Chapter 1
I stared at the courthouse screen, my fingers frozen above the keyboard. “Try again,” I told the clerk quietly. The young woman behind the counter frowned but typed the names once more.
Vincent Carter.
Daphne Harper.
The result appeared instantly. No record found. “That can’t be right,” I whispered. My heart started beating faster. “Please check again. We registered our marriage three years ago.” The clerk shook her head apologetically. “I already checked twice. There is no marriage certificate under those names in the system.” I felt as if the ground had shifted beneath my feet.
Three years. Three years of being Vincent’s wife. Three years of raising his son. Three years of sacrificing everything so he could build Carter Technologies and the system was telling me… none of it existed.
“That’s impossible,” I said, forcing a shaky laugh. “Maybe it was filed under a different district?”
The clerk checked again. Still nothing. “I’m sorry,” the clerk said gently. “According to the registry, you were never legally married to Vincent Carter.”
The words hit like a slap. Never legally married. I walked out of the courthouse in a daze, my mind racing. Vincent must know something. There had to be a mistake. I pulled out my phone and called him.
The call rang twice and then it was rejected. Which was strange. Vincent never rejected my calls. A cold unease crept into my chest. Without thinking, I hailed a taxi.
“Carter Residence,” I told the driver. The entire ride home, I kept replaying the clerk’s words in my head. You were never legally married. I still remembered the day Vincent slid the ring onto my finger. The promises he made. The vows we exchanged.
He wouldn’t lie about something like that. Right?
The car stopped outside the mansion. I stepped out quickly, my heart hadn't stopped pounding even as I pushed open the front door. Voices drifted from the living room. Vincent’s voice and a woman’s. I paused.“I told you she would never check,” Vincent said casually.
A woman laughed softly. “Of course she wouldn’t,” the voice replied. “Daphne is too trusting. That’s why keeping her around was so easy.” My breath caught. I moved closer to the doorway.
Vincent was sitting on the couch, one of his arms was wrapped around a beautiful woman dressed in an expensive red dress. Rumbidzai Carter. I recognized her immediately.
The woman smiled lazily. “Honestly, I’m surprised she stayed this long.”
Vincent chuckled. “She was useful.”
I felt something inside my chest crack. Rumbidzai glanced toward the staircase. “What about the kid? She’s getting attached.”
Vincent shrugged. “Let her be. The boy isn’t hers anyway.” My fingers tightened around the doorframe.
“What do you mean?” Rumbidzai asked, amused.
Vincent smirked. “Our son was always yours, Rumbidzai. Daphne just raised him for us.”
I still remember the sound of my world shattering. The little boy upstairs… The child I'd loved like my own… Vincent had just been using me this whole time and the man I called my husband… Was never my husband at all.
Behind me, the front door creaked open but I was too numb to turn around because in that moment, I finally understood.
The last three years of my life had been nothing more than a lie.
