How I Married My Sister’s Billionaire Husband

They say every bride remembers the first step she takes down the aisle. I remembered mine for all the wrong reasons. My heels shook with each step, not from nerves or excitement, but because I could still hear her voice screaming in my head. “Don’t touch my life, Elena. You don’t get to steal from me.” Camilla’s words. My sister’s. The golden child of the Grant family. The biological one. The perfect one. The one who was supposed to be marrying Dominic tonight. The lights from the chandelier above scattered across the marble floor, casting a soft glow on the petals beneath my feet. But I couldn’t feel their softness. My body was on autopilot. I didn’t even know how I had gotten here. My palms were clammy. The silk bouquet trembled in my grip. The veil suffocated me. And at the end of the aisle, Dominic Blackwell waited , looking like sin wrapped in Armani, hands clasped behind his back, eyes unreadable. Those eyes had once belonged to her. She used to say she could make him beg with just a glance. I used to believe her. I believed everything she ever said. Until she vanished. One night before the wedding, Camilla disappeared like a storm swallowed by the sea. Her phone went off. Her clothes were gone. The only thing she left behind was a bloodstained bracelet and a note that read: Don’t come looking. I was never yours to keep. And in the chaos that followed, Dominic had looked at me. “You’re still a Grant,” he said coldly. “You’re the only one left to fix this mess.” Fix this mess. That was why he was marrying me. Not because he loved me. Not even because he liked me. I was the placeholder. The backup plan. The substitute bride. I reached him at the altar. He didn’t smile. Neither did I. The priest began speaking, but the words blurred like water on glass. I stared at the man beside me, the man who used to visit our house in tailored suits and slick smiles. The man my sister used to kiss in front of me without shame. The man I had quietly loved from behind the curtains since I was sixteen. He reached for my hand. His fingers were ice. Or maybe it was mine that were frozen. The priest turned to me. “Do you, Elena Grant, take Dominic Blackwell…” I felt my mouth open, but before I could speak, the door at the back of the hall slammed open. All heads turned. And there she was. Camilla. Alive. Drenched in rain. Lipstick smudged. Hair wild. Fury in her eyes like fire licking up dry wood. “You have got to be kidding me,” she snarled, storming down the aisle like it still belonged to her. All the guests gasped, a ripple of tension cutting through the grand ballroom. Flashbulbs popped from hidden cameras. The whispers swelled like a tidal wave. Dominic didn’t flinch. His hand stayed in mine. “I told you to stay away,” he said, voice low. “You told me a lot of things,” Camilla hissed. “And now you’re marrying the maid?” I blinked. Maid. That’s what she always called me when our parents weren’t listening. The orphan girl. The stray dog they took in because their picture-perfect family needed a charity case. “I’m not the maid,” I said, for the first time in my life, not whispering. Camilla’s eyes whipped to mine, disbelief curving her lips. “You think wearing a dress that was meant for me makes you a bride?” Dominic stepped forward, pulling me behind him like a shield. “It makes her mine.” Her laugh was bitter. Loud. “You’re sick, Dominic. She’s my sister.” “She was never really yours, was she?” he shot back. “You never treated her like one.” Camilla’s smile faded. “Get out,” he said. She looked between us, eyes blazing. “This isn’t over.” Then she was gone again. This time with thunder crashing outside the doors as if the sky itself couldn’t stand the storm she carried. The priest, after a long awkward pause, continued the vows. I said yes. Dominic said yes. And just like that, I became a Blackwell. The crowd clapped, but it sounded like hollow applause in a haunted theater. Everything felt like a play, and I wasn’t sure if I was the lead or the villain. ⸻ Hours later, I stood alone in the bridal suite. My makeup had faded. My curls had loosened. The dress clung to me like a lie. The ring on my finger glittered. But it didn’t feel like mine. Not yet. Dominic entered without knocking. He always moved with that predator calm, like the world was his and he had nothing to prove. “She’ll try to come back,” I said, breaking the silence. He loosened his tie and poured himself a drink from the minibar. “Let her. I’ve already replaced her.” I turned to him. “Is that all I am to you?” He looked at me then, really looked. “You were the one thing she could never ruin for me.” “I was her shadow,” I whispered. “Until now.” He walked to me. Tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You were always more than that. She just blinded you to it.” His fingers brushed my chin. I shivered. Not from cold. He leaned in slowly. “You don’t have to pretend with me, Elena.” I looked up at him, eyes heavy with too many truths. “I’m not pretending. I’ve loved you longer than she ever did.” His lips stopped just short of mine. “Then prove it.” And when he kissed me, it wasn’t soft or slow. It was a kiss born of broken things, of secrets buried in silk sheets, of two people too scarred to love properly and too tired to run anymore. It was a beginning. Or maybe the beginning of the end.