Trapped in my Sister's Wedding Vows
She was never meant to be his bride.
Mireya Sutton has spent her entire life living in her sister's shadow. Mireya is kind, loyal, and always overlooked. A talented fashion designer, she's used to creating beauty with her own hands, but nothing could have prepared her for the chaos her sister leaves behind. When her sister vanishes on the morning of her wedding, leaving scandal and heartbreak in her wake, Mireya is forced to take her place.
Standing at the altar is Ronan Ashcroft: cold, furious, and convinced she orchestrated the betrayal. To him, she is nothing but a substitute bride, a constant reminder of the sister who disappeared without a trace.
But duty and family honor leave her no choice. Bound by vows she never wanted, Mireya must navigate a marriage filled with tension, suspicion, and a man who refuses to believe in her innocence.
As if that weren't enough, a love triangle emerges, someone from her past reappears, offering the comfort, care, and understanding that Ronan withholds. Torn between safety and desire, loyalty and passion, Mireya must confront her heart's deepest desires.
Secrets begin to surface: Why did her sister truly disappear? Who can she trust? And could the man she never expected to love actually be the one she's meant to marry?
Slowly, Ronan's walls begin to crack, revealing a man driven by love, obsession, and a dark past he refuses to share. But as the slow burn tension between them intensifies, the stakes rise higher than ever. Betrayal, jealousy, and forbidden attraction collide in a marriage where no one is safe, and no one is truly free.
Trapped in obligations, caught between two hearts, and determined to protect her dreams and independence, Mireya must fight to survive a love that could consume everything she holds dear.
đ Will she follow her heart... or honor her vows?
đ„ Love, betrayal, secrets, and obsession collide in this gripping slow burn romance.
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Chapter 10
Sleep no longer came easily to Mireya.
After the failed rescue, the Ashcroft mansion felt different, tense, watchful. Every hushed conversation between staff carried suspicion. Every closed door felt deliberate.
Arabella was still missing.
And now Mireya knew for certain she had been taken.
She had just stepped into the reception corridor when a familiar voice stopped her cold.
"I'm not here to negotiate with legal teams. I'm here to see her."
Her pulse spiked.
That voice.
She moved toward the lounge slowly, almost afraid to confirm what she already knew.
Lucas stood near the fireplace, composed and unmistakably real. Older than she remembered, sharper around the edges but the same steady presence she had once trusted with everything.
His eyes found hers.
"Mireya."
The years between them collapsed instantly.
"Lucas..."
Adrian excused himself quietly, leaving them alone.
"You really married him," Lucas said, not accusing, just wounded.
"It wasn't my choice," she replied.
He searched her face, as if weighing the truth in her expression.
"You look exhausted."
"I am."
He stepped closer, not touching her, but near enough that the familiarity unsettled her more than distance would have.
"I came back as soon as I heard about your sister," he said. "I should have returned sooner."
"You left for your career," she answered softly. "You didn't abandon me."
A flicker of regret crossed his face.
"I heard she disappeared."
"She was kidnapped," Mireya said quickly. "Veltrane Consortium."
Lucas's expression hardened.
"That's not a small enemy."
"I know."
"Are you safe here?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered instinctively. "Ronan would never let harm reach me."
Lucas held her gaze. "That's not what I meant."
Before she could respond, the main doors opened.
Ronan entered, rain clinging to his coat, a bruise shadowing his cheekbone. His silver eyes locked onto Lucas immediately.
Recognition.
Then hostility.
"The past arrives uninvited," Ronan said coolly.
"Good evening, Ronan," Lucas replied evenly.
"You entered my home without permission."
"I came to see Mireya."
Ronan's gaze flicked to her briefly before returning to Lucas. "She is Mrs. Ashcroft."
"She isn't property."
"She is my wife."
The air tightened between them.
"Stop," Mireya said firmly.
Neither man looked at her.
"Did you force this marriage?" Lucas asked.
Ronan's expression turned lethal. "Choose your words carefully."
"It was a legal agreement," Mireya cut in quickly. "Temporary. Until Arabella is found."
Lucas's gaze softened toward her. "You deserve more than being someone's contingency plan."
Ronan stepped forward. "You forfeited whatever claim you think you have when you left."
"Connection doesn't disappear because distance exists," Lucas replied.
The tension felt less like rivalry and more like unfinished history.
Lucas turned back to Mireya. "I'm not here to start a war. I'm here because you once said you'd never face life alone."
Her chest tightened.
"And now?" she asked quietly.
"Now I see you in the middle of a battlefield."
Ronan's restraint thinned. "You've said enough."
Lucas nodded once and placed a business card on the console beside her.
"My direct line. If you need someone who chooses you."
He paused beside Ronan.
"Veltrane isn't just targeting Arabella," he said quietly. "They're destabilizing your legacy. And they're not the only ones watching."
Then he left.
The doors shut behind him, sealing the silence.
Ronan removed his coat slowly.
"You still love him," he said.
"I never said that."
"You didn't have to."
Hurt flared inside her. "You don't get to interrogate my past when you control my present."
His gaze sharpened. "You underestimate how deeply your past can threaten my future."
"Your empire?" she asked bitterly.
"You."
The word hung between them.
Ronan seemed to realize what he had revealed. His composure snapped back into place.
"Get some rest," he said, turning toward his study.
Mireya remained standing alone in the hall, her emotions colliding violently.
Outside the gates, Lucas sat inside his car, staring at the Ashcroft estate through rain streaked glass.
"Back to the hotel, sir?" his driver asked.
"No."
He pulled out his phone and dialed.
"Begin gathering intelligence on Veltrane," he ordered calmly.
