Chapter 1
The day my sister fled her wedding, her fiancé Dominic Thorne slipped the ring onto my finger instead. After we married, he pampered me into becoming the most envied Mrs. Thorne.
Until three years later, when my sister returned with cancer.
Mom broke down in tears before me until she fainted: “Please give Dominic back to Regina. Let her fulfill her dying wish!”
My brother grabbed me, pressuring: “She just wants to wear a wedding dress once in her life!”
Dad issued me an ultimatum: “If Regina doesn’t get to have her wedding before she closes her eyes forever, you’re no longer my daughter!”
When Dominic found out, he explained to me with reddened eyes: “Having this wedding is so you won’t have a falling out with your family. It’s also like… giving her a proper send–off.”
Touched by his sacrifice for me, I silently watched as they held their wedding.
I firmly believed that once my sister’s wish was fulfilled, he would return to me.
But when I needed to verify my spouse’s identity for my pregnancy registration, the nurse looked suspiciously at my marriage certificate: “Your document seems to be… fake.”
I frantically ran to the registry office to check, only to receive even more devastating news: “Currently, Dominic Thorne’s legal spouse is–Regina Reed.”
I slid the marriage certificate back across the counter. “That’s impossible. Could there be a system error? Please check again!”
The clerk’s cold voice delivered my death sentence without a flicker of emotion:
“Ms. Reed, checking it ten more times won’t change anything.”
“According to our system, Mr. Dominic Thorne’s legal spouse is Regina Reed, registered one month ago. You, however, are listed as unmarried!”
The words hit like a slap across my face, burning with humiliation.
My hand instinctively moved to protect my stomach–just yesterday, Dominic had pressed his hand against this same spot, whispering that he “wanted a daughter.” Today, he’d given me this gift instead.
I snatched back the fake marriage certificate and hailed a taxi directly to Thorne Industries.
Standing in the private elevator to the penthouse, my finger hovered over the biometric scanner when a bitter realization struck me–after three years of “marriage,” I didn’t even have access to his private sanctuary.
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Attempting to Steal My World? Easy! My Rebirth Comes with a Dlouhool
Chapter 1
“Mrs. Thorne!” His assistant rushed toward me, panic written across her face. “Mr. Thorne is in an important meeting
“Use your card,” I heard my voice, cold as ice. “I’ll wait for him upstairs.”
Under pressure, the assistant reluctantly scanned her badge.
As the doors opened, a blast of cold air carrying heavy perfume hit me. I froze at the threshold when my eyes caught two intertwined silhouettes against the floor–to–ceiling windows.
Regina’s sickly–sweet voice slithered into my ears: “Dominic, if my sister finds out you’ve let me stay here during my
recovery…”
She coughed delicately, though her eyes flicked challengingly toward me. “Being the baby of the family, she never learned to share her toys. Our parents and brother always indulged her, but you…”
Regina pouted, gripping Dominic’s tie and leaning intimately close.
“I just can’t bear to tell her that all these years… you’ve been waiting for me to come back and make things official…”
“What if she can’t handle learning that we’re finally together? That we’ve always been meant for each other?”
Meant for each other?
The revelation hit like lightning, making me stumble backward.
Then came Dominic’s voice–tender in a way I’d never heard before: “Enough about her. Did you take your
medicine?”
His thumb caressed the corner of her lips. “You’ve been coughing for so long. It breaks my heart.”
I silently retreated, taking back the step I’d just taken.
As I turned to leave, the assistant hurried after me: “Mrs. Thorne, why are you-”
I ignored her, entering the elevator in silence.
Back home, I instinctively headed for the study to draft divorce papers.
Then it hit me if the marriage certificate was fake, what was there to divorce?
With a bitter laugh, I pulled open a drawer and found an unfamiliar photo album.
Opening to the first page, my breath caught.
Regina at eighteen, a white dress flowing around her.
Regina at twenty, radiant beneath a graduation cap.
Régina at twenty–five, standing by the ocean, hair dancing in the wind.
16:19
Attempting to Steal My World? Easy! My Rebirth Comes with a Playbook
7.5%
Chapter 1
Every photo corner showed signs of being repeatedly touched, caressed…
On the back of the final photo was a handwritten note, with visible tear stains:
“Ginny, it’s been three years. You’ve finally come back to me.”
Tears fell silently, then turned into laughter.
So for these three years, he’d been poring over her pictures in corners I never knew existed.
When my parents and brother begged him to marry Regina, his trembling wasn’t discomfort on my behalf–it was excitement?
When he held his bride’s face on their wedding day, his teary eyes weren’t from obligation but from finally getting what he’d always wanted?
And I, foolishly, thought he was my true one!
I closed the album and returned it to its place.
Suddenly, nausea overwhelmed me.
I rushed to the bathroom, retching. Looking up, I caught my ghostly pale reflection in the mirror.
Finally, I understood why the registry clerk had been so awkward around Dominic that day, and why our marriage certificate hadn’t been printed in front of us…
So, if he never loved me, why marry me at all?
