His Savior Was Never My Sister

My father called me to his study to deliver an order.

I, Victoria Castellano, was to take my illegitimate half-sister Isabella’s place, to marry the comatose heir of the rival Moretti family and secure a truce.

I didn’t cry.

I laid my kid gloves on his polished desk and made my three demands.

Sever all ties.

My mother’s entire legacy.

And give my bodyguard, Nicholas, to Isabella.

Everyone knew my obsession with him.

I loved him until I overheard the truth.

He was the hidden Rossi heir, undercover only to protect his precious Isabella.

Every time he’d saved my life, he was just guarding his link to her.

So I let him go.

I won’t tell him I’m marrying someone else.

And I’ll never tell him that three years ago, in Lake Tahoe’s freezing depths, the lips that breathed life back into a drowning man—the memory that haunts him—weren’t Isabella’s.

They were mine.

My father called me to his study to deliver an order.

I, Victoria Castellano, was to take my illegitimate half-sister Isabella’s place, to marry the comatose heir of the rival Moretti family and secure a truce.

I didn’t cry.

I laid my kid gloves on his polished desk and made my three demands.

Sever all ties.

My mother’s entire legacy.

And give my bodyguard, Nicholas, to Isabella.

Everyone knew my obsession with him.

I loved him until I overheard the truth.

He was the hidden Rossi heir, undercover only to protect his precious Isabella.

Every time he’d saved my life, he was just guarding his link to her.

So I let him go.

I won’t tell him I’m marrying someone else.

And I’ll never tell him that three years ago, in Lake Tahoe’s freezing depths, the lips that breathed life back into a drowning man—the memory that haunts him—weren’t Isabella’s.

They were mine.

...

The scent of the study was a familiar prison: aged leather, expensive polish, and the faint, ever-present ghost of my father’s Cuban cigars. It was the smell of power, cold and masculine, and it had stifled me for twenty-three years.

Don Antonio Castellano sat behind his mahogany desk like a judge.

I stood before him, back straight, my simple black dress a stark contrast to the room’s oppressive opulence. I hadn’t been summoned for a chat.

“Victoria,” he began, his voice a low rumble that promised no good. He didn’t ask me to sit. “A situation has arisen. The Morettis.”

I said nothing. The Moretti family was our oldest, most entrenched rival. A shaky truce had held for a decade, built on a foundation of mutual profit and thinly veiled threat.

“Their heir, Caleb,” my father continued, steepling his fingers. “The one in the long-term care facility. His condition is stable, but he remains unresponsive. His mother is sentimental. She wishes to see him settled, to have someone at his side. A marriage would solidify our current agreements, make them permanent.”

A cold trickle, like ice water, began its slow descent down my