Chapter 1

1.

Raina Monroe got her hearing back.

The first thing she did was try to tell her fiancé, Brandon Thorne.

She rushed to his office, heart pounding, already picturing the look on his face. She'd even picked out the restaurant for their celebration.

She stopped outside his door.

Brandon was talking to a group of friends. He didn't know she was standing there. He didn't know she could hear.

"I banged some chick behind my fiancée's back," he said.

"I'm taking her to a hotel today."

"My fiancée's deaf. I could flirt with the girl right in front of her and she'd never know."

The words drilled into Raina's skull. Her mind blanked. Her blood stopped moving.

The office erupted. Whistles. Shouts. Some guy slammed the table. "Brandon, you've got some serious balls, man."

Another one laughed. "Brother, you're playing with fire."

Brandon leaned back in his chair, drink in hand, a smirk cutting across his face.

He lifted his glass for a toast. Then he caught a figure in the doorway. Raina.

His face dropped. But the panic vanished fast. She couldn't hear.

He set down the glass, walked over, and said, "Why'd you come here alone? I was supposed to pick you up for the dress fitting. You didn't even text me back."

His hands moved with the words. "I thought something happened to you. I was so worried."

The worry on his face looked real.

She remembered being eighteen. Brandon fell for her at first sight. He chased her for two solid years. Flowers. Bags. Cash. Jewelry. He checked in every day. Every holiday, every birthday, he found a new way to surprise her.

When her adoptive parents died, he never left her side. He held her through it, fed her, soothed her, walked her through the darkest stretch of her life.

She finally said yes after his hundredth confession.

Three years ago, she took a hit for him. The injury destroyed her auditory nerves. She couldn't hear anymore.

She was devastated. She tried to end things. More than once.

Brandon refused. He held her, begged her not to leave him, begged her to stay. He learned sign language. When the silence crushed her, he was there.

The Thorne family fought the relationship. His father threatened to disown him publicly, cut him off from every network that mattered.

Brandon didn't blink. He walked into the boardroom, slapped a trust fund waiver onto the table in front of his father, and said, "Fine. Keep the money. But you accept her."

The standoff lasted months. They froze his cards. Took his car. Took his apartment. At the lowest point, he was crashing in a freezing studio with no heat near the office, living on whatever his friends spotted him, taking the subway to work.

Raina cried and begged him to stop. He just held her and said, "Without you, the money means nothing."

His father finally broke.

Raina sobbed in his arms. "Why are you so stupid?"

Brandon wiped her tears, gentle, and signed the words: I love you.

The proposal was a spectacle. A mansion. A garden packed with her favorite pink peonies. The ring was Eternal Light, a diamond that had once belonged to European royalty. Priceless.

He got down on one knee. The ruthless businessman who cut throats in the boardroom was trembling. His eyes were wet. He was terrified she'd say no.

When she said yes, he jumped up. This man who never cried broke down completely. He held her for so long, wouldn't let go, like a kid who'd finally gotten the one toy he wanted most.

The day after the proposal, someone knocked into her on the street. She hit her head.

Her hearing came back.

After a full checkup, the doctors confirmed it. She could hear again. Raina was overjoyed.

She thought a life with Brandon's love was already more than she deserved. And now this.

But when she went to tell him the good news, she learned about the other woman.

No wonder. A month ago, the late nights started. He said work was crazy.

His real work was between another woman's legs.

He'd promised he would never betray her. A few short years, and his heart had already wandered.

She dug her nails into her palm and forced herself out of the daze.

The truth was there. A crack in everything. He had changed.

She pulled herself back. Brandon was still signing. "Couldn't wait to see the dresses, could you? So you came without me?"

After the engagement, he'd been obsessed with building their life. Their wedding was a month away. His dream.

Raina knew there would be no wedding.

The second she learned about his betrayal, she decided she was leaving.