**Discarded Bride of a Noble Family: A Painting That Unveils a Colossal Scam**
I curled up on a church pew, my fingers tracing the raised, hidden patterns on the back of the ancient parchment. Noah's warm breath still lingered by my ear, but he didn’t know that I had just lifted from his inner jacket pocket the original manuscript of *The Spring God*, a priceless Voss family heirloom passed down for generations.
"Isabelle Voss?" The priest flipped through the yellowed family records, his glasses sliding down to the tip of his nose. "The eldest princess who was supposed to have died in that plane crash… is sitting right here in the confessional booth."
The stained-glass windows above cast a colored glow of my younger sister Chloe’s smug smile. She raised a champagne glass while stepping over my wedding dress. "Sister dear, if you can't even tell a real painting from a fake, how do you expect to inherit the Voss Art Gallery?" I pressed the voice recorder on my phone. Hidden in my sleeve, a tiny scanner transmitted the painting’s watermark to Interpol.
Just as Noah kicked open the door to the lounge, I was pressing the barrel of a gun to my temple.
"Your father did the same—killing himself over a forgery of *The Spring God*," he snarled, yanking off his tie. But he didn't see me press the remote control—deep underground, the vault was unlocking automatically.
"My dear husband," I said, pulling off my colored contact lenses and dropping them into my wine glass. The iris scanner activated instantly. "Guess how many copies of *The Spring God* I’ve prepared for the FBI’s auction this time?"
As police sirens wailed across the estate, I approached the helicopter wearing my mother’s diamond necklace. Chloe screamed and lunged at me, only to be slapped in the face by the authentication report I hurled her way. Noah chased after me with our wedding ring clutched in his hand, following me all the way to the edge of the boarding bridge. I reapplied my lipstick, staring into the rearview mirror. "Now you know why I chose you as the scapegoat? After all..." The helicopter blades roared overhead as I yanked the string of pearls from my neck, letting them scatter into the wind. "A counterfeit expert always understands a fake better than the fake itself."
Slum-born Ella is forced into a proxy marriage, only to find her 'disabled' groom is Duke Noah—a handsome heir faking his limp. Using his secret as leverage, she charms high society, crushes enemies, and uncovers his role in her past. From schemes to sparks, their fake alliance turns into real love.