I spent eleven months making my own wedding dress.
But on the night of the Whitmore centennial show, the woman who walked up the grand staircase wearing it was my adopted sister, Sabine.
She stood in the spotlight, one hand resting on a stomach that wasn’t yet showing, the other looped through my fiancé Adrian’s arm. The reporters’ flashes bleached the world white. He didn’t let go of her. He simply stood by as his PR team announced that the baby was his, and that they would be getting married as soon as possible.
Backstage, the size card I had written for myself still hung from the garment rack.
I reached inside the gown and found the hand-sewn label hidden at the waist seam, in the most discreet place I could manage—
Clara Whitmore, Bride.
With my dressmaker’s shears, I sliced it from the seam, broke off the engagement, and flew to Paris that same night.
Over the next six years, Adrian sent me more than three hundred emails.
I never replied to a single one.
I didn’t set foot in New York again until my mother’s kidneys began to fail, and the donor lined up for her paired exchange suddenly backed out.
I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 20 I walked out of the room. Julien came after me. He didn’t ask any questions. He just bought a can of warm tomato soup from the vending machine and handed it to me. “The closest thing to actual food this place has.” I took
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 19 “He showed me the hotel keycard log and the hallway surveillance footage himself,” my mother said slowly. “The camera only showed Sabine entering the room. It didn’t show what happened inside. Adrian had blacked out from drinking. He didn’t dare gamble with a child’s
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 18 The soup bowl slipped from Sabine’s hands and shattered on the floor. Porcelain and broth splashed across the ivory coat, a stain no one could hide anymore. “Mom, you’re confused from being sick.” Her voice sharpened, trembling. “How could Leo not be—” “The day
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 17 “Sabine, stop.” Adrian seized her wrist. She shook him off. “Let me finish!” “Clara, I know I was despicable. But after that night, I really was pregnant. Adrian thought the baby was his, and I thought… I thought maybe fate had finally given me
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 16 “I thought all night about what you said yesterday,” Adrian said, standing by the window. “I still have that pattern from when you were thirteen. Every one of your labels that was torn off—I had them all archived, too.” “So?” “What happened back then
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 15 “No photo shoot,” I said. Sabine’s hand paused. “It’s just to give Mom a keepsake.” “She’s a patient, not a brand prop.” Julien picked up the coat and checked two of the inner seams. “The armhole uses old Whitmore double-dart construction. The last time
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 14 Julien laid out the transplant documents one by one where my mother could see them. “The new paired exchange chain is missing one link. Two teams, one in Paris and one in Boston, are willing to consult. All potential donors will be assessed independently
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 13 My mother was awake. She was propped against the headboard, paler than she’d been yesterday, but she smiled when she saw me. “Clara.” I took her hand. These were the hands that had once embroidered the finest leaf veins into chiffon. Now the joints
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 12 Julien and I stepped into the elevator. The moment the doors closed, he let go of me and moved back, creating enough distance between us that even with my arm fully extended, I couldn’t have touched him. “Is this enough space?” he asked. I
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I Made His Wife’s Dress Now I’ll Marry Another Chapter 11 My father snapped, “It’s just a dress. Must you make a scene in a hospital?” “A dress?” I laughed, the sound brittle. “Of Whitmore’s fourteen best-selling silhouettes over the last six years, nine came from master patterns I drafted before I left.” Sabine clutched
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