Chapter 1

Ella's POV

I woke up gasping, my heart racing so fast I thought I might actually die right there in bed. What the hell happened?

The ceiling above me was the same one I'd stared at for four years. Damien's cologne was still on the pillow next to me. I grabbed at my throat, searching for the blood that should be there, the pain, the feeling of everything shutting down.

Nothing. Just my pulse going crazy and my nightgown soaked through with sweat.

I basically fell out of bed trying to get to the mirror. When I saw my reflection, I just stood there staring. My face was pale and I looked like hell, but I was here. I was breathing. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely touch my own face, but when I did, everything felt real.

Then I saw my phone on the nightstand and grabbed it. The date on the screen made my stomach drop.

It was the day Damian announced he wanted two wives, and that's when the worst period of my life started.

My legs gave out and I hit the floor hard. The phone clattered next to me but I snatched it back up immediately. Emma. Oh my God, My sister Emma.

I dialed her number, my fingers fumbling over the screen. It rang three times before she picked up.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded so normal, so alive, that I almost started crying right then.

"Emma? It's me."

"Ella? What's wrong? Do you know what time it is? Are you okay?"

I pressed my hand over my mouth because I was about to completely lose it. She was alive. She was actually alive and safe and had no idea what almost happened to her. What did happen to her. "I just needed to hear your voice. Are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You're kind of freaking me out right now. What's going on?"

"Nothing, I'm sorry. I'll call you later, okay? I love you so much."

"Love you too, weirdo."

When she hung up, I just sat there on the cold marble floor and cried. I don't even know how long I cried for. Everything came pouring out, the grief, the relief, the absolute rage at everything that happened. Everything that was supposed to happen. The image of Emma lying there in that pool of blood kept flashing through my mind, and I couldn't make it stop.

She died because I was too stupid to leave. Because I stayed and let Vivian destroy everything.

The memories wouldn't stop coming, no matter how much I tried to push them away.

Five years ago, I saved Damien from a car crash. When he woke up in the hospital, he thought I was Vivian, his first love. Everyone knew the story. The powerful CEO found a substitute for the woman his grandmother forced him to give up.

Emma needed heart surgery. I needed a quarter million dollars. Damien showed up with a contract: three years as his companion in exchange for Emma's medical bills. I signed it because what choice did I have?

Those three years changed everything. He protected me, cared for me, flew me across the country when Emma had emergencies. Then one night, a man with a gun aimed at me and Damien threw himself in front of the bullet. I watched him collapse, blood spreading across his shirt, and realized I'd fallen in love with him.

On our three-year anniversary, he proposed. "I know you came into my life as Vivian's replacement," he said, holding my hands. "But I don't love her anymore. I love you. Only you."

I hesitated. Can someone really stop loving their first love? But he told me about his grandmother, how she raised him after his mother died, how his father was never around. She'd forced him to leave Vivian, and he'd respected her wishes because he owed her everything.

"That part of my life is over," he promised. "You're my future now."

I believed him. We got married, and for one year and two months, I was the happiest I'd ever been.

But everything fell apart exactly one year and two months after our wedding.

That day, Damien brought Vivian home from a charity gala, introduced her as an old friend, and that same night he didn't come to bed. Three months later, he gathered us both in the living room and announced his decision.

He wanted to keep both of us. Said the Blackwood family had more than enough money to support two wives. When I reminded him of his wedding vows, of how he'd promised I was the only one, he just looked annoyed and said he loved us both. Like that made it okay.

Then he asked for my ring. The pink diamond he'd proposed with. I watched him take it from my trembling hands, walk over to Vivian, and slip it onto her finger.

The months that followed were a nightmare. He made me kneel in front of guests, forced me to apologize to Vivian for things I didn't do, slapped me when I argued.

But the worst came during that shopping trip he insisted I join. When a man with a knife rushed at Vivian, Damien shoved him aside to protect her, pushing him right in front of me. The blade cut across my stomach before I could even process what was happening. Blood everywhere. Pain like nothing I'd ever felt.

At the hospital, they told me I'd been pregnant. The baby was gone. When Damien showed up, he didn't apologize. He accused me of throwing myself in front of that knife on purpose, using my own child as a weapon to frame Vivian. Two hours after I got home, his guards dragged me to the basement and locked me in. Three days with no food, no water, nothing but darkness.

But even that wasn't the end.

Vivian invited Emma to a girls' day out. Just some shooting practice, she said. When the range called me to come immediately, I broke every speed limit getting there. What I found was Emma lying on the ground with blood spreading across her chest, her eyes open but seeing nothing.

Vivian was telling the police it was an accident, that the gun just went off. When I screamed that she'd murdered my sister, when I tried to run to Emma's body, the guards held me back. The grief crushed my chest, made it impossible to breathe. Blood trickled from my nose, my mouth.

The last thing I saw before everything went black was Vivian's face.

She was smiling.

Vivian's smile was the last thing I saw before I died. Now, it's the nightmare that brings me back to life. I stood in the bedroom now, my fists clenched so tight my nails were cutting into my palms.

I'm alive. And I have a chance to change everything.

I know Damian won't just let me go easily. His power is way too big, there's no way I can fight against him. The only way out is to make him think both my sister and I are dead. I needed a plan.