THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDE

Three years passed that way, slow and quiet.

I learned to trust Julian, piece by piece — through the evenings he spent listening to me talk about the charity work I’d started building, through the way he always stood by me whenever New York’s high society made snide remarks about the “substitute bride.”

“You’re not a substitute bride,” he told me once at a party, when a woman deliberately brought up Sophie in front of me.

“You’re my wife.

That’s all there is to it.”

I remember one winter night, standing on the estate’s rooftop terrace, watching snow fall over Central Park.

Julian took my hand, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it.

“I know this marriage was never something you chose.

But I’m glad it ended up being you.”

I rested my head on his shoulder, feeling for the first time in my life that I was loved for who I was — not out of duty, not because I was always the one who was “strong enough to handle it.”

I loved Julian Cross.

Genuinely, slowly, and completely.