The bride opened the bathroom door on her wedding day, expecting to find her groom. Instead, she found him kneeling before four identical little boys. They shared his exact face, staring in dead silence. A hidden past just crashed the wedding.
CHAP 1 — Four Boys in the Bathroom
Grant Whitmore found the boys because he needed ten seconds of silence.
The engagement party had become too perfect.
That was the problem.
Everything inside the Whitmore estate looked staged for a magazine cover: marble floors, gold-framed mirrors, white hydrangeas spilling from crystal vases, waiters moving like shadows, and Chicago’s wealthiest families waiting beneath chandeliers for Grant to toast his future bride.
Brielle Cartwright loved rooms like that.
She stood in the foyer wearing a glittering cream gown, smiling beneath the kind of light that made diamonds look almost holy. She had planned every flower, every guest, every camera angle.
Grant should have felt lucky.
Instead, he felt trapped.
He slipped away before the toast, loosening his black bowtie as he entered the marble bathroom near the east hall.
Then he stopped.
Four little boys stood in front of the grand mirror.
Barefoot.
Wearing matching light-blue striped pajamas.
Each one had a tiny black bowtie tied around his collar, crooked and wrinkled, as if someone had dressed them in a hurry and tried to make them look formal.
They were identical.
Same blonde hair.
Same sharp chin.
Same gray-blue eyes.
Grant’s eyes.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then the smallest boy clutched the envelope in his hand tighter.
Grant crouched slowly.
“Hey,” he said carefully. “Are you lost?”
The boys did not answer.
Their stillness was not shy.
It was defensive.
Grant’s heart began pounding.
“What are your names?”
The tallest one spoke first.
“Noah.”
Then the others, one by one.
“Luke.”
“Henry.”
“Finn.”
Quadruplets.
Grant’s mouth went dry.
“Who brought you here?”
Noah looked toward the bathroom door.
“Mom said if anything happened, we had to find Grant Whitmore.”
Grant stopped breathing.
Before he could ask another question, footsteps clicked behind him.
Brielle appeared in the doorway with one of her society friends beside her.
She froze.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
Her eyes went huge, not with confusion, but with recognition.
“Grant?!” she shouted. “What the hell is going on in here?!”
The boys flinched.
Grant stood slowly.
He looked at Brielle’s face.
He had seen her angry before.
Jealous.
Cold.
Performing.
But he had never seen her terrified.
Finn lifted his trembling finger and pointed at her.
“She’s the lady,” he whispered.
May you like
Brielle’s lips parted.
Grant turned fully toward his fiancée.
“What lady?”
