Chapter 1
The photo exploded across every screen like wildfire.
It was late, and the office group chat buzzed to life with a high-definition, uncensored picture—two people tangled up outside in the heat of passion, so lost in each other they didn’t seem to care who might be watching.
I clicked on it, barely breathing.
The woman’s face…My stomach twisted.
“Wait a sec,” someone typed. “Isn’t that… Reya Calder?”
“No way. Reya Calder? She’s married. Isn’t her husband, Jarek Thornwell, like the dream husband? Rich, doting, loyal?”
“Look at that mole on her chest. It’s her. That’s her signature look—same one she showed off at the company pool party last summer.”
The moment that message landed, I felt the weight of a dozen eyes on me.
Needles. Cold, invisible needles stabbing into my skin.
My fingers trembled as I typed out a response: That’s not me.
But it was too late.
The woman in the picture looked exactly like me.
Same face. Same build. Same damn mole. The very one Jarek had once begged me to get tattooed before we got married—said it made me look unique. Special.
I felt sick.
“Why didn’t they just get a hotel room?” someone else typed, followed by a snorting laugh. “Were they that desperate?”
The whispers turned to stares. Sticky, slimy stares that made me feel like I was standing there naked instead of fully dressed in slacks and a blouse.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I grabbed my phone and stormed out of the office.
As I passed through the glass doors, their voices followed me like poison.
“She’s not even denying it properly. Damn. Poor Jarek, not only getting cheated on, but the whole internet knows now.”
“Guess the ice queen isn’t so cold in bed after all.”
“If she wasn’t a freak in bed, how else do you think she landed President Thornwell?”
I practically ran to the break room, slammed the door shut, and dialed my husband’s number with shaking hands.
The line rang twice before a woman’s voice answered.
A soft, lazy drawl.
“Hello?”
I froze. My heart plunged into my stomach.
“Who are you? Where’s Jarek?”
She giggled, warm and intimate. “Jay’s in the shower.”
My pulse roared in my ears.
She leaned into the speaker like she was standing inches from me. “Reya, you’re such a joke. You’ve got my face, and still couldn’t keep a man for three years. Pathetic, isn’t it?”
Her voice was laced with venomous sweetness. “He missed me so much, he couldn’t wait to screw me in broad daylight.”
I gripped my phone so hard my knuckles turned white, a sharp pain searing through my abdomen. But I shoved it down.
“Where are you?” I managed to grit out.
She laughed like I’d just offered her dessert. “Why? Want to see for yourself? We’re at your house. Perfect timing, babe. Come see how much he wants me.”
The line went dead.
I drove back to our two-story house—my home—on autopilot. The moment I stepped inside, I wished I hadn’t.
Clothes littered the floor.
A lacy red bra was draped across the arm of the couch; panties tossed like confetti on the stairs.
Moans echoed down from the bedroom upstairs.
I felt numb as I climbed, one step at a time, toward the sounds that used to belong to me.
The bedroom door was cracked open. Just enough.
Through the gap, I saw Jarek—my calm, controlled husband—thrusting like a man possessed.
The woman beneath him moaned, “Jay… what if she denies the photo’s her? What if people start looking into me? I can’t take that kind of spotlight…”
He grunted, not slowing for a second. “They won’t. You two look identical. I’ll say it’s her, and no one’ll question it. What man would admit to being cheated on?”
Then his voice dropped to something softer. Almost fond.
“That mole? I made her get it. You already had yours removed, remember? No one will ever think it’s you.”
I stood frozen as Jarek—my husband—cupped her cheek and whispered things he never once said to me.
In our entire marriage, he never stayed in bed after sex. He’d always shower right away, leaving me cold, used, and wondering if he even felt anything.
I told myself he was just distant. Private. Maybe not the affectionate type.
But now?
Now he was sweet. Gentle. Loving.
Just… not with me.
And then—like a horror movie—she turned her head and stared right into my eyes through the door.
That face.
It was my face.
She smirked. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
The voice that followed haunted me.
“She’s just your replacement,” Jarek whispered. “I’ve only ever loved you, Sabie. Don’t say things like that.”
Sabie.
That was her name.
And I was nothing more than her knock-off.
My ears rang. My brain refused to catch up.
A sharp, twisting pain bloomed low in my belly, but I couldn’t process it.
The sounds from the room grew louder, but I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t need proof.
I wasn’t his wife. I was her shadow.
If he had simply fallen out of love… if there was another woman… I could’ve fought. Cried. Screamed.
But this?
This was a betrayal that went so much deeper.
Jarek didn’t love me.
He never did.
He loved her.
And I was just the stand-in who never realized the role she’d been playing all along.
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