### Chapter 1

"I'm sorry. We've verified it. Your marriage license is a forgery."

The pity in the clerk's eyes set a high ringing going in my ears.

"Miss Henson? Are you all right?"

Her concern came from very far away, and the tears blurred everything in front of me.

It had all started a week ago, when I was six months pregnant and drank the prenatal herbal tea Melanie Henson, the family's fake heiress, pressed into my hands. Then the cramping tore through me, and I went down in my own blood.

Cyril Weiss came when they told him. He saw the blood pooling under me, and the first thing he did was cover Melanie's eyes.

"Disgusting. Don't look."

He scooped up the pale, trembling Melanie and walked out without a backward glance. Then the pain swallowed me whole, the world went black, and I was gone.

When I opened my eyes again I was in a hospital bed, and the doctor told me, with that careful regret, that the delay had cost me too much. I would never carry a child again.

I couldn't believe my own ears. I called Cyril ninety-nine times through the pain before he finally picked up.

"Cyril, the baby's gone. I can never have a baby again—"

He cut me off, bored.

"Julie, enough."

"Melanie mistook the abortion pills for the prenatal tea by accident. She feels so guilty she's threatening to kill herself. You just can't get pregnant. It's not like you're dying."

Just before the call dropped, I caught the faint sound of Melanie crying.

Cyril went straight to soothing her, his voice so gentle it was like a knife, and it left my heart in ribbons.

For the whole week after that, he never came once.

So I went to the county clerk's office to file for divorce, dead inside. And that was when I learned that the grand, talked-about proposal five years ago, the husband who had loved me for five years, all of it had been fake.

I drifted home like a ghost. There was a used condom thrown in the corner of the bed. The meaning was simple enough. Not long ago, the two of them had been in my bed.

The pain reached a place where even my throat felt clamped shut, where I couldn't pull in air.

After a long while, I took out my phone and dialed a number I'd buried a long time ago.

"That thing you said, about marrying me. Does it still stand?"

1.

"Julie. I've waited too long for this call." The man's voice came through low and pleased and faintly sensual. "I'm coming to get you right now. We'll have the wedding tomorrow."

I shook my head, my gaze cutting through the dark outside the window until it went hard.

"Edwin James. Give me five days to finish things here."

How could I just set down everything they'd done to me, light as air? Before I left, I had to give something back.

Edwin went quiet for a beat, and when he spoke there was something dangerous in it.

"In five days, even if you change your mind, I'll come and take you anyway."

I pressed the crumpled fake marriage license in my hand, thinking of the five years I'd spent living inside an absurd lie, and nodded, certain. "All right."

I hung up and opened the door to go downstairs for a glass of water, and that was when I heard the voices coming from the living room below.

It was Cyril's lawyer friend.

"Five years now. You still won't think about giving Julie a real title?"

I stopped where I was and held my breath.

Cyril's low voice came up the stairs.

"Wait a little longer. I promised Melanie a grand wedding."

The lawyer pressed:

"Your marriage to Julie exists on paper and nowhere else. She can walk out on you anytime."

Cyril lowered his eyes, thought about it, then spoke.

"She loves me too much. She'd never leave."

He paused, and his tone left no room for argument:

"And now Melanie's carrying my child. The Weiss heir's seat is that baby's. No one takes it from them."

It was the deep heat of August, and I felt like I'd dropped straight into a pit of ice.

So he and Melanie hadn't betrayed me for the first time. He'd even made a child with her.

"So you just had the doctor take her uterus while they were at it?" The lawyer dropped his voice. "If she ever found out the truth—"

"Back then she broke completely with her adoptive parents just to get back to the Hensons. Where would she go if she left me?"

My pupils shrank.

I clamped both hands over my mouth, and that was all that stopped the scream.

Cyril added: "I'll bring Melanie's baby home under the cover of an adoption and let Julie raise it. Call it granting Julie's wish to be a mother."

"Years ago I almost died in that car crash. Melanie gave me a kidney, gave me a second life. She wants a baby. I'd give my own life to make that dream come true for her."

The whole room spun, and my stomach heaved hard against me.

Melanie was his life.

Then what was the surgical scar still riding low across my belly? What did that count for?

Seven years ago, in that brutal wreck, I was the one who dragged him out of the crushed car. I was the one who signed the donation papers. I was the one lying on the next table, watching his bloodless face, telling him without a sound, you have to live.

