Chapter 1: The Marriage Certificate
SIENNA’S POV
The first time my husband kissed me, I was still wondering whether I had made the biggest mistake of my life.
Not because he was unattractive.
God, no.
Julian Cross was the kind of man women secretly prayed to meet and publicly pretended not to stare at. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark eyes that seemed to notice everything and a smile that appeared only when he wanted something.
He was wealthy, intelligent, and infuriatingly calm.
And tonight, he was my husband.
I looked down at the diamond ring on my finger.
Six months ago, I had never heard his name. Four months ago, we had met at a charity dinner. Two months ago, he had asked me to marry him.
It had been fast, yes, but I was twenty-seven, tired of disappointing relationships, and foolish enough to believe that a man who looked at me as if I mattered might actually mean it.
Julian had never been overly romantic. He didn’t send me endless love messages or make ridiculous promises about forever. But he remembered the smallest things I told him. He knew how I liked my coffee and which songs I played when I couldn’t sleep.
Sometimes, I caught him staring at me with an expression I couldn’t understand.
Whenever I asked what was wrong, he would smile and say, “Nothing, sweetheart.”
Tonight, he had called me sweetheart at least ten times.
And every time, something in his voice made my heart ache.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
His voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
I turned from the hotel window. Julian had removed his jacket and loosened his bow tie. Without the crowd and cameras surrounding us, he looked different.
More serious.
More tired.
“Isn’t a bride allowed to be nervous?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re waiting for something bad to happen.”
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he crossed the room and took my hands in his.
“Sienna, whatever happens, I need you to remember one thing.”
I laughed nervously. “That sounds like something a man says before confessing he has three other wives.”
His smile appeared, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“I have no other wives.”
“Good. I’d hate to share my wedding cake.”
He chuckled softly.
Then he pressed his lips to my forehead.
“You have no idea how happy I am that you came back to me.”
I froze.
“Back to you?”
Julian’s expression changed.
It was quick, barely a second, but I saw it.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
He released my hands and stepped away.
“I meant I’m happy you chose me.”
I wanted to ask more, but he was already walking toward the bathroom.
“Get some rest, Sienna. It’s been a long day.”
The bathroom door closed.
I stood there, staring at it.
Perhaps I was overthinking. Weddings were emotional. People said strange things when they were tired.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my husband had almost told me something important.
Something he wasn’t ready for me to know.
I decided to change out of my wedding dress before my curiosity ruined my first night as a married woman.
My overnight bag was beside the wardrobe. I searched through it for the soft nightdress I had packed, but my hand touched something that didn’t belong to me.
A brown envelope.
I pulled it out.
My name was written across the front in neat black letters.
SIENNA VALE.
I frowned.
I had packed the bag myself that morning. I was certain I hadn’t put any envelope inside it.
Perhaps it contained a document from the wedding planner.
I opened it.
The first page looked like an official document, complete with stamps and signatures. I skimmed the printed words until my eyes landed on two names.
My name.
And Julian’s.
I smiled faintly.
Maybe it was another copy of our marriage certificate. I remembered signing several documents earlier that day, although the wedding coordinator had rushed us through most of them.
Then I noticed the date.
My smile disappeared.
The certificate had been issued three years ago.
I checked again.
Three years.
My fingers tightened around the paper.
“This has to be a mistake.”
I turned the page over, hoping to find an explanation. There was none. Just the official seal, the signatures, and a date that made absolutely no sense.
I had not known Julian three years ago.
I was living in another city then, working at a small publishing company and struggling to pay my rent. I had never met him, never spoken to him, and certainly never stood beside him in a registry to promise him my life.
Yet there it was.
A marriage certificate declaring that Julian Cross and Sienna Vale had been legally married.
I heard the bathroom door open.
“Julian?”
He emerged, drying his hands with a towel. His eyes went immediately to the document in mine.
Everything about him changed.
His shoulders stiffened. The towel slipped from his fingers and landed on the floor.
For the first time since I had met him, my husband looked genuinely afraid.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.
“It was inside my bag.”
He didn’t move.
I held up the certificate.
“Tell me this is fake.”
His gaze dropped to the paper.
“Sienna—”
“Tell me!”
My voice cracked. I hated that it did.
He walked toward me slowly, as though approaching a frightened animal.
“Please, sit down.”
“Don’t tell me to sit down!” I stepped away when he reached for me. “Why does this say we got married three years ago?”
Silence.
“Julian, look at me.”
He lifted his eyes.
“Did you know about this?”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
One word.
One terrible word.
The room seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you still married me today?”
He dragged a hand over his face. For several seconds, he looked like a man fighting a battle he had been losing for years.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“When? After our tenth anniversary?”
“Sienna, please—”
“Who am I to you?”
He stared at me.
I could hear my heartbeat, loud and frantic, as I waited for him to answer.
Finally, he whispered, “You’re my wife.”
A broken laugh escaped me.
“Apparently, I’m your wife twice. How convenient.”
He flinched.
I had never seen Julian flinch before.
“Tell me what happened three years ago,” I demanded. “Did you marry someone with the same name? Did someone forge my signature? What is this?”
He shook his head.
“No one forged your signature.”
My blood turned cold.
I looked down at the certificate again.
The signature beside my name was unmistakably mine.
Not similar.
Not close.
Mine.
I had signed my name thousands of times. I knew the slight curve beneath the S, the way the final letters leaned forward.
Someone had signed it perfectly.
Or I had.
But how could I have signed a marriage certificate for a man I had never met?
I raised my eyes to Julian.
“What happened to me three years ago?”
For the first time that night, he looked away.
That frightened me more than anything else.
Then he reached into the bedside drawer and removed a small photograph.
He placed it between us.
My breath caught.
The woman in the photograph was me.
I was wearing a simple white dress, my hair falling over my shoulders. Julian stood beside me, younger and smiling in a way I had never seen him smile before.
His arm was wrapped around my waist.
My hand rested against his chest.
And on my finger was the same diamond ring I had received that afternoon.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a date.
Three years ago.
I stared at the picture until the room blurred around me.
“Who took this?”
Julian’s voice was barely audible.
“You did.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“You took it the morning after we got married.”
“Stop lying to me!”
“I’m not lying.”
“Then why don’t I remember you?”
His eyes filled with something I couldn’t name.
Grief, perhaps.
Or guilt.
He stepped closer, but this time I didn’t move away. I was too stunned to move at all.
“I have spent three years waiting for you to remember,” he said.
My throat tightened.
“Remember what?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he spoke the words that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
“You promised me you’d never remember our first wedding.”
And suddenly, I understood one thing.
I hadn’t just married a stranger.
I had married a man who knew my past.
A man who claimed I had once loved him.
And whatever had happened three years ago, he was terrified of what would happen when I finally remembered.
