Chapter 1

To punish Ethan Reed, the woman sent here to win his heart traded years of her life to the system. She wanted him to know what it felt like to lose her forever.

When she called to tell him she had bone cancer, Ethan and I were exchanging rings.

Without hesitation, Ethan chose a different bride.

What he didn’t know was that I was the one who really had bone cancer.

Vanessa didn’t die. But I vanished from Ethan’s world for good.

“Ethan, I’m dying. Are you really not even going to come see me?”

At our wedding, Vanessa Hayes’s weak, sorrowful voice rang out over the speakerphone.

The guests exchanged looks. Most glanced around eagerly, hungry for gossip.

Then every eye turned to Ethan.

Mine included.

He froze for a moment, staring without blinking. Carefully, he took the phone from my hand.

“What did you say?”

His voice was low and faint. He was clearly struggling to keep it from shaking.

Then, as though something had occurred to him, he let out an easy laugh.

“It’s my wedding to Claire today. This isn’t funny. Even if you really were dying, I wouldn’t leave her.”

Vanessa had lied to Ethan plenty of times before.

Four years ago, I broke up with Ethan after my family went bankrupt. Then I secretly gave him almost everything I had left so he could study abroad.

Years later, he returned as a rising star in the business world. By then, he had a stand-in at his side who loved him desperately: Vanessa.

He introduced her to me as his employee and his “special someone.”

But the instant I shook Vanessa’s hand, I became self-aware.

Ethan and I were characters in a second-chance romance. He didn’t know everything I had sacrificed for him years ago, so he both loved and hated me.

Vanessa used that to play the demanding, troublesome replacement.

One day, she lied about being hit by a car, making Ethan abandon me while a business partner pressured me to drink.

The next, while Ethan and I were visiting a remote mountain community, she claimed some thugs were harassing her. One phone call, and he left me stranded there alone.

Just as I was ready to give up on him, things changed.

Ethan learned the truth about why I had left him. The prodigal lover returned, realized I was the woman he loved, and walked me down the aisle—only for Vanessa to interrupt the ceremony with a phone call.

Ethan hadn’t intended to answer.

But I knew perfectly well that if he didn’t, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

Because Vanessa had already come to see me.

Two weeks earlier, while I was trying on dresses at the bridal boutique, she slipped into my fitting room.

Ignoring my surprise, she studied the white gown. Disappointment and envy filled her eyes.

“It’s beautiful. Too bad I’ll never get to wear one.”

She stroked the hem carefully, as if caressing something precious she was about to be forced to give away.

“I’ve worked so hard, and I still haven’t gotten to wear that dress. Why do you only have to stand there and do nothing, and he’s happy to make you his wife? Just because you’re the female lead?”

I lowered my eyes and smiled, then undid the lacing down my back. The heavy dress slid off my body.

I stood there before Vanessa, completely exposed.

“Then you wear it.” I offered her the gown.

Her head snapped up. The sadness in her eyes disappeared, replaced by something cold.

“You’re giving it to me? What do you think I am?”

“Claire Bennett, I was the one taking care of him all those years you were apart.”

“I taught him how to love someone. I told him which boutique had the prettiest wedding dresses and which ring a woman would love most.”

“Why should you get to enjoy everything I worked for?”