“I was paid to pretend to be his wife, but I ended up being the only one who truly loved him.”

“I was paid to pretend to be his wife, but I ended up being the only one who truly loved him.”

I was washing dishes in the back room of a local buka when a woman in gold heels approached me.

“Are you Kamsi?”

I nodded, drying my hands.

“I have a job for you. 300,000 rupees upfront. You just have to pretend to be someone’s wife… for a week.”

I asked no questions. My brother needed surgery. I accepted.

His name was Ikenna: cold, brooding, rich.

He made it clear from the start:

“This is for appearances. No touching. No questions. Just acting.”

And so, I began the role of a lifetime.

I cooked. I laughed. I played his wife in front of his mother, who was dying and just wanted to see him happy.

But when I found the photo album hidden in his study—a beautiful woman, a wedding, and a funeral program with the word “Nkiru” in gold letters—I understood everything.

She was real.

And I… just a replacement.

Still, the ice began to break.

He called me “Kam.”

He laughed with me.

He let me touch him.

He looked at me with something that wasn’t just an act.

But one night, he came back late. Cold. Hard.

“Don’t fall in love with me,” he said without looking at me. “I’m not the man you think I am.”

And the next morning…

His mother died.

(…continued)

His mother died.

The house was filled with crying, family members, and the strong smells of incense.
And I, the fake wife, had to pretend to mourn… my heart broken by something that was no longer just a piece of paper.

Ikenna didn’t speak to me.
He looked at me as if he’d never touched me, as if everything between us had been a scene too long.
At the funeral, he held my hand… only when someone was looking.

But I noticed the cracks.
The nights he locked himself in his study.
The sound of whiskey pouring into the glass.
The way he caressed, almost without realizing it, the photo of his real wife, Nkiru.

I wasn’t her.
But for the first time in my life, I wanted to be chosen. To be enough.

Then, two days after the funeral, his aunt took my arm tightly and whispered,

“Do you really think we don’t know who you are? You’re a cheap actress. A servant in a ₦2,000 wig.
Nkiru was a lawyer. You are nothing.”

I laughed. On the outside.
Inside, I was bleeding.

I wanted to leave. I wanted to end the deception.
But as I started packing, Ikenna appeared in the doorway.

Her voice was a whisper:

“Don’t go.”

“Why?” I asked. “I’ve done my part.”
“Because… you make me forget that I’m broken.”

And that night, for the first time, she kissed me as if the past didn’t exist.

But at dawn…
I heard a call.

“Yes, Auntie… I’m almost done with her.”

No. I haven’t grown attached. I just need a little more time.

My heart… broke into a thousand pieces.

Does it just need more time?

I froze on the stairs, my soul hanging on that thread of treacherous voice.

“I’m almost done with her,” she said.

Then everything became clear.

I wasn’t her priest. I was her tool.
An actress hired to deceive Auntie, perhaps for the inheritance… or out of pride.
And last night’s kiss… was that an act too?

I went to my room, tore up the contract, put it in his desk along with my fake ring… and packed.

But I didn’t leave.

Not yet.

That night, at family dinner, I sat next to him. I smiled. I pretended.

His aunt looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

And I smiled sweetly.
Because if they were going to play me, I could play too.

After dinner, Ikenna took my arm.

“What are you doing? Why are you acting like this?”

“Isn’t that what you want? Acting.
I’m a good actress, remember?”

And just like that, I left him there, confused… hurt.
But I wasn’t the same girl who cried silently.
I was the one who now knew the truth.

Days passed, and something changed.
He was looking for me. He talked to me about his mother, about his childhood.
He no longer touched me with desire… but with tenderness. As if he were afraid of losing me.

And one night, in the garden, he looked me in the eyes and said:

“I know what you heard. And I deserve it. But what I felt that night with you… was real.
That’s why I’m afraid. Because if I fall in love with you, and you leave…
I wouldn’t know how to breathe again.”

I wanted to believe him.
God knows I wanted to.

But the next day, his aunt called me.

And what she told me changed everything.

“Nkiru is alive.”

“Nkiru is alive.”

I didn’t know whether to scream, laugh, or faint.
Aunt settled into her armchair as if she’d just announced the weather.

“Pardon?”

“Ikenna’s fiancée. The real one. The one who disappeared.”

My heart froze.

“She faked her death to get away from the family. She couldn’t stand the pressure. But now she wants to come back. And you…
You’re just a distraction in the meantime.”

I felt the ground shake beneath my feet.

“And he knows?”

Aunt raised an eyebrow.

“Does it matter?”

That night, I confronted Ikenna. There were no tears. Only truth.

“Is Nkiru alive?”

Her eyes widened as if she’d been shot in the chest.

“Who told you that?”

“Is it true?”

Silence.

And in that silence, I understood everything.
He didn’t choose me. He never