On the day of my wedding, my fiancé said he had a surprise for me.

He blindfolded me. Moments later, I lost consciousness.

When I woke, I was in a village I'd never seen before, deep in the mountains. A hulking brute of a man told me he was my husband. There was a three-year-old boy, too, clinging to my legs, begging me to hold him.

I was beaten into five miscarriages. Locked in the house day after day. One wrong look, one wrong word, and the fists came down. My mother-in-law was no better, obsessed with getting a grandson, treating me like a broodmare who'd failed her only purpose.

Three years. Three years, and my body was a map of scars. I'd given up fighting. I'd given up hoping. I was choking down folk remedies and bitter herbal concoctions, doing everything I could to carry a boy to term, because a son was the only thing that might keep me alive.

Then a helicopter descended onto the hilltop.

And out stepped my best friend and my fiancé, arm in arm.

Rebecca Fletcher. Jacob Delgado. Walking toward me like they were strolling through a garden party.

"Marina Henson." Rebecca's voice floated across the dirt yard, light and amused. "Three years out here, and it looks like you've really gone native. Fully embraced the whole village-wife thing, haven't you?"

I lifted my head. My voice came out shaking. "Why?"

Jacob didn't even bother looking at me when he answered. "You're the one who set Rebecca up on that blind date. Tried to marry her off to some blue-collar nobody." He examined his cufflinks. "She's supposed to be your best friend, and that's how you treated her? So we thought you should get a taste of it yourself."

Three years.

For three entire years, I'd racked my brain trying to make sense of what had happened to me. I'd wondered if I'd somehow slipped into another dimension, another timeline, some cruel parallel universe.

But never once had I suspected that my best friend and my fiancé had engineered the whole thing.

——

Now, standing in the dirt with the truth laid bare before me, I threw my head back and laughed. I laughed like a madwoman. I laughed until tears streamed down my face and my ribs ached and the sound tore out of me raw and broken.

Rebecca and Jacob both froze, caught off guard.

"Has she lost her mind?" Rebecca murmured, tilting her head. "Living out here too long must have scrambled her brain. What is this reaction?"

Jacob's brow furrowed. He stared at me.

He was wearing a suit that cost more than this entire village. Three years had made him sharper, more polished, more handsome. And the way he looked down at me now, it was with the same expression a man might give something stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Contempt. Disgust.

Rebecca stood beside him with her arms crossed, a delicate smirk playing on her lips.

"Look how happy Marina is. Maybe she hasn't had enough fun out here yet."

"Jacob." She looped her arm through his, pressing close. "Don't you remember? Three years ago, Marina said all she wanted was a happy little family. And look at the one I picked out for her. A strong husband, a three-year-old son. Everything she ever dreamed of."

A flicker of cruel satisfaction danced in her eyes.

"When you think about it, Marina really ought to thank me."

Jacob patted the back of her hand, indulgent and warm. "Rebecca, honestly, nobody takes care of things quite like you do."

My fists clenched so hard my nails broke the skin of my palms. I stared at the two of them, numb, hollow, barely human.

"Jacob Delgado." My voice was a rasp, scraped raw. I barely recognized the sound of it. I barely recognized myself. "Tell me why. The real reason."

Three years ago, it had been our wedding. Mine and Jacob's.

Everyone said the Henson-Delgado union was written in the stars. A perfect match. Two great families joined together.

And Jacob had loved me. He had. I was sure of it, sure down to my bones. He'd spent six months personally overseeing every detail of our wedding, crafting it into something out of a fairy tale. He'd promised to make me the happiest bride the world had ever seen.

But that moment never came.

The instant I put on my wedding dress, Jacob told me he had a surprise. He covered my eyes and said he was taking me somewhere special.

After that, everything went black.

I was drugged. And when I opened my eyes again, I was here. This godforsaken village in the middle of nowhere.

For three years, I'd turned it over and over in my mind, trying to piece together how my life had shattered so completely.

From the very first day, there'd been a three-year-old boy wrapped around my legs, calling me Mama. A violent brute who called himself my husband, who beat me and used me whenever the mood struck. And a mother-in-law who was anything but kind, who treated me like a thorn in her side, an enemy under her own roof.

I thought I'd crossed into another world. Slipped into some parallel dimension where nothing made sense.

But before I could even begin to process it, the real nightmare began.

I screamed at them until my throat was raw.

"Let me go! I'm the Henson heiress! However much money you want, I can give it to you!"

Kathy Jennings spat at my feet.

"You've already been thrown away like garbage. And you still think you're going back?" She let out a harsh laugh. "Keep dreaming."

I tried everything I could think of to reach Jacob. Every method, every angle.

Every single message I sent disappeared into the void. Not one reply. Not ever.

"You really are spectacularly stupid, Marina."

Jacob tilted my chin up with one finger, forcing me to meet his gaze. His eyes were filled with nothing but contempt.

"Can you honestly not tell? I arranged all of this."

"Only someone as impossibly naive as you could miss it."

"Three years you sat here waiting for me. Three years you kept begging me to save you." A cold smile tugged at his lips. "What a joke."

His eyes narrowed as they traveled over my face, and disgust crept into his expression.

"Look at you. Sun-scorched. Rough as sandpaper." He tilted his head, appraising me like damaged goods. "You can't hold a candle to Rebecca now. Not even close."

"Then again, maybe this is what you deserve. You always did lord that pretty face over everyone else."