When I woke, I hid every trace of it, only because I didn't want him to feel he owed me anything.

I'd come back to the Hensons not long before that.

Everyone decided I'd come to fight Melanie for the title of the Henson daughter, called me greedy, said I'd thrown away my disabled adoptive parents for money.

Even my own birth parents and my brother said it.

Only Cyril stood firm and said I wasn't that kind of person. He shielded me from all the gossip outside, promised he would protect me for the rest of his life.

So I fell into that fatal tenderness, and I was willing to sacrifice anything for him.

But now the one who saved him had become Melanie.

Cyril knew exactly how badly I wanted a child of my own. And for her sake, the way you'd crush an ant underfoot, he had killed the most important thing in my life.

I stumbled back to the bathroom and knelt at the toilet, retching until there was nothing left but bile.

"Julie? Why are you out of the hospital?" Cyril's voice came from behind me.

"Are you feeling any better? I've been so busy these past few days, that's the only reason I didn't come see you."

Busy?

Yes. Busy "caring for" Melanie in bed, day and night. Of course I understood.

My mouth twisted into something bitter, and I stood to face him.

"That car crash seven years ago. Your kidney—"

### Chapter 2

I had just opened my mouth to ask about Melanie and the so-called kidney donation when the phone at his hip started ringing.

He glanced at the screen, and a smile pulled at his mouth before he could stop it.

I caught the contact name: "Silly Girl."

Melanie. The woman who stole twenty years of my life. From the moment I was brought home, she had been quietly tormenting me.

And now she had killed my child.

There was a time when Cyril knew every filthy thing she'd done to me, a time he couldn't stand her.

And somewhere along the way, she'd become his "silly girl."

It was almost funny enough to make me sick.

Her voice leaked out of the phone, sticky-sweet and cloying. "Cyril, my custom gown came in. Come with me for the fitting. The wedding's in five days. We can't afford to fall behind on anything."

"Sure, I'll be right there." He was already moving, tossing the excuse over his shoulder without looking. "Something urgent at the office. I have to go."

"Cyril."

I stopped him. My voice came out hard as iron. "Let's get a divorce."

His steps halted. His back went stiff for a second, and then he turned, slowly.

Against my calm gaze, his brow drew tighter and tighter, until it twisted into pure impatience.

"How long are you going to keep making a scene? I've told you, Melanie didn't do it on purpose."

"She had a high fever that day. She was out of it and grabbed the wrong medicine. No one blames herself more than she does. Can't you just be the bigger person?"

The bigger person.

I looked at him, and then I started to laugh, laughing until my whole body shook.

When I lay collapsed in a pool of blood, miscarrying, all he cared about was whether I had frightened her.

When they took my womb, when I lost the right to ever be a mother, he was in my bed working hard to "comfort" the mother of his child.

And now he wanted me to be the bigger person.

I stared into his eyes, searching for one flicker of guilt, one trace of love.

He studied my face too, hunting for the usual collapse, the crying, the hysterics.

But there was nothing in my eyes except cold, still water. Not even anger.

He sighed, came over, pulled me into his arms, and pressed a light kiss to my forehead.

"I know losing the baby hurts you. I'll make it up to you."

"Anything you want. But not a divorce."

No.

Cyril, I can.

I'm grateful for that fake marriage license. It means I can walk out whenever I please.

But he was in a rush to go meet Melanie, and he didn't take the word divorce seriously at all. He turned and hurried off.

I wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes, turned, and opened the very back of the closet.

I drew out a yellowed agreement.

In five days, at their wedding, I would give him a gift he would remember for the rest of his life.

I woke the next morning to an empty bed beside me.

I was at the counter making coffee when one of Cyril's men walked in.

"Madam, flowers from Mr. Weiss."

He set 999 roses and an elegant food box in front of me, his face full of envy.

"Mr. Weiss really cares about you. He had a Michelin chef prepare a prenatal breakfast specially for you."

I looked at that breakfast, dripping with irony, and at the roses Melanie loved and I had always hated, and my heart felt like it was being scorched.

"Throw them out. I don't need them." I looked away, my voice flat.

In the six months I was pregnant, Cyril never once cared whether I had eaten, let alone arranged a special breakfast for me.

"Are you sure, Madam?"

While he hesitated, Melanie came out of the second-floor guest room.

"Oh, those are from Cyril. He says for the baby's health, he'll have a special breakfast made for me every day."

She came quickly down the stairs, scooped up the food box with delight, and let her eyes slide mockingly over my stomach.

