"Don't be anyone but yourself at any given time," A young lady says, mocking. "Famous last words."
Another — Emily Carter — sits across from the love of her life as he's about to take a bullet to the head. She thinks back to every blissful moment they spent together, every second they spent fighting, but most especially she thinks about how they got here. Standing before her, feeling like the world belonged to no one else… was none other than Victoria Monroe, the woman that started it all, and might very well end it too.
Emily Carter couldn't help but remember the very beginning.
The cathedral doors trembled as Adrian Sinclair slammed his fist against the cold marble. Overwhelmed with rage, and secretly…. fear. Outside, the rain lashed against stained glass windows, distorting the view of saints into weeping specters. Inside, a man's world had been shattered to pieces.
"Find her." Adrian boomed, impatiently. His tailored tuxedo clung to him like armor, but his face — pale, rigid, a sculpture of fury and disbelief — betrayed the cracks beneath. "I don't care if you tear this city apart. Find her."
Emily Carter stood in the corner, her fingers digging into the silk of Victoria's abandoned veil. It still smelled like the other woman's perfume, deceptive and cruel. She'd watched Adrian's fiancée glide through the room hours ago, her laughter tinged with amusement. Now, only the ghost of that laughter remained, haunting the flowers and the half-empty champagne flutes.
"Adrian," Daniel Grayson stepped forward, his usual smirk replaced by a grimace. "The press is already outside. If we don't address this—"
"Address this?" Adrian whirled, his blue eyes glacial. "You think a statement will fix this? Those vultures out there don't want a statement. They want blood. They want a story."
Emily's throat tightened. She knew that look, the glint in his gaze, the way his jaw flexed as if chewing on bone. She'd seen it in boardrooms, during mergers that turned vicious, but never like this. Never raw. Never human. In all these years by his side.
"Sir." A trembling planner hovered in the doorway, her clipboard clutched like a shield. "The guests… they're asking if the ceremony is delayed or—"
"Canceled," Adrian snapped.
"No."
The word slipped out before Emily could stop it. All eyes turned to her — Adrian's glare, Daniel's raised brow, the planner's desperate hope. She straightened, the veil slipping from her hands. "You can't cancel. The press… the planning… your mother…"
Adrian's laugh was hollow. "You think I care about that right now?"
"Yes," she said quietly. "Because that's who you are."
For a heartbeat, something flickered in his expression. Then he was moving, closing the distance between them in three strides. His hand gripped her wrist, not roughly, but with a feverish intensity. "Then tell me, Emily. What's the solution here?"
Her pulse roared in her ears. Up close, he was so majestic, his breath warm against her cheek. She'd imagined this proximity a thousand times, in elevators, at midnight while fetching his dry cleaning, during flights where he'd slept with his head tilted back, vulnerable in ways he'd never allow awake.
But not like this.
"You need a bride," she whispered.
His fingers tightened. "Victoria is gone."
"I know."
The silence that followed was a living thing, thick with the unspoken. Daniel sucked in a breath. The planner gasped.
"Emily…" His voice cracked, the first true sound of pain she'd ever heard from him. "You have to step in as my bride."
Adrian's gaze flickered, searching for an answer in her eyes before he nodded, once, like he had sealed a contract. Emily's knees trembled, but she locked them, her palms pressed flat against her dress to still their shaking. Across the room, the wedding planner clattered a clipboard onto a table, her voice shrill with panic. "The ceremony starts in twenty minutes! We need to adjust the bustle, re-pin the veil, and—"
Adrian didn't move. His eyes, dark and unreadable, traced Emily's face as if mapping a stranger. "You understand what this means," he said.
She stepped back, smoothing her lilac bridesmaid dress, a color Victoria had chosen to "compliment her blandness." Her reflection in the mirror wavered: chestnut hair tumbling from its pins, cheeks flushed, eyes too bright. A mouse playing Cinderella.
But when she turned to Adrian, her voice didn't shake. "I'll be your bride."
The chapel was alive with the murmur of the elite, their servants and everyone in between.
Emily stood at the altar, her borrowed dress pooling around her, a spare Vera Wang for contingencies, fitting for a stand-in bride. The lace scratched her skin, but she kept her chin high, her gaze fixed on the ginormous doors.
This isn't real, she told herself as the organ groaned to life. It's a transaction. A Band-Aid on a bullet wound. But when the doors opened, and Adrian appeared, his tie crooked, hair tousled by nervous hands, her traitorous heart quickened.
He didn't smile as he took her hand. His palm was cold, but his grip was firm. "You don't have to do this," he murmured, low enough that the priest couldn't hear.
"Yes, I do." For you. Always for you.
The vows were a blur. She parroted the words, her voice thin against the cathedral's echo. But when Adrian slid a ring onto her finger, a marvelous emerald meant for Victoria, his thumb brushed her knuckle, a fleeting warmth.
"I'll make this right," he whispered.
You already have, she thought.
The kiss was chaste, a press of lips as delicate as a contract signature. But as the crowd erupted in shocked applause, not really understanding what had happened, Emily clung to the lie: that his arms around her waist felt like belonging, that this charade could ever be enough.
She'd come to find out the hard way… love wasn't earned so easily.
Later, in the back of the Rolls-Royce, Adrian stared out at the rain-soaked city, his profile carved from stone. "The penthouse has a guest suite. You can stay there until…"
"Until you annul it," she finished. He didn't deny.
Emily traced the emerald on her finger, its edges sharp. "And Victoria? If she comes back—"
"She won't."
In truth neither knew what happened to Victoria, would she really come back?
As the car slid through NYC's traffic, Emily watched their reflection in the darkened glass, a counterfeit couple, haloed by neon lights. She wondered if he could see it too: the way her body leaned toward his, an invisible thread pulling her into his orbit, as it had for years.
"Thank you," he said suddenly.
She met his eyes in the glass. "For what?"
"For…" He hesitated, the word foreign on his tongue. "Sacrificing your dignity."
A laugh bubbled up, bitter but welcomed. "You've never needed my dignity, Adrian. Only my silence."
The words hung between them, too honest, too raw. He looked away first.
When they reached the penthouse, he didn't follow her inside.
Alone in the marble foyer, Emily slid to the floor, her back against the door. Somewhere above, a clock chimed midnight.
In the silence, she breathed a heavy sigh,
"What have I done?"