His Substitute Bride Became His Obsession

The house I grew up in didn’t feel like home anymore. It felt like a courtroom.I stood in the marble foyer at seven o’clock sharp, still in the same coat I’d worn out of Adrian’s office, and I could hear my parents’ voices carrying from the study before I even reached the door. Low. Clipped. The kind of tone they used when they were deciding something about me instead of with me.“She’ll understand once we explain the terms,” my father was saying.“She won’t have a choice either way,” my mother answered. “That’s rather the point.”My stomach dropped before I’d even turned the handle.They were seated when I walked in, my father behind his desk like he was presiding over a merger, my mother in the armchair with her ankles crossed and a folder in her lap that looked sickeningly familiar. Another folder. Another contract I hadn’t agreed to.“You’re late,” my mother said.“I got divorced today.” My voice cracked on the word, and I hated that it did. “Forgive me for losing track of time.”

The dress didn’t fit right, and nobody in that room cared enough to notice but me.It pulled tight across my shoulders where the seamstress had rushed the alterations, a hem an inch too short. Adrian would have noticed, would have catalogued every flaw before I’d even looked in the mirror. Damian just stood at the altar and watched me walk toward him like the dress was the last thing on his mind.The chapel was small, smaller than I expected for a family with Blackwood money, just a private room with a dozen folding chairs and a scattering of people who looked like they’d rather be elsewhere. My mother sat in the front row with her chin lifted, already composing the version of this story she’d tell her friends. My father hadn’t looked at me once since I walked in. Eleanor sat beside my empty seat, her cane resting against her knee, watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read, something between pride and grief.Isabella Blackwood sat across the aisle, elegant in pale blue, and

Sophia burst through my studio door like she owned the place, which, knowing her, she probably assumed within ten minutes of walking into any room.“Okay.” She dropped her bag on the drafting table, nearly knocking over a jar of pencils. “You married a billionaire and didn’t call me for a week. I had to hear it from my mother, who heard it from your mother, who apparently thinks this is a personal victory for the entire Hart bloodline.”“I’m sorry.” I laughed, and it surprised me, how easily it came, how long it had been since laughing felt possible. “It’s been a lot.”“A lot.” Sophia dropped into the chair across from me, scanning the sketches pinned along the wall with narrowed, professional eyes, the way a jeweler checks a stone for flaws, except with Sophia the checking always came from love. “Evelyn. These are incredible. When did you do these?”“Since the wedding.” I picked at a loose thread on my sleeve, suddenly shy under her attention. “He gave me this whole wing. Told me to