“She does.”

“You never said you were engaged to her.”

Ethan froze. Lauren had learned that from the papers — on the second page of the preservation notice, Claire was identified as Ethan’s former business partner and former fiancée.

The word fiancée seemed to disturb her more than the missing money. Perhaps it made Claire real in a way the bank records couldn’t. Ethan had presented himself to Lauren as a man who’d been ignored, underestimated, trapped in an empty life.

He’d told her she was the first person who truly understood him. Now she was learning he had used the same story before.

“You were going to marry her?”