Three Years After Daughter's Death, Ex Brings Look-Alike Forcing Marriage

1: 1

The third year after my daughter's death, her fianc Edward Gilbert showed up at my door with a stand-in on his arm.

Mom, tell Yvette James that if she still won't show her face, I really am going to marry someone else.

The stand-in clung to his arm, and everything about her, the way she spoke, the small unconscious gestures.

All of it matched my daughter exactly.

Three years ago, Edward called off the wedding an eighth time for the sake of his gravely ill first love.

After my daughter died, he went half-mad hunting everywhere for a stand-in, playing the part of a devoted man.

He thought Yvette had gone into hiding.

That this would force her out.

I looked at the stand-in, and the stand-in looked at me.

We traded a single, knowing glance.

Edward, oh, Edward.

You don't actually believe there are two people in this world who could coincidentally look alike, share the same temperament, and match down to every last word and gesture, do you?

"All right."

I smiled and took the invitation he handed me.

"On the day of the engagement party, I'll make sure Yvette comes in person."

"And when she does, we'll have a big gift for the two of you."

...

"Mom, I'll give her three more days. That's the last of it."

Edward watched me accept the engagement invitation and simply assumed I had already given in.

He straightened his cuffs from on high, his tone one of charity.

"As long as Yvette is willing to show up before the engagement party and admit she was wrong to me, the place of Mrs. Gilbert is still hers."

He paused, a flicker of impatience crossing his eyes.

"Mom, you talk some sense into her too."

"Playing dead to get back at me, this little scheme of hers is too childish."

"These three years I've spent finding stand-ins were just to ease how much I missed her. There has to be a limit to throwing a tantrum."

Pain?

I dug my nails into my palm, the only thing that kept me from smashing his head open.

How much pain?

Could it ever come close to my daughter's?

Three years ago, that foolish girl of mine was carrying his child, five months along, when she became the whole city's laughingstock at an engagement party with no groom for the eighth time.

After calling Edward more than a dozen times with no answer, the fury and grief overwhelmed her, and she hemorrhaged on the spot.

During that whole entanglement with Edward, she'd already been carrying too much worry, and her body was in a bad way.

The moment she reached the hospital, the doctors issued a critical condition notice.

The baby was too far along.

It lodged inside her body and simply would not come out, and the bleeding never stopped.

Blood soaked through the white sheets, wave after wave.

All I could do was stand outside the operating room and listen to my daughter clutch her belly, screaming and wailing in agony.

"Mom, it hurts so much! Save me!"

"I can't hold on... Mom! It hurts... it hurts so much!"

"Where is Edward? Where is he?!"

In the end, her blood ran dry, and so did her strength.

That face, once so full of life and always smiling, went paper-white and empty.

Her unfocused eyes stared at the ceiling as she mouthed her last words to me.

"Mom, I was wrong... I regret it..."

"I'm sorry, Mom... I've been an unworthy daughter..."

When she finished, she closed her eyes and never woke again.

That day, my tears flowed with my daughter's blood for three hours.

Then they ran completely dry.

And now the man who killed my daughter was standing here, talking to me about how much he'd suffered missing her?

I forced down the urge to tear him apart a thousand times over and said nothing.

The stand-in beside him, the one called Vivien Swanson, produced a perfectly measured look of grievance.

She gave Edward's sleeve a light tug, then looked at me with a provoking gaze.

"Ma'am, please don't be angry with Mr. Gilbert."

"If Yvette really does come back, I'll leave right away. I would never come between them."

"Mr. Gilbert loves Yvette so much. How could I ever compare to her?"

Her words made Edward frown.

On the surface he scolded Vivien, telling her not to talk nonsense in front of an elder.

But a hidden trace of self-satisfaction flickered in his eyes.

He turned and spoke to me in a tone that thought it understood everything.

"Mom, if Yvette finds out Vivien came today, she'll definitely make a scene again. Don't let her know."

"She's the jealous type. So easily wounded."

I looked at him, and the corner of my mouth curved into a smile.

"Don't worry. She won't find out."

The dead don't get jealous, do they?

2: 2

Yvette is the kindest, most forgiving person I've ever met.

In a high-end VIP room at the downtown hospital, Savannah Fox leaned back against her bed, her voice calm.

She was the woman Edward carried in his heart, the one for whom he had broken off the engagement eight times.

Liver failure had kept her all but living in the hospital these past few years.

Every time her condition so much as wavered, Edward would drop everything, abandon my daughter, and rush to her bedside like a man gone mad.

Even at my pregnant daughter's engagement party.

Before all of this, I loathed this woman named Savannah.

It was only after my daughter died, when her liver, under the organ-donation agreement she had signed so long ago, happened by chance to be transplanted into Savannah, that I learned the truth from Savannah's own mouth.

Savannah was the daughter of the Gilberts' housekeeper.

Years ago, her mother had been killed by kidnappers while shielding Mrs. Gilbert from harm.

To make amends, the Gilberts promised to take her in as an adopted daughter and send her abroad for her education.

