the hospital records in her hands.
Her real family knows about her now. They've probably been looking for her. They probably have lawyers and investigators and plans. They probably think she's going to be grateful to be rich. They probably think she's going to be happy to finally belong somewhere.
Eleanor does not feel grateful.
Eleanor does not feel happy.
Eleanor feels like someone has stolen her life and given her a different one and both of them are terrifying.
She picks up Catherine's letter again. Reads it one more time. Tries to find forgiveness in the words. Tries to understand how the woman who raised her could keep something this big secret for thirty years.
But underneath all of that, underneath the anger and the fear and the confusion, Eleanor knows something else.
Catherine did it because she loved her.
Catherine kept her poor and ordinary because Catherine was terrified of losing her. Because billionaires lose people. Because rich families are complicated and cruel. Because Catherine knew something Eleanor is only now beginning to understand.
Love sometimes means lying.
Love sometimes means stealing.
Love sometimes means keeping someone in a small apartment where they're safe instead of a mansion where they might get lost.
Eleanor stands up and walks to the bathroom. She looks at her reflection. She practices saying her real name.
Eleanor Nash.
The name doesn't fit.
She goes back to the bedroom and gathers all the documents. Birth certificates. Hospital records. Death certificates. She puts them all back in the metal box. She carries the box to the kitchen table and sits down with a cup of Catherine's cold coffee.
Her phone rings again.
Mr. Peterson's voice is different this time. More urgent.
He says the meeting time has moved up. He says he needs to see her today. He says there's information about the wedding. Information about the man she's supposed to marry. Information that changes everything.
Eleanor closes her eyes.
She can still smell Catherine's perfume in the apartment.
She can still feel Catherine's hand squeezing hers the moment before she died.
She can still hear Catherine's voice telling her that strength means surviving, no matter what life throws at you.
Eleanor opens her eyes and looks at the documents spread across the table. Birth certificates. Hospital records. A will naming her as the heir to fifty million dollars. A death certificate for the girl who was supposed to be her.
And underneath all of it, one more envelope.
It's sealed. It has no name on the front. Eleanor has no idea what's inside but her hands are already moving toward it.
As she tears it open, Mr. Peterson's voice is still on the line, still talking about the wedding, still explaining about the man she's going to marry, still telling her about a contract signed before she was even born.
Eleanor doesn't hear him anymore.
Because the envelope has just released something that stops her heart completely.
A contract marriage agreement, dated thirty years ago. And attached to it is a photograph of a man. A man who looks dangerous. A man with cold blue eyes and dark hair and an expression that says he owns everything he looks at.
His name is James Ashford.
And according to the contract, he owns her.