My father leaned in like he was signing a contract, not celebrating a marriage, and Chloe turned just enough for him to brush a kiss against her cheek.

It didn’t feel like a wedding.

It felt staged. Hollow. Like a carefully constructed lie.

Three months ago, Chloe and I had been planning our own future together.

She was everything to me—kind, beautiful, the person I thought I’d spend my life with. Saying yes to me had made me feel like the luckiest man alive.

I truly believed we were happy.

Until she vanished without warning.

For an entire week, I thought she had simply walked away.

Then she came back—and shattered me all over again.

That day, when I heard a knock at my door, I had no idea my life was about to collapse.

I opened it… and there she was.

Standing beside my father.

Hand in hand.