But Edward refused, making a scene, unwilling to acknowledge this sister.

The two had grown up together, and Savannah, with no mother to guide her, was strung along by Edward's deliberately ambiguous affection.

The Gilberts wanted to send her abroad for better treatment.

Edward wouldn't allow it, and had her admitted to a hospital he owned.

He kept her from all contact with the outside world and called it protection.

She had no idea whatsoever about Edward and my daughter.

Every time Savannah's condition worsened, it was one of Edward's informants who called to tell her.

Back then, when my daughter came to visit her at the hospital several times, Savannah asked out of curiosity who she was.

Edward brushed it off.

She's madly in love with me. She keeps clinging to me.

Don't mind her. Just focus on getting well.

Then he turned around and fobbed my daughter off too.

Savannah is just my sister. Her mother saved my family. I can't turn my back on her.

Can't you be a little more gracious? She's not well. Do you really have to push her like this?

My daughter was a kind soul.

She never gave Savannah any trouble again.

Just as I was about to say something more,

footsteps sounded suddenly in the corridor.

Savannah's face changed, and she knocked the water cup on her nightstand over onto herself.

Her eyes reddened, tears falling like beads off a broken string, and she wept up at me, all fragile helplessness.

Mrs. James, I know you can't stand me, but there's really nothing between me and Edward

Why do you keep pushing me like this? Does Yvette only come out to see Edward once I'm dead?

At that moment, the door swung open.

Edward strode in, and his face darkened when he saw the scene.

He gave me a cool, indifferent glance.

Mom, step out for a minute.

I stood, watching coldly as he walked to the bedside.

He looked down at Savannah, his voice cold.

Savannah, what I felt for you before was only a brother looking after his sister.

It's only now that I've realized the one I love is Yvette.

I'll have the family formally adopt you as a daughter and find you a good man to marry.

Savannah wept, her face streaked with tears, and clung desperately to the hem of his shirt.

Edward, you weren't like this before!

I've been with you all these years. Who's ever going to marry me now?

You said you'd look after me for the rest of my life. Don't leave me!

Edward pried her hand off, annoyed.

But a flicker of smugness crossed his face.

Two women fighting over him. That must have felt good.

I watched it all, contempt curling inside me.

Even real siblings wouldn't say something like looking after each other for a lifetime.

Yet he used sweet, empty words like these to string along a young woman who had lost her mother as a child and was worn down by serious illness.

The wretched, shameless man. He really had some nerve.

Before long, Edward came out of the room.

He looked at me, and there was actually a knowing little smile on his face.

Mom, Yvette sent you to test me today, didn't she?

Not waiting for me to answer, he went right on.

Just like her. Still as jealous as ever.

Talk her down. She's going to be Mrs. Gilbert soon. A little fuss to let off steam is fine, but she can't be this small-minded.

He straightened his tie, the very picture of a man with everything under control.

Mom, go back and tell Yvette. Since I've decided to marry her, I'll cut Savannah off completely.

Three years is more than long enough for this playing-hard-to-get game of hers.

I fought down the churning in my stomach and nodded.

All right. I'll tell her.

3: 3

Everything was going exactly according to plan.

Edward was lost in the spectacle of two women fighting over him, and he never tired of it.

Right up until the week before the engagement.

Then he started to get anxious.

More than once during this stretch, he'd pushed me to send Yvette to see him, and never once got an answer.

The need to control everything ran too deep in him. He couldn't sit still.

When Vivien's message came through, I went straight to a private auction downtown.

My late husband had once been a respected name in business. The James family had fallen far, but I could still get my hands on an admission ticket to an auction.

I'd barely stepped inside when I caught sight of the lot on the big screen.

My blood pressure shot up and the room went dark at the edges of my vision.

Those were my daughter Yvette's favorite pieces of jewelry, and the wedding gown she had designed with her own hands.

Even some of her everyday things were there.

She had left them all behind when she moved into Edward's home, her heart full of hope, dreaming of the love she thought she'd found.

I couldn't hold it in anymore. I burst into the private room and rounded on him.

"Edward! What gives you the right to auction off Yvette's things?!"

Once, my daughter's love for this man had been so pure.

Even now I can't forget the way her eyes shone whenever she talked to me about him.

How could he use something like this to humiliate her?

Edward turned his head, leaned back into his chair, crossed his legs, perfectly at ease.

"Mom, what's the rush?"

"All I'm doing is giving Yvette a little push."

"She's made a scene for three years, hidden for three years. That's enough, isn't it?"

"Isn't this gown the thing she treasures most? Let's see whether she can really steel herself and watch it all fall into someone else's hands."

He swept a contemptuous glance over me, mockery all through his eyes.

"What? Mom, you want to buy them back for her? Does the James family still have that kind of spare cash?"

I was so furious I could barely breathe, my chest heaving.

He wasn't wrong. The James family was nothing like it used to be.

To get Edward the seat of power in the Gilbert family, we had long since emptied our coffers.

What was left of our fortune truly wasn't enough for me to bid on these lots, each one running into the tens of millions.

Edward, you ungrateful animal.

