Chapter 1

Three years into her perfect marriage, my sister caught her husband cheating.

So the second she heard I was engaged to my childhood best friend, she and my mother, Diana, hatched a plan.

“Sweetie, you can’t trust men. I’m going to test Adrian and see if he really loves you.”

“Ninety-nine loyalty tests,” she called it. “Just to make sure he really loves her.”

I trusted her right up until my wedding day.

Until I watched Vivienne climb into my wedding limo, wearing the custom gown I’d spent nineteen months hand-sewing.

“The last test only counts if Adrian can tell you two apart,” Mom whispered. “That’s all, honey.”

Then, at the altar, Vivienne’s veil “accidentally” slipped.

The whole ballroom gasped.

Every guest pulled out a phone.

“The bride swap of the century,” the tabloids screamed.

“Sister steals sister’s groom.”

Three days later, Vivienne hanged herself in her closet.

That was what they told me.

My father, Charles, slapped me so hard my ears rang.

He said I killed her.

Diana cried, called me a monster, and told me she never wanted to see my face again.

Only Adrian stayed.

Only Adrian held me at the funeral and whispered, “I’ve got you, Willow. I’ll never leave you.”

I was so grateful I could have died.

So for the next thirty years, I did everything for him.

I ran his empire.

I paid off my parents’ debts.

I nursed his mother through cancer.

I worked myself into a hospital bed at fifty-two.

And on my deathbed — plot twist — my supposedly dead sister walked through the door.

Alive.

Glowing.

Botoxed.

Holding Diana’s hand.

Holding Charles’s hand.

Holding Adrian’s hand.

“Baby,” Diana sighed, dabbing her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. “I guess we owe you this one.”

“Vivvy’s heart was just so broken after her divorce. She refused to be anyone’s mistress. So we came up with this little arrangement.”

Adrian did not even look guilty.

He looked bored.

“I never loved you,” he said flatly. “But I gave you my last name. I gave you the title. You should be grateful.”

“Next life, Willow — let’s not do this again.”

---

So my whole life was a joke.

A thirty-year joke.

I closed my eyes.

And opened them again — to the sound of wedding bells.

I was eighteen.

Standing under the sycamore at the end of the driveway.

Watching Vivienne bend down and slide into MY limo.

Wearing MY dress.

“Ma’am!” Ava came running, her face white as a sheet. “Miss Vivienne got into your car! Mrs. Shaw told the staff not to say a word! She locked the back gate!”

I stared at that white limo pulling away.

Then I laughed.

Really laughed.

Out loud.

“Don’t stop her.”

Ava froze. “What?”

I turned around and started walking back to the house.

“Let her have him. Let her have all of it.”

Ava scrambled after me. “But — but today is YOUR wedding day!”

I did not slow down.

“Not anymore, sweetie. Not anymore.”