Chapter 1 On my wedding night, I hid under the bed in our bridal suite to prank my groom. Instead, I heard his mother on speakerphone with his mistress.
On my wedding night, I hid under the bed in our bridal suite to prank my groom. Instead, I heard his mother on speakerphone with his mistress. "Liam will fake bruises and play the victim to lock her in an asylum," she smirked. "We'll forge paperwork to claim her townhouse as our money." My blood froze. They thought they had trapped a poor, helpless office assistant. They had no idea my real family name and the device I had hid it under my wedding gown...
Dust drifted under the bed and made my nose burn.
I, Chloe, thirty years old and freshly married, was lying across the carpet of an expensive bridal suite inside a downtown Chicago hotel. My wedding gown was pinned beneath my body, its soft lace tangled around the leg of the nightstand.
It was supposed to be a funny newlywed surprise.
Liam had gone downstairs to say goodbye to a few remaining guests, and I wanted to startle him when he returned. I imagined him walking into the suite, calling my name sweetly, then laughing hard when I suddenly crawled out.
For two years, he had said my laughter was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.
Only two hours earlier, standing before one hundred and fifty guests, he had promised to love me forever.
So when I heard the suite door open, I smiled quietly to myself.
Then I realized the footsteps did not belong to him.
They were the sharp steps of heels.
Click. Click. Click.
From beneath the bed, I could see a pair of silver shoes crossing the room.
I knew them at once.
Victoria.
My mother-in-law.
“Mia, I’m already in the suite,” she said, tossing her phone onto the mattress and switching the call to speaker. “Liam is still downstairs. That foolish girl is probably in the bathroom washing off her cheap makeup.”
Her words struck my chest like a blow.
Only a few hours before, she had hugged me tightly and called me her daughter.
“So everything happened the way we planned?” a woman’s voice asked through the speaker.
“Of course. The marriage certificate is signed. The ring is on her finger. And that townhouse will be ours soon enough.”
My whole body stiffened.
The townhouse?
A few weeks before the wedding, Liam and I had bought a gorgeous home in Oakwood Hills. Tall windows looked out over the city. It had a beautiful terrace, several bedrooms, and enough room for the future I had imagined building.
I had paid every dollar myself.
He did not know that.
“What if she leaves him?” the caller asked.
Victoria gave a dismissive laugh.
“She won’t even understand what hit her. Liam will slowly make everyone believe she’s unstable. He'll break things, fake bruises, play the victim. In the end, they'll lock her in a psychiatric ward, and we’ll keep the townhouse.”
My stomach clenched.
Everything I had believed about my marriage started to collapse.
“Besides,” Victoria continued, “Liam already has paperwork showing the money passed through his account. We’ll say it was a family loan. She won’t have the money to fight us in court.”
I shut my eyes.
If she had known who I truly was, she never would have sounded so sure.
Liam believed I was just a regular office assistant with no connections. He had no idea about my real family, or the massive empire my father had built.
My late mother had always warned me never to let money decide who loved me. So I concealed who I was. I lived simply. Drove an old car. Worked an ordinary office job. I wanted someone to choose me for my heart, not for my family’s fortune.
Then Liam came into my life.
He seemed genuine.
He brought me flowers from local markets. Ate late-night street food with me. Talked about wanting a peaceful life, a loving marriage, and Sunday dinners with family.
I trusted him with everything.
But as I lay there in the dark, listening to them plot my destruction, the woman who had loved him died.
And the woman they thought they could easily destroy was about to become their worst nightmare...
