HIS WIFE MY HEART

The pregnancy test showed two pink lines. After four years of a quiet marriage to Carter Leon, we were finally having a baby. I thought this was the final piece of our story.

But when I went to the county clerk's office for a certified copy of our marriage certificate, I was told there was no record of our marriage. Instead, Carter was legally married to Erlene Fulton, my estranged stepsister and his high school sweetheart.

My world shattered.

I was nothing more than a mistress, a placeholder.

Then, my family, including Carter, pressured me to "step aside" for Erlene, who was supposedly dying and wished to die as Carter's wife. I refused, revealing my pregnancy, only to be locked away by my father and stepmother. Carter later convinced me it was all a charade, a performance for a dying woman.

I watched him marry Erlene, a ghost at their grand wedding. He spent his time with her, while I, like a fool, kept believing his lies. Until I overheard Erlene and Carter. He confessed he had always loved her, and that marrying me was just a plan to wound her pride and make her return.

My four years, my devotion, my love-all a calculated move. I was a pawn, and so was my baby. The promises, the soft touches, the shared smiles-all fake.

How could I have been so blind?

How could he be so cruel?

I had to save myself, and my child, from this poison.

I ran, determined to leave the lie behind.

Chapter 1

The pregnancy test showed two pink lines. I stared at them, my heart pounding in my chest. Four years. Four years of a careful, quiet marriage to Carter Leon, and now, finally, a baby. Our baby.

I thought this would be the thing that cemented us, the final piece of our story.

"We'll need a certified copy of our marriage certificate for the hospital pre-registration," I told Carter that evening, my voice light with happiness.

He was reading a financial report, but he looked up and smiled. It was a real smile, the kind that reached his eyes, the kind it had taken me years to earn.

"Of course," he said. "Whatever you need. Go to the county clerk's office tomorrow. I'll have my assistant handle the fees."

He handed me his black credit card, a gesture of trust that made my stomach flutter. For four years, I had devoted myself to him, tended to his home, soothed his moods, and slowly, painstakingly, I had watched his initial coldness melt into what I believed was real affection. I thought I had finally won.

The next day, I went to the county clerk's office, the original certificate tucked safely in my purse. The building was old and smelled of paper and dust. I waited in a short line, my hand resting on my still-flat stomach, dreaming of telling our child how wanted they were.

The clerk, a woman with tired eyes and a name tag that read 'Brenda', took my document. She typed my name, then Carter' s, into her computer. Her brow furrowed.

"Ma'am, I can't find a record of this."

My smile faltered. "Oh, there must be a mistake. We were married four years ago. Pickett and Leon."

She typed again, slowly. "I have no record of a marriage license issued to a Darline Pickett and a Carter Leon."

A cold feeling started in my gut. "That's impossible. We have the certificate right there."

Brenda sighed, a sound of someone who had delivered bad news a thousand times. "Sometimes people get those novelty certificates online. They look real, but they aren't legally filed."

She looked at her screen again. "I do have a record for Carter Leon, though."

Hope surged through me. "See? It must be under his name."

Her eyes met mine, and they were filled with a pity that I didn't understand yet.

"He's legally married," she said, her voice soft. "To an Erlene Fulton. The license was issued four and a half years ago. It's still active."

Erlene Fulton.

The name hit me like a physical blow. My estranged stepsister. The woman who had been Carter's high school sweetheart. The woman who left him standing at the altar on their wedding day to chase an art career in Paris.

My mind went blank. The clerk's voice faded into a dull buzz. I remembered that day vividly. The panic in my father's eyes, my stepmother Clemma's frantic whispers about the family's reputation, about the Leon family's power and the insult Erlene had delivered.

And then, their eyes had turned to me.

"Darline, you have to do this," my father, Adler, had pleaded. "Just for a little while. To save us from this humiliation. Carter has agreed. It's just a formality."

I was the quiet, plain stepsister, always in Erlene's shadow. I had loved Carter from afar for years. In that moment of chaos, I saw a chance. A foolish, desperate chance to have the life I'd always dreamed of.

So I put on the dress. I walked down the aisle. I stood beside a cold, stone-faced Carter and became his wife. Or so I had thought.

For four years, I worked to make him forget Erlene. I learned his favorite foods, how he took his coffee, the way he liked his shirts ironed. I was there for him when his business deals went south, and I celebrated with him when they succeeded. Slowly, he began to soften. He started holding my hand in public. He bought me a car for our second anniversary. Last month, he'd given me his personal credit card.

"Buy yourself something nice, Darline," he had said, his voice a low murmur against my hair. "You deserve it."

I had believed him. I had believed in the life we were building, in the baby that was now growing inside me.

All of it was a lie.

I stumbled out of the clerk's office, the world tilting around me. A four-year marriage. A baby. And I was nothing more than a mistress, a placeholder in my own home.

That night, the phone rang. It was my stepmother, Clemma.