"You have one job. Walk. Stand. Nod. If Ethan Vance finds out you are the defective one, he will ruin us all. He will pull the fifty million and we will lose the house. Do you hear me? If you open your mouth, I will lock you back in that attic and you will never come out."
Seraphina's shoulder burned. Under the strapless white dress, under the heavy veil, the scar was pulsing. The ugly, twisted burn mark on her right shoulder, from her collarbone to the blade. The mark her mother gave her when she was six years old with a hot iron because she spilled tea on Sienna's birthday dress. The mark that made her family call her defective. The mark that made them hide her for twenty-two years.
Outside, the crowd was screaming.
"Sienna! Sienna Vale! We love you!"
They were screaming for her twin. The perfect twin. Sienna Vale, glamorous, with perfect skin, perfect hair, the darling of Manhattan's high society, engaged to the most powerful man in the city.
Inside the dress was Seraphina, the twin no one knew existed. The one kept in the small attic room on the third floor of the Vale house. The one only allowed out after midnight to clean the kitchen. The one who had never been to a party, never had a boyfriend, never been kissed.
"Sienna ran away this morning," her father had said at 6 a.m., pacing, sweating. "She left a note. She ran away with Leo. Her artist boyfriend. She said she would not marry a monster."
The monster was Ethan Vance.
Seraphina had only seen his picture in the newspapers her mother left outside her attic door. Ethan Vance, 31, CEO of Vance Group. Owner of hotels, airlines, tech companies. 6'2, black hair, grey eyes like a winter storm. They said he put his own uncle in jail for stealing. They said he fired a whole boardroom with one sentence. They said he never smiled.
And Sienna, who had everything, had called him a monster and run.
"So you will go," her mother had said, throwing the wedding dress at her. It was Sienna's dress. Ten thousand dollars. Strapless, tight. It showed the scar. "We will cover it with the veil. We will cover everything. You look exactly like her. He will not know until after the papers are signed. After the money is transferred."
"I can't," Seraphina whispered.
"You can. And you will. Or I will send you to the mental asylum in Queens and tell them you are crazy."
So now she was here. The organ music started. The massive cathedral doors, twenty feet tall, made of oak, opened.
Cold air hit her veil.
And at the end of the long, long aisle, covered in white roses, stood Ethan Vance.
He wasn't looking at the doors. He was looking at his phone. Tall, broad, in a black tuxedo that looked like it was made for him. Black hair combed back. One hand in his pocket. He looked bored. Like he was at a business meeting, not his own wedding.
Behind him, two hundred of New York's richest people stood up. Cameras flashed. This was the wedding of the year. The Vale-Vance merger wedding. Worth fifty million dollars.
"Walk," her mother pushed her.
Seraphina walked.
Every step, her cheap white heels wobbled. The dress was too big on her chest, too tight on her waist. Sienna was taller, more curvy. Seraphina was small, fragile. She had to hold the heavy bouquet so tight her knuckles were white.
Step. Step. Step.
She could hear her own breathing inside the veil. Loud, panicked.
Ethan finally looked up.
His grey eyes locked on her through the veil.
Even from fifty feet away, even through three layers of lace, she felt it. Like ice water. He didn't smile. He didn't soften. He just watched her walk, his eyes narrowing, slowly.
He knew. A voice in her head screamed, he knows.
She reached the altar. Her father, who had refused to walk her because "you are not Sienna," was not there. She stood alone.
Ethan stepped forward and took her hand.
His hand was ice cold. And huge. It swallowed hers completely. His grip was hard, not gentle. Possessive.
"You are late, Sienna," he murmured, so low only she could hear under the veil. His voice was deep, smooth, but cold. Dangerous. "I was starting to think your lover's car broke down."
Seraphina's whole body froze. Her blood turned to ice.
He knew about Leo. He knew Sienna ran away.
The priest started speaking. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here..."
Seraphina couldn't hear him. Her ears were ringing. Ethan's thumb was rubbing over her wrist, over her pulse, feeling how fast it was beating. Fast like a trapped bird.
"You are trembling," he whispered again, his lips almost brushing the lace of her veil. To the crowd, it looked like a loving groom whispering to his bride. To Seraphina, it was a threat. "Are you that excited to finally marry me? Or are you scared that I already know?"
Tears filled her eyes behind the veil.
The priest said, "Ethan Vance, do you take Sienna Vale to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold..."
"I do," Ethan said. Instantly. No pause. His voice echoed in the cathedral. Cold, clear, final. He did not look at the priest. He was still looking at her veil. At her.
"Sienna Vale, do you take Ethan Vance..."
Seraphina couldn't speak. Her mother said nod. Just nod.
She nodded. The veil shook.
"If anyone objects, speak now or forever hold your peace..."
Silence.
