Chapter 3

I'd barely taken a drag when Mom called.

"Who handled the wedding invitations? They even got your name wrong! There's nothing wrong with the groom's name, but the bride's name says, 'Lily Morgan!'"

She then asked, "What are we supposed to do now? Several relatives have already been asking me who Lily Morgan is. They even think she might be my illegitimate daughter!"

I froze, unable to process what I was hearing.

Ryan had designed the invitations himself. He hadn't let me touch a thing. Ever since we'd started planning the wedding, he'd been halfhearted about everything. Even when we took our wedding photos, he'd only shown up for ten minutes, leaving the rest to be pieced together with Photoshop afterward.

He'd claimed that was why he wanted to design the invitations himself—to make it up to me. At the time, I'd been so touched, thinking he was finally taking our wedding seriously.

I never imagined he'd been so careless that he'd actually gotten his own bride's name wrong and replaced it with Lily's.

I couldn't stop trembling, but a quiet laugh slipped from my lips.

"Mom, please have the invitations reprinted. Keep the date and venue the same."

I paused for a moment before adding, "As for the groom… just choose someone from among the people who approached us about an alliance before."

Through the haze of cigarette smoke, I spotted Ryan and Lily walking toward me side by side. They were sharing an ice cream cone and laughing together.

The moment Ryan spotted the cigarette between my fingers, he snatched it away and crushed it under his shoe.

"You're still recovering from pneumonia, and you're smoking? Are you trying to kill yourself?"

I almost laughed at the irony.

The pneumonia was his fault in the first place. When he'd been running a high fever, I'd stayed by his hospital bed day and night, taking care of him until I eventually caught it myself.

Yet whenever he saw me at the hospital, he had coldly asked why I kept wasting my time there. I wasn't a doctor or a nurse, he'd said, so there was no point in staying.

Then, when I was hospitalized a few days later, he never came to see me—not even once.

Lily covered her mouth in surprise. "Sienna, I didn't know you smoked. I always thought women who smoked were kind of… questionable. I guess that was just my own bias."

Before I could say anything, she slipped into the car and glanced at me sitting in the passenger seat. Then, she turned to Ryan with a smile.

"Ryan, you used to never let me sit in the front passenger seat. You always insisted I sit directly behind the driver. It wasn't until I went abroad that I realized that was actually the safest seat in the car."

She gave a soft laugh. "Now I finally understand why you always did that. I'm sorry, my dear childhood sweetheart. I never realized how much you cared about me back then."

Ryan started the engine and let out a couple of dry chuckles. "Don't flatter yourself."

She fell silent for a moment before suddenly leaning toward the front seats.

"Ryan, I just noticed how red your lips are! You must be really good at kissing, huh? Could you teach me?" She giggled. "Seriously, I'm 28, and I've never even experienced what it's like to kiss someone."

Then, she turned to me with an innocent expression. "Sienna, you're so pretty. You must have plenty of experience, right?"

Ryan let out a low chuckle, pressing his lips together as if he were trying not to laugh. "Her? She's nothing special. She's stiff as a board. She doesn't even know how to open her mouth when she kisses."

He glanced at Lily. "How about I teach you some other time? When she's not around, of course. Wouldn't want someone getting jealous and throwing another fit."

As he said it, he deliberately glanced at me. "What do you think?"

"Both of you!" I finally snapped. "Can you stop making sexual jokes in the car!"

Lily immediately looked wounded. "I was just trying to lighten the mood. Why are you upset again, Sienna?"

Before I could respond, Ryan suddenly slammed his hand against the steering wheel, making the horn blare through the car.

"Sienna! I've put up with you long enough!" His voice was sharp and impatient.

"If you really can't stand listening to us, put on some headphones and listen to music. Lily and I have always talked like this. Why should we have to censor ourselves just because you're sitting here?"

His tone left no room for argument.

After a moment, he added coldly, "And Lily just got back. She doesn't have a place to stay. So, she'll be staying at our new house for the next few days. I'll take her there now."

Our new house was the one we'd bought for our marriage. Even I had not lived there yet. I'd been waiting for our wedding day to move in.