"You'll never need anything for a pregnancy again, sis. Such a shame."

After the man left, I looked at her smiling eyes, baffled.

"Melanie, why are you doing this to me?"

"Whose fault is it that you came back to fight me for it all? That wealth, that life, it was always supposed to be mine."

"Cyril included. Just because you're the Hensons' real daughter, the second you showed up, his engagement got handed to you instead of me. By what right?"

My whole body was shaking. I screamed at her.

"Did I cause any of this? I never wanted to fight you for a single thing!"

The smile at the corner of her mouth turned so vicious it was cold. "So what? I'm going to take everything you have. Your husband, your name, and even your womb."

I clenched my teeth, knotted my fists, and growled low. "Then there's something you forgot. The one who saved Cyril was me, not you — so aren't you afraid of the day I tell them all the truth?"

### Chapter 3

Melanie's smile only deepened. "You think he'll believe you, or me? Want to put it to the test?"

And with that she snatched up the pot of boiling water beside her and flung it straight at me.

I never expected the woman to lose her mind like that. There was no time to dodge. The scalding water poured across my leg.

The heat was so vicious I could barely stay on my feet, and in an instant the skin bubbled into a row of blisters.

That was when Cyril walked in through the door.

"Julie, what happened?!"

"I don't know how it happened. She grabbed the hot water and poured it over herself."

Melanie's eyes went red, her voice trembling.

The pain stole my words, but I watched the alarm in Cyril's eyes cool, degree by degree.

"You're still not done playing the martyr?" His voice dropped low. "Let me guess. You're about to say Melanie threw it on you?"

"If you don't believe me, check the cameras."

I forced the words out through the pain.

Melanie broke into soft sobs. "My fingers got scalded. It hurts so much."

She lifted her hand. There was nothing on her fingertip but one tiny, insignificant red dot.

Cyril pulled her into his arms anyway, and when he turned back to me, his eyes nearly spat fire.

"Are you out of your mind? Are you trying to kill her?!"

"If I could, I wouldn't hesitate." My voice shook, but it held.

He froze. Seven years together, five years married, and he had never once heard me talk back. Every time we fought, I was the one who apologized first. Not anymore.

The disgust in his eyes thickened. "Julie, when did you turn this vicious? Look at yourself. Look how ugly jealousy makes you."

"Let it go, Cyril." Melanie's eyes brimmed with tears, her face all wounded innocence. "Maybe my sister didn't mean to. Don't fight over me..."

Cyril bent his head and kissed her fingers, as if kissing something fragile and precious, his own eyes red with the ache of it.

"You silly girl. It's because you're too kind that she keeps hurting you."

My pulse lurched, and a knot of fury swelled in my chest, ready to burst.

"Kind? You think I don't know how I lost my womb? Cyril, this is your doing, all of you!"

A flicker of panic and guilt crossed his eyes. His mouth opened as if to say something, then shut tight.

After a long moment, he said quietly,

"If I'd asked you, you'd never have agreed. This was the only way."

My breath felt as though an invisible hand had closed around it.

"So you admit it. You got her pregnant, and for her sake you made sure I could never be a mother!"

He looked away. "Melanie agreed to give you the baby once it's born. You can still be a mother."

I screamed at him, wild and ragged. "Keep dreaming. I will never raise this woman's child!"

Melanie's tears spilled down in streams, and she broke into great sobs against Cyril's chest.

"It's all my fault. On my birthday I got drunk, and I confessed by accident, and Cyril and I... Stop fighting, please. I'll just get rid of the baby."

But Cyril only held her tighter, glaring at me with disappointment.

"Melanie only wanted one birthday wish. What did she do wrong? You've already taken everything from her, and now you want to drive her to her death? If you ask me, that miscarriage was exactly what you deserved!"

I couldn't believe he could say something so cruel to me.

The blood froze in my veins, the room tilted around me, and I caught the edge of the bar behind me just to keep from falling.

Footsteps came from the doorway.

My mother rushed in and threw her arms around Melanie. "Did this ungrateful wretch bully you again? Sweetheart, is the baby all right?"

My father's gaze landed on me, hard.

"Julie, you couldn't even spare an unborn child? I truly regret bringing you back."

In that instant I felt myself burning, breaking apart, my lips trembling so hard I could barely speak.

"So you all knew... knew they were having an affair, knew about the baby, and every one of you kept it from me?!"