Chapter 1

“Your family still can’t come?”

I shook my head.

“They don’t believe I’m sick.”

As if on cue, several new messages appeared in the Moretti family group chat.

My mother was helping Bianca adjust her veil. My father and Nico stood on either side of her, smiling for the camera.

Adrian was kneeling at her feet, carefully arranging the train of my wedding gown.

A bitter smile touched my lips.

“Besides, they have something more important to do today. They’re helping my sister try on my wedding dress.”

The doctor’s expression softened. She did not ask again.

She only handed me a small bottle of painkillers.

“Elena, this is the last thing we can do to make you more comfortable.”

I nodded, my lips too pale to hold a proper smile.

“Thank you.”

When I left the hospital, the twenty-thousand-dollar transfer from Nico was still sitting unanswered in our chat.

"Stop pretending to be sick. Take this as compensation for letting Bianca use your wedding."

A month ago, Bianca’s boyfriend had walked out on her before their wedding.

She cried in my mother’s arms and said she had no biological father to walk her down the aisle. Now, she would never know what it felt like to be a real bride.

So my parents decided to give her the wedding I was supposed to have in three days.

They called it borrowing.

Bianca and Adrian would only go through the ceremony. There would be no marriage license, so it would not count as a real marriage.

Adrian would only stand in as her groom.

Afterward, they promised, he and I would have another wedding. A bigger one. A better one.

I told them I had cancer.

I told them there might not be an afterward for me.

Their faces changed immediately.

They accused me of lying to compete with Bianca. They said I was cruel, jealous, and willing to say anything to take away the one happy day she had left.

But I really was dying.

And this was the wedding I had waited seven years for.

I declined Nico’s transfer and called Adrian.

Once.

Twice.

On the third call, he finally answered.

“Adrian,” I asked quietly, “is our wedding still happening in three days?”

He was silent for a moment.

Then he sighed.

“Elena, we already talked about this. That wedding is for Bianca now.”

“She has no family of her own. She only wants to experience it once. Why do you have to turn everything into a fight with her?”

My fingers tightened around the phone.

So asking for something that belonged to me had become an attack on Bianca.

I opened my mouth, but Adrian had already lost his patience.

“Think about what you’re doing, Elena.”

Then he hung up.

His words stayed with me as another wave of pain twisted through my stomach.

I fumbled for the bottle and swallowed a painkiller.

Before the pain had even eased, my phone rang again.

It was the wedding planner.

“Miss Moretti, I need your approval for several changes.”

“Go ahead.”

“Mr. Vitale wants the welcome sign, main screen, and bridal suite changed to Miss Ferraro’s name. She also likes the processional music you chose, so that will remain.”

“She tried on your gown today and wants to wear it for the ceremony. Mr. Vitale said that if you mind, he can have another one made for you later.”

Later.

That word followed me through most of my life.

When Bianca first moved into the Moretti estate, my mother gave her my bedroom.

“It’s only temporary,” she said.

I never got it back.

On my twelfth birthday, the piano my father promised me became art supplies for Bianca. He said he would buy the piano the following year.

They never thought they were taking anything from me.

Everything could be replaced later.

And I had always been expected to have a later.

“Miss Moretti?” the planner asked carefully. “Under the contract, none of these changes can be made without your authorization.”

In the past, I would have refused.

I had argued before. Every time, they reminded me that Carlo Ferraro had taken a bullet meant for Nico and left Bianca without a father.

The Morettis owed her.

Because I was a Moretti too, apparently I owed her as well.

In the past, I would have refused.

I would have argued until someone listened.

But suddenly, I was exhausted.

I was dying.

Soon, none of this would belong to me anyway.

The dress, the flowers, the house, the man waiting at the end of the aisle—

She could have all of it.

“Change it,” I said. “I won’t need any of it after this anyway.”