I kept my head down. I couldn't even manage a bitter smile.

Three years of wind and sun. Three years of relentless abuse.

When I caught my reflection in a mirror now, I barely recognized the woman staring back.

Is that really me?

Every winter, my fingers cracked and swelled until they looked like raw sausages. And the face I'd once spent a fortune maintaining? It was mapped with fine lines and dark spots, weathered beyond recognition.

I looked no different from any village farmwife.

Jacob stroked Rebecca's smooth cheek with sickening tenderness.

"See, Rebecca? Clothes make the woman. These days, you're every bit the heiress Marina used to be. No difference at all."

Rebecca Fletcher. The scholarship student I'd sponsored out of pity. I'd covered her tuition, her living expenses, let her eat at my table and sleep under my roof.

Over time, she'd become my best friend.

I never imagined she'd become the one who dragged me straight to hell.

Rebecca nestled into Jacob's arms with a coy little laugh.

"That's only because you spoil me, Jake."

Then she crouched down beside me, close enough that I could smell her perfume, and put on a show of sisterly warmth.

"Marina, you know what? While you've been away, Jake has taken such good care of me."

"And don't worry, I haven't let you down either. I've been taking very good care of him too. Including in bed."

A triumphant smile spread across her face. "So just relax and keep playing house out here, okay?"

Playing?

My head snapped up. I'd nearly died here. More than once. And they thought I was playing.

My mouth opened, but my throat seized like something had clamped around it. No sound came out.

Jacob waved a dismissive hand.

"Alright, she's had enough fun roughing it. Let's just bring her back."

The words had barely left his mouth before panic flashed across Rebecca's face.

"Jake, are you serious? You're really taking her back?"

"You said this trip was just to check on her. That's all."

"And look, we've seen her, she's perfectly fine! She was smiling and laughing just now. She probably doesn't even want to go back." Rebecca's voice climbed higher, faster. "Why don't we just take a few photos and let her stay here? She's clearly enjoying herself—"

Jacob frowned, hesitating.

"She's still the Henson heiress. I've been telling everyone she went on an extended vacation overseas for the past three years."

"The Hensons have been asking for her lately. If I keep stalling, it's going to raise questions." His jaw tightened. "It's time to bring her out."

A flash of hatred twisted through Rebecca's eyes.

"Fine. She's the Henson heiress, after all."

When they moved to take me away, Kathy and Ivan blocked the path, refusing to let us leave.

"Miss Fletcher, you're really taking her?" Ivan stepped forward, his expression sour. "But you said she was supposed to be my—"

Rebecca silenced him with a single razor-sharp glare.

He shut his mouth.

"Haven't I paid you enough?"

Rebecca pulled out a check and held it up between two fingers.

"There's five hundred thousand dollars on this. Consider it compensation for playing house with Miss Henson."

"For backwater villagers like you, this should be more than enough to last the rest of your miserable lives."

Ivan and Kathy's eyes lit up like slot machines hitting jackpot.

"Yes, yes, of course. Miss Fletcher is always so generous."

Ivan's gaze crawled over my body, greedy and slow. He muttered under his breath, "What a waste, though. A wife like that..."

Kathy jabbed him hard in the ribs.

"Don't push your luck. With this kind of money, you can buy whatever wife you want."

"Besides, you already used her up. She can't even give you a son. Worthless. Let her go."

I kept my head down, letting their words burrow into my ears.

My face was numb. Expressionless.

Rebecca had brought servants with her. They cleaned me up, combed my hair, and dressed me.

When I stepped out in a white sundress, Rebecca looked me over and burst out laughing.

"Marina, you used to look stunning in white. I had no idea it would look so... wrong on you now."

"I'm so sorry, sweetie. I really didn't expect your skin to be this dark."

Her eyes brimmed with barely concealed glee.

Jacob stood beside her, frowning at me with open distaste. "Trying to look like something you're not."

He draped his arm around Rebecca, who wore a similar dress, and let out a mocking laugh.

"Standing next to each other, one of you looks like an heiress and the other looks like the help. And the heiress is obviously Rebecca."

Rebecca giggled, playfully swatting his chest.

"Don't say that. Marina and I are best friends. She's the real heiress."

She tilted her head, her voice dripping sweetness. "If it weren't for Marina, how would I have ever met you?"

She was right about that.

If I hadn't introduced Rebecca to my fiancé, the two of them would never have ended up together.

Looking back, the signs had been there all along. Every time Jacob and I went out on a date, Rebecca would text me, begging to hang out. Without fail.

Gradually, our dates for two became outings for three.

Then, somewhere along the way, I was the one cut out. It became just the two of them, shopping together, grabbing coffee.

The first time I caught them, I was livid. "Jacob, I don't want you seeing Rebecca alone behind my back."

He acted like it was nothing.

"Marina." He rubbed my shoulders, his voice patient, placating. "Rebecca's your best friend, isn't she? I treat her like a friend too. That's the only reason we grabbed coffee."

"I'm just trying to get along with her so you don't feel stuck in the middle."

"If it bothers you, I won't see her again."

After that, he stopped meeting Rebecca openly.

And because I wanted to preserve our friendship, I decided to set Rebecca up with a suitable boyfriend. The young man I had in mind was an assistant at my father's company. Fresh out of college, he'd already been promoted three times. A rising star.

I never expected what happened next. The moment I explained what I had in mind, Rebecca burst into tears and screamed at me.