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Prologue

Emily Grayson awoke with a start from her dream. She looked around, breathing heavily. Her gaze drifted to a sleeping Daniel next to her. She'd had the dream before.

It began with a middle-aged Daniel and Emily out at dinner in one of Paris's many Michelin star restaurants. Daniel's phone rang, he wasn't going to answer, until he saw the call was from the police. He excused himself and got up. "Hello? This is Daniel Grayson." his hand went to his mouth, and Emily only really knew something was wrong when he replied to the officer "Yea. Thanks. Goodnight, officer." There was an audible break in his voice as he wished the officer a good night.

Daniel slowly walked back to the table. His hands cradling his head. "Daniel?" Emily asked, trying to catch his gaze "What's wrong, sweetie?" "It's my mother" he replied "she's committed suicide." Emily feigned mild distress, before replying to Daniel "We need to get home to tell the kids." Daniel nodded his head forlornly. They asked for the bill, paid, and left.

They returned home shortly after. The decor inside their Paris home was not unlike that of Grayson manor. Mostly, everything was some shade of beige.

They called their children inside. The first of them to enter, was a girl, about the age of seventeen, she was slim, with long, straight blonde hair, and bright green eyes. Daniel had always joked that she looked like a young Emily with green eyes. The next, a young boy, no more than five or six years old, with light brown hair, that was tousled into an attractive mess on the top of his head, and sparkling blue eyes. He greatly resembled Daniel. And, last but not least, the middle daughter breezed in. She was, without a moments hesitation, the reincarnation of Victoria. Her dark brown strands hung in loose curls around her beautiful face. Her dark brown eyes looked at her parents worriedly, flickering between the two. Back and forth. Back and forth.

"What's wrong?" She asked. "Well," Emily began "earlier this evening, your father and I heard some very upsetting news from home. Your grandmother, your father's mother, has died. Rather suddenly."

The children, not knowing how to react, not having known Victoria, got up, hugged their father, said they were sorry, and went to their respective rooms to further process the events of the last five minutes.

Daniel slumped over to the couch, sat down, and Emily rested her head on his shoulder. They sat there, in silence, for the next half an hour. Just being with each other. No words were needed.

Without saying a word, she got up, turned off the lights, and, on her way out, held her hand out for Daniel, beckoning to him. He followed her to their bedroom and closed the door.

The next week they were neck deep in funeral arrangements. Daniel, Emily, Conrad, and Charlotte had worked themselves into a frenzy, trying to make sure it was perfect. Having left the conglomerate sea behind them when they moved to Paris, Daniel wasn't all that eager to pick up his grieving fathers slack at the office, but did it out of the goodness of his heart.

It had been a beautiful ceremony. Everyone in attendance laid a single lily on the casket for rememberance. The ceremony mirrored Victoria herself. Classy and dignified. Many of those in attendance only came to make sure that she was actually dead!

Afterwards, Emily, Daniel, Conrad and Charlotte returned to Grayson manor. Emily drifted through the foyer, towards Victoria's 'throne'. She sat there, taking it all in, ensconced in the very place her nemesis once perched, judging her with steely eyes and a false smile. She suddenly realised where she was. It is these sudden revelations which hit us hardest. She realised that she had, for all intents and purposes, become Victoria. She hosted charity events, and lavish parties, married the Grayson heir, had three children with him, been at his side, ever the loyal wife, through everything and anything life threw their way. It unsettled her a great deal to suddenly realise this.

Yes. Emily Grayson awoke with a start from her dream, and with an unstable Victoria in the Hamptons, her and Daniel in Paris, it was looking increasingly likely. This made Emily break out in a cold sweat. Was she turning into Victoria? Was she becoming everything she initially set out to destroy? After all, she was married to Daniel, she loved a Grayson. Anything, she told herself, is possible.

© Sarah Egan 2013 - 2014 This story is subject to copyright and may not be copied or reproduced without the express permission of the author.