Chapter 2

I didn't sleep.

I sat on the bathroom floor, reading three years of messages on Lucas's second phone.

Every text was a knife.

"Miss you. Clara's cooking again. Wish it was yours." —Lucas

"Wore the red dress you bought me. Thinking of you at that boring gala with her." —Vanessa

"Mom says we need to wait. One more year. Then we can be together properly." —Lucas

"I hate sharing you. Even with my own sister." —Vanessa

"You're not sharing me. She doesn't have me. She never did." —Lucas

That last message was sent on my birthday. Last year.

The night Lucas had surprised me with a trip to Paris.

I'd cried with happiness. He'd held me and called me beautiful.

The next morning, while I slept in our hotel room, he'd texted Vanessa: "Counting the days until this is you."

Paris wasn't for me. It was rehearsal for her.

My entire marriage: a dress rehearsal for my twin sister.

I scrolled further. Found the emails.

A prenuptial agreement—not mine. A draft prenup between Lucas and Vanessa, prepared by his family's attorney.

Dated two months before our wedding.

He'd planned to marry her. She'd turned him down at the last minute—cold feet, commitment issues, whatever excuse she'd manufactured.

I was the backup. The understudy who never left the stage.

And Helena—Lucas's mother—had orchestrated the entire switch.

Her emails to Lucas were clinical. Strategic.

"Vanessa isn't ready. Clara is stable, presentable, and desperate enough to be grateful. Marry her. Produce an heir. We'll transition to Vanessa once the child is secured."

Transition. Like I was a temporary employee.

"Clara's inheritance from her grandmother will fund the Singapore expansion. Vanessa's debts make her a liability right now. Use Clara. Fix Vanessa's finances. Then swap."

Use Clara.

My grandmother's inheritance—$4.2 million—had gone directly into Blackwood Industries the week after our wedding.

Lucas had called it "our investment in our future."

Our future. His and Vanessa's future.

I'd been robbed. Literally and figuratively.

The bathroom mirror reflected a woman I didn't recognize. Hollow eyes. Trembling hands.

I pressed my palm flat against my stomach.

"I'm getting us out," I whispered to the life inside me. "I promise."

At 6 AM, I heard movement downstairs.

Helena's voice. She was early. She had a key—had always had a key, despite my protests.

"Is it done?" Helena asked someone. Lucas.

"She found out," Lucas said, his voice tight.

A pause. The sound of coffee being poured.

"How much does she know?" Helena's voice was sharp. Controlled.

"She saw me with Vanessa."

"Careless." Disapproval. Not for the affair—for getting caught.

"And she's pregnant."

Silence. A long, heavy silence.

Then Helena laughed. A short, satisfied sound.

"Perfect. That accelerates the timeline. She'll stay now. They always stay when there's a child."

They always stay.

How many women had Helena managed? Manipulated? Discarded?

"Get Vanessa out of the house before Clara comes downstairs," Helena continued. "I'll handle Clara. I'll tell her what she needs to hear."

"Which is?"

"That every marriage has compromises. That Blackwood wives endure. That the child needs a father, and a Blackwood heir needs the Blackwood name."

A script. She had a script for this.

She'd done this before. Maybe not with twins. But the playbook was well-worn.

I dressed quietly. Professionally. Armor.

Black dress. Heels. Hair pulled back.

War paint.

When I walked into the kitchen, Helena was seated at the island, coffee cup in hand, dressed in cream Chanel, pearls at her throat.

The picture of old money composure.

"Clara, darling. Sit down. We need to talk about your future."

She smiled warmly. The smile of a woman who had already decided my fate.

"I know about the arrangement," I said.

Her smile didn't waver.

"I know about the prenup with Vanessa. The emails. The plan to 'transition' me out after I produce an heir."

Helena set down her coffee cup. Precisely. Deliberately.

"You went through Lucas's phone." Not a question.

"He left it under his pillow. While my sister was in his bed."

"Clara." Her voice was patient. Condescending. "You're emotional. Pregnant women often are. Let me explain—"

"There's nothing to explain. I want a divorce."

The word hung in the air.

Helena's eyes hardened. The warmth vanished like a mask being removed.

"A divorce," she repeated, as if I'd suggested something obscene.

"You'll get nothing. The prenup you signed—your prenup—guarantees that."

My prenup. The one I'd signed at twenty-three, trusting, naive, believing Lucas loved me.

"No spousal support. No property. No claim on Blackwood Industries."

She recited the terms from memory.

"And if you try to fight it, we'll bury you. Blackwood Legal has fourteen partners. You have... what? A defunct architecture license and a maxed-out credit card?"

She stood, smoothing her skirt.

"Here's what's going to happen, Clara. You're going to stay. You're going to carry this child to term. You're going to smile at galas and host dinner parties and pretend everything is fine."

She picked up her purse. Hermès. Crocodile.

"And when the child is born, we'll discuss your... retirement package."

She walked towards the door, then paused.

"Oh, and Clara? If you contact a lawyer, if you speak to the press, if you so much as whisper the word 'affair' to anyone..."

She turned, her eyes cold as surgical steel.

"I will make sure you never see that child again. Blackwood mothers don't lose custody. Blackwood mothers don't lose anything."

The door clicked shut behind her.

I stood alone in the kitchen of a penthouse that was never mine, married to a man who never loved me, carrying a child they wanted to steal.

My hands weren't shaking anymore.

They were steady. Perfectly steady.

Because something inside me had shifted.

Fear had left. Something harder had taken its place.