Chapter 1

My boyfriend publicly announced his relationship with my stepsister, and I immediately decided to break up with him.

However, in order to control the trust fund, I had to enter into a contractual marriage with someone.

But I never imagined that my marriage partner would be impersonated.

The billionaire's long-hidden crush.

Someone asked me why Alexander Sterling was ultimately able to stand by my side.

He said, "Because I both fight and rob."

Chapter 1

Clara's POV:

Just twenty-four hours ago, my life was a carefully constructed illusion.

Until Twitter, Instagram, and Apple News blew up. And right at the top was the glaring red banner of Page Six.

Tech billionaire Liam Thorne takes romance with Chloe Mercer public.

Tapping the screen, the photo that loaded made my stomach churn with nausea. Liam's hand was draped possessively and intimately around the waist of a woman wearing a shimmering silver Givenchy gown.

Chloe Mercer. My stepsister.

I zoomed in. Liam was smiling. It was a genuine, radiant smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes-a smile he hadn't given me in over a year.

I read the caption beneath the photo: After the Givenchy after-party, Thorne called the heiress his "longtime muse" and "soulmate."

Muse. Soulmate.

I wasn't his girlfriend. The realization hit me like a physical slap to the face, a bolt from the blue.

I had spent two years putting my own career as an architect on hold to manage his life, his schedule, his diet, and even his temper.

Turns out, in his eyes, I was just a placeholder. The warm body in his bed when he was lonely. I had been nothing more than a glorified assistant until a woman with a better pedigree came along.

I threw off the covers and paced the cold marble floor, wrapping my arms around myself, fighting to maintain my composure as I teetered on the edge of a breakdown.

Ding. A text banner dropped down from the top of my screen.

Liam: Flight lands at 6. Connecting to LA for a server room crisis. Back in NY Thursday. Have the quarterly reports on my desk.

No explanation, no apology, and certainly no "we need to talk." Just cold, hard commands.

To him, I was just an appliance. A coffee maker that provided sex.

I was mad enough to go crazy, but the sudden realization hit me: being penniless meant releasing my anger was a luxury I couldn't afford.

Just then, my phone rang.

A single word flashed on the caller ID: Beatrice.

I closed my eyes, took a deep, heavy breath, and answered, "Hello."

"I told you so," Beatrice Vance-Mercer's voice came through the line, shrill and triumphant. "I told you, without a dowry, he would never marry you."

I gripped my phone so tightly my knuckles turned white. "I don't want to hear this right now."

"You need to listen to me," my mother snapped. "You wasted two years playing house with that tech boy, and look at you now! Completely humiliated on the front page of every tabloid in New York. The Mercer-Henderson merger needs a bride to close the deal. You need to come home. I've already arranged dinner with Arthur Henderson."

A wave of nausea rose in my throat.

Arthur Henderson was sixty-two. His laugh sounded like a wet cough, and his hands always lingered a little too long on the waists of young women.

"I am not marrying for your business," I said. "I am not a bargaining chip you can use to cover your husband's bad investments."

"Then you get nothing," Beatrice threatened, her tone dripping with malice. "The trust fund stays frozen. Clara, your father's will is crystal clear. You only gain control of those assets once you marry. Until then, I am the executor. I'm telling you, you will get nothing."

I froze.

The trust fund. My father's legacy. It was the only thing that could buy my way out of this suffocating life. It was enough money to start my own architecture firm, buy a home, and never have to answer to the likes of Thorne or Mercer ever again.

"That clause," I whispered. "It only says marriage. It doesn't specify with whom. It just says 'legal marriage'. That's it."

"You wouldn't dare," Beatrice hissed.

"I'm getting married," I said, my voice turning to ice, "but I'm not marrying Henderson." With that, I hung up.

I tossed my phone into the center of the king-sized bed and slowly walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I desperately needed a husband.

I needed someone who wouldn't ask questions, someone whose life was as messy as mine, someone who needed a transactional relationship just as badly as I did.

I walked back to the bed and opened my silver laptop. My fingers flew across the keyboard, my mind racing through the roster of outcasts in New York high society.

Julian Hayes.

The name had been circulating in the Upper East Side underground gossip circles for months. Julian was a notorious playboy who had been disowned by half his family.

Rumor had it his trust fund managers threatened to cut him off entirely unless he could find a wife to anchor his volatile public image.

I opened an encrypted email and contacted a law firm that specialized in "sensitive reputation management" for the ultra-rich.

My heart was pounding like a trapped bird against my ribs, but my hands were completely steady.

Request: Urgent contract negotiation. Client: Clara Vance.

I hit send.

I stared at my reflection in the window glass. My auburn hair was a mess, my eyes were red, but my jaw was set like granite.

"No more placeholders," I whispered to the empty room. "Never again."