Leonard’s body vibrated against Lucinda’s, the heat of him sinking into her skin as she clung to him, desperate, hopeful, praying that tonight would be different. That maybe, just once, he would give her what she longed for most, a child.

But the illusion shattered the moment his muscles tensed. He tore himself out of her embrace with a swiftness that stung more than any slap, and with a quiet, chilling finality, he released himself, not inside her, but across her stomach.

“Don’t ever try that again.” His voice held no affection. No warmth. Just a frigid warning that sliced through her.

Lucinda froze, fingers fisting the crumpled sheets beneath her. Leonard didn’t spare her a glance as he stepped into his boxer shorts, his back, broad, sculpted, familiar, retreating from her door before she could catch her breath.

The mattress dipped back to silence. The room followed suit.

Lucinda lay still, watching the silhouette of the man she adored slip away as though he carried no part of her with him. He was perfect in form, like a figure carved out of a magazine spread, but his heart… his heart was distant, locked away in a room she had never been allowed to enter.

His heart belonged to someone else. And she was nothing but the shadow wearing the wedding ring.

Sometimes, during those rare moments when passion stirred between them, she let herself dream that maybe he was softening toward her. Maybe he was beginning to see her. Want her.

But then reality always returned with cruel clarity like tonight. He would remind her of what she truly was, a mistake born out of deception.

Three years of marriage, and he had never once finished inside her. Never once allowed the possibility of a child.

It wasn’t just his hatred for children, something he repeatedly voiced, but the unresolved betrayal of their beginning. She knew it. Felt it in every touch, every silence, every door he closed between them.

She had married him on a lie. And she had agreed to it.

Lucinda swallowed hard. She had been the one to say yes to her parents’ insane plan, switching her with her sister on the wedding day so the younger one wouldn’t ‘marry too early.’

She’d been obsessed enough to comply, desperate enough to believe love could grow from a stolen moment.

But that stolen moment had cost her dearly.

Leonard Roberts, CEO of LL Group and now the world’s wealthiest man, had despised her from the day he learned he’d married the wrong sister.

The resemblance between Lucinda and Millie had always been uncanny, but even that wasn’t enough for him to forgive the betrayal.

Still, she had poured everything into him, her mind, her finances, her heart.

She helped him rebuild his empire in secret.

She offered ideas, projections, even funding under a hidden identity.

He rose. And she silently cheered from behind the curtains.

And yet he still could not love her.

Tonight, she had crossed the one boundary he never wanted crossed, children.

Her attempt to coax him into releasing inside her was met with anger, and abandonment. He left in a storm, ignoring the dinner she had prepared, leaving the air thick with humiliation.

Lucinda wrapped the sheets around herself, holding back tears that eventually slipped free.

That was when a knock sounded at her door.

“Ma’am, there’s a delivery for you,” the maid said with a bright smile. “It just arrived.”

Lucinda blinked, wiping her cheeks. A delivery? For her?

Her heart stuttered in confusion as she opened the beautifully wrapped box.

Inside lay a breathtaking dress, sleek, expensive, shimmering under the room’s soft lighting. Accessories were neatly arranged beside it. Her breath hitched.

It couldn’t be…

Leonard had never bought her a single gift.

“There’s a note too,” the maid added, handing her a small card.

Lucinda’s hands trembled as she unfolded it.

‘Wear this, lovely pea. I want you to be the most beautiful woman at the company’s year-end event tonight.’

Lovely pea.

A strange pet name, one he had never used, but it melted her instantly.

Warmth bloomed in her chest, pushing away the ache from earlier. For a moment, she allowed herself to believe he was finally trying.

That maybe, despite everything, he wanted to fix what had been broken between them.

Hadn’t she always believed miracles could happen if she just held on?

The dress was not her usual style, revealing, daring, bold, but if Leonard had chosen it, she would wear it proudly.

Hope guided her all the way to LL Towers. She hadn’t been to his office or any of his events in months, avoiding them because of the silent tension that always lingered between them.

But tonight felt different. Tonight felt like a beginning.

The building was lit like a palace, glittering under the evening sky. As she stepped inside, heads turned. Conversations paused. She felt beautiful for the first time in a very long time.

Her heart searched the crowd for the man she loved. The man she had sacrificed so much for.

Leonard needed her in business, yes, but she loved him with her entire soul, for every time he once protected her, defended her, saved her.

The world only saw the cold CEO, but she remembered the boy who once shielded her from bullies, the young man who stood up for her in front of their entire school.

Those memories had been both her anchor and her prison.

A waiter handed her a glass of champagne. She barely took a sip when a voice, sharp, feminine, painfully familiar, cut through the hum of the hall.

“How dare you wear my dress?”

Lucinda’s fingers froze around the glass. She looked up, and her heart plummeted.

Millie.

Her younger sister.

Her mirror image.

Her curse.

Her replacement.

Her husband’s true love.

Millie, glowing with health and beauty, something she hadn’t seen in years.

Lucinda choked on her drink, shocked speechless. “E–excuse me?”

All around them, guests paused, watching with hungry curiosity. Lucinda desperately searched for Leonard, willing him to appear and explain everything.

Millie stepped closer, eyes cold, chin raised. “That dress is mine. Take it off.”

The humiliation slammed into Lucinda’s chest like a hammer.

‘Take it off? In front of everyone?’

“Millie, what are you talking about? Leonard sent this dress to me,” Lucinda whispered, her pulse racing.

“President’s wife has spoken,” a middle-aged man nearby chimed in mockingly. “Do as she says.”

President’s wife.

The words echoed like a punch. Millie, the president’s wife?

Lucinda’s knees weakened.

Their parents had always favored Millie, the prettier one, the fragile one, the cherished one.

Lucinda had spent her whole life in her sister’s shadow, always second, always less. Millie got designer clothes, Lucinda got Walmart. Millie got sympathy, Lucinda got responsibility.

And now Millie had returned…to take everything back.

But not this time. Not after three years. Not after everything Lucinda had poured into this marriage, into Leonard, into their empire.

She straightened, swallowing her trembling. “This time, I won’t give up so easily.”

Before she could say more, the MC’s voice boomed across the room. “President Leonard Roberts has arrived!”

Relief rushed through her, only to evaporate instantly when she saw him.

Leonard walked in surrounded by powerful men, a stunning brunette at his side, Antonia Stefan, his secretary, radiant, transformed, almost unrecognizable.

But Leonard didn’t look at Lucinda. He went straight to Millie.

A smile, warm, affectionate, lit his face as he wrapped his arm around Millie and pulled her into an embrace.

Lucinda’s world swayed. Antonia glanced at her with a flicker of mockery before looking away.

“Leo,” Millie said sweetly, “why is she wearing my dress? Didn’t you say you bought it for me?”

Leonard’s expression dimmed as his gaze found Lucinda. A flicker of discomfort. Then coldness.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, voice detached, distant. As if she were nothing more than a business acquaintance. As if he hadn’t spent nearly two hours in her bed that morning.

Lucinda’s lips parted. Her throat tightened. She couldn’t breathe.

“And where did you get that dress?” he continued, eyes hardening as the crowd leaned in.

“You… you sent it to me,” she whispered. “There was a note. You told me to come.”

Millie stepped closer to Leonard, fake tears shining in her eyes. “You said you would divorce her, Leo. You know she worked with our parents to force me away. And now she appears here wearing my dress?”

Gasps rippled across the room.

Lucinda felt the ground beneath her crack open.

And Leonard’s silence…

Was the final blow.