"You can't be serious about this, Mom? Dad?" Eva clutched her chest like a Victorian woman on the verge of fainting. "How can you make me marry a man whom I do not love — especially to that Zeke Ford? Oh my God?"
She dramatically wiped her non-existent tears with the edge of her sleeve, making sure to sniffle loud enough for maximum pity points.
"That man has broken so many hearts — are you not afraid he'd break your poor daughter's heart too?"
Lord Flynn barely spared her a glance, too busy scratching the back of his balding head like the whole conversation was giving him a migraine. Lady Rafaela simply stared at the ceiling, probably praying for divine intervention — or trying to calculate how many glasses of wine she'd need to survive this family meeting.
Lord Flynn sighed like he'd aged ten years in the last five minutes.
"Eva, my darling... I hate to say this, but—"
"Then don't."
"—you are bad at everything."
Eva's mouth fell open. "Excuse me?"
Her father held up a finger, ready to present the receipts.
"You can't play instruments — you nearly strangled a piano wire to death in front of the whole town."
"It was a creative choice."
"You can't write poems — your last poem was titled Ode to Bread and you rhymed 'carbs' with 'heartbreak' eight times."
"It was a metaphor!"
"You can't paint — the mayor cried when he saw the portrait you made of his wife."
"Art is subjective!"
"And," Lord Flynn delivered the final blow with the calm ruthlessness of a seasoned executioner, "you failed the entrance exams ten times in the school your sister Ava topped without breaking a sweat."
Eva clutched her chest harder, gasping like she'd just been shot. "Oh, wow. The discrimination."
Lord Flynn nodded. "Yes. Obviously."
Across the table, Ava daintily cut her eggs into perfect squares like the world's most humble prodigy — not even bothering to hide her little smirk.
Eva's eyes narrowed into slits. "What are you smiling at? You're one bad haircut away from looking like a boiled egg."
Ava didn't even blink. "I would still top the exams, though."
"I hope you choke on your eggs."
Lord Flynn cleared his throat like he'd rather be anywhere but here. "Eva, my point is... marrying Lord Zeke Ford is the only way for you to finally get some recognition and probably straighten your life."
Eva's eyes bulged. "Straighten my life? What am I — a crooked shelf?"
"My darling," Lady Rafaela finally spoke, eyes still glued to the ceiling like she couldn't bear to look at her own daughter. "It's either this marriage... or you could become a nun. You have a beautiful heart after all despite being... uhm... like that."
Eva's mouth opened. Then closed. Then opened again. "You would rather see me married to a heartless, soulless, arrogant bastard than serve God?"
"Precisely," Lady Rafaela finally looked at her. "We are a very religious family. Your aunt Silvia is even the abbess of our prestigious church."
Eva slumped back in her chair like the weight of the entire kingdom was pressing down on her very mediocre shoulders.
Was it too late to join the convent? Maybe she could be one of those mysterious nuns who wore black veils and only spoke in riddles. She'd take a vow of silence, spend her days making wine, and write passive-aggressive poems about her family's betrayal.
It honestly sounded better than marrying Zeke Bloody Ford — a man who probably slept with half the women in the kingdom and forgot their names before breakfast.
But then... there was Zach Ford.
Eva sighed — the kind of dreamy, lovesick sigh that belonged to tragic heroines in badly written romance novels.
Zach Ford.
The colder, broodier, heartbreakier twin.
The man who wore black suits like they were stitched onto his body by the gods themselves.
The only man she'd ever seen make grief look sexy.
Unlike his brother, Zach didn't flash his dimples around town like free samples at the bakery. He didn't flirt or smirk or whisper sweet nothings into women's ears.
Zach Ford loved once — and when she died in that plane crash, he basically walked straight into his Villain Era™ and never came out.
Everyone said he was untouchable now.
Unreachable.
A man made entirely of sharp cheekbones, repressed emotions, and lonely whiskey nights by the fireplace.
Eva, however, had spent the last three years mentally preparing to be the one to fix him.
In her head, the plan was flawless:
She would walk into his life one day — preferably wearing a red dress that matched her lipstick — and he would take one long, tortured look at her and say, "You're not like other women."
And she would reply, "No, Zach... I'm worse."
Then they'd have enemies-to-lovers tension for three chapters, she'd accidentally touch his hand during a thunderstorm, and suddenly he'd remember how to feel again.
By Chapter 10, he'd be on his knees, whispering "You've healed me, Eva. Marry me."
The only flaw in this absolutely bulletproof fantasy in her head was that she was now contractually obligated to marry his womanizing, dimples-flashing, brain-cell-deprived twin brother instead.
"Life is so unfair." Eva groaned dramatically into her hands.
Ava snorted, not even looking up from her plate. "You're not a tragic heroine, Eva."
"I could be."
"Tragic, maybe. Heroine? No."
Lord Flynn ignored both of them and went back to signing the marriage contract like he was placing an order for fresh bread.
Eva's eyes darted between her father and the ink drying on the parchment.
Zeke Ford.
Her future husband.
The man who probably had a whole drawer dedicated to other people's ex-girlfriends.
Her mother finally looked down from the ceiling.
"Would you rather marry Zeke... or die alone?"
Eva's head snapped up.
"Those are the same thing."
"Or you could find someone to replace you in this arranged wedding."
Ava's voice was soft, sweet, and saintly — the kind of voice that made nuns weep and birds gather on windowsills.
Eva could honestly barf on her own plate.
But...
Wait a minute.
Eva's eyes narrowed, staring at her sister like she'd just accidentally invented electricity.
