Chapter 1 - MY WIFE
Deline Bellamy grabbed the side of Simone’s pale-blue dress and cut.
The dressmaking scissors sliced through the fabric with a sharp metallic sound.
A long section of skirt tore open.
Simone gasped and clutched the ruined fabric against her thigh.
“Deline—what are you doing?”
Her younger sister let the cut piece drop onto the ballroom floor.
“Rags suit you better.”
The chandeliers glittered overhead.
Two hundred guests stood around white-clothed tables, pretending not to stare.
Deline stepped closer in her bridal gown.
Pearls at her ears.
Veil perfect.
Smile cruel.
“He’s marrying me today.”
Simone’s heart seemed to stop for the wrong reason.
Not because she believed Deline.
Because Deline clearly did.
“Who told you that?”
Deline’s expression hardened.
“Don’t play stupid.”
She pointed toward the ballroom exit.
“Now get out.”
Simone did not move.
Deline slapped her.
Simone staggered backward, caught the edge of a chair, and fell beside the torn strip of blue fabric.
The room inhaled.
No one intervened.
Then the ballroom doors burst open.
Julian Marzano strode inside.
Dark hair.
Black suit.
Chairman of Marzano Group.
The man half the guests had spent weeks hoping to impress.
He saw Simone on the floor.
Stopped.
Then moved.
Fast.
He crossed the ballroom, dropped beside her, and helped her upright.
“Are you hurt?”
Simone stared at him.
She had never seen his face that cold.
Deline had.
Only not directed at her.
She took one step back.
“Chairman? Why are you here?”
Julian put one protective arm around Simone.
Then turned.
“I saw someone put their hands on my wife.”
Silence.
Deline’s eyes widened.
Her mouth opened.
Simone froze too.
Not because the marriage was news to her.
Because Julian had just revealed it publicly.
They had agreed to keep the marriage private until after the Marzano shareholder vote next month.
No announcement.
No society pages.
No Bellamy family spectacle.
Deline whispered:
“Wife?”
Julian looked directly at her.
“Yes.”
Then someone at the back of the room dropped a champagne glass.
Deline shook her head.
“No.”
She looked at Simone.
Then back at Julian.
“No, he’s marrying me.”
Julian’s expression changed.
Not amusement.
Alarm.
“Who told you that?”
Deline stared.
And Simone realized the wedding humiliation was only the surface.
Someone had built her sister an entire lie.
There was one more reason Deline believed the messages.
Three months earlier, Julian had attended a Bellamy museum benefit without Simone.
He arrived late, greeted Carmen, spoke briefly with Lydia, and left before dessert.
Deline interpreted his presence as personal.
In reality, Marzano Group had sponsored the museum restoration long before Julian and Simone married.
Lydia later told Deline:
“He came because he wanted to see whether the family could handle discretion.”
Nothing in that sentence was verifiable.
But it matched Deline’s hope.
Then Carmen added:
“Powerful men never court in public when there is money involved.”
A family belief presented as insider knowledge.
Deline began treating absence as proof.
The less Julian appeared, the more sophisticated the “relationship” seemed.
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That was why the fraud did not require forged love letters.
It only required people who knew exactly which insecurity to feed.
