Our Marriage License Was A Lie Chapter 02

Our Marriage License Was A Lie Chapter 02

Julian stumbled back. The color drained from his face.

“Elena, everyone’s here now. What else do you want?”

“You spent years putting up those flyers because you wanted her back. Well — you got her back.”

A broken laugh tore out of me.

“I haven’t slept through a single night in five years. Because of her.”

“And the whole time, she was tucked away in a mansion with my husband — the man who’d faked our marriage just to keep me under control.”

Chloe stepped closer, eyes wide, her voice syrupy with fake concern.

“Elena, I mean… it’s not like you could ever give him a child.”

“He’s doing what’s best for the family. We’re all family, right? So what difference does it make which one of us he comes home to?”

Every word out of her mouth took the truth and turned it inside out. I could taste the bile rising in my throat.

I wasn’t always infertile.

The first time I got pregnant, my parents locked me in a room. No food. No water. As punishment for “losing” Chloe.

I starved until I miscarried.

My parents watched me bleed and didn’t flinch. “You brought this on yourself. You owe Chloe that much.”

Julian was the one who held me after.

“We’ll have another one, Elena. This isn’t the end. I promise you, we’ll have our baby.”

The second time I got pregnant, my mother didn’t even speak. She just dragged me to the hospital.

Right there in the waiting room, she screamed at me.

“Chloe is still out there. What if someone took her? What if she’s trapped somewhere with some stranger?”

“And you have the nerve to sit here worrying about babies? You worthless little—”

She hauled me to a private, off-the-books clinic. She paid the doctor double to sedate me and ignore my screaming.

Afterward, the doctor told me the damage was permanent. I would never carry a child again.

I sobbed until I couldn’t see straight. And Julian — he stayed. He never left the room.

“Even if we can’t have kids, Elena, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll always take care of you.”

The woman standing in front of me had destroyed my entire life.

And my husband stood right beside her, like he belonged there.

I pulled off my ring and dropped it at their feet.

Then I turned for the door.

Julian caught me before I reached it, his grip bruising my arm.

“Your parents’ flight lands tonight. They expect a perfect family reunion. If you ruin Chloe’s big day, they’ll make you pay for it.”

“You want to leave? Fine. But not until after the wedding.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He dragged me down the hallway and shoved me inside. The door to the storage room slammed behind me, and the lock clicked shut.

Dust coated everything. The air was thick and stale, and every breath burned. He knew I had asthma. He knew.

My lungs seized. I doubled over coughing, chest so tight I thought my ribs would crack.

On the other side of the door, Julian’s voice came through, casual and unbothered.

“Once the wedding’s done tomorrow, I’ll make it up to you, Elena. I promise.”

Then Chloe’s voice slipped in.

“Oh, and Elena? We still need a bridesmaid tomorrow.”

The door to the adjacent guest room closed.

And then I heard them. Muffled sounds seeped through the wall — breathy, rhythmic, unmistakable.

I pressed my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut, but the sounds cut through anyway.

My mind betrayed me. It kept dragging the old Julian back instead.

The way he used to make me soup on bad nights. The way his hand would settle against my back, slow and warm, until I finally fell asleep.

The way he refused to leave my bedside when I was sick.

All of it. Fake. Every single moment.

A fake marriage. An affair with my own sister. And he’d stood by while my parents took two babies from me.

The memories tangled together until I couldn’t tell the grief from the rage.

Chloe’s voice drifted through the wall, breathy and performative.

“Julian, you’re awful — making Elena listen on purpose.”

Julian was still catching his breath.

“What’s the big deal? You two are twins, right? Think of it as… shared experience.”

“Keeping you happy is basically the same as keeping her happy…”