My sister spent over a year falling in love with a man online, convinced she had hooked the ultimate prize—the heir to the city’s most untouchable dynasty, William Ashford. It was only when William himself showed up in our circle that she realized the man she’d been whispering sweet nothings to across a screen wasn’t William at all. It was Holden Holbrook, the son of a prominent shipping titan. Panicked that her grand ambitions would unravel before they even began, she shoved me into the glare of the spotlight in her place. My mother made her case with cold, practiced ease: “Genevieve was born to marry an Ashford. You’re her sister; it’s your duty to clear the path for her.” “Besides, you’ve never held a candle to her. Bagging a Holbrook is already far more than you deserve.” In the end, I swallowed my pride, took Genevieve’s place, and married Holden. Genevieve got her wish and stepped into the Ashford empire. But a counterfeit never turns to gold. The truth eventually slipped through the cracks, and Holden discovered the deception. When he did, his wrath turned entirely upon me. Sick and frail, I brought him to my sister’s doorstep, hoping she would set the record straight. Instead, Genevieve wept delicate, performative tears. “All these years, I thought you didn’t love me,” she sobbed, looking at him with shattered grace. “That was the only reason I married William. I had no idea Corinne stole my place. But it’s too late now. We’re both married. Perhaps in another life, the stars will align for us.” Holden believed every word. Consumed by fury and misplaced grief, he locked me away, leaving me to wither in isolation until I took my last breath. When my eyes opened again, Holden was sitting downstairs in our living room, and my mother was pacing the floor of my bedroom, laying on the exact same guilt trip. I didn’t even look at her. “If Genevieve wants an Ashford,” I said, turning a page, “that’s her business. It has nothing to do with me.” … My mother stared at me in disbelief. “A chance to marry a Holbrook, and you’re turning it down?” I kept my eyes pinned to the book in my hands. “I’m not marrying him.” She slammed a palm down on my desk. “You aren’t half the woman your sister is! With that stubborn attitude, did you think you were entitled to someone better?” The comparison was as old as my memory. Genevieve was the golden child; I was the afterthought. I’d heard it so many times the words had long since stopped stinging. I turned another page, my pulse steady. Downstairs, Holden was waiting. My mother looked ready to drag me down by my hair. “If your sister cements a match with William Ashford, our entire family rises with her—and that includes you! We are a family, Corinne. Helping her is helping yourself! Why can’t you get that through your thick skull?” “Family.” Maybe they were a family. But I had never truly been part of it. In my past life, I was naive enough to believe her. But when Holden discovered I wasn’t the girl from behind the screen, his affection curdled into venomous disgust. To force me to reveal the identity of his online muse, he locked me in a cellar for five days without food or water. Driven to the brink of death, I had no choice but to take him to Genevieve. And when the mask slipped, my sister shoved all the blame onto my shoulders. She painted me as an opportunistic thief who had stolen her romance. She had wept like a tragic heroine. “We’re married to other people now. Our destiny will have to wait for the next lifetime…” Holden’s heart had shattered on the spot. He had pleaded desperately: “I’ll divorce her! I’ll do whatever it takes, just be with me!” Of course Genevieve refused. She had schemed too hard to secure the Ashford name; she wasn’t about to toss it away for Holden. She only deepened her sorrowful act: “I’m William’s wife now. The Ashfords could crush our family overnight. I can’t put everyone’s lives at risk.” Then, she turned the blade back toward me. “Since you’ve already married Corinne, try to make it work. Let what was between us stay in the past.” I still remembered the way Holden looked at me then—pure, murderous revulsion. He looked ready to tear me limb from limb, while I collapsed onto the floor, utterly depleted. I had traded my entire life to pave her runway, only to be tossed into the furnace. I closed my book, stood up, and firmly pushed my mother out the door. “Whether Genevieve marries William Ashford or ascends to the heavens, it is not my problem.” … I didn’t know what excuse my mother fed Holden, but she managed to send him away for the afternoon. Still, avoiding the inevitable only buys so much time. Genevieve had flirted with Holden using the family name; the reckoning was bound to come. The next morning, an April drizzle coated the driveway in silver. I opened my umbrella, ready to leave, when Genevieve intercepted me on the porch. “Corinne,” she began, her voice soft, wounded. “Did I do something to upset you? You’ve been keeping your distance lately.” I looked at her, searching for the sister I once idolized. All I felt was a cold, cavernous detachment. Before she threw me to the wolves, I had loved her fiercely. When our mother chipped away at