Chapter 1 The Vow She Stole

Liana Hart had never worn anything so expensive.

The gown-pearled, heavy, suffocating-fit her like a cage stitched in silk.

It belonged to her sister.

Everything did.

The veil.

The diamond necklace.

The billionaire groom waiting at the end of the aisle.

All of it was Leona's.

And now... Liana's.

By mistake.

By force.

By blood.

She stared into the mirror, barely recognizing herself. Her hair had been styled to mimic Leona's-sleek, center-parted, elegant. The lipstick was red, because Killian Thorne preferred red.

Everything had been chosen for someone else.

And yet she had to wear it like it was hers.

"You don't have a choice," her father said for the fifth time that hour, adjusting her veil with trembling hands. "This marriage secures the Hart legacy. You do this... or we all go under."

His voice was cracked glass-sharp, urgent, breaking.

He hadn't cried when Leona disappeared. He hadn't screamed. He hadn't searched.

He'd turned to Liana instead, the backup daughter. The shadow.

Because that's all she'd ever been.

Twelve hours earlier...

Liana had been in her studio apartment, eating cereal from a chipped bowl, watching paint dry on her canvas.

She'd been planning to miss the wedding.

Now she was in it.

Leona had vanished.

Her phone had gone dead. Her car left at the salon. No note. No call.

Only a text sent to their father that read:

"I can't do this. Don't call me."

And so, with two hours until the ceremony, the Hart family crisis turned into a command.

"You have the same face. The same voice. No one will know. Just wear the dress and sign the papers."

Liana had laughed at first.

Then cried.

Then caved.

---

The limousine ride to the cathedral felt like a funeral.

The city blurred past in streaks of champagne gold and ash-gray skies. Liana's stomach churned. Her palms sweated through her gloves.

She was marrying Killian Thorne.

The man her sister claimed to hate.

She'd only met him once at a formal family brunch. Tall. Sharp. Untouchable. He hadn't spoken more than five words to her, and yet his silence had filled the room.

A man like that didn't love.

He acquired.

And now, thanks to a forged identity and a desperate father, he was acquiring the wrong twin.

The cathedral was a palace of wealth-gothic arches, golden chandeliers, flowers flown in from Ecuador. Guests filled the pews in diamonds and suspicion, all oblivious to the switch under the veil.

At the altar, Killian stood like he was carved from smoke and fire.

Black suit. Dark hair. Ice-blue eyes.

No emotion. No warmth.

Just control.

Liana walked toward him as the music swelled. Her legs felt like glass. Her hands trembled.

He didn't blink as she approached.

Didn't speak as the priest read the vows.

Didn't flinch as she whispered "I do" with a voice that wasn't hers.

Only when the ink dried on the marriage certificate-when she'd signed Leona Hart-did his lips curl into something like approval.

Or victory.

They didn't dance.

They didn't kiss.

By the time the reception started, Killian had already left.

His assistant came to escort her out quietly.

"You'll join him at the Thorne estate," the woman said. "There will be no interviews, no media statements, and no sudden disappearances. Your husband values privacy."

My husband.

The words tasted foreign.

---

The estate was as cold as the man himself.

A fortress of glass and steel on a mountain cliff, hidden from the city, guarded like a vault. Liana stepped inside and felt swallowed by shadows.

No welcome.

No warmth.

Just marble floors and silence.

A note waited on the foyer table in Killian's handwriting:

"The guest room on the east wing is yours.

There are house rules in the folder.

Don't embarrass me."

No kiss.

No explanation.

Only rules.

She lay in the unfamiliar bed that night, staring at the ceiling as the wind howled against the glass walls. Her wedding dress had been packed away. Her veil folded. Her heart scattered across miles of bad decisions.

He doesn't know who I am.

And if he ever found out?

He'd never forgive her.

But Liana had made her choice. She couldn't undo it now.

The marriage was real.

The papers were signed.

And the secret was hers alone.

---

At sunrise, she looked out at the snowy cliffs from the penthouse balcony, her reflection ghosting back at her in the glass.

Leona had run.

Liana had stayed.

And now she was married to a man who didn't love her.

A man who didn't even know her name.