Sham Marriage License

Audrey Langdon stood on the cracked pavement, the sharp autumn wind biting through her coat. The smell of burnt rubber from the minor car crash hung heavy in the air. A collision on her way to the Sterling Group headquarters had left her front bumper crumpled. Her first instinct was to call Gideon Sterling. When his phone went straight to voicemail, she dialed the insurance provider instead. The vehicle was registered under Gideon's name. As his wife, she assumed filing the claim would be a simple formality.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. After checking our records, the car owner, Mr. Sterling, is indeed married. But the spouse listed on the official documents isn't you." The insurance customer service representative's tone was mechanical.

"Can you repeat that? There must be a mistake in the system." Audrey tightened her grip on the phone, trying to force back the sudden chill creeping up her spine.

"When Mr. Sterling picked up the car, he came with his wife and provided the original marriage license. Her last name is Barton, and her full name is Lila Barton."

The agent's words hit Audrey like a physical blow to her chest. Dizziness washed over her in waves, leaving her body shaking under the streetlights. Every breath she dragged into her lungs felt like swallowing broken glass.

Gideon. Her Gideon. They had been childhood sweethearts since the age of four. Their respective families were old friends, and everyone in Atherton's high society knew how clingy he was with her. The man simply could not stand being apart from her for a single day.

Memories surged forward, razor-sharp and uninvited. Three years ago, when Audrey headed abroad for her studies, Gideon had the plane stopped just for her. During her three years in Aldovia, he expanded his business overseas to make it easier to look after her. Sixteen thousand miles apart, he'd still fly across the ocean every week to see her.

The year she came down with a severe lung illness and nearly didn't pull through, she spent a week in intensive care. Gideon ignored the infection risks and stayed right by her side, sliding a ring onto her finger.

He stared at her pale face with unshed tears in his eyes. "If anything happens to you, I'll go with you. We'll be husband and wife in the next life too."

For Gideon's sake, she turned down her mentor's offer to stay on in the lab and headed back home. Brimming with irrepressible excitement, she went straight to the corporate headquarters to find him. She wanted to give him the ultimate surprise. Instead, when she pushed open the heavy oak door to the CEO's office, she was greeted by a sight that shattered her perception of perfection.

A slender, pretty woman was straddling his lap.

The woman's innocent, tear-stained face tilted upward toward his jaw. "Mr. Sterling, what happens to me now that Audrey is back?"

Gideon remained seated in his luxury leather chair, his tall frame looming over the fragile woman. A ruthless, hardened glint flashed across his striking features. "You? You are just her stand-in. Do not ever forget your place."

He lifted his hand, pinching the woman's delicate chin with a sneer. "You have barely a three-out-of-ten resemblance to her, and you think you can compare to her?"

Audrey stood frozen in the doorway, clutching the intricately wrapped gift box she had prepared for him. Her fingers went numb. With a loud, echoing crash, the box dropped from her hands and hit the hardwood floor, breaking the intimate scene inside the office.

Gideon's face drained of every ounce of color. He shoved the woman off his lap with brute force and leaped to his feet.

That woman was Lila Barton.

In the chaotic aftermath of catching them red-handed, Gideon fired Lila on the spot. He summoned security to toss her out of the building. Then, he pulled out every conceivable stop to win Audrey back. The arrogant prince of Atherton's elite corporate circles humbled himself to the literal dirt for her. He begged her endlessly to grant him another chance. Whatever corporate project she set her sights on, he would drop his own work without a second thought to support her.

He stood out in the freezing, pouring rain outside her apartment building for over a week, hoping for a fleeting glimpse of her silhouette in the window. "Audrey, I am not asking you to forgive me. At least let me explain. I only ever saw Lila as your replacement. You have been gone abroad for so long, and I missed you terribly. I swear on my life, I just kept her around for the illusion. Nothing more ever happened between us. That time you walked in, I had consumed too much to drink, and she deliberately tempted me. I lost control for a split second. I have already let her go, and she will never show up in our lives again. Audrey, please, I am begging you, come back to me."

Back then, Audrey possessed a pride that could not stomach betrayal. She broke off their engagement. She remained resolute until a horrifying incident altered their trajectory.

