All Chapters of MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE : Chapter 31 - Chapter 39

Alice’s POVThe courtroom felt colder than usual maybe it was the marble floors, or maybe it was just the silence. That kind of stillness that presses into your ears until your own heartbeat becomes the loudest thing in the room. I sat with my hands clasped in my lap, palms sweating through the thin fabric of my dress. Across the aisle, Clara looked polished and smug. She always did. Her lawyer sat beside her, whispering something that made her lift her chin just slightly higher.Reeves leaned toward me, his tone low. “No matter what happens, remember—you’ve already won. You showed up. You fought.”I nodded. It wasn’t enough. Not yet.My eyes scanned the bench until they landed on Mera—safe in the back, coloring quietly under the watchful eye of a staff member. She didn’t understand what this meant. Not fully and maybe that was for the best but Aaron did.He sat beside Clara, head lowered, hands folded in his lap, almost too still for a child. He hadn’t looked at me since we entered t

Alice’s POVI didn’t let go of Aaron’s hand until we were inside the car.Even then, my fingers stayed close, hovering in case he changed his mind.The courtroom had emptied slowly, like air leaving a balloon. One by one they left — Reeves nodding with that careful pride, Ryan watching us from across the aisle, Clara storming out like someone had stolen her crown and Victoria… well, she hadn’t said a word. Just that look. That silent venom that promised this wasn’t over but this time, I didn’t shrink. I didn’t flinch because Aaron chose to walk out with me.Mera was waiting in the backseat when we got to the car. She sat with her bunny in her lap, her legs swinging slightly like she couldn’t decide if she was nervous or excited.When she saw Aaron, her whole face lit up. “You came!”He gave the smallest nod.She shifted her bunny toward him, like an offering. “Want to hold her for a bit?”Aaron hesitated. His hands twitched in his lap, unsure but then, almost shyly, he reached out. “O

Ryan’s POV I hadn’t gone back to the estate after the hearing. I drove for hours instead. No music, no destination just the steady hum of tires on the road and the kind of silence that felt like punishment. Everything felt too loud the moment I stepped out of the courtroom. Clara’s sobbing, Victoria’s icy rage, the reporters shouting my name like it meant something. None of it made sense anymore and maybe that was the part that scared me the most—how easy it had become to stand in the middle of all their lies and just… exist there. Like it was normal, like it was fine but it wasn’t. It had never been fine. I pulled over eventually, parked under a crooked streetlight, and sat there with my hands clenched around the steering wheel. I couldn’t stop seeing Alice. The way her face had stayed steady when the judge read the verdict. Not triumphant. Not smug. Just… steady. Like she had built her backbone from every scar we’d left on her. God, I’d let them ruin her. I let them ruin my

Clara’s POV I’ve been waking up to silence. No Aaron humming in the next room, no familiar weight of someone moving around the apartment. Just me, and the long, flat quiet that stretched like a wound. I sat up slowly, the blanket slipping off my shoulders. The ache in my spine wasn’t from sleep. It was from the way I’d curled around myself last night, trying to make something out of nothing. Trying to feel less hollow. My hands drifted to my stomach. Still flat, still pretending. No bump, no heartbeat echoing inside me but I held the lie close like it could still save me, if I held it tightly enough, it would become true. Maybe it wasn’t even about Ryan anymore, maybe it never really was. Maybe it was about not being the one left behind, not being the one discarded again. Because that’s what Alice had done. She came back, and the whole world tilted toward her. Aaron, who used to cling to me after every nightmare, now looked at me with doubt behind his lashes. Ryan, who had o