Chapter 1

Because my twin brother, Silas, had been sickly from the day he was born, my parents always favored him.

On our birthday, they'd buy two cakes, but Silas blew out the candles on both of them, and Silas cut both of them too.

My parents would crowd around him, put the party hat on his head, and sing "Happy Birthday" to him... while I sat off to the side like a stranger who didn't matter.

It wasn't just my parents. Even Corinne Devereux—my childhood sweetheart, the girl our families had always planned for me to marry—paid special attention to Silas.

At school, she'd bring him lunch, take notes for him, and tutor him. And whenever Silas felt unwell and went to lie down in the nurse's office, Corinne, who never skipped class, would walk right out of the classroom just to keep him company.

Sometimes I got jealous and asked her why she was so good to him.

She'd always smile. "Because he's your brother. You two look exactly alike. Taking care of him is just part of loving you."

But Corinne never skipped a single class for me.

Even when I was burning up with a fever over a hundred and four, so out of it I could barely think, all she said was, "The teacher's going over some really important problems in math today, Emmett. You can get yourself to the nurse's office."

And the moment I showed even the slightest hint of resentment, the accusations came pouring in from every side.

"Emmett, if you hadn't stolen Silas's nutrients in the womb, he wouldn't have been born so weak! You owe him. Is it really so hard to let him have something?"

My parents said the same thing. "Silas has been seriously ill since he was little. We're his parents. Isn't it only right that we pay him a little more attention?

"Emmett, can't you stop being so selfish? You already got the healthy body. Why do you still have to fight him for everything?"

With all of them saying it, I started to doubt myself.

Was I really that selfish?

So I started stepping back. I stopped fighting and stopped competing. Whatever Silas wanted, I handed it to him.

Senior year, my near-perfect scores got me into Westbridge University, the school I'd always dreamed of.

Silas had missed so much school that his scores were dismal. The best he could manage was a community college.

But Mom said, "Emmett, let Silas go to Westbridge. You can take his place at the community college. The degree will have your name on it in the end anyway. Silas just wants a taste of what it's like at a real top university."

I refused, because Corinne and I had promised each other we'd go to Westbridge together.

But when Corinne heard I'd said no, her face went cold. "Then I won't go to Westbridge either. I'll go to community college with Silas!

"You get all kinds of people at a place like that, and Silas is so frail. He won't be able to handle it. Emmett, forcing him to go there is practically signing his death warrant!"

In the end, with all of them pushing me, I had no choice but to switch schools with Silas.

And because Silas skipped so many classes, he never even graduated. The elite degree I'd earned was thrown away right along with him.

Things like that happened more times than I could count.

From the moment I was born, I'd been backing down.

And now they wanted me to give my wedding night to Silas.

I looked at my wife and asked, slowly and deliberately, "You really want to sleep with my brother tonight?"

"I don't want this either." Corinne lowered her eyes. "But Silas is seriously ill. He doesn't have many days left. This is his only wish, and I don't want him to die with regrets."

A tearing pain ripped through my chest, but I smiled. "If you don't have a problem with it, then neither do I."

With that, I turned and left. Then I got in my car and drove to the city clerk's office.

When I got there, I took out our marriage certificate and handed it to the clerk.

"Hi. The information on this marriage certificate is wrong. The man who married Corinne Devereux yesterday was my twin brother, Silas Carlisle, not me.

"Could you please correct the name? I'm about to leave the country for school, and I really don't want to take the wrong marriage with me."

No one knew that three months earlier, I'd been accepted to Ravenmoor University, one of the Ivy League schools.

I'd planned to tell Corinne the good news after our wedding night, then take her with me.

But now, there didn't seem to be any point.

Once the certificate was corrected, I drove back home.

I'd meant to go upstairs and rest, but as I passed the bedroom that was supposed to be ours, I heard Silas's hearty laughter coming from inside.

"Ha! I can't believe that idiot brother of mine actually thinks I'm dying! The truth is, not only am I not dying, I don't even have a serious illness. There's just something off with my vagus nerve, so I pass out more easily than other people."

"I always knew you weren't sick." Corinne laughed. "But what about your parents? Do they know?"

"They didn't at first. Back then I was little. Whenever I got worked up, I'd faint, and the doctors couldn't find anything wrong, so they thought I was seriously ill and wouldn't live long," Silas went on.

"But when I was about seven, the doctors figured out it was nothing serious. By then, though, my parents were used to giving me whatever I wanted. Even after they found out I wasn't sick, they kept spoiling me."

Inside the bedroom, Silas laughed without a care in the world.

Outside it, I felt like I'd been plunged into ice. I was cold all the way through.

So Silas had never been sick at all. Everyone knew. Everyone except me.

They'd all teamed up to lie to me and made me Silas's doormat and scapegoat for over a decade!