"You may now kiss the bride."
This was the moment. In all weddings, the groom lifts the veil.
Ethan did not lift it.
Instead, he leaned in, as if to kiss her through the veil, and whispered directly against the lace, against her cheek, "You are not Sienna."
Seraphina gasped so loud the microphone caught it.
Ethan smiled for the first time. It was not a kind smile. It was a cruel, knowing smile.
He took her wrist, hard like a handcuff, and pulled her. He didn't walk her down the aisle. He dragged her. Past the shocked faces, past her mother who had gone white, past the flashing cameras that went crazy.
Outside the cathedral, the New York press was screaming, "Mr. and Mrs. Vance! Look here!"
Ethan didn't stop. He pulled her down the marble steps and opened the back door of his black Rolls Royce Phantom himself and shoved her inside. He got in after her and slammed the door.
"Drive," he told the driver. The doors locked with a heavy, final CLICK.
The car pulled away from the church.
Seraphina was shaking so hard she thought she would die.
"Take it off," he ordered. He was not looking at her. He was looking out the window, his jaw tight, angry.
"P-please..."
"I said, TAKE IT OFF."
With shaking fingers, Seraphina ripped at the heavy veil. The pins pulled her hair. It tore. She pulled it off and threw it to the floor of the car.
Silence.
The car was silent except for her ragged breathing.
Ethan Vance slowly turned his head and stared at her.
Up close, he was even more beautiful and more terrifying. Grey eyes, long lashes, sharp cheekbones. But his eyes were not grey now. They were dark, stormy.
He was staring at her face. A face identical to Sienna's. Same big brown eyes, same small nose, same full lips. But everything else was different. Sienna's eyes were always calculating, hard. Seraphina's eyes were red, filled with tears, innocent, terrified. Sienna had perfect makeup. Seraphina had no makeup, pale skin, a small cut on her lip where she had bitten it.
"Who are you?" he asked softly. Too softly.
"S-Sera... Seraphina... Sienna's sister..."
"The one they hide in the attic?" he asked. He knew. "The scarred one?"
Tears spilled down her cheeks. "Please, I didn't want to lie, they forced me, they said they would put me in an asylum, please don't hurt me, please don't-"
Ethan moved so fast she didn't see it.
One hand slammed against the leather door behind her head, trapping her. He caged her. His body was so close she could smell his cologne, cold and expensive. His other hand tilted her chin up, forcing her to look at him.
His eyes dropped. From her face, down to her shoulder, where the strapless dress had slipped, and the ugly, twisted, pink burn scar was visible.
Seraphina tried to cover it. "Don't look, please, it's ugly-"
He grabbed her wrist to stop her.
He didn't look disgusted. His grey eyes darkened with something that looked like pure, cold fury. But not at her.
"Who gave you this?" he whispered. His voice was no longer cold. It was low, dangerous, possessive.
"My... my mother... when I was six..."
"Your mother burned you."
She sobbed and nodded.
His hand, the one caging her, curled into a fist against the car door. The leather creaked.
"They put you in her dress," he said, almost to himself, "and sold you to me like cattle. With this on your skin."
He looked back at her tears. His thumb, rough, wiped a tear away from her cheek. The gesture was almost gentle, which made it more terrifying because he was so cruel.
"Do you know what I do to people who lie to me, little substitute?" he whispered, his face inches from hers.
She shook, crying harder.
"I ruin them," he said. "Your family just made the worst mistake of their lives. They gave me you."
He pulled out his phone and dialed in front of her, his eyes never leaving her.
"Mark," he said to his assistant. "Cancel the fifty million transfer to the Vale Group. Now. Freeze all their accounts. And call my lawyer. I want the child abuse records for Margaret Vale from twenty years ago. Find it."
Seraphina's eyes widened.
Then he looked back at her, trapped in his car, in his wedding dress, tears on her cheeks, scar showing.
"Listen to me, Seraphina," he said, his thumb still on her chin, wiping her tears. "You are not going back to that house. Ever. From tonight, you sleep in my house. You wear my name. You are my wife. Do you understand?"
"But I'm not- I'm not Sienna, the contract-"
"You are now," he cut her off. His voice was absolute. Final. Like a judge. "The world will think you are Sienna. But in my house, you are Seraphina. My wife. And no one touches what is mine. Especially not the family who gave you that scar. Do you understand, little substitute?"
The car was driving fast now, leaving the church far behind, toward the tall, dark glass tower that was Vance Mansion.
Seraphina realized two things at once, her heart beating so loud she thought he could hear it.
One, Ethan Vance knew she was a fake from the first second he saw her walk down the aisle.
Two, he was keeping her anyway.
/1/132270/coverbig.jpg?v=a7e634db943e71aef87aa502d8e0144a)
View More Comments on App
