Emma Rhodes has been dead before. In another life she was Celeste Laurent, a famous actress drowned by her fiancé. But death wasn't the end. She woke up in a child's body, trapped in a family that would become her prison.

For sixteen years, Emma watched her stepmother Juliette poison her mother, push her down the stairs, and marry her father. She endured the cruelty of her stepsister Evelyn. She learned to be invisible.

Then her father's debts caught up with him. The man who owns the debt is Nicholas White, a billionaire CEO of the largest entertainment empire in the city, and the most dangerous man alive. He doesn't want money. He wants Emma.

The marriage contract is signed. Emma becomes Mrs. White, a pawn in a game she doesn't understand. But Nicholas has secrets too. He is the Ghost, a shadow king who controls the underworld. And for fifteen years, he has been hunting the man who murdered his mother, the same man who killed Celeste Laurent.

He doesn't know Emma is Celeste reborn. He only knows that when he looks at her, something in him recognizes something in her.

As Emma steps into the spotlight, building an acting career that terrifies her enemies, she and Nicholas are drawn into a war against Juliette, her mysterious backer Viktor Cross, and a criminal organization called the Consortium. Trust is earned in blood. Love grows in the darkness between revenge and survival.

But Viktor knows what Emma really is. He calls it the Echo Phenomenon. And he doesn't want her dead,he wants to own her.

Emma died once. She won't die again.

Three days later, the world found out about Emma.


She was sitting in the library, reading a biography of a silent film star, when her phone exploded. Message after message. Call after call. Her screen wouldn't stop lighting up.


Evelyn: You're engaged? To NICHOLAS WHITE?


Unknown number: This is Victoria from E! News. Can you confirm…


Emma dropped her phone like it was on fire.


Nicholas walked into the library, already dressed in a charcoal suit, his hair damp from the shower. He looked at her face, then at the phone buzzing on the floor.


"I told Sloane to leak it to the press." He walked to the window, looking out at the sea. "It was time."


Emma picked up her phone and silenced it. "My stepmother is going to lose her mind."


"My father is going to have a heart attack."


She stood, walking toward him. "And Evelyn is going to make my life a living hell the next time she sees me."


Nicholas turned. "There won't be a next time."


"You're not going back to that house, Emma. You're not going to let them touch you or speak to you or breathe the same air as you." His voice was hard, final. "They sold you. They don't get to see you anymore."


Emma's heart ached. She had dreamed of leaving that house, of escaping Juliette's cruelty and Evelyn's viciousness… for sixteen years. But she had never imagined it would happen like this.


"My things," she said. "My mother's things. They're still there."


"Already taken care of." Nicholas reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, holding it out to her. "Storage unit on Fifth Avenue. Everything your mother owned. I had my people retrieve it two days ago."


Emma stared at the key. At this man who had thought of everything.


"Why?" she asked. "Why are you doing all of this?"


"Because someone should have done it for Celeste." He pressed the key into her palm. "And no one did."


Emma closed her fingers around the key. It was warm from his skin.


"Don't thank me." He walked to the door. "Get dressed. We have a press conference in two hours."


"You're my fiancée now, Emma. The world needs to see your face."


Emma stood alone in the library, holding the key to her mother's things, and wondered if she would ever stop being surprised by this Nicholas White.


Chapter 7 - Chapter Seven