my self-esteem, Genevieve was the one who patted my shoulder and slipped me treats. That gentle façade was the sole reason I had agreed to be her stand-in. I never suspected that beneath that polished warmth lay a trap door. “I have somewhere to be,” I said evenly, stepping forward. Genevieve blocked my path. Her lower lip trembled, her eyes instantly brimming with tearful vulnerability. “Corinne, I’ve never begged you for anything in my life. Please, just help me this once. If no one from our family steps forward to claim the correspondence, Holden will make a scene. If he ruins this, William will walk away, and my future will be gone.” When my expression didn’t waver, she shifted tactics, leaning into sweet reason. “I talked to him for over a year. I know him. Holden is handsome, cultivated, and from an exceptional background. Marrying him is a wonderful match for you.” “A wonderful match.” I had believed that once, too. For the first two years of our marriage, Holden had been genuinely good to me—so attentive that even Genevieve had occasionally let a flash of envy show. On our wedding day, he swore under oath that he would never stray, that his eyes would see only me. When I mentioned offhand that I loved French pastries, he hired a master patissier to teach him in our kitchen, spending weekends covered in flour just so every tart I ate came from his own hands. The walk-in closets overflowed with designer coats and bags until they spilled into neighboring guest rooms. “Stop buying things,” I had teased him, exasperated. “I couldn’t wear all of this if I changed three times a day for the rest of my life.” He had buried his face into the crook of my neck, grinning like a spoiled boy. “If you think you have too many clothes, then knit me a scarf instead.” I spent two weeks knitting him a simple charcoal wool scarf. When I handed it to him, he wore it out in the sweltering July heat, eager to show anyone who would look that his wife had made it for him. We hiked in the misty green of spring. We spent summers by the coast, devoured oysters in the fall, and curled up under cashmere blankets through the winter chill. For a long time, I was grateful to my sister. But beneath the warmth, a shadow of dread had always lingered. “Do you love the girl you talked to through the screen,” I had asked him once over dinner, “or the woman sitting in front of you?” Holden hadn’t looked up from the shrimp he was shelling. He dipped it in vinaigrette and held it to my lips. “What kind of question is that? You’re the same person.” When I stayed silent, he sighed softly and brushed my cheek. “I love the woman right here in front of me, sweetheart. Now eat before it gets cold.” I had believed the fairy tale could last forever. Yet a lie is a fracture that inevitably widens. It started with a reference I couldn’t catch. An exhibition where I failed to appreciate the brushwork of an obscure modern master. A classical piano piece where he reminisced about the composer’s tragic exile, and I had no idea who he was talking about. Genevieve had been groomed in elite private schools; I had been sent to state colleges and told that women didn’t need extensive polish. “Your sister is destined for high society,” my mother used to say. “You just need a practical degree.” The longer I lived with Holden, the more the seams frayed. When the truth finally shattered the illusion, Holden transformed into someone monstrous. In three years of marriage, I had never seen such sheer, unbridled fury. His fingers had dug into my collarbones, bruising the flesh. “Who was she? Who was I talking to?” When I pressed my lips together and refused to speak, he trashed the room, smashing heirlooms into dust before falling to his knees, gripping my hem. “Please,” he had wept. “Just tell me who she is.” I had stared at him, numb, watching the man who had promised to love me unravel over a ghost. “Did you ever love me?” I had whispered, desperate for a shred of reality. “Even for a day in these three years?” He hadn’t answered. He only screamed in my face: “Tell me who she is!” Silence is an answer. Because I kept my promise to Genevieve, Holden made me his scapegoat. Overnight, I went from his cherished wife to the object of his deepest hatred. Standing on the porch in the rain, I stepped neatly around Genevieve. “If you think Holden is such a prize, marry him yourself,” I said coolly. “Because I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole.” Genevieve froze. For a fraction of a second, the sweet vulnerability on her face cracked, revealing a flash of venomous spite before she masked it again. … By the time I reached the downtown bistro, the rain had tapered to a mist. The moment I pushed open the door to the private alcove, the man waiting inside bolted to his feet so fast he knocked his teacup sideways, sloshing liquid across his sleeve. Rowan Kent flushed crimson, hurriedly dabbing at his cuff with a napkin. “Miss… Miss Morrison…” he stammered, visibly cursing his own clumsiness. I couldn’t help a small laugh as I slipped into the booth across from him. For the first time since my return, the suffocating tension in my chest eased. He sat down stiffly, keeping