The Wedding Wasn't for Me

White silk weighed more than I remembered.

I stood at the edge of the aisle inside Aldermere Estate, orchids lining either side, sunlight pouring through glass high above the guests. Two hundred faces turned toward me. None of them looked worried. They looked entertained.

Near the back, Killian adjusted his cufflinks with the patience of a man enjoying a show only he understood.

"That's Killian Wrexley, right?" a voice whispered nearby.

"Damon's twin," another answered, hushed and thrilled. "Identical. Isn't that wild?"

Killian's mouth curved. "There she is."

Damon offered his arm at the start of the aisle, and I took it because refusing wasn't an option anymore, not with two lives depending on my obedience.

"She looks pale," someone murmured as we walked.

"Smile," Damon said under his breath. "Pretty girls don't shake."

I forced my spine straight. My pulse hammered louder than the string quartet playing somewhere off to the side.

"You enjoying this?" I breathed.

"I paid for it." He smiled for the cameras like he meant it.

Whispers sharpened behind us. "Look at her. She's shaking." "Maybe she finally realised she doesn't belong here."

Killian leaned in as we passed, voice low enough that only I caught it. "All that white fabric. And I can still see exactly what's underneath." I shuddered and almost tripped on my train

"Careful, sweetheart." Damon's grip tightened around my fingers. "Cameras love a nervous bride."

We reached the altar. The officiant opened his book. Two hundred guests fell silent at once, and I could hear my own pulse in my ears louder than anything else in that room.

"Damon Wrexley", the officiant said, "will you have this woman to be your wedded wife, to live together in the holy bond of marriage?"

Damon's eyes found mine. Something flickered there, cold and final, and his lips parted.

"I don't."

The room held its breath with me.

The officiant blinked, recovering. "Damon Wrexley, do you take Mira—"

"No." His voice carried clean across the hall. "I don't."

A gasp rolled through the crowd like wind through dry grass.

"Damon?" My voice didn't sound like mine anymore. "What—"

A screen mounted above the altar flared to life.

"The show begins," Ingrid said somewhere behind me, almost delighted.

Footage filled the screen. Me, in the bedroom at Wrexley Estate, with Killian over several nights.

"Turn it off!" I spun toward the crowd, pulse roaring. "That's not what happened!"

Nobody listened. Nobody cared about truth when scandal tasted this much better.

"There's not going to be a wedding," Damon announced.

I turned on him, shaking from somewhere far deeper than fear now. "You planned all of this."

"You loved your way into this trap." Almost gentle, like he was doing me a kindness by admitting it.

"I gave you everything." My voice cracked down the middle. "All my love."

He tilted his head, studying me like an amusing puzzle. "Love which one? Me or him?"

Killian began circling, unhurried. "Look closely, darling. Who touched you last night?"

I backed away from both of them. "You shared the same face to deceive me. Night after night, you took turns. I was a toy passed between two brothers."

The murmur behind me swelled into something louder.

"What?" Ingrid's voice cut sharp through the noise. "Is she serious?"

Cold liquid hit my face before I'd even seen Killian's arm move. Red wine ran down my cheeks, soaking into white silk, blooming dark across my chest.

"Just correcting the look." Killian's smile went thin. "Look at you. Covered in filth."

"That dress looks better on you stained red," Damon said.

I stood frozen, wine dripping off my chin, two hundred phones raised to catch every second of it.

"Unlucky for you," Killian continued, lazy now, "you got pregnant. And he never wanted your kid." He stepped closer, his voice dropping. "We played you for years, Mira. The pregnancy was just extra fun."

Something in my chest cracked open.

"After this farce", I said to Damon, voice shaking but holding, "you'll get rid of them too?"

"Over my dead body." My breath came jagged now. "I'm escaping both of you."

Killian laughed, almost fond of me. "You really think you're the victim here?"

"Everyone knows exactly what you are," Ingrid added. "No one even knows whose bastards those babies belong to."

Something inside me went very still.

"You know nothing," I said, and for the first time my voice didn't shake at all. "They used identical faces to fool me. And now Damon wants my babies dead. He wants me ruined completely."

I ran.

"Bring her back," Damon said behind me, bored.

"Gladly," Killian answered.

I shoved through the doors into the corridor beyond, heels skidding on marble, fury and terror so tangled together I couldn't tell them apart anymore.

"She's insane," Ingrid called after me.

I turned at the end of the hall, breathing raggedly. "I won't be a pawn in your twisted game!"

I ran straight into a man I didn't recognise, dressed in dark grey, who looked at me like he'd been waiting.

"There you are," he said quietly.