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.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 5
Mireya couldn't sleep.
Arabella's abandoned car, the blood... the image replayed relentlessly, sharper each time. The weight of not knowing pressed on her chest.
By morning, anxiety clawed at her. She needed answers. Or at least... reassurance.
Ronan stood near the grand staircase, suit immaculate, expression carved from cold authority as he scrolled through his tablet.
"I want to visit my parents," Mireya said carefully.
Ronan barely looked up. "Why?"
"My sister is missing," she whispered, voice trembling despite her composure. "I need to know if they're worried. If they're doing anything."
His gaze lifted. A flicker of unreadable emotion crossed his eyes before vanishing.
"You have two hours," he said finally. "A driver will take you. Anything you learn, you report immediately."
Mireya swallowed. "Of course."
Ashcroft Conglomerate
As her car left the estate, Ronan sped toward the towering glass building dominating the skyline: Ashcroft Conglomerate International.
The empire was immense, finance, real estate, technology, international investments but whispers followed the Ashcroft name: debt acquisitions, silent buyouts, shadowy networks operating in grey zones.
Ronan thrived on control. And betrayal? He never forgave it.
The Sutton Residence
The Sutton mansion gleamed with polished marble and towering pillars, beautiful, but cold.
Her mother greeted her politely, a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Mireya," Mrs. Sutton said lightly. "You should have called ahead."
"I wanted to see you," Mireya replied. "Have you heard anything about Arabella?"
"Sit first," her mother gestured toward a chair.
Mireya obeyed, fingers twisting nervously.
Before she could speak again, Mrs. Sutton's phone rang. She answered immediately.
"Oh, you wouldn't believe the progress we've made!" she chirped. "The Sutton brand is thriving since the Ashcroft alliance. Contracts are signing faster than ever. And I think my husband should run for mayor, Mrs. Sutton, wife of the mayor! With the Ashcroft connection, the public will adore us. Practically guaranteed."
Mireya froze. An hour passed while her mother gushed about profits, invitations, and political ambitions.
Finally, she could bear it no longer. She stood abruptly, took the phone gently but firmly, and ended the call.
"Mireya!" her mother snapped.
"I know you don't really care about me," Mireya said quietly, voice trembling. "But this is Arabella. Your daughter."
Mrs. Sutton's expression hardened. "Arabella disgraced this family. She abandoned responsibilities I spent years preparing her for."
"What if something happened to her?" Mireya whispered. "Hurt, scared, alone?"
No answer came.
Mireya's chest tightened. Arabella had been their pride. She had only been... convenient.
Outside, sunlight was harsh. Her driver opened the car door. Her phone buzzed. Unknown number.
"Hargrove, Metropolitan Investigation Unit," a male voice said professionally. "We're reviewing evidence connected to your sister's disappearance."
"Did you find her?" Mireya asked breathlessly.
"Not yet," he said. "But something unusual was inside the recovered vehicle."
"What?"
"A torn fabric sample caught in the passenger seat hinge. A custom design piece."
Mireya frowned. "Arabella didn't wear custom pieces often."
"That's why we called," he continued. "The stitching matches a designer label registered under your fashion brand."
Her world tilted.
"That... that's impossible," she whispered.
"We need you to come in immediately for questioning."
Ashcroft Conglomerate â Ronan's Office
Ronan stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows when his phone buzzed. He answered without greeting.
"Yes."
His expression darkened as his investigator reported.
"You're certain?" he asked coldly.
A pause.
"Send me the file."
Seconds later, a confidential report appeared on his tablet: security footage timestamped the night Arabella disappeared.
The Sutton driveway. Arabella's car. And a second figure approaching. The footage glitched briefly, distorting the face but not enough.
Ronan's jaw tightened.
Mireya arrived at Ashcroft Holdings, summoned urgently. Her hands trembled as she opened Ronan's office door.
He stood behind his desk, tablet in hand, expression colder than ever.
"You were at your parents' house this morning," he said.
"Yes," she replied carefully.
He turned the tablet toward her.
"Then perhaps you'd like to explain why security footage shows someone who looks exactly like you getting into your sister's car the night she disappeared."
Mireya's blood ran cold. "...That isn't me," she whispered.
Ronan's gaze darkened. "Then prove it."
You may also like
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."