his gaze carefully trained on the tabletop. “I… I wasn’t sure why you asked to meet today.” I poured him a fresh cup of tea, set it down, and looked him straight in the eye. “Will you marry me?” Rowan’s eyes went wide. He nearly launched himself out of his seat again. “What?” I rested my chin in my hand, watching the red flush creep from his jaw up to his ears, unable to resist teasing him. Lowering my lashes, I let a hint of sorrow tint my voice. “You don’t want to?” Rowan shot up, his hands waving frantically in protest. “No! I mean—yes! That is—I would love to, but…” He choked on his own breath, chest heaving before he managed to string a coherent sentence together. His voice dropped, heavy with self-doubt. “My family is just getting on our feet. I’m nowhere near your league.” “You are more than enough,” I thought. He had no idea that in this second chance at life, loving him was the only thing that mattered more to me than revenge. In my previous life, when Holden had locked me away, it was Rowan who had somehow found me. By then, I was bedridden, skin stretched thin over bone, barely able to lift a finger. We had barely crossed paths in society; I only knew he had taken his family’s mid-sized enterprise public three years prior, carving out a fierce reputation in the tech sector. He had knelt beside my bed and asked, “What do you want me to do?” I had rasped, “I want Genevieve and Holden to burn with me.” Rowan hadn’t even blinked. “Okay.” In the end, a blazing fire trapped the unconscious Holden and Genevieve in the manor. As the flames rose and justice was served, I had laughed through bloody tears. Then Rowan walked into the burning room. He was dressed in a tailored wedding suit. He sat on the edge of my mattress while the walls crumbled in ash. I had screamed at him to run, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he calmly downed a vial of poison right in front of me. “Dying alongside them would make for a lonely road,” he had whispered, taking my freezing hand. “Let me walk with you.” Then, with a faint, tentative smile, he had murmured: “If there is a next life… don’t marry him. Marry me instead. Please?” In that final breath, all the bitter rage in my soul had dissolved into mist. “Okay,” I had promised. … When we walked out of the bistro, Rowan looked like a man walking on clouds, though his eyes were set with fierce determination. To give him peace of mind, I had made a playful condition: the moment his company finalized its public listing, we would announce our engagement. A fire had ignited behind his gaze so instantly that I suspected he felt every second spent lingering over lunch was a second wasted. For several days, my mother and sister left me entirely alone, plotting their next move in silence. The opportunity came at an upscale evening charity gala hosted aboard a private yacht. Genevieve drifted over to where I was standing near the rail. “Corinne, I’m sorry about how things went earlier,” she said, offering a serene, conciliatory smile. “Let’s put it all behind us, okay?” I studied her, wondering what she had cooked up. My mother stepped in beside her, holding two flutes of sparkling wine. “Your sister is right. We’re family. Drink a toast together and let bygones be bygones.” I hesitated, but took the glass, tipped it back, and swallowed before walking away. Two steps later, the world tilted. A heavy, numbing heat pooled in my limbs, draining every ounce of strength from my knees. Genevieve and my mother flanking me instantly, gripping my elbows under the guise of steadying a tipsy girl, and hauled me toward the private cabin suites below deck. A chilling realization struck me. To clear her path, my mother was drugging me and throwing me directly into another man’s bed. Nausea and cold terror clawed at my throat. With what little voice I had left, I wheezed, “Mom… I’m your daughter.” My mother didn’t even flinch. She kept her grip tight, hissing under her breath, “Once you’re married to Holden, you’ll have wealth you couldn’t dream of. You’ll thank me later!” My vision blurred. As the door to a stateroom swung open, darkness dragged me under. When consciousness drifted back, the soft chime of a latch clicking shut pulled me awake. I blinked blearily. Holden stood by the doorway, loosening his tie. I looked down at myself in horror. My evening gown had been stripped away, replaced with a flimsy silk nightgown. Holden took in the sight of me on his mattress, his initial shock dissolving instantly into mocking disgust. “Well, look at you,” he sneered, stepping closer, eyes dripping with malice. “Couldn’t manage to steal your sister’s place the proper way this time, so you decided to crawl into my bed instead?” “This time?” A cold shock pierced the fog in my head. “Holden remembered too.” I tried to push myself up against the headboard, but my limbs felt like lead weights. “I’m not here… for you,” I choked out. Holden laughed, utterly amused by my helplessness. “This is my suite. If you aren’t waiting for me dressed like a streetwalker, who exactly are you waiting for?” A sharp, breathless voice rang from the open doorway. “Me.”
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