Faked to Perfection

- Adelaine’s POV -

“You lying, cheating bastard! How could you?”

“If you call me that one more time, Adelaine, I’ll make sure you regret every word.” Zain’s voice was sharp, his eyes colder than I’d ever seen them.

This wasn’t happening. Not to me.

“It’s our engagement party, Zain. Our party. You were supposed to walk downstairs with me tonight, not be up here screwing my best friend like some scumbag!”

Elaine. I should’ve known. I did know. But love makes you ignore the signs. And as a PR strategist, I’d learned the hard way that reality often lived in the silence between smiles.

“Oh, don’t act surprised, Del,” Elaine said as she adjusted my silk robe around her half-naked body.“You’ve always loved the fairytale. I just offered him something a little more… exciting.”

Her words were barbed, but Zain’s silence was worse. He just stood there, buttoning his shirt, indifferent to the nuclear fallout unfolding around us.

“You were supposed to be my secret,” I snapped. “I kept you away from the media, my family, even my clients, because I trusted you. Because I didn’t want them to chew you up before we were solid. I protected you.”

Zain looked up, mouth twitching with something like amusement. “I didn’t ask to be protected. I liked the privacy… until I realised what it meant.”

“What it meant?” I repeated, stunned.

“It meant hiding. It meant waiting while you played the perfect image. It meant never knowing if I was the real deal or just another placeholder.”

I stared at him. This man, this man I was going to unveil to the world tonight, was a stranger.

Elaine, always so quick to exploit a moment of silence, slithered closer to him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “You can’t blame him, Del. You were too busy staging the fairytale to realise someone else was living in it.”

A knock on the bedroom door jolted us.

“Adelaine?” my mother’s voice called through the heavy wood. “Sweetheart, the photographer says it’s time. Everyone’s waiting for you both.”

My breath hitched.

This was supposed to be the moment, the big reveal. After months of secrecy, I was going to walk down those stairs with Zain on my arm and finally show the world my mystery fiancé.

Instead, he was upstairs, half-naked, with the girl who used to be my sister in every way but blood.

I turned back to them, my voice steady despite the whirlwind inside. “You need to leave. Now.”

Elaine made a face. “Oh come on, don’t be dramatic—”

“I SAID GET OUT!” I screamed, and the force of it cracked something loose inside me. “Get out before I forget how much I have to lose!”

Zain looked at me for one long moment. Then, coolly, he reached for his jacket and walked out. Elaine followed, smirking.

The silence that followed was deafening. I sat on the edge of the bed, clutching the train of the ruined gown I wasn’t going to wear anymore.

I had twenty minutes to clean up. Twenty minutes to walk into a ballroom filled with over two hundred people, all expecting to meet the man of my dreams.

But he’d already become the ghost of one.

I swapped the gown for the black backup dress I’d brought. The colour was very befitting to my mood now.

My makeup was salvageable. A touch of concealer. Red lipstick instead of nude. Something bold enough to draw eyes away from the sorrow buried in mine.

Downstairs, the grand staircase loomed. Beyond it, laughter and music floated up from the ballroom like a lie on the wind.

I paused halfway down.

My mother stood at the base of the stairs in navy silk, radiant and alert. “Darling, where is he? Everyone’s been dying to meet the mystery man!”

She’d never met Zain. I’d kept him under wraps to avoid gossip columns and fake smiles. I wanted certainty before publicity, and I thought tonight would give me that.

I gave her a polite smile. “He’ll be down soon.”

“Oh, I hope so. The senator and his wife are practically camped by the champagne fountain. They came just to meet him, you know.”

I scanned the room, trying to breathe.

White roses, ambient lighting, and curated playlists; it was perfect. A fantasy I’d curated. And now, all I had left was my name and a shattered illusion.

That’s when I saw him.

Standing by the French doors, dressed in a black tailored suit that fit like it was sewn onto his body.

I didn’t know who he was, but he looked… carved from ambition. Broad shoulders, a sharp jawline, eyes dark enough to keep secrets.

His gaze met mine, and my breath caught.

“Who’s that?” I asked, nodding toward him.

My mother’s smile faltered. “That’s… Dante Moreau. What’s he doing here?” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Your father didn’t mention inviting him. Lord, I hope this doesn’t stir anything up again.”

“Again?”

She waved it off. “Long family stories. Nothing you need to worry about tonight. Just… keep your distance, okay?”

Too late. Dante had started moving toward us. My father, predictably, intercepted him with a tight smile and an even tighter handshake. “Dante. You came.”

“I never miss a Montclair spectacle,” Dante replied, his voice laced with polite venom. “Even if I have to crash.”

“This is private,” my father said.

“Then throw me out.”

My mother stepped in, voice brittle. “Dante, this is not the time.”

He turned his eyes on me. “So you’re the daughter everyone’s been whispering about.”

“You’ve been listening?”

“Hard not to, when no one’s seen the groom.”

“Perhaps he’s camera-shy,” I said coolly.

He smiled. “Or nonexistent.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Only a theory,” Dante said, sipping his drink. “Would be quite the twist if the elusive fiancé never showed.”

I stared at him.

And in that moment, an idea came to me. No one here knew Zain. No one except Elaine. And she wouldn’t dare say a word now.

I looked Dante square in the eye and said, “Everyone… this is Dante Moreau. My fiancé.”

There was a sharp intake of breath behind me. A champagne glass shattered.

My mother’s voice cracked. “What?”

Dante arched a brow. “Well, now. I definitely didn’t see that coming.”

But to my surprise, he didn’t contradict me. Instead, he wrapped an arm around my waist like it belonged there and leaned in.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he whispered.

“I don’t,” I replied.

And together, we stepped forward into a lie that was about to become my new truth.