The gold band felt heavy on my ring finger.

I looked down at it, then out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Greenwich estate.

Outside, a cold October rain began to tap against the glass, blurring the manicured gardens.

Nathan stood behind me, his warm hands resting gently on my shoulders.

“You look beautiful, Emily,” he said.

His voice was low, steady, and completely devoid of the doubt that had surrounded us for months.

We had just finished a small, private ceremony in the estate’s chapel.

There were no guests, only the minister and two witnesses we had hired from town.

“I still can’t believe we did this,” I whispered, turning my face toward his hand.

Nathan leaned down and kissed my cheek.

“I can,” he said. “You are my wife now, Emily. No one can change that.”

For two years, I had worked as his quiet housekeeper.

I had dusted his mahogany desks, polished his silver, and kept my head bowed whenever his wealthy friends visited.

The other servants in the estate had always whispered about me.

They whispered that I had a secret past, that I was hiding three children in a small, broken-down town in West Virginia.

Nathan gently turned me around to face him.

The study smelled of cedarwood, beeswax, and old leather.

“There is something we need to talk about,” he said, looking directly into my eyes.

I felt a familiar, tight knot form in my chest.

“The children,” I said.

“Johnny, Paul, and Lily,” Nathan said softly. “My mother has been digging into your past. She thinks you lied to me.”

I pulled my hands back, rubbing my wrists.

The thin, silver burn scars on my forearms rubbed against the lace of my wedding dress.

“They aren’t my children, Nathan,” I said.

He remained quiet, waiting for me to continue.

“They are my younger siblings,” I said.

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I wiped it quickly with the back of my hand.

“Ten years ago, our house in West Virginia caught fire,” I whispered.

“My parents did not make it out.”

“I pulled Johnny, Paul, and Lily out of the bedroom window myself, one by one.”