The Wife He Left in the Water

Imogen spent nine years as the unnamed architect behind Vance Ardoin's hotel empire, having closed her firm and sold her mother's house in Marseille to finance his first property.

At the launch of a building she designed, a terrace railing collapsed and both she and another woman fell into the pool; Vance's first instruction was to reach Delphine, Imogen's best friend since they were eleven and a year-long occupant of the guest suite, because Delphine could not swim.

Imogen climbed out without asking for help, crossed a crowd of two hundred in a soaked gown, and set her wedding band in the fountain she had planned, walking away with a daughter Vance would never be permitted to know.

Three years later a rival project opens across the bay, magazines nationwide want the architect's name, and Vance finds her.

He leaves his board, quietly purchases the building she rents and transfers the deed into her name without telling her, then lingers at a school entrance for a child who already uses another man's first name.

Delphine still collects a salary from him, and Imogen has not forgotten which woman he turned toward first.