Chapter 1

"I'm sorry, but we've checked. Your marriage certificate is a forgery."

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

"Ms. Henson? Are you all right?"

The concern in her voice came to me from far away, and the tears blurred everything.

It had all started a week ago. Six months pregnant, I drank the prenatal herbal tea that the fake heiress, Melanie Henson, handed me. Then the cramps tore through my belly, and I collapsed in my own blood.

Cyril Weiss rushed in when he heard. He saw the blood under me, and the first thing he did was cover Melanie's eyes.

"Don't look. It's disgusting."

He scooped up the white-faced Melanie and walked out without a backward glance. Then the pain swallowed me whole, my vision went black, and I passed out.

When I opened my eyes, I was already in the hospital. The doctor told me, with regret, that the treatment had come too late. I would never be able to carry a child again.

I couldn't believe my own ears. In agony, I called Cyril ninety-nine times before he finally picked up.

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

The next second, he cut me off, impatient.

"Julie Henson, enough!"

"Melanie mistook the abortion pill 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 going to die."

Just before the line cut off, I caught the faint sound of Melanie sobbing.

Cyril went straight to soothing her, his voice so gentle it was like a knife, carving my heart open until it bled.

For the whole week after that, Cyril never showed up once.

Heart gone cold, I went to the county registry office to file for divorce, only to learn that the grand proposal five years ago, the husband who had cherished me for five years, all of it was fake.

I went home like a ghost. There, tossed in the corner of the bed, was a used condom. It was obvious. Not long before, they'd been together in my bed.

The pain reached its peak, my throat closing as if a hand had clamped around it, until I couldn't breathe.

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

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

1.

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

I shook my head, my gaze cutting through the darkness beyond the window, hardening.

"Edwin James, give me five days to settle things here."

The pain they'd dealt me. How could I just set it down like it was nothing? Before I left, I had to give something back.

Edwin went quiet for a moment, and when he spoke there was an edge to it.

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

I gripped the wrinkled fake marriage certificate in my hand, thinking how I'd lived inside an absurd lie for five years, and nodded, firm: "All right."

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

It was Cyril's friend, his lawyer.

"It's been five years. Aren't you going to give Julie a proper position yet?"

I froze where I stood and held my breath.

Cyril's low voice came.

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

The lawyer pressed him.

"Your marriage with Julie exists in name only. She can leave you anytime she wants."

Cyril lowered his eyes, thought for a moment, then spoke.

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

He paused, his tone leaving no room for argument.

"And now Melanie is carrying my child. No one is taking the Weiss heir's place from that baby. No one."

It was high summer, August, and yet my whole body, my whole mind, plunged into ice.

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

"So you had the doctor take her womb out while they were at it?" The lawyer lowered his voice. "If she ever finds out the truth—"

"She broke off ties with her adoptive parents to come back to the Hensons. Where could she possibly go if she left me?"

The breath went out of me, and the floor seemed to tilt under my feet.

I clamped both hands over my mouth, and only that kept the scream in.

Cyril added, "I'll bring Melanie's child back under the name of adoption and let Julie raise it. Consider it granting Julie her wish to be a mother."

"That car crash years ago nearly killed me. Melanie donated a kidney and gave me a second life. She wants a baby. I'd give my own life to make her dream come true."

Everything in front of me spun, and my stomach heaved violently.

Melanie was his life.

Then what was the surgical scar still sitting on my belly to this day?

That terrible crash seven years ago. I was the one who dragged him out of the crushed wreck. I was the one who signed the donor consent. I was the one lying on the next operating table, watching his pale face, saying silently, you have to live.

After I woke, I hid every piece of evidence, only because I didn't want him to feel he owed me anything.

Back then I'd only just returned to the Hensons.

Everyone thought I'd come back to fight Melanie for the place of the Henson daughter, called me greedy, said I'd abandoned my disabled adoptive parents.

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 the gossip and the whispers, and he promised he'd protect me for the rest of his life.

So I drowned in that fatal tenderness. I was willing to make any sacrifice for him.

But now, the one who saved him had become Melanie.

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

I staggered back to the bathroom, dropped to my knees in front of the toilet, and vomited until even the bile came up.

"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 "taking care of" Melanie in bed, day and night. Of course I understood.

I tugged my lips into a bitter line, stood, and turned to face him.

"That crash seven years ago. Your kidney—"