"Are you aligning with Ashcroft operations?" the voice asked.
Lucas's gaze remained fixed on the mansion lights.
"No," he said.
"I'm protecting something far more personal."
The call ended.
And with it, the war around Mireya gained another player.
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7.1
For seven years, I was the architect of my fiancĂ©'s criminal empire and the strategist behind his every move. I was Dante Galloâs unofficial Consigliere, his partner in everything but name. Tomorrow, I was finally supposed to marry him and take my place as the queen to his throne.
But on the eve of our wedding, a single text message sent by mistake detonated my life. It was a photo from Dante, showing a platinum wedding band on his hand. The message read: âMarried this morning. Sheâs safe now.â
My gaze fell to the engagement ring on my own finger. It was the identical band, just smaller. The engraved initials âD.I.â didnât stand for Dante and I. They stood for Dante and Isabellaâhis childhood sweetheart. My entire relationship was a lie; I was just a shield to protect his one true love.
He dismissed my discovery as a "tantrum." Then, his new bride began taunting me, sending a picture of them tangled in bedsheets with the caption: "Loser." They expected me to break. They thought I would shatter.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were. I forwarded the picture to Isabellaâs fiancĂ©, a man far more dangerous than Dante. "Your fiancĂ©e is in Suite 8808 at the Grand Hyatt," I told him. "I'll meet you downstairs. We're going to crash their party."
8.3
On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldnât miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news.
He was shielding another womanâhis ruthless business partnerâfrom a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city.
The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: âSomething came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.â
For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets.
My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me.
So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts.
He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line Iâd marked.
He didnât know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree.
He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies.
8.8
My father bailed a violent ex-con out of prison just to force me into a marriage with him. I stood in a filthy Bronx hallway, my Vera Wang gown dragging through the grime, knowing this was the price for my motherâs life. If I didn't marry the man behind the steel door, the wire transfer for her hospital ventilator wouldn't go through the next morning.
The man, a scarred giant named Dock, treated me with cold contempt, telling me he didn't touch things he didn't wantâand he didn't want a "Jacobson." I thought I had hit rock bottom, tied to a criminal while my family lived in luxury. But the nightmare was just beginning.
When I tried to return my wedding dress to pay for rent, my sister Janie and stepmother found me. They laughed as security dragged me out of the boutique, calling me a "charity case." When I finally crawled back to our family manor to beg for the money my father had promised, Janie revealed the horrific truth. She had liquidated my motherâs medical trust to fund a waterfront real estate project.
"Get out and let your mother rot," she screamed, throwing a glass of ice water in my face before having guards dump me in the dirt. I knelt on the gravel, wet and bleeding, realizing my own flesh and blood had signed my mother's death warrant for a profit. I had nothing leftâno money, no home, and a husband who was supposed to be a monster.
I didn't understand why they hated me so much, or how I would survive the night. But then, a black car screeched to a halt in front of me. Dock pulled me inside, his eyes burning with a lethal coldness Iâd never seen in a common thug.
As he wiped the blood from my hands, he picked up a encrypted phone and gave a single command.
"Initiate Project Titan. I want the Jacobson Group insolvent by Friday."
I looked at the man I thought was a broke felon, realizing I hadn't just married a strangerâI had married the most dangerous man in the city, and he was about to burn my family's world to the ground.
8.1
She never imagined love would begin with a marriage she didn't want.
Forced into a union to save her family, Elena promised herself one thing, she would never love her husband.
But the man she hated was nothing like she expected...
And the heart she tried to protect slowly betrayed her.
8.2
The sensation of falling wasn't like flying; it was heavy, violent, and smelled of burning flesh. Above us, on the crumbling balcony of the Sears manor, Duke Cato Sears turned his back, shielding his cousin Bianca from the smoke as he walked away, leaving my sister Blossom and me to drop into the abyss.
As the darkness slammed shut like an iron door, I realized my entire life had been a cruel script written by the people I called family.
In my first life, I was the sacrificial lamb of the Dawson manor, sold to a man who eventually watched me die without blinking. My sister Blossom had pushed me into Cato's arms to avoid his rumors, only to laugh when the fire finally consumed us both. My father had measured my value like a piece of livestock, and my step-grandmother didn't even acknowledge my existence while I was being led to the slaughter.
I died in that fire, feeling the heat scorch my skin and the weight of a hatred so potent it tasted like bile. I spent twenty years being the weak, manipulated shadow of a girl, only to end up as nothing more than a phantom scorch mark on a "hero's" estate.
I couldn't understand why my own blood treated my life like a game they could discard. The injustice of it all burned hotter than the flames that took my last breath.
Then, I sat up, sucking in air that tasted of lavender and air conditioning, not smoke. I was back in my bedroom, three days before the engagement ball that ruined my life. Blossom stood at the door, her "sweet" mask slipping as she tried to manipulate me into the Duke's path again.
She thought she was the only one who had come back, but she didn't realize that this time, I was going to let her have exactly what she wanted: the Duke, the bankruptcy, and the living hell that awaited her in that house.
7.9
Everyone knew Kristine loved Colton. Still, his heart clung to a woman overseas-someone he spent most days with, now pregnant with his baby-and Kristine still asked him to marry her.
On their registration day, however, he never came; his "true love" had flown back.
Seven years of loyalty later, Kristine walked away, blocked him, and left his city.
Colton didn't blink-until he saw her at the courthouse, arm-in-arm with another man, and the proud CEO went pale. He went after her, desperation overtaking him.
"I'm sorry. Please give me another chance."
She snapped, "Could you stop? I'm already married."