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

her.

He walked beside her at the same polite distance he had kept for weeks.

At the marble step, he said, “Thank you for the lullaby. I asked Henry for it in the spring once, and he told me I had not yet earned it.”

“He was right,” Kora said.

“He often is.”

Four months later, on a cool late September Saturday, the Donovan Lancing mezzanine was set up for continue reading …