THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDE

The year I turned twenty-five, my parents announced that Sophie was engaged to Julian Cross — the only son of Eleanor Cross, who now ran the Cross Group after her husband’s death.

It was an arranged marriage between the two families, settled years earlier, back when Cross Corporation decided to bail out Bennett Textiles in exchange for a lasting alliance.

I had never met Julian Cross in person — I only knew him from photos in business magazines, always standing alone at the edge of the frame, cold-eyed, never smiling.

New York’s elite traded endless rumors about him: a volatile temper, once firing an assistant in front of the entire board over a minor mistake, even a rumor that he’d broken an old classmate’s bones at a private party.

No one knew what was true, but the stories kept spreading, until all of New York started calling him “Wall Street’s coldest, most dangerous heir.”

The news broke at dinner that same night.

The moment she heard it, Sophie shot up from her chair and screamed across the dining room: “I am NOT marrying that man!

Are you seriously handing me over to some abuser just to save Dad’s company?”

She sobbed, slammed her hand on the table, flung her napkin into her untouched plate, and stormed upstairs, slamming her door behind her.

My parents scrambled after her, knocking, pleading: “Sophie, sweetheart, let us explain,” “Please don’t do this, it’s going to give your mother a heart attack.”

Not one of them so much as glanced at me.

I just sat there at the table, my plate going cold in front of me, as invisible as a shadow in my own home, not worth a single thought about what I might be feeling.