The day was supposed to be the start of a perfect new chapter. Andrew stood on the steps of city hall, ready to turn a long-running joke with his fiancée, Clara, into reality. With a bouquet and a ring, he dropped to one knee and asked her to marry him—right then and there. Overjoyed, she said yes. Hand in hand, they walked inside to make it official, only to have their happiness shattered by a bureaucratic bombshell. The clerk, after checking her records, looked at Andrew with confusion and said, “Sir, according to our records, you’re already married.”
Andrew was stunned. He had never been married. The certificate, she explained, was dated two years prior—right before he met Clara. He left city hall clutching a copy of the document bearing his name and that of a complete stranger, Marla. The confusion and hurt in Clara’s eyes mirrored his own shock. How could he be legally bound to someone he had never met? The question tormented him through a sleepless night, threatening the future he had just begun to believe was his.
Desperate for answers, Andrew turned to his boss and family friend, Tom. As Andrew recounted the bizarre story in Tom’s office, a breakthrough came from an unexpected source: Tom’s ringing phone. The caller ID displayed the name “Marla.” In that chilling moment, the personal mystery collided with Andrew’s professional life. Putting the call on speaker, they listened as Marla revealed her motive: a decades-old grudge against Andrew’s parents, who had exposed her financial crimes. She had forged the marriage to destroy Andrew’s inheritance through fraud and identity theft. With the truth exposed, Andrew and Tom mobilized lawyers to unravel the fraudulent marriage and clear his name, paving the way for a real, and much sweeter, trip back to city hall with Clara.
