All Chapters of The Replacement Wife : Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

I've always been the spare daughter, but I never thought they'd actually use me as a replacement part.The wedding dress hangs on my closet door like a ghost. White silk, imported lace, probably worth more than everything I own combined. I didn't put it there. I wouldn't touch Felicity's things even if someone paid me."Iris!" Mother's voice cuts through the brownstone like a knife through butter. "Iris, get in here. Now."Seventeen steps from my bedroom to Felicity's. I count them without meaning to, the way I count everything. Numbers make sense. Numbers don't lie or disappear two hours before their own wedding.Felicity's room looks like a hurricane hit a department store. Makeup scattered across her vanity, shoes everywhere, her actual wedding dress crumpled on the floor. The window's wide open, curtains billowing in the October wind.Mother stands in the center of the chaos, still in her dressing gown, a champagne flute dangling from her fingers. Eleanor Hartley doesn't do panic.

The Laurent Estate looks like it's made of moonlight and glass.We drive for two hours in silence. Dominic spends most of it on his phone, typing emails with his jaw clenched. I watch the city lights fade into darkness, then reappear as we hit the Hamptons coastline.The house sits on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflect the stars. Everything is sharp angles and clean lines, more museum than home.A woman in her fifties meets us at the door. She has kind eyes and gray hair pulled into a neat bun."Mrs. Chen," Dominic says. "This is my wife."The word sounds foreign in his mouth. Wrong."Welcome, Mrs. Laurent." Mrs. Chen's smile is warm. "I've prepared the master suite and the guest room next door."My stomach twists. Guest room?Dominic catches my expression. "I thought you'd prefer your own space. At least initially.""Oh." Relief floods through me, followed by something else. Something that feels uncomfortably like disappointment. "Thank you."He nods once

The numbers make sense in a way nothing else does.I've been in the library for eight hours straight. Papers cover every surface. My notebook is filled with calculations, arrows connecting one idea to another. Coffee rings stain the margins where I've set my mug down without thinking.The Pacific division keeps bleeding money, and for seven hours I couldn't figure out why. Revenue is steady. Labor costs are normal. But something's draining capital like a wound that won't close.Then I see it in the shipping manifests.They're routing everything through Singapore. Every single container from their Taiwan factory goes to Singapore first, then to Los Angeles. It adds three days and forty thousand dollars per shipment. But there's a direct route. Taiwan to LA, straight shot across the Pacific. Half the cost, half the time.I grab my pen and start calculating. Twelve shipments per month. Forty thousand per shipment. That's almost six million dollars a year in unnecessary costs. Just on shi