Chapter 2

The banquet hall erupted into a frenzy of whispers.

The man I pointed at froze. Then, a low chuckle escaped his lips as the other four men quickly backed away.

"Miss Vance, I am definitely not Tristan."

I lowered my gaze, digging my fingernails deep into my palms.

"I know..."

"But can you help me play along? I will pay you. Once this is over, if you want a divorce, I will agree immediately."

The man stared at me for a long beat. Then, he pulled a sleek diamond ring from his pocket and slowly, deliberately, slid it onto my ring finger.

"Deal," he whispered.

He leaned down, his voice brushing against my ear. "But as for the payment... I'll decide the price later."

A strange, inexplicably familiar scent drifted from him, but my mind was too chaotic to place it.

"The wedding will be in seven days. I'll pick you up then."

I blinked in surprise, but nodded anyway.

After all, the sooner this nightmare ended, the better.

By the time I managed to escape the prying questions of the guests, night had fallen.

I returned to the penthouse I shared with Tristan. As expected, it was dead silent.

He hadn't come home.

I let out a long sigh, massaging my aching legs, and collapsed onto the sofa.

I figured I should at least let him know.

In seven days, I was getting married too.

I unlocked my phone. Tristan hadn't replied to a single one of my Snapchats.

With trembling fingers, I opened Instagram.

A bright red marriage certificate flashed on my screen, burning my eyes.

Sienna had posted it.

"My days are numbered, but at least I get to stand by his side as his wife at the very end. No regrets."

In the photo, Tristan was smiling so gently, his eyes crinkled with warmth, though the rims were slightly red, as if he had just cried.

The screen went dark, then lit up again.

No matter how much I wanted to deny it, it was real. Sienna—my once best friend who had fled to Europe three years ago after her family went bankrupt—was now Tristan's wife.

Suddenly, a loud, frantic knocking rattled the front door.

I quickly grabbed a tissue, wiped my tears, and dragged my exhausted body to open it.

Tristan stood on the threshold. Rainwater was dripping from his hair, but his arms were wrapped tightly around someone else.

"Chloe! There are bags in the trunk. Hurry up and bring them up for me!"

Before I could even speak, Tristan pushed past me, carrying Sienna up the stairs toward the master bedroom.

By the time I dragged the last heavy suitcase inside, I was soaked to the bone and shivering violently from the cold.

"Chloe, thank you so much for bringing our bags up. You must be freezing."

I snapped my head up. A sickeningly sweet scent of expensive perfume hit my nose.

Sienna's face was painted pale, but her makeup was flawless. Not a single strand of her hair was wet.

She held out a warm mug of cocoa toward me.

"Drink this quickly. We don't want you catching a cold."

Tristan frowned, immediately guiding Sienna to sit on the sofa.

"Don't worry about her. A little rain won't kill her. Sit down, Sienna. I'll make you some porridge in a minute."

My hand trembled, spilling some of the hot cocoa onto my skin. It burned, leaving a bright red mark on my wrist.

Did I have to be dying to deserve his concern? Or was I just not worth it to him?

"Chloe, there's something I need to tell you," Tristan said, holding Sienna as if she were a fragile glass doll that would shatter at any moment.

"Sienna has terminal cancer."

"For the short time she has left, we are going to take care of her."

I stood frozen, holding the mug like a statue.

"When... when did you get diagnosed?"

My voice was so hoarse I barely recognized it.

Sienna coughed weakly into a tissue.

"Just this month. It was detected very late."

"I wasn't going to tell you. I didn't want to ruin your engagement party."

"But the pain became too much, and I didn't have anyone else to turn to in Europe. So I called Tristan. I didn't expect him to fly over and drop everything. Chloe, you aren't mad, are you?"

Watching Sienna lean weakly against Tristan's chest felt completely surreal.

When we were sixteen, Sienna was the one who encouraged me to chase Tristan. She helped me lose weight, taught me how to do my makeup, and planned "accidental" run-ins for us.

And now, in less than twenty-four hours, she had married him behind my back, leaving me to be ridiculed at my own engagement party.

Tristan let out a cold snort.

"Mad? What right does she have to be mad?"

"She couldn't even recognize her own fiancé at the party. Does a woman like that even have the right to get angry?"

The memory of the humiliation from this morning flashed in my mind, making my knuckles turn white.

"So... you two got married?"