Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

For seven years of marriage to Tristan Vance, I truly believed I was the happiest woman in the world.

To save his life, I had lost my fertility. Yet he defied his family’s furious objections, kneeling on cold stone for three days and three nights just to marry me.

After the wedding, I took over Vance Group’s corporate tax and intellectual property management, building a hundred-billion-dollar business fortress for him. He, in turn, declared to the world that I would be the only woman he would ever love.

Until I accidentally discovered that he was sending five hundred thousand dollars in child support to another woman every single month.

Not only had that woman borne him a son, but she was also his real, lawful wife.

And the marriage certificate in my hands? It was a complete fake.

Seven years of devotion—all a carefully orchestrated lie.

He weaponized my guilt and love, stealing my youth, my career, and my chance at motherhood.

This time, I’m done playing Mrs. Vance.

I’m going to make him realize that without me, he is nothing.

Scarlett's POV

A December night in New York. Light snow drifted past the floor-to-ceiling glass.

On the top floor of Vance Group’s headquarters, the lights in the legal department were still burning bright. I rubbed the bridge of my aching nose and tapped the final figure into the spreadsheet.

Piles of financial vouchers and patent maintenance statements stacked up beside me, half as tall as a person. It was all Vance Group’s annual tax audit material for the year.

I was the heiress of the Sterling family, and one of the sharpest corporate tax and patent attorneys in the industry.

During my seven years with Tristan, I had handled Vance Group’s most tangled tax restructurings and personally secured and managed over three hundred core patents for the company.

My phone screen lit up with a text from Tristan: *International meeting ran late tonight. Don’t wait up for me. Go to sleep early.*

A small smile touched my lips as I read the words, and I typed back a simple *Okay*.

I picked up the final binder—deductions from Tristan’s personal accounts—to finish archiving. As I turned to the third page, a bank wire receipt slipped out from between the international transfer slips.

I bent down and picked it up.

As a tax attorney, numbers were second nature to me.

It was a recurring wire transfer from a Swiss bank account, sent like clockwork on the fifteenth of every month to someone named Wendy Miller. Half a million dollars per transaction, sent without fail for six straight years.

Under the memo line, a single note was typed: *Child Support*.

My fingers trembled violently. The edge of the paper sliced into my fingertip, leaving a faint crimson sting.

Wendy Miller. Of course I remembered that name.

She had been Tristan’s college classmate. Word was she’d moved abroad six years ago. It turned out she had never left the country at all—or rather, she had never left Tristan’s ledger.

I forced myself to stay calm and sat back down at my desk.

I held full power of attorney and unrestricted access to all of Tristan’s personal assets. He had given me the keys himself when we got married, looking into my eyes and saying, “Scarlett, what’s mine is yours. I will never keep secrets from you.”

And because of that trust, I had never once audited his private accounts in seven years.

I entered the master password and pulled up the directory linked to that Swiss account.

As the encryption keys peeled back layer after layer of security, a hidden folder popped up at the very bottom.

I clicked it open.

Inside were only two scanned documents.

The first was a birth certificate issued by a private New York clinic six years ago. Newborn: Julian Vance. Mother: Wendy Miller. Father: Tristan Vance.

The second was a court-admissible paternity test from five years ago. Complete genetic match. The conclusion read: *Supports Tristan Vance as the biological father of Julian Vance, probability of paternity: 99.9999%.*

Dead silence swallowed the office.

A wave of nausea hit me so hard my stomach churned.

Six years. Tristan and I had been married for seven years, and this child was six. In other words, during the very first year of our marriage, he had conceived a child with Wendy Miller.

Then what was I?

All those years, Tristan’s mother, Evelyn Vance, had pointed her finger in my face, calling me a barren failure who couldn’t carry on their bloodline. Tristan had always pulled me behind his back, defending me fiercely: “Mom, Scarlett is the only one I want. I don’t care about having kids, so stop pushing her.”

I had been so deeply moved back then. Crushed by guilt toward the Vance family, I had thrown myself into their legal and patent wars, wrecking my own health just to cement his position as CEO.

It turned out he didn’t care about having kids because he already had an heir.

I closed my eyes and took a long, shaking breath. I printed both files, shoved them into my purse, and walked out of the building. Instead of heading back to our estate, I drove straight to my premarital apartment in the city center.

From the bottom of my safe, I retrieved the red velvet box containing our marriage certificate. I sat on the couch in the dark, awake the entire night. At nine the next morning, the moment the Manhattan records bureau opened its doors, I stepped inside.

Standing before the clerk at the marriage records window, my voice shook as I slid the certificate and my ID across the counter. “Hi. I need to verify my marriage registration and get a certified copy of our marriage record for cross-border tax filing.”

The clerk took the paperwork, clattered away at her keyboard for a moment, and slowly frowned. She picked up the certificate, glanced back down at her screen, and gave me an odd, unsettling look.

“Ms. Sterling,” she said, her eyes a mix of pity and suspicion, “this certificate is counterfeit. There is no record of your marriage in the state system.”

A high-pitched ringing roared in my ears.

“What? That’s impossible. Seven years ago, on October tenth, we came here together to file the paperwork!”

I couldn’t stop the frantic words from tumbling out of my mouth.

I remembered it so vividly. Tristan had claimed he pulled strings for a VIP room, told me to wait in the private lounge, and returned thirty minutes later holding the stamped certificate.

The clerk sighed softly, turned the monitor slightly toward me, and pointed at the registry file. “Ms. Sterling, forging public records is a crime. And according to our records, Mr. Tristan Vance is indeed legally married, but his spouse isn't you.”

I followed her finger to the screen. Right next to Tristan’s headshot, the spouse details were clearly listed. Name: Wendy Miller. Date of Marriage: May twentieth, six years ago.

Status: *Active.*

A laugh tore from my throat.

Even our marriage was a lie.

The seven years of devoted, fairytale romance I believed in didn't even make me a legal mistress in the eyes of the law.

Wendy Miller was the real Mrs. Vance. Meanwhile, I had worn the title like a gilded collar, slaving away as an unpaid workhorse for another woman’s husband and their family fortune for seven whole years.

“Ms. Sterling? Are you alright?” The clerk leaned forward, worried by how pale I had turned.

I didn't answer. Like a robot, I took back my ID and the forged certificate, turned around, and walked out.

A blast of freezing wind lashed icy snowflakes against my face, stinging my cheeks. Walking down the stone steps, my knees suddenly gave out, and I collapsed onto the freezing steps.

Couples holding hands brushed past me, their laughter drifting through the air.

Head down, staring at the useless piece of paper in my trembling hands, my tears finally broke, bleeding dark wet circles into the counterfeit document.