My husband treated me as a stand-in; I remarried a medical tycoon

The white dress still fit like it did three years ago.

I turned in front of the mirror and smoothed the silk over my hips. Aaron always said white made me look like "something untouched." I used to blush every time.

My phone buzzed on the vanity. His name lit the screen.

"Hey, you," I answered, smiling before I meant to. "I'm almost ready. Seven o'clock, right? I booked our table at Daniel."

"Kassia." His voice was flat. "I need to cancel."

The smile froze on my face. "Cancel?"

"A client flew in early. It's important."

"Aaron, it's our anniversary. Three years." I pressed the phone tighter to my ear. "I have something to tell you. I booked us a trip. Santorini. The honeymoon we never took."

Silence. Then papers rustled on his end.

"We'll talk about it later."

"Can't the client wait one night? You turned down a forty-million-dollar deal when I had pneumonia. You sat by my bed for three days."

"That was different."

"How?"

"Don't wait up," he said, and the line went dead.

I stared at my reflection. The woman in the white dress looked foolish now. Overdressed for an empty house.

My mother called me Kassia Wellington, only daughter of the Wellington family, the girl who would marry for the company and smile for the cameras. I had done exactly that. I married Aaron for a merger.

But then he learned how I took my coffee. He made me pancakes on Sundays, burned at the edges. He remembered my birthday when even my father forgot.

So I fell in love.

I sat on the edge of our bed until midnight. The dress wrinkled. The candles on the dining table burned down to stubs.

At 12:14, I opened the car-sharing app on my phone. We'd linked our locations after I got lost upstate once. Aaron had laughed and said, "Now I'll always find you."

A little blue dot blinked on the map.

JFK Airport.

My stomach dropped. Airport? At midnight? Was he leaving? Had something happened?

I called him. Voicemail.

I called again. Voicemail.

I grabbed my keys.

The drive took forty minutes. I didn't change out of the dress. I kept picturing a car crash, a heart attack, Aaron alone somewhere needing me the way I'd once needed him.

The dot led me to the underground parking garage, level B3.

The lights hummed. Most of the spaces sat empty. I walked slowly, my bare arms prickling in the cold, until I spotted it.

His black Bentley. Parked in the far corner, half in shadow.

Relief flooded me. "Aaron?" I called softly.

No answer.

Then I noticed the windows. They were fogged over, white and blurry.

And I heard it.

A woman's voice. Soft. Breathy. A moan that curled up into a laugh.

My feet stopped moving.

*No.*

I told myself to turn around. My legs carried me forward anyway. One step. Another. The rear window on the passenger side was cracked open two inches.

I looked through it.

Aaron was in the back seat, his shirt open, his tie gone. A blonde woman sat across his lap, her dress pushed up around her waist. His hands gripped her hips. She rocked against him, her head thrown back.

He was kissing her neck the way he kissed mine.

My hand flew to my mouth.

The woman giggled and traced a finger along his jaw. "Aaron," she purred, "aren't you married?"

He pressed his lips to her forehead. Lazy. Fond.

"Kassia is just your stand-in, Sophia." His voice was warm in a way I had never heard. "You're back now. She doesn't need to exist anymore."

The world tilted.

*Stand-in.*

I stumbled backward. My hip slammed into the car parked beside me.

The alarm screamed.

The sound ripped through the garage, bouncing off concrete. Lights flashed orange across the Bentley's hood.

Inside, Sophia shrieked.

The back door flew open. Aaron burst out, his belt hanging loose, his shirt half buttoned. His eyes found me.

For one second, I saw shock on his face.

Then he stepped sideways and blocked the open door. Blocked *her*. Shielded her with his body, the way you protect someone from a stray dog.

From me.

The alarm cut off. The silence afterward felt louder.

"Who gave you permission to follow me?" he snapped.

I laughed. I didn't mean to. It came out cracked and ugly.

"Permission?" My voice shook. "I thought you were hurt. I drove here in the middle of the night because I was scared something happened to you."

"Go home, Kassia."

"Go home?" Tears spilled over. I didn't wipe them. "You told me you had a client."

His jaw locked. He said nothing.

I twisted the ring off my finger. It caught on my knuckle, and I yanked until the skin burned. Then I threw it.

It bounced once on the concrete and rolled to a stop against his shoe.

He didn't look down.

"Three years, Aaron." My throat closed around the words. "Did you ever love me? Even once?"

He held my gaze. The silence stretched so long I thought he might not answer at all.

"If you didn't look like Sophia," he said, cold and even, "I never would have married you."

Something inside me went very quiet.

The pancakes. The birthdays. The three days by my hospital bed.

He wasn't looking at me then, either. He was looking at her face on mine.

The Bentley door creaked. Sophia climbed out, tugging her dress down. She was tall, blonde, with gray-green eyes.

My eyes.

My nose. My mouth.

It was like staring into a mirror that had been kinder to its reflection.

"Sophia, stay in the car," Aaron muttered.

"It's fine." She walked toward me, her steps light, almost graceful. She stopped close enough that I smelled her perfume. Gardenia.

The same perfume Aaron bought me every Christmas.

She lifted a hand. I flinched. But she only brushed her thumb under my eye, catching a tear.

"Oh, Kassia," she said softly. "Don't cry. You did such a good job."

I couldn't move.

"Thank you," she whispered, "for taking care of Aaron for me all these years."

She smiled. Gentle. Sweet. Victorious.

"But I'm home now."

Behind her, Aaron bent down and picked up my ring. He turned it once in his fingers, studying it.

Then he slipped it into his pocket.

And held out his hand to her.