The Substitute Bride He Was Waiting For

My sister ran away the night before her wedding, so I had to take her place and marry Damian Kovac, the city's most feared don.

I figured he'd throw me in the harbor out of pure rage. Instead, the man wouldn't even touch me.

A month in, still sleeping in the guest room.

I wasn't my sister's level of charming, but I wasn't hard to look at either. And this man couldn't spare me a single glance?

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I grabbed the divorce papers I'd already drawn up and stormed toward his study.

Right as I raised my hand to knock, I caught his childhood friend's voice through the door.

"You moved heaven and earth to get the woman you've been hung up on, and now you're icing her out? Didn't think I'd live to see the day."

My hand froze.

The woman he'd been hung up on?

——

Lyra’s POV

By all logic, as the current wife of the Kovac don, I should have been living some extravagant, money-no-object kind of life.

Instead, my marriage was a joke. A cruel one.

My name's Lyra. I left home early and made a living as an independent mechanic, customizing motorcycles.

Growing up, all the attention in my family went to my older sister, Chloe. She was the firstborn—beautiful, charming, naturally likable. I was always just "the other daughter"—background noise, replaceable.

The day I turned eighteen, I walked out with nothing, rented a garage with money I'd saved from fixing bikes, and I'd been grinding away on my own ever since.

A month ago, my sister vanished the night before her wedding to the newly appointed don of the Kovac family.

Terrified that breaking the alliance would spark a war between the two families, my father showed up at my door in the middle of the night, asking me to take her place.

It was the first time he'd sought me out since I'd left home.

Damian Kovac. The tyrant of this city's underworld.

Rumor had it he was ruthless, merciless—anyone who crossed him ended up at the bottom of the harbor.

On our wedding day, he showed up in a tailored black suit, and I had to admit—the man was, without question, gorgeous.

Those grey-blue eyes were cold, sure, but flawless. On any other day, I probably would've looked twice.

But throughout the entire ceremony, he didn't say a single word to me. He spent the whole time drinking with his men.

He didn't even come to our room that night. It felt deliberate, like he was avoiding me on purpose.

I figured he was sulking. After all, the woman who was supposed to be standing beside him was my sister, not me.

I never expected this marriage to last, so not long after the wedding, I'd already had a lawyer draw up divorce papers.

I was just the substitute bride anyway. Once things settled down, I'd go through the divorce process, and it wouldn't technically violate the original alliance agreement.

Still, I figured—since I'd married a man this good-looking, it'd be a waste not to get a taste of him before calling it quits.

Turns out, I was wrong.

For an entire month after the wedding, Damian left early and came home late. The second he walked through the door, he'd disappear straight into his study, and at night, he slept in the guest room.

I tried a few times myself—subtle hints, not-so-subtle hints—none of it worked. The man was like a brick wall. Immovable. He wouldn't touch me, and he never once mentioned divorce either.

"Is something actually wrong with this man?" I muttered, polishing my motorcycle in the garage, unable to stop complaining to myself.

Sure, I wasn't as delicate and adorable as Chloe, but I had a decent body—curves in the right places, long legs, a slim waist. And he couldn't even spare me a second glance?

I tossed the polishing cloth onto the workbench. "That's it. I've decided. I'm getting a divorce."

I marched back to my room, dug the finished divorce papers out of a drawer—just missing his signature—and headed straight for the study, papers in hand.

The angrier I got with every step, the more it burned. A month married, and he hadn't touched me once, hadn't given me a single explanation. Like I was some burden he was forcing himself to tolerate.

Why should I put up with that? I never asked to marry him in the first place.

The study door was left slightly open, not fully shut.

I raised my hand to knock, but froze the second I heard voices inside.

"You dragged me over here in the middle of the night just to watch you chain-smoke?" It was Alex—Damian's personal therapist, and also his childhood friend.

"Some people go through all that trouble to get the woman they've been obsessing over, and then spend every day holding back like some kind of monk."

My raised hand froze mid-air.

Wait. What was Alex talking about? The woman he'd been obsessing over?

"Shut up, Alex." Damian's voice came out rough, strained. "I can't touch her… I can't."

"Why the hell not? She's your legal wife!" Alex sounded genuinely baffled.

"Keep freezing her out like this, and you really think she won't file for divorce tomorrow?"

Silence settled over the study.

After a long pause, Damian spoke, voice quiet.

"I can't."

"What exactly are you so afraid of?"

Silence again.

All I could hear was his heavy breathing.

"I'm afraid…"

His voice trailed off.

It took a long time before he finally said, low and barely audible:

"I'm afraid that one day, I won't be able to control myself."

I stood outside the door, my mind completely blank.

What did that mean?

Not able to control himself?

"Is it true, then? What they say—that you're actually in love with her sister?" Alex asked carefully.

My stomach dropped.

I leaned in closer to the crack in the door without even thinking.

More silence stretched on inside.

Finally, Damian said just one thing:

"I don't want to talk about this."

And he offered nothing more.

I looked down at the divorce papers in my hand.

So…

What exactly was he so afraid of?

I took a deep breath and crushed the papers into a ball.

I turned around, walked back to my room, tossed the crumpled papers onto the nightstand, and pulled out my phone.

I ordered a black silk slip dress.

If he wanted to play the saint—

Then I wanted to see exactly how long that so-called restraint of his could hold.