Chapter 1

The night I found out I was pregnant, Jeffrey called me.

"My dear wife, do you want to come catch us in the act?"

I was still in a daze, thinking I was dreaming, when he sent his location straight to my phone.

Along with it came a photo—a girl, her cheeks still flushed pink.

"The truth is, she's the one I was supposed to marry, and now she's back..."

I stared at the face that looked seventy percent like mine, my voice trembling. "So I've just been her stand-in this whole time?"

A soft laugh came from the other end. "She only looks like you. In bed she's nowhere near as good as you—she doesn't even count as a stand-in."

After a long moment, I finally choked out, "Then why did you insist on marrying me back then?"

Jeffrey was silent for two seconds. "Come see for yourself and you'll know."

------

I took a taxi to the location he'd sent, and from a distance I could see Jeffrey's car parked there.

Under the streetlight, June struggled to push out of his arms. "Don't think that just because it happened once, we can go back to the way we were."

"You have no idea what kind of life I've been living abroad all these years. All you cared about was your wife."

Seeing that she was about to leave, Jeffrey pulled her back into his arms and let her keep struggling, kicking him, hitting him.

"Feel better now?"

Jeffrey held her tightly. "Every single moment of these past three years, I thought of you. You were the one cruel enough to never look back."

June's eyes brimmed with tears, and she buried her face against his chest.

"But you've already married someone else. There's no place for me in your heart anymore."

Jeffrey rested his chin on the top of her head and looked in my direction.

"I'll prove to you exactly who's in my heart."

And with that, he pulled June along toward me.

Looking at that face that was seventy percent the same as mine, the tightness in my chest made it hard to breathe.

Only then did I remember why Jeffrey's friends had frozen for a second when he first introduced me to them, before they started teasing.

"Oh, oh, oh~ We get it, we get it!"

So back then, everyone already knew I was just a stand-in. I was the only joke.

Jeffrey pointed at me. "See her? This is my wife."

The moment June saw me, tears spilled over and she threw herself into his arms.

"Why are you only telling me this now?"

She understood why I had been able to become Jeffrey's wife, and she understood who he truly held in his heart.

But those words had once been my favorite thing to hear.

When we first got together, to make me feel secure, he brought every girl who chased after him right in front of me.

"See her? This is my wife."

Every time I heard it, I was so happy, so proud.

But now, those same words grated painfully.

I stood in the cold wind, tears blurring my eyes.

I used to ask Jeffrey why he was so good to me, and he could never give me a reason.

I just assumed he was clumsy with words and didn't know how to sweet-talk.

But now it seemed that all those moments when I thought he loved me maybe weren't about me at all.

Jeffrey held June and gently soothed her, but his eyes watched me with an unreadable look.

"It's not too late to tell you now."

In that instant, I suddenly understood why he'd called me out here in the dead of night.

I gently stroked my belly. Baby, it seems like Daddy really doesn't love Mommy.