A vicious business rival orchestrated her kidnapping. The kidnappers dragged her to an abandoned chemical factory on the outskirts of the city, tied her down, and set the entire structure ablaze. Gideon charged straight into the roaring flames without a single thought for his own survival. He located her and used his own body as a human shield against a collapsing, burning steel roof beam. He ended up with excruciating injuries, confined to a hospital bed for nearly six months, enduring multiple surgeries.

By bleeding for her and putting his life on the line, Gideon finally melted her iron-clad resolve. Once he was discharged from the hospital, she accepted his tearful proposal. They threw a lavish, fairy-tale wedding that dominated the local headlines for weeks.

In the two quiet years since they had tied the knot, he treated her with an obsessive level of devotion. There were zero scandals. No rumors. He imposed a strict curfew on himself, arriving home right on the dot every single evening. Whenever out-of-town business trips forced them apart, he kept a video call running almost constantly. His billionaire partners and board members regularly teased him for being wild about his wife.

He never bothered to deny the teasing. Instead, he would flash a proud grin and boast to the room. "A real man takes care of his family."

The onslaught of memories rushed through Audrey's mind like a suffocating hurricane. Every passionate kiss, every tearful vow, every moment of perceived safety flashed by in a dizzying blur. Her legs gave out beneath her. She dropped to her knees right there on the cold concrete sidewalk, oblivious to the stares of pedestrians, burying her face deeply into her trembling hands.

She could not figure out which version of Gideon was the real one anymore. Was it the man who took a burning steel beam for her, or the man who secretly married another woman? A bitter, mocking gleam sparked in her dark eyes.

How absurd.

She had played the role of his treasured wife for two years, managing his household and loving him fiercely. Only now, freezing on a street corner, was she learning that even their sacred marriage license had been a meticulously crafted sham.

Audrey scrubbed her face hard with the palms of her hands, pushing back the damp strands of hair plastered to her forehead by cold sweat. She forced herself back up to her feet. Ignoring the other driver's furious yelling about insurance details, she calmly tapped her phone screen and dialed the local police dispatch.

Taking charge of the situation took everything she had, but she refused to break down in public. The authorities showed up fast, lights flashing, to document the fender bender. After finishing her straightforward statement for the police report, Audrey began the long walk away from the station. The sky overhead had transitioned into a hollow, starless black, mirroring the vast chasm in her chest.

Her phone screen lit up, buzzing against her palm with several missed calls from Gideon. When she had not answered the ringing, he opted to bombard her with text messages instead.

[Babe, I was tied up in a key board meeting this afternoon. They had the signal jammers on high, so I missed your call. You okay?]

[I've got a tedious client dinner tonight, so I'll be late getting home. I double-checked the guest list for you: no women involved, so no need to worry.]

[Head to bed early. Don't wait up for me. Love you to the moon and back.]

Audrey stared down at the glowing text bubbles, a sharp wave of irony twisting painfully in her gut. He was a master of the illusion.

It was well into the wee hours when the bedroom door creaked open. Gideon staggered across the plush carpet. He reeked of expensive, aged whiskey, a sharp odor that almost masked the subtle, sweet whiff of women's floral perfume clinging to his lapel. The scent hit Audrey's nose immediately, causing a spike of nausea in the back of her throat.

He could barely keep his balance in the dim light, stumbling over to the edge of the mattress and wrapping his heavy arms around her waist through the thick blanket. "Honey... I missed you so damn much..."

Audrey lay rigidly still, her muscles locked tight. She did not say a single word in response. She simply stared at the ceiling, waiting as his breathing gradually slowed into the deep, rhythmic snoring of a drunken blackout. Only once she was certain he was dead to the world did she sit up. She moved quietly, sliding out from his heavy grasp. She reached over to the nightstand, picked up his sleek smartphone, and pressed his limp thumb against the home button to unlock it.

The interface was clean, practically sterile. There were no suspicious tracing elements, no hidden photos, no strange applications on the home screen. His contact list consisted mostly of golf buddies, influential board members, and business associates. Her own contact name was pinned right at the very top of his list with a gaudy heart emoji, labeled 'Darling Wife'.

It was flawlessly tidy. Just like their meticulously curated sham of a life.

Audrey was not deterred. She took the phone over to her vanity desk, grabbed her laptop, and hooked the mobile device up to her computer via a data cable. The sync program booted up quietly. Running a quick background diagnostic, it did not take her long at all to uncover the encrypted partition hiding his second, secret WhatsApp account.

