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 9
Mireya stood alone in Ronan's private lounge, the city lights stretching beneath her like a field of distant stars. The encrypted financial records on her tablet confirmed what she had feared.
Veltrane Consortium.
The transactions were deliberate. Coordinated. Strategic.
Arabella had not run away.
She had been taken.
The confirmation from Ronan's intelligence network earlier that day removed all doubt. Satellite tracking, intercepted communications, and shell accounts tied directly to Veltrane pointed to a calculated abduction.
The lounge doors opened behind her.
"You're still working," Ronan said evenly.
Mireya turned to face him. "You said Veltrane has five directors."
"Yes."
"Which one ordered this?"
"They don't act alone," he replied. "They function as a council. If one falls, another absorbs control."
"And Arabella?"
"Leverage," he said.
The word settled heavily between them.
Then he added, "We're attempting an extraction tonight."
Hope surged through her.
"Where?"
"A flagged safehouse. We believe she may be there."
"I'm coming."
"No."
"She's my sister."
"And you are not trained for a Veltrane crossfire."
Mireya stepped closer. "Then don't shut me out. If you're risking your life, I deserve to know what you're walking into."
Ronan studied her before nodding once. He briefed her on the location, the risks, the possibility of resistance. He spoke clinically, but the tension in his jaw betrayed concern.
Hours later, he left with his team.
The mansion felt wrong after his departure.
Too quiet.
Staff avoided eye contact. Conversations stopped when she entered rooms. The air carried unease.
Then she saw it.
A maid exiting the restricted corridor leading to Ronan's private study.
That corridor required clearance.
The maid bowed and walked away quickly, hands trembling.
Mireya waited before entering the study. The room looked untouched until she noticed the secondary monitor.
A login screen.
Recently accessed.
Thirty two minutes earlier.
Her pulse quickened. Ronan had been preparing the rescue at that time.
Someone had accessed his encrypted system.
Someone inside the house.
She closed the screen carefully and left without alerting security.
If there was a leak, she didn't know who to trust.
Across the city, Arabella sat restrained in a private room when the door opened.
A composed woman entered, introducing herself as Director Mardison Varkos of Veltrane's Executive Council.
"You're valuable," Mardison said calmly.
"For ransom?" Arabella demanded.
"No. You were never the intended bride."
Arabella's confusion deepened.
"You were leverage," Mardison continued. "For the Ashcroft empire."
"For Ronan?"
Mardison's silence confirmed it.
Back at the Montclair estate that evening, Mireya attended a charity gala under Ronan's instructions to maintain appearances.
Andy Montclair approached her almost immediately.
"You're searching for your sister," he said lightly.
"She's missing," Mireya replied, watching him.
"Curiosity can be dangerous," he warned.
Before she could respond, her phone vibrated.
Commander Hale.
"The extraction failed," he said. "Veltrane deployed reinforcements. We were forced to retreat."
"And Ronan?"
"He's alive."
"And Arabella?"
"We never reached her."
The call ended.
Veltrane had anticipated the operation.
Mireya's thoughts flashed back to the accessed terminal. The trembling maid. The open study door.
An insider.
Someone had warned them.
Andy stepped onto the balcony behind her.
"Bad news?" he asked.
"Yes."
He studied her carefully.
"Then you should prepare yourself," he said quietly.
"For what?"
"For discovering that sometimes the enemy isn't outside the walls."
Mireya turned toward the ballroom, her mind racing.
Veltrane was dangerous.
But betrayal inside the Ashcroft mansion was worse.
And now she knew the truth.
Arabella wasn't just a hostage.
She was a message.
And someone within Ronan's world was helping deliver it.
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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."