Chapter 1

Jordan's POV

When Talia Smith said that, she made it sound as though she was commenting on the weather.

Talia and her foster brother, Matthew Reed, had a son named James Reed.

I tugged at the corner of my lips and forced a smile. "It's not April Fools' Day. Why would you joke about something like this?"

At that moment, I genuinely wished she was merely pulling my leg.

However, right in front of me, Talia called James. "Jordan accidentally touched it earlier. Don't worry. I promised to take you to Glacieland, so I will. I'll never break my promises."

The tender look in her eyes, the look of a mother, seemed so unreal to me.

After hanging up, she showed me the guest list for the honeymoon trip—Talia, Matthew, and James.

"To be honest, it's been exhausting, keeping this a secret from you for five years. It's probably better that you know now."

The very next second, she held out legal family registration. "We're legally registered as a family."

The sheer volume of information hit me like a sledgehammer. For a moment, my mind went blank. "You're… a family?"

From the end of my internship at her company to the mundane routines of our life together, I had spent five years by her side, only to discover I wasn't even her legal husband.

Talia nodded nonchalantly. "I had too much to drink at our engagement party and mistook Matthew for you, so I was pregnant with his baby. I had to do right by him, so I registered our marriage. I just wanted to give the child a complete family."

Hadn't the child she was pregnant with back then died shortly after birth? Before my brain could catch up, she walked up to me. "Don't worry, though. You're the one I consider my husband, and besides, we've always lived as husband and wife."

In other words, when I was being beaten black and blue at a business dinner, she was with them.

When my car skidded and crashed into the highway guardrail, she had been with them, too.

Even the honeymoon I'd waited five agonizing years for had been repeatedly postponed because of them.

I clutched the plane tickets in the palm of my hand and smiled. "Did you know? This was the last chance I was ever going to give you to go on a trip with m—"

Before I could finish, her phone rang. The caller ID "Honey" felt like a wad of cotton shoved down my throat.

Talia walked out as she answered the call. Her voice was gentler than ever.

The affectionate voices spilling from the speakerphone pierced my ears like countless tiny needles. I couldn't help but clench my fists as a loud ringing filled my head.