Chapter 1

On the third anniversary of my secret marriage to Ethan Faulkner, a video of him passionately kissing his first love at the airport went viral.

He had a thing about germs. He never kissed me. Not once.

But in that video, Ethan had his arms wrapped around that woman's slender waist, head bowed, kissing her with a tenderness and abandon I had never seen from him.

That woman's name was Clara Sutton.

Ethan's first love. The forbidden memory he kept locked away in the deepest part of his heart, never to be touched.

Staring at Clara's face. A face that looked so much like mine. I finally understood. I was nothing more than a replacement.

Since the woman he truly loved had come back, it was time for this counterfeit version to make her exit.

Leah's POV

In the third year of my secret marriage to Ethan Faulkner, I finally understood. I was nothing more than a perfect, flawless replacement.

Today was our third wedding anniversary.

The food on the dining table, all of Ethan's favorites, had long gone cold.

The clock on the wall pointed to one in the morning.

I sat on the couch, my phone screen glowing, showing a piece of gossip that had just exploded onto the trending page.

#Billionaire Ethan Faulkner spotted at airport late night - rumored first love returns to New York#

The photos were crystal clear.

In the VIP arrivals corridor, Ethan Faulkner, who was always cold and imperious, was carrying a woman's handbag. Something I had never once seen him do.

Standing at his side was a woman in sunglasses with a graceful figure.

She was holding his arm intimately. And Ethan didn't pull away. Instead, he tilted his head slightly toward her, his expression soft in a way I had never seen from him in public. An indulgence he had never once shown me.

That woman was Clara Sutton.

Ethan's first love. The forbidden memory buried in the deepest corner of his heart.

My eyes locked onto the necklace around Clara's neck in the photo.

A sapphire pendant.

Teardrop-cut, surrounded by scattered diamonds. Distinctive. Extravagant.

Without thinking, I reached up and touched my own neck.

There was an identical necklace resting there.

Ethan had clasped it around my neck on my birthday last year.

He had just wrapped up an international merger, flown back to New York overnight, the corners of his eyes still red with exhaustion.

He'd taken the necklace from a velvet box, his fingertips tracing gently along the back of my neck, and said in a low voice, "Leah, I drew the design myself and had it custom-made by an artisan in Italy. There's only one like it in the entire world. It belongs only to you."

I believed him.

I thought that I, this stubborn little stone, had finally melted through Ethan Faulkner's glacier.

These three years, he had been attentive to me.

So good to me that I'd let myself believe I was truly, deeply loved.

When I casually mentioned feeling cold in the winter, he had the entire courtyard of the villa fitted with underfloor heating.

When I stayed up late working on design sketches, he would cancel his morning meetings and make hot soup for me in the kitchen himself.

When he found out I loved maple trees, he bought an entire street on Long Island and had it lined with them. Just so he could take me to walk through the falling leaves in autumn.

But now, staring at the necklace around Clara's neck in that photo, I felt cold all over. A chill that settled into my bones.

One of a kind in the entire world.

Designed by his own hand.

It was nothing but a token of love he had designed for Clara years ago. One he never got to give her, because she had chased her dreams of art and left him behind.

So the necklace found its way onto my neck instead, repackaged as his "exclusive devotion" to me.

All along, every kind thing he had done for me, every tender gesture he had offered.

It was never really for me.

He was using me to heal a wound that had never closed, to make up for a regret that had never left him.

Click.

The sound of the front door opening.

I lifted my head and watched Ethan walk in, carrying the cold of the night air with him.

He shrugged off his suit jacket and handed it to the butler who stepped forward to meet him. He tugged at his tie and let his gaze settle on me.

"Why are you still up?"

His voice was low, carrying a trace of exhaustion he probably didn't even realize was there. Still devastatingly easy to listen to.

I stood up, but I didn't walk over to grab his slippers the way I always had.

I looked at him steadily and asked, my voice calm, "Where were you?"

Ethan paused. Something flickered in his eyes, but his tone stayed level. "Something came up at work. Had to stay late."

A lie.

My heart clenched like a fist had closed around it. So tight I could barely breathe.

I stepped closer to him and caught a trace of perfume clinging to his clothes.

Not the cool, cedar-and-pine scent he always wore.

This was rose. Heavy, aggressive, impossible to ignore.

Clara's signature scent.

"Is that right?" I pulled the corners of my mouth into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Ethan, today is our wedding anniversary."