The grin started small — a little twitch at the corner of her mouth — before blooming into something that could only be described as legally suspicious.
Helen, her poor long-suffering maid, felt the chaos in the air immediately.
She leaned in, still pouring the jasmine tea like a woman who'd been emotionally blackmailed into this job since birth.
"What have you been taking these days, my lady?"
Eva wiped the grin off her face so fast she nearly gave herself whiplash.
"What? Nothing. Just vitamins."
"Is that what we're calling delusion now?"
Eva's mind was already spinning like a drunk ballerina.
A replacement.
She just needed someone — anyone — to wear the veil, walk down the aisle, sign the papers...
And boom.
Marriage: sabotaged.
Zeke Ford: someone else's problem.
Eva Summers: free to continue her lifelong quest of emotionally stalking Zach Ford from the shadows.
"Right. Areplacement."
She muttered it like a mad scientist making a breakthrough.
Ava and Eva were identical twins, too identical that if it weren't for the slight eye color difference and the fact that one of them could recite the entire constitution while the other couldn't even spell constitution, nobody would ever tell them apart.
Even their own parents sometimes squinted at them across the dinner table like they were trying to remember which daughter was the prodigy and which one once accidentally set the kitchen curtains on fire because she thought boiling water needed a little seasoning.
Only two people in the entire kingdom could consistently tell the twins apart:
Helen — Eva's long-suffering, underpaid personal maid and emotional support servant.
And Adelle — Ava's personal maid-slash-secretary-slash-human calendar who probably had Excel spreadsheets for blood at this point.
The difference was simple.
If one of the twins was holding a quill, composing a five-page essay on social reform — it was Ava.
If one of the twins was holding a quill to stab a piece of bread because she thought it would be funny — it was Eva.
The morning sunlight poured through the windows as Ava stood gracefully from the table, radiating the kind of quiet elegance that made birds sing and parents weep with pride.
"I'll be heading out now, Mother, Father."
Lord and Lady Summers gazed at her like she was carved out of pure gold and scholarship grants.
Eva, meanwhile, aggressively spread butter on her toast like she was trying to commit first-degree murder against carbohydrates.
Adelle leaned close to Ava's ear, clutching her leather notebook like it contained the secrets of the universe.
"Lady Ava, your next press conference meeting will be in thirty minutes. We better get going."
Ava gasped, already halfway to the door like a well-oiled machine of productivity and grace.
"Oh, yes! Of course."
Helen whispered from behind Eva, deadpan as always. "Imagine waking up and choosing to be that productive."
Eva stabbed her toast harder. "This could be you, Helen."
Ava walked out with her two attendants flanking her like a royal procession on its way to invent the cure for cancer or negotiate world peace.
The sound of her heels clicking against the marble floors was like a choir of angels harmonizing in the background.
Meanwhile, Eva sat slouched at the breakfast table, still in her nightdress with her hair looking like she survived a small explosion.
Ava Summers — 19 years old, CEO of AVA Incorporated, walking LinkedIn profile in human form — was the perfect child.
She ran a whole-ass company while still studying. She was intellectual, talented, and beautiful — the kind of girl that made other girls weep in the bathroom at parties without even trying.
Eva had exactly two notable skills in life though:
1. Creating award-winning excuses to avoid responsibilities.
2. Dramatically practicing fainting in case she ever needed to fake her own death for legal reasons.
If Ava could cure diseases, Eva would probably be the one spreading them just for character development.
But there was one tiny, microscopic, almost irrelevant flaw in Ava Summers' otherwise perfect existence.
The girl couldn't handle alcohol to save her perfect little life.
Ava could solve mathematical equations that would make grown men cry. She could give a whole speech on global economics without breaking a sweat.
But give her half a glass of wine and she would be sobbing in the corner of the ballroom, confessing to a fern plant about how much she missed her childhood imaginary friend Mr. Fluffy.
Once, she accidentally sniffed a bottle of rum at a charity ball and had to be escorted out by three guards because she tried to sing the national anthem backwards in Latin.
Eva lived for those moments.
If there was one thing Eva Summers loved more than chasing a man who didn't know she existed, it was watching Ava Summers absolutely ruin her perfect reputation by simply inhaling alcohol fumes like a Victorian child with weak lungs.
But today — today was not about sabotage.
Today was about identity theft and high-stakes criminal activity. Eva watched her sister disappear into her fancy van, off to her fancy press conference, to talk about fancy business things like investments and quarterly projections.
And suddenly...
Ava's little comment from earlier echoed in her head once again.
"...find someone to replace you in this arranged marriage."
Eva's grin stretched wide, slow and dangerous — the kind of grin that made Helen immediately clutch her tea tray like it was a shield against stupidity—or smash it against her ladyship's face.
"No."
"I didn't even say anything yet."
"I can hear your thoughts, my lady. They're loud, illegal, and they smell like prison time."
Eva leaned forward, lowering her voice dramatically.
"Helen... do you believe in miracles?"
Helen blinked twice. "Not anymore."
Eva's eyes flicked to her sister's empty seat.
Same face.
Same hair.
Same build.
If Ava could run a company, then surely Eva could...
Well...
Pretend to be Ava for approximately one arranged marriage and then fake her own death in a carriage accident halfway through.
Allsheneededwas:
1. Makeup.
2. A corset tight enough to force good posture.
3. The ability to fake two brain cells at once without accidentally burning the entire estate down.
Helen stared at her mistress, dead in the eyes. "My lady... you cannot possibly be thinking—"
"Oh, but I am."