The Stand-In Vampire Wife Who Walked Away

I'd been married to my vampire husband for three years, and he had always cherished me like a treasure. He held me close every night before I went to sleep. He never let go of my hand when we went out. He worried, always, that I might get hurt. A common cold was enough to make him cancel everything and stay up all night beside me. James told me no one in the world mattered more to him than I did. Everyone said he loved me to pieces. I believed it too. Until the day of the ceremony — the night he was supposed to turn me into a vampire. A woman who should have been dead walked back into his life. She had my face, tear-streaked, calling his name in a small voice. That was when I understood. I'd only ever been the stand-in for the woman he couldn't let go of. My stubbornness, my refusal to give up — all of it broke under the disappointment that kept piling up. So I gave up on him for good. I decided to keep our child to myself, and disappear from his world without a word. But later, he came back. Down on his knees, again and again, begging me to come home.