THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDE

Julian came home a full day earlier than planned.

He walked into the estate, found no sign of me, only Sophie sitting in the living room, wearing a dress in the exact shade I usually favored, attempting small talk with him in a sickly-sweet tone that didn’t quite land.

“What are you doing in my house?” he asked, his voice so cold that Sophie later told my mother she “couldn’t even breathe.”

“Claire’s visiting Grandma, I…

I just came by to look after your mother,” Sophie stammered.

Julian didn’t believe a word of it.

He called me — no answer.

He called my parents — no answer.

Within two hours, using the Cross Group’s private security team, he’d tracked down the house in New Jersey.

When that door finally swung open, I had never seen Julian so furious.

He pulled me into his arms, his hands shaking — not from cold, but from a rage pushed to its absolute limit.

He went straight to my parents’ house afterward, standing in the middle of their living room, his voice low and measured — the kind of tone far more frightening than any shout.

“Did you really think you could hide my wife away like some object, and slot someone else into her place, and I simply wouldn’t notice?”

“We only wanted—” my father started.

“I don’t care what you wanted,” Julian cut him off.

“From this day forward, if a single hair on Claire’s head is harmed because of this family, I will make sure Bennett Textiles doesn’t exist a month from now.”