Chapter one: THE THIRD TIME

This was the third time my fiancé, Miles Morretti, had walked away from our wedding—because of his stepsister.

I stood at the altar in my white silk gown, the one I'd spent months choosing, feeling the weight of two hundred pairs of eyes burning into my back.

The morning had been perfect—too perfect, I realized now. The sun streaming through the stained glass windows, casting rainbow patterns across the marble floor. The scent of white roses and peonies filling the air.

My bridesmaids smiling encouragingly from their places. Even Miles had seemed genuinely present this time, holding my hands, looking into my eyes like he actually saw me.

I should have known better. I should have known that peace with Miles Morretti never lasted long. The officiant's voice had just begun the familiar words—"Miles Morretti, do you take Lila Clement to be your lawfully wedded wife"—when his assistant burst through the chapel doors with all the subtlety of a wrecking ball. "Mr. Morretti," the man said, breathless and pale, his tie askew like he'd run the entire way here. "We have an urgent situation." The change in Miles's face was instant and devastating. I'd seen this transformation before—twice before, to be exact—but it still felt like a physical blow every single time.

Concern flooded his features first, then panic, then that peculiar expression of guilt that never seemed directed at me but at some invisible force pulling him away. He pulled his hand from mine, and I felt my fingers go cold despite the warmth of the chapel.

It was like watching a door close, seeing him already mentally leaving, even though his body hadn't moved yet. "What is it?" Miles asked, his voice tight with worry that should have been reserved for our wedding vows. "It's Miss Valeria, sir." The assistant's eyes darted to me briefly, apologetically, before returning to Miles. "She's packed her bags and is heading to the airport.

She's... she's distraught, sir. She says she can't bear to watch you get married. She's talking about leaving the country permanently. She's saying she has nothing left here if you abandon her." Abandon her. As if getting married was an act of betrayal.

My hand shot out and grabbed Miles's wrist before he could take another step. My grip was tight enough that my knuckles turned white, tight enough that I could feel his pulse racing under my fingers. "Don't," I said, my voice low and shaking with barely controlled fury. "Don't you dare leave me here again." Miles turned to me, and for a moment—just a fleeting, heartbreaking moment—I thought I saw genuine anguish in his eyes. Real conflict. Real pain. But I'd learned the hard way that with Miles Morretti, pain didn't equal action. It didn't equal choosing me. "Lila, I'm sorry," he said, already pulling away, already choosing. "I have to—" "If you leave," I interrupted, my voice rising despite myself, despite the two hundred people watching, despite my mother's gasp from the front row, "I will never forgive you. Do you understand me? Never. This is it, Miles. This is your last chance."

He looked at me with those pleading brown eyes I'd once found so irresistible. Now they just looked weak. "Valeria has no one else, Lila. You know that. Our parents died six years ago. It's been just the two of us since then. I'm all she has. She's alone in this world except for me. I have to look after her.

I promised my father before he died that I'd take care of her." "What about me?" The words came out as barely a whisper, but they echoed in my head like a scream. "What about the promises you made to me? What about us?" Miles touched my face with his free hand, and I hated—absolutely hated—how my body still responded to that familiar gesture.

How some traitorous part of me still melted at his touch despite everything. "You should be more magnanimous, Lila. You have to understand—Valeria is going to be your sister-in-law. Family.

You should care about her, too. I'll make this up to you, I promise. We'll have a bigger wedding. A better one. Whatever you want. I'll make sure Valeria apologizes for all the trouble she's caused. But right now, in this moment, I have to go to her. She needs me." And she always would.

That was the problem I'd been too blind to see. And then he was gone. Just like that. Walking down the aisle away from me, his dress shoes clicking against the marble with each step that took him further from our future and closer to Valeria's manufactured crisis. Leaving me standing there in front of everyone—our families, our friends, our colleagues, the minister who'd spent weeks preparing our ceremony. I could hear the whispers starting immediately, like a wave washing over the pews, growing louder with each passing second.

"Poor thing."

"Can you believe this?"

"Third time—that's not normal."

"He'll never marry her. That sister has him completely manipulated."

"She should have left him after the second time."

"Why does she keep trying?"

Something inside me cracked. It was broken—it had been breaking for years, fracture by fracture, disappointment by disappointment.

This was the final crack, the one that split everything apart and let the light in. The one that made me finally see what everyone else had apparently seen all along. I was never going to be enough for Miles Morretti. Because in his world, I wasn't competing with another woman for his affection. I was competing with his guilt, his misplaced sense of duty, his need to be needed by someone who weaponized that need against him at every opportunity. And I was tired. God, I was so tired of fighting a battle I could never win.