Chapter 1 Bride by Mistake

# Chapter 1 — Bride by Mistake

I never imagined that saving someone's life would lead to wearing their dead fiancée's engagement ring, yet here I was.

It happened on a rainy Tuesday evening. The kind of rain that makes you question why you ever left your apartment. I was hurrying home, umbrella barely holding against the wind, when I saw the black Bentley swerve violently on the slick road ahead. The car hit the guardrail and flipped over, skidding several yards before coming to a smoking halt.

Without thinking, I dropped my umbrella and ran. The driver was unconscious, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead. I called 911 while struggling with his seatbelt. "Sir? Can you hear me? Help is coming."

His eyes fluttered open—piercing blue, disoriented, yet somehow still commanding. "Iris?" he whispered, his voice barely audible over the rain. "You came back."

"I'm not—" I started to correct him, but he had already slipped back into unconsciousness.

That was my first encounter with Damien Cross, billionaire heir to the Cross Industries empire. I didn't know it then, but that moment of mistaken identity would change everything.

Three days later, I received a call from Manhattan General Hospital. Mr. Cross wanted to see me. Curiosity got the better of me, and I agreed.

The private hospital suite looked more like a luxury hotel room. Damien sat propped up in bed, his chiseled features still marred by bruises, but those eyes—sharp and calculating now—tracked my every movement as I entered.

"You saved my life," he stated. No greeting, no small talk.

"Anyone would have done the same," I replied, suddenly self-conscious in my simple dress and worn boots. This man probably spent more on his hospital gown than I did on my entire wardrobe.

"No, they wouldn't have." He gestured to the chair beside his bed. "Please, sit down, Avery Mitchell."

I raised an eyebrow. "You've been researching me."

A ghost of a smile. "Naturally. I like to know who pulls me from burning wreckage."

"The car wasn't burning," I corrected automatically.

"Details." He waved his hand dismissively. "What matters is that you're here now." His gaze intensified. "You look remarkably like her."

"Like who?"

"Iris. My fiancée. She died six months ago."

An uncomfortable silence stretched between us. I shifted in my chair. "I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Cross, but I should go—"

"I have a proposition for you."

I paused, halfway out of my seat. "Excuse me?"

"Ten million dollars. Tax-free."

I slowly sat back down. "For what exactly?"

"Become her." His voice was eerily calm. "Become Iris."

I laughed, the sound brittle in the sterile room. "You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious." He reached for a folder on his bedside table and handed it to me. Inside were legal documents—a contract, complete with confidentiality clauses and payment schedules. "My family's company is in the midst of a merger that was contingent upon my marriage to Iris. Her family's shipping empire and our tech conglomerate. Without the marriage, everything falls apart."

"So you want me to... what? Pretend to be your dead fiancée?"

"For one year. We marry, maintain appearances, then quietly divorce. You walk away with enough money to never work again."

I stared at him, searching for signs of insanity. Finding none was somehow more disturbing. "Why me? Because I vaguely resemble her?"

"The resemblance is more than vague. And you were there when no one else was. Perhaps it's fate."

"I don't believe in fate, Mr. Cross."

"Call me Damien." He leaned forward, wincing slightly from his injuries. "What do you believe in, Avery?"

The question caught me off guard. What did I believe in? Certainly not the fairy tale this man was proposing. I believed in hard work and surviving month to month on my teacher's salary. I believed in the crushing weight of my student loans and the apartment with perpetually broken heating.

"I believe in reality," I finally answered. "And the reality is, this is insane."

"Is it?" He gestured around the room. "My reality involves board meetings from this hospital bed and potentially losing everything my family has built. Your reality..." He paused, his gaze traveling over my worn clothing. "Well, I imagine ten million dollars would significantly alter your reality."

I should have walked out then. Any rational person would have. But something held me there—perhaps curiosity, perhaps the audacity of his proposal, or perhaps the quiet desperation behind his confident facade.

"You need her," I said slowly, "and I only need money."

Something flickered in his eyes—relief? Triumph? He reached into the drawer beside him and pulled out a small velvet box. When he opened it, a diamond the size of my thumbnail caught the light, scattering prisms across the wall.

"This was hers," he said, taking my hand. The ring slid onto my finger with unsettling ease, as if it belonged there. "You only need to be like her. Breathe like her. Exist in her space."

I pulled my hand away, the weight of the ring foreign and heavy. "I won't die for you like she did."

His expression hardened. "No one's asking you to."

But weren't they? Wasn't I being asked to erase myself, to become a ghost in borrowed designer clothes?

"I'll think about it," I said, standing to leave.

"Don't think too long. The offer expires in 24 hours."

Outside the hospital, I stood in the fading afternoon light, staring at the ring on my finger. Ten million dollars. Freedom from debt. A new start. All for a year of pretending to be someone else.

That night, I couldn't sleep. I paced my tiny apartment, weighing impossible choices. By morning, I had my answer. I called the number Damien had given me.

"I'll do it," I said when he answered. "But I have conditions."

"Name them." His voice was cool, business-like.

"I want half the money upfront. And I want to know everything about Iris—who she was, how she died. If I'm going to be her, I need to understand her."

"Done. My driver will pick you up this afternoon."

And just like that, I agreed to become someone else's ghost.

The following weeks were a blur of preparations. I was moved into Damien's penthouse, given a new wardrobe, and subjected to endless coaching sessions on how to be Iris Cross. Her favorite foods (sushi, specifically yellowtail), her signature scent (Jo Malone's Wood Sage & Sea Salt), her habit of twirling a strand of hair when thinking—all these details became my study.

Damien watched my transformation with clinical detachment. Sometimes, when he thought I wasn't looking, I'd catch him staring at me with an unreadable expression. Not love or desire, but something more complex—as if he were trying to reconcile the woman before him with the memory he carried.

The wedding was set for the first day of spring—a date that had apparently been chosen by Iris herself before her accident. As the day approached, I found myself increasingly uneasy in my role. The more I learned about Iris, the more questions I had. Her death had been ruled an accident—a car crash not unlike the one that had brought Damien into my life. But there were whispers among the household staff, quickly silenced whenever I entered a room.

The night before the wedding, I sat alone in what had been Iris's dressing room, surrounded by her things—now supposedly mine. A knock at the door startled me.

"Come in," I called, expecting the wedding planner with last-minute details.

Instead, Damien entered, looking more haunted than I'd ever seen him.

"Second thoughts?" I asked, attempting lightness.

"No." He crossed the room and stood behind me, our eyes meeting in the mirror. "But perhaps you should have some."

Before I could respond, his assistant appeared at the door. "Mr. Cross, a package just arrived for Ms. Mitchell."

Damien nodded for her to bring it in. The plain brown box sat between us like a challenge. With steady hands that betrayed nothing of my inner turmoil, I opened it.

Inside, nestled in tissue paper, was a single high-heeled shoe—crimson, designer, and unmistakably stained with what looked like dried blood. When I turned it over, my breath caught. Carved into the sole were two simple words: "Sister."

I looked up to find Damien staring at the shoe, his face drained of color.

"What does this mean?" I whispered.

"It means," he said gravely, "that someone knows you're not Iris."

In that moment, staring at the bloody warning in my hands, I realized I'd entered a game far more dangerous than I'd imagined—one where the rules and the players remained hidden in shadow.

Is this satisfactory for Chapter 1?


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