Chapter 1

My seven-year relationship with Lauren was finally supposed to cross the finish line. But on our wedding day, she took a single phone call, ditched me in her gown, and ran.

After calming down the guests and heading back to the new house, I walked in on her tangled up with her first love.

"I knew you'd come. You couldn't bear to watch me marry someone else."

"Weren't you just trying to force me to object and steal you away?"

They kissed passionately, completely lost in each other.

Suddenly, everything felt utterly pointless. I quietly canceled the wedding and booked a one-way flight overseas.

Later, Lauren begged me on her knees to take her back, crying until she lost her mind.

But it was already far too late.

At the wedding venue, Lauren answered a call and bolted out the door in her bridal gown. Her father slapped me right across the face.

He claimed I was completely useless, saying I couldn't even keep my own woman and made their whole family look like a laughingstock.

I kept my composure, made apologies to the guests, and dragged my exhausted body back to the home we were supposed to share. But as I neared the bedroom, low, breathless moans drifted through the hallway.

When I pushed the door open, my heart sank. A discarded wedding dress lay crumpled on the floor alongside two pairs of shoes kicked off in a hurry.

I stepped closer to the doorway. Lauren was curled up in Mason's arms, acting coy and needy. They were lying on the very mattress I had spent weeks picking out.

It felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. I never imagined she would betray me. Seven whole years. Everyone around us called us the dream couple; they used to say if we ever broke up, they’d stop believing in love altogether.

I was there for Lauren during the darkest days of her life. She always said how grateful she was. She used to tell me that real love meant commitment, and that she would build a warm, loving home for me.

"I knew you wouldn't just sit back and watch me marry someone else. You still love me."

Lauren let out a soft sigh and snuggled deeper into Mason's chest.

He squeezed her waist hard. "Were you really that sure I'd show up? What if I never made that call?"

Mason chuckled, saying she was certifiably insane for orchestrating such a massive spectacle just to force him into crashing her wedding.

Lauren pouted, feigning tears. She hung her head and whined, "Then you would've had to watch me become another man's wife."

"Heh. Sleeping with a married woman sounds way hotter anyway, doesn't it?"

"You're terrible~"

Swallowing the bile rising in my throat, I pulled out my phone and recorded the entire scene. My hands and feet had gone numb.

I hadn't even taken off my tuxedo. The boutonnière was still pinned to my lapel. I had called Lauren countless times earlier, just wanting to know why she abandoned me at the altar.

She never picked up. Turns out, she was right here, playing house with her first love.

I had been cheated on. Blindly and thoroughly.

Just as I turned to leave, Mason's voice drifted out again, laced with a smug, teasing authority.

"Even the suit you had that loser wear was my old style. And the watch on his wrist—wasn't that originally meant for me, too?"

"And you still claim you don't love me? Lauren, are you going to admit you were wrong, or what?"

Every instinct screamed at me to kick down the door and beat the living hell out of both of them. But I held back. I shed the tuxedo jacket and all the tainted accessories that made my stomach churn, then went straight to the bathroom and shaved my head completely bald.

It had never crossed my mind that all along, Lauren was just molding me into Mason's substitute. Styled exactly the way she wanted, I really did resemble him.

All this time, I was nothing more than a convenient stand-in to fill the void he left behind.