THE EMPTY CHAIR AT HER SISTER’S WEDDING WAS SUPPOSED TO PROVE HER FIANCÉ HAD LEFT HER—BUT WHEN A QUIET STRANGER SAT BESIDE HER, KORA NEVER IMAGINED HE OWNED THE HOTEL, OR THAT HIS FAMILY WAS ALREADY PLANNING THE MARRIAGE THAT COULD DESTROY THEM BOTH

May, the lobby was the kind of quiet that had been carefully engineered. Marble caught daylight from the high windows. A pianist—not the one from the wedding—played something small and unobtrusive on the grand.

At the concierge desk, a silver-haired man with very straight posture looked up and said, “Miss Whitfield.”

“You remember me?”

“I have a respectable continue reading …