Chapter 1

Today was my twenty-eighth birthday. And tonight, in front of the entire Jones family, I was supposed to announce the news I’d been dreaming of for years—that Damien and I were finally having a child.

I was on my way outside to find Damien so we could share the news together. Everyone was already mingling by the pool. Laughter drifted through the open sliding doors as I walked down the hallway that faced the outdoor deck.

I spotted Damien near the bar with three of his closest friends—men I’d known since childhood, men who’d toasted at our wedding, men who treated him like a brother.

I was about to wave to him when one of them said: “So, Marc, what’s it like sleeping every night beside the woman who rejected you for your twin brother?”

I stopped walking. A dull ringing filled my ears.

His other friend laughed, elbowing him. “Man, the way she used to ignore you back then for Damien? Brutal. But look at you now…”

My brows knitted, but before I could piece anything together, another friend added with a grin:

“You really pulled it off. Acting like Damien for years just to finally have her? That’s commitment.”

My heart lurched violently. Acting like Damien? What were they talking about? He was Damien… wasn’t he?

And Marc—Damien’s identical twin brother—had died five years ago in a yacht accident. The loss that shattered Damien and his father. The brother whose portrait still hung in the foyer. The boy who used to tease me, protect me, sit beside me at every family dinner ever since the Joneses took me in after my mother’s suicide.

I wasn’t legally adopted, but they raised me as their own. We grew up together. Then both brothers began to fall for me… and I chose Damien, causing me and Marc to drift apart until he died.

I snapped when I heard another voice: “Four years pretending to be your brother Damien? Just so she’d be yours?”

My stomach twisted so hard I had to grip the wall. I peeked around the column, forcing myself to look at the man I called my husband.

Damien tilted his head back in a way that wasn’t… Damien. His shoulders were relaxed—too relaxed. His smirk was familiar in a way that made my breath catch.

At that moment, the resemblance hit me like a train: This was Marc’s expression. Marc’s posture. Marc’s arrogance simmering beneath a composed exterior.

The missing pieces of the last few years—the small inconsistencies I had ignored—clicked into place with horrifying clarity. Because suddenly, the memories I had brushed aside—the ones that never made sense—slammed into me all at once.

Like the night, months after our wedding, when we were tangled in sheets and his mouth was on my neck and he whispered, “Baby…”

I froze then, because Marc used to call me that when we were younger, back when feelings were starting to bloom and before I ever chose Damien.

I even asked, breathless and confused, “Why are you calling me that? Are you… Marc?”

Damien laughed it off, pulling me closer.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re just remembering him. So now I’m not allowed to call you ‘baby’ because my brother did? Are you trying to make me jealous by mentioning his name?”

I felt guilty after—guilty for bringing up the past, guilty for comparing them. I thought I was being unfair.

But now… Now it made horrifying, perfect sense.

Before I could react, the sliding door from the main house opened.

Their conversation died, and a man walked out. Tall. Elegant. Controlled. Wearing a dark suit that matched the evening. His presence shifted the air. And on his lapel, catching the glow of the yard lights, was the Jones family heir’s pin.

The pin that should have been Damien’s. But today… it wasn’t on the man beside the bar. It was on the man now walking toward him.

My vision blurred for a second. Because their faces—Damien and the man approaching—were identical.

My throat tightened. This man… this one with the heir’s pin, this one who moved exactly how Damien moved when we were teens, this one whose gaze was calm but sharp—

This was Damien.

The real Damien…

“Hello, twin brother,” Damien—no, Marc—said. “Finally coming back home now… on the birthday of your wife?”

“What are you doing, Marc? You’re taking this too far. I only told you to stay with Elena in my place. Why does it seem like you’re hurting her… and where is she?”

“I’m not hurting her,” Marc laughed. “Even if… she wasn’t aware of it. She was naive enough not to know that I am not the brother she had chosen, because the real Damien is busy out there chasing her stepsister Sofia.”

Sofia? The daughter of my father’s mistress. The reason my mother died. And Damien is in love with her?

All those times… what were those moments? I had been clueless. Stupid.

“I didn’t give you my life so you could tear hers apart,” Damien said quietly.

Marc scoffed. “Please. You didn’t give anything. You ran. You chose Sofia when Elena chose you! It should have been me! But I was forced to lie… and now you’re coming back, huh? Are you now ready to take your place and be her husband?”

Damien said, “I might, because I need to take the business—”

“Well, then, you can,” Marc cut in, “but remember Father wants a grandchild. Either with me or you, it doesn’t matter—but then if you want, you can take Elena, if it’s okay with you that she slept with me already.”

Damien looked disgusted. “I don’t like a woman touched by another man… especially my twin brother. So feel free to take my identity, so long as I can be with Sofia. But you have to remember—Damien is still the heir that Father wants, so you better do your job well, or we’ll lose everything.”