The Silent Inheritor

Prudence Halloway inherited a failing hotel, a mountain of debt, and one impossible condition: to keep it, she has to marry the co-beneficiary she's never met. Theo Marchetti wants the hotel's books. Prudence wants the hotel's ghosts. They agree to a paper marriage, six months, quiet annulment, no feelings. That plan survives exactly four days. A retired judge checks into room 4, asks to see the 1998 register, and is found dead the next morning with his suitcase packed and a page torn from the book. The constable calls it a heart attack. Prudence calls it a lie. Eleven years of forged receipts say she's right. The hotel's own solicitor says she should take the buyout and leave. Prudence has never taken good advice in her life — and now she has a husband, a ledger, and a murderer who thinks newlyweds scare easily. He's about to find out.