Substitute Bride, Stolen Heart

Chapter 4 : The Voss Estate

I woke to sunlight and an empty armchair.

The blanket that had been draped over me sometime in the night was folded now, set neatly on the foot of the bed, like proof I hadn't dreamed any of it. My wedding dress hung on the back of the door. My wedding ring sat heavy and unfamiliar on my finger.

I found Killian in the dining room downstairs, already dressed in a black button-down, scrolling through something on his phone with a coffee he hadn't touched. He glanced up when I entered, and for half a second something almost soft crossed his face before it smoothed back into business.

"Sit," he said. "Eat something. You didn't touch dinner last night either."

A woman in a gray uniform appeared instantly with a plate, set it in front of me, and vanished without a single glance in my direction. I noticed that. The way the staff moved around him like he was weather they'd learned to survive.

"Your name's on the estate registry now," Killian said, not looking up from his phone. "Security clearance, staff introductions, the car service — all of it updated by noon."

"That was fast."

"I don't like loose ends." He finally set the phone down. "Which brings me to the obvious problem."

My stomach tightened. "Avery."

"Your family will assume the swap worked. That no one noticed." His eyes were unreadable again, back to the calculating stillness from the wedding. "They're wrong. And when they find out I know, they'll panic. People panic when they think they've been caught."

"What do we do?"

"Nothing, for now." He said it like it wasn't a question. "You let me handle it."

"I don't need you to “handle” my family, Killian."

"You needed someone to, apparently, or you wouldn't be sitting at my table in place of your sister." His voice wasn't cruel, just flat with fact, and it stung worse for it. "I'm not doing you a favor. I'm protecting what's mine."

“What's mine.” The words did something strange to my chest, half thrill, half warning.

Before I could answer, the doors at the end of the room opened, and a man I didn't recognize strode in without waiting to be announced mid-forties, sharp suit, the kind of confidence that only existed in people who'd never once been told no.

"Killian." The man's eyes cut to me, assessing, cold. "I heard the wedding went beautifully. I also heard something... interesting from a friend at the reception."

Killian didn't stand. He didn't even set down his coffee. "Marcus. You weren't invited today."

"I don't need an invitation to check on family business." Marcus's gaze slid over me like I was an item on an inventory list. "This is her? The Whitmore girl?"

"My wife," Killian said, each word deliberate, "doesn't need your approval."

"Your “wife”," Marcus repeated, something ugly curling at the edge of his smile, "was supposed to be Avalene's sister. I have eyes at that wedding, Killian. People are already whispering that the bride under that veil wasn't who the contract specified."

The temperature in the room dropped.

I watched Killian rise slowly from his chair, unhurried, the same terrifying calm he'd worn with Rylan Cade at the reception except this time there was something colder underneath it, something that made even Marcus's confidence flicker.

"Say that again," Killian said quietly. "Say it like an accusation instead of a rumor, and see what happens to you."

Marcus's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

"The contract specified a Whitmore daughter." Killian's voice stayed low, level, somehow more frightening for the lack of volume. "It didn't specify which one. My lawyers drafted it. I read every line. If anyone in this family has a problem with how I chose to interpret my own agreement, they can bring it to me directly not sneak around whispering to people at my wedding like cowards."

Marcus's eyes flicked to me one more time, calculating something I couldn't read, before he gave a short, humorless smile.

"Just looking out for the family name," he said.

"Look out for it from a distance," Killian said. "Starting now."

Marcus left without another word, but the air he left behind felt charged, dangerous, like a match dropped too close to something flammable.

Killian sat back down like nothing had happened, picking his coffee back up, but I saw the tension still coiled in his shoulders.

"Who was that?" I asked quietly.

"My cousin." He said it like the word itself tasted bad. "And the first person who's going to try to prove our marriage is a mistake worth undoing."

I looked down at the ring on my finger, heavier now than it had been an hour ago.

"He's not going to be the last, is he."

Killian's eyes met mine, steady and certain.

"No," he said. "He won't be. Which is exactly why you're going to learn how to survive in this family starting today."