She cracked the login, her heart hammering a slow, painful rhythm against her ribs. Right away, a cascade of unread messages popped up on the expansive laptop screen. The sender's profile featured a cute, innocent pink kitten avatar. The contact name on Gideon's end was simply labeled 'Baby'.

Lila Barton: [Gideon, thanks for tonight. Without you stepping in, I wouldn't have known what to do with the apartment.]

Lila Barton: [I've always thought meeting you was the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me. I promise I won't intrude on your real life. As long as you swing by to see me just once in a while, that's more than enough to make me happy.]

Audrey grasped the edge of the desk, her knuckles aching. She scrolled back fiercely through the endless chat history. Deep down, she had suspected as much the moment the insurance company dropped the bombshell, but seeing the actual text laid out in front of her eyes still hit like a brutal punch to the chest. It left her gasping, fighting for oxygen in her own bedroom.

They chatted every single day.

Lila never missed sending a sweet good morning message. Gideon's replies, chronicled over the past two years, painted a horrifying picture of gradual surrender. At first, he offered total silence, ignoring her outreach. Then, weeks later, sporadic, short responses appeared. Slowly, the gap closed, shifting into full conversations, and now, he was answering every single message she sent with paragraph-long replies of concern and affection.

A freezing chill spread from her fingertips all the way to her core. Audrey clutched the phone tighter, the metal casing digging into her palm. Her rational mind screamed at her to quit while she was ahead, to shut the laptop before she found something worse, but a destructive curiosity drove her forward. She was unable to stop herself from scrolling deeper into the archives.

Lila Barton: [Gideon, sorry, I had a few drinks and lost it for a bit tonight. The doc says I'm okay now, so don't stress yourself out.]

Lila Barton: [Mrs. Sterling's grand birthday bash is important. You have to go enjoy it with her. I'll be fine by myself.]

Audrey froze, her breath hitching sharply. She squeezed her eyes shut as a specific memory from three months ago came rushing back with vivid clarity.

Her grand birthday celebration.

Gideon had spent over a month hyping it up, personally handling the guest list, securing a private villa, and planning the event down to the last minuscule detail. He had bragged to everyone about how perfect it would be. But on the actual day of the extravagant bash, he was absent-minded and distracted. During the climax of the party, surrounded by clapping friends, he had practically zoned out. He had almost cut his own hand open with the silver knife while slicing her expensive fondant cake, staring blankly at the wall.

When she had pulled him aside and asked what was troubling him, he briefly smiled. He brushed it off confidently as unpredictable work drama involving the supply chain, told her not to worry her pretty head, and softly pulled her into a warm embrace. He had kissed the top of her head and enthusiastically encouraged her to blow out the shimmering candles and make a beautiful wish for their future.

It all made sickening sense now. The fragmented pieces locked together as she stared at the glowing chat log.

That very same day, while Gideon was holding her in his arms and smiling for the cameras, Lila Barton had intentionally tried to kill herself by slashing her wrists and ended up getting rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance.

A thick, sour bitterness flooded Audrey's chest, rising up her throat like black tide water.

In those brief, magical seconds when she had closed her eyes tight to make a wish for a long, happy marriage, what exactly was running through her husband's mind? Was he agonizing over Lila bleeding out in a sterile hospital bed, or was he secretly picturing endless years together with his other woman behind closed doors?

Audrey slowly opened her eyes. The tears she expected to fall never came. The crushing, agonizing weight of betrayal began to solidify, freezing over into something frigid and terrifyingly calm. She knew with absolute, chilling certainty that she did not need an answer from his lying mouth anymore.

She gracefully unplugged the phone, softly deleted her own digital footprint on the laptop, and gently placed his device exactly back where she found it on the nightstand. She turned her head, looking down at Gideon's peaceful, sleeping face beside her.

She had known this man since she was an innocent four-year-old girl in pigtails. For the twenty subsequent years that followed, she had genuinely believed his love was a sacred temple meant for her alone. She thought it was rare, pure, and irreplaceable. But looking at the cheating man now, the veil was lifted. She saw his grand romantic gestures for what they genuinely were.

His love was not a rare diamond. It was just cheap free samples at a grocery store counter, eagerly handed out to anyone who walked by and smiled at him.

If this pathetic, lying charade was all his great romance amounted to, Audrey was done with it.