Chapter 1

To make my half-sister's dream wedding come true, Edward Harris threw her a wedding everyone would remember.

With tears in his eyes, Edward promised, "Think of it as my last gift to her."

I believed him.

It wasn't until I went to my doctor's office for my first prenatal appointment that I discovered my marriage had never been legally registered.

They'd stopped pretending a long time ago. They'd actually gotten married.

Edward looked down on me and scolded me for not being "reasonable."

I laughed, pulled out a brand-new marriage certificate, and slapped it against his face.

"Sorry," I said. "I'm already married."

And the groom? He was the one person Edward feared most.

*****

The night Edward told me he was going to throw a wedding for Emily, I was in the kitchen making soup.

He stood in the kitchen doorway, his tie loosened, his eyes red-rimmed.

"Grace, Emily... she's sick," Edward said.

The spoon in my hand paused midair.

"What kind of sickness?" I asked.

"The doctor said she might not make it through next year," he rasped. "She's always dreamed of wearing a wedding dress. I want to make that dream come true."

I stared at him.

Three years. I'd been married to Edward for three years, and he'd always treated me well—or so I thought.

"You want to throw her a wedding?" I asked.

"Yeah." He came over and took my hand, his fingers ice-cold. "Think of it as giving her one last happy memory. Honey, don't worry. It's just a ceremony."

I was silent for a long time.

Emily was my half-sister. She'd always been frail and soft-spoken, the kind of girl who looked like a strong breeze could knock her over.

After my mother died, Emily's mother married into the Lane family and brought Emily with her.

My dad always favored her, and every holiday he'd remind me, "Emily isn't in the best of health, so as her older sister, you need to be the one who gives in."

I'd been the one giving in for more than twenty years.

I looked at Edward's red-rimmed eyes, then at the way his fingers tightened around mine.

"Alright," I said.

He suddenly pulled me into his arms.

"Thank you, honey," he murmured. "I promise I'll come straight back when the ceremony is over. I won't go anywhere else," he whispered.

The ceremony was lavish.

It was held in a five-star hotel ballroom, with hundreds of guests and white roses lining the entire aisle.

When Emily walked down the aisle in her custom-made wedding dress, the whole room erupted in applause.

She glanced at me.

The glance was so fleeting that I barely noticed it at the time.

The corners of her lips lifted ever so slightly before she quickly lowered her gaze, putting on a frail, grateful expression.

Edward took her hand and walked her down the aisle, saying "I do" before the priest.

I sat in the front row.

My unborn baby kicked me.

I rubbed my belly, reminding myself, "This is just a performance."

Three days after the wedding, I went to the hospital for my first prenatal appointment.

I checked in, waited in line, and had my blood drawn.

Everything seemed normal.

Until the nurse looked through my records and frowned.

"Ms. Lane, it says here that you're single," she said.

"That's impossible." I froze. "I've been married for three years."

I pulled up a photo of my marriage certificate on my phone and showed it to her.

She glanced at it, her expression uneasy.

"Um... you might want to check with the City Hall," she hesitated. "We really don't have any record of your marriage in our system."

I stood in the hospital hallway, my mind totally blank.

The photo of my wedding certificate was still glowing on my phone screen.

I stared at the official seal for a full five minutes.

Then I called the City Hall.

After checking their records, they told me, "Grace Lane, unmarried."

Under Edward's records, the spouse listed was—

Emily.

Marriage date: three years ago.

A full week before I received my so-called "marriage certificate."

My phone slipped from my hand, hit the tile floor, and a crack spread across the screen.

Pregnant women walked down the hall with family members helping them, while babies cried nearby.

I couldn't hear a thing.

Only one sentence kept echoing in my mind—

My marriage certificate was fake.

Edward and Emily had gotten married three years ago.

That so-called "farewell" wedding wasn't a ceremony.

It was their long-overdue wedding celebration.

And me? I had never been Edward's wife. Not from the very beginning.

I was nothing more than a three-year-long joke they'd kept in the dark.