Just as I wanted nothing more than to lunge at him and tear that mouth off his face.

Vivien came sauntering over in a couture gown, every step swaying.

She gave me a taunting look, then settled beside Edward as naturally as anything.

She hooked her arm through his and gave it a little shake, cooing at him.

"Mr. Gilbert, I love all of these things."

"Buy them for me, would you? Please?"

She glanced at me on purpose.

"Yvette still won't come out. Surely she wouldn't mind me using her things?"

"After all, out with the old, in with the new."

Edward seemed to think that handing Yvette's belongings to a stand-in would sting the hiding Yvette even more.

He turned to Vivien and tapped the tip of her nose, doting.

"Fine. Anything you like, I'll buy it for you."

That same afternoon, Edward owned the headlines across every major outlet.

#Gilbert Group CEO in a Rage for Love, Drops Fifty Million on Ex-Fiance's Belongings to Gift His New Flame#

The stories quietly speculated over which woman he would choose this time.

The stand-in who had been at his side for three years.

Or the fiance he'd once had.

You didn't need to think hard to see it: Edward was building his own hype.

I sat in the dim room and picked up the phone my daughter had used while she was alive.

The screen lit up. On it was a text Edward had just sent.

Yvette, this is the last chance I'm giving you.

If you still don't show, these things, and the place as Mrs. Gilbert, will really belong to someone else.

Don't test my patience.

I let out a small, scornful laugh and shut off the screen.

A chance?

What chance do you want to give a dead woman?

The chance to drag you down to hell.

4: 4

The day before the engagement party, Edward grew visibly restless.

Every time I left the house, I could feel someone trailing quietly behind me.

His people, no doubt. Following the thread, hoping to trace where I'd hidden my daughter.

How amusing.

She was dead. Burned to ash.

Not even a god could find her now.

So I took out my daughter's old phone and sent him the first message in three years.

The engagement party tomorrow. I'll be there.

After I sent it, I kept my eyes on the screen.

Edward was anxious, and yet he made a show of playing it cool.

He deliberately made me wait three hours before he replied, short and cold.

Good.

I didn't answer again. I just pulled out the SIM card, snapped it in two, and dropped it in the toilet.

Then I sent a message each to Vivien and Savannah.

Ever since my daughter died, the three of us had been quietly plotting.

One was a mother whose daughter had died a brutal death, her heart full of hatred.

One was a girl who'd had a bright future ahead of her, her wings snapped clean off.

And then there was Vivien.

Her sister had been the nanny who cared for my daughter, and my daughter had relied on her deeply.

Back then, to punish my daughter for defying him, Edward had tormented the people around her, trying to force her to give in.

Vivien's sister was framed by Edward's people and driven out of her home, buried in debt, cornered until she jumped from a building.

The debt passed to Vivien too, and she was trampled underfoot.

I saved her. I paid off her debt.

I had her face surgically altered, and little by little I made her look like Yvette.

Edward was the heir the Gilbert family had groomed with care, a towering tree.

And the three of us.

One family fallen from grace, two women with no power and no standing.

Nothing but three tiny insects trying to shake a great tree.

So we spent three whole years.

Three unremarkable little insects, slowly hollowing that tree out from the inside.

On the surface it stood untouched. But today was the day it came crashing down.

Early the next morning.

I put on black mourning clothes, a white flower pinned over my chest.

The driver saw the way I was dressed and froze for a moment.

"Ma'am, where am I taking you?"

"To a funeral."

I answered calmly.

The driver coughed, a little awkward.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. My condolences."

I said nothing. I only shook my head.

I would not let my grief settle.

I would repay every grievance, avenge every wrong.

The car stopped in front of the most luxurious hotel in the city.

This was where Edward was holding his engagement party.

The driver stared at the lanterns and decorations outside, the luxury cars packed everywhere, dumbstruck.

"Ma'am, are you sure this is the right address?"

"It's right."

I pushed the door open and got out.

As I walked toward the gleaming golden entrance, I caught the sound of voices drifting out from inside.

"Edward, didn't we hear Yvette James had passed away? Turns out it was all just a way to get a grip on you!"

At his friends' words, Edward let out a contemptuous laugh.

"Women. They love pulling this crying, screaming, threaten-to-kill-themselves routine."

"She thought if she hid, I'd cave?"

"Little girls like her scare off with the smallest push."

"Forget it. Since she's willing to bow her head and admit she was wrong today, I'll marry her. Call it making up for the child she lost back then."

"After all, she's loved me hopelessly for all these years. Besides me, who else could she ever marry?"

His buddies immediately clapped him on the shoulder, laughing along.

"Ha, no one handles women like you, Edward. Guess she's getting exactly what she wanted!"

Exactly what she wanted... was it?

My daughter's last wish was probably to kill him with her own hands.

Just then, my phone buzzed.

A message from Vivien.

Mrs. James, everything's ready.

I smiled, and through the black leather bag I gently touched the small, delicate urn inside.

"Yvette, Mama's most beloved daughter."

"Today, Mama will give you exactly what you wanted."