Chapter 1

After eight years with Lucien Soranzo, the boy I’d grown up with, I was finally going to marry him.

The night before the wedding, I overheard him giving orders to one of his men. “After you pick up Ines tomorrow, skip the church. Drive straight to the Scalabrini estate.”

“The Scalabrini family?”

Lucien lowered his voice. “Odette’s father’s shipping business collapsed. He owes the Scalabrini family $60 million.”

“He signed a debt settlement promising his daughter to their Don. I can’t let Odette spend her life with that ninety-year-old man. Ines will have to take her place.”

His man stared at him in disbelief. “You can’t bear to send Odette there, but you’re fine with sending Ines?”

“The old Don’s already in a wheelchair. He won’t last more than a few years. He just wants a young wife to keep him company until he dies.”

“Once he’s gone, I’ll bring Ines back. So what if she’s been married before? I’ll still marry her.”

One of Lucien’s men hesitated, then asked, “Why would Ines ever willingly put on that old man’s ring?”

Lucien was silent for a moment. “Tomorrow morning, my mother will put a little sedative in the wine Ines drinks before she leaves. By the time she comes around, she’ll already be in a bedroom at the Scalabrini estate.”

“At that point, what could she possibly change?”

I listened without making a sound. I didn’t storm in or confront him.

I just went back to my room and waited for the next day’s wedding.

Later, when Lucien came begging me to take him back, his eyes red, I was already five months pregnant.

“Like you said, at this point, what could you possibly change?”

...

The next morning, Lucien came to pick me up with his groomsmen and the family’s guards.

Odette Vannozzi came, too.

The moment she walked in and saw my white wedding dress, her eyes reddened.

“Ines, you’re so lucky. You get to marry the man you love.”

“I don’t have that kind of luck. My father wants to give me to a ninety-year-old man just to hold on to his territory.”

“But luckily...” She dabbed at her eyes and looked at Lucien. “Someone married me in a civil ceremony this morning.”

“I have a husband now. My father can’t marry me off again without answering to my husband’s family.”

Her deliberately soft voice made me freeze.

I’d thought making me marry in her place was the cruelest thing he could do.

I hadn’t imagined he’d become her legal husband before coming to pick me up.

My friend Dalia had no idea what was happening and leaned close to my ear. “Today’s your wedding to Lucien. What’s she doing here?”

“And why is she crying at the sight of your dress? Is she here to celebrate or ruin the wedding?”

“It’s okay.” I squeezed Dalia’s hand.

This had never been my wedding to Lucien.

He’d come dressed as a groom so I’d get into the car without suspecting a thing. Then he could send me off to fulfill another woman’s marriage agreement.

Dalia picked up the champagne and called the bridesmaids over to toast with the groom and take a group photo before we left.

Lucien frowned.

“We can’t hold up the convoy. Where are her shoes? Bring them over first.”

One of the groomsmen quickly fetched the gift box containing my wedding shoes from beside the vanity.

Lucien took the box, then walked straight to Odette.

“Ines, Odette twisted her ankle on the steps just now. Her heel broke, too.”

He crouched in front of her and deftly unbuckled the strap around her ankle.

“She’s got blisters. She can’t wear stiff leather shoes. Yours are lined with soft lambskin, so let her wear them.”

As he spoke, he dug an old pair of canvas shoes out of the storage cabinet by the door and set them at my feet.

“They’re just shoes.” He looked up at me, smiling as gently as he used to. “You wouldn’t make her go outside barefoot, would you?”

“Lucien, those are the shoes she’s supposed to wear down the aisle today!” Dalia couldn’t stay quiet.

“So?” Lucien frowned slightly.

“Her dress will cover her feet. Who’s going to see what she’s wearing?”

“You know exactly what those shoes—”

“Let it go, Dalia.” I held her back. “She can have them.”

Odette’s father was an ally of the Soranzo family. He’d run their most profitable shipping routes and made sure the family got its cut.

Lucien was the man the Soranzo family had chosen to become its next Don.

For the past two years, he’d kept telling me we couldn’t jeopardize the relationship between the families just because my feelings were hurt.

The port operations plan I’d prepared was handed to her. The cat I’d raised for years was sent to her house. Even the clothes and jewelry I liked had to be offered to her first.

Now even the man who was supposed to be my husband belonged to her.

I’d spent eight years with Lucien.

In the end, all I got was a deception he’d arranged himself.