Ten Years a Stand-in Wife—Old Money Only Recognizes Me Chapter 01

Ten Years a Stand-in Wife—Old Money Only Recognizes Me Chapter 01

I was twenty-two the day I married in my elder sister’s place.

She faked her death at the wedding, left behind her barely weaned son, and disappeared.

My parents shoved me into a wedding dress and forced me down the aisle.

Ten years.

I burned myself out growing the family-owned corporation, raising her son like my own.

She came back after traveling through thirteen countries, yawning like she’d just woken up.

“Where’s Ethan? He should be old enough to call me Mom by now, right?”

I smiled.

In the past decade, across all sixty-eight old money families in Arcwood—no one even remembered what she looked like.

***

The call came at 3 p.m.

I had just stepped out of Zenith Auction House, a Sotheby’s appraisal report still in my hand.

The autumn wind slipped through the crack of the car door, carrying that faintly sweet, decaying scent of fallen leaves.

Linda Mercer’s voice trembled on the other end.

“Sloane… you need to come home. Now.”

“What happened?”

A long silence.

I could hear someone talking in the background—blurred, but the tone was lifted, careless, almost teasing.

Familiar.

Too familiar.

My fingers paused. I folded the report and slid it into my purse.

“Got it.”

As I hung up, Jacob Collins glanced at me through the rearview mirror. He’d been driving for me for seven years—didn’t ask a single question, just turned the wheel slightly left.

We merged onto the loop.

The Mercer family lived in an old apartment complex.

They called themselves part of the city’s elite circle, but really, they were just clinging to the edge—barely keeping a seat at the table thanks to Valerie Mercer’s engagement to the Shaw family.

Then that seat was pulled out from under them.

And I became the new seat.

When the car stopped downstairs, I sat there for three seconds without moving.

Jacob spoke quietly. “Mrs. Shaw, want me to come up with you?”

“No.”

I pushed the door open.

My heels clicked sharply against the concrete. The hallway lights had been broken for over half a year, so I traced my way up along the wall.

Third floor.

The apartment door was half open, light spilling out.

The moment I stepped inside, I smelled perfume.

Heavy.

Sickly sweet—like someone had dumped an entire bottle of rose oil down the drain.

Four people sat in the living room.

David Mercer—my father—sat on the far left of the couch, hunched over, hands clasped tightly on his knees, knuckles pale.

Linda Mercer—my mother—stood by the coffee table, eyes red, clutching tissues. She wasn’t crying, though. It was something twisted between laughter and tears.

And one more person.

A woman.

She lounged back against the couch, completely at ease. Long hair loose, skin a shade darker, a silk slip dress clinging to her frame. A small mandala tattoo rested on her collarbone.

Valerie Mercer.

My sister.