Category: English

It took exactly three years for my marriage to free-fall from a modern-day fairytale into a living hell. Harrison Winthrop was Boston real estate royalty—the heir apparent who had never been told “no” a day in his life. I was Rowan Hayes, an orphan with nothing to my name but a degree and a mountain of student debt. Society pages and whispered gossip agreed: our love story was a delusion. But Harrison shielded me from the vicious rumors. He went to war with his own family, surrendered his inheritance, and gave me a wedding that brought the entire city to a standstill. Three years later, Serena Montgomery—the golden girl he grew up with, the one who got away—got divorced and moved back from Paris. I was four months pregnant at the time. The very next day, I was served with divorce papers. The terms were brutally simple: the settlement was contingent on me terminating the pregnancy. The sheer shock and devastation sent my body into a traumatic tailspin. I went into premature labor, hemorrhaged heavily, and nearly died on the operating table. As my emergency contact, Harrison’s phone rang and rang. It wasn’t until the fourteenth attempt that someone finally picked up. It was his executive assistant. “Mr. Winthrop is currently hosting Ms. Montgomery’s birthday dinner. Please direct your calls elsewhere.” 1 Three years later, my phone lit up with an unsaved number. It was my long-lost ex-husband. His tone was deeply familiar, colored with the distinct, boyish pout I hadn’t heard in years. “Ro, I’ve been hurt for so long. Why haven’t you come to see me?” I hung up immediately. The phone rang again, relentless and shrill, until I finally blocked the number. By 8:40 PM, a panicked hospital resident called, practically begging me in tears to come down to the ward, saying his job was on the line. Out of pity for a fellow working professional, I went. Harrison was propped up in a hospital bed, his right leg immobilized in a heavy brace. A thick ring of gauze wrapped around his forehead, a faint bloom of crimson seeping through the white fabric. He was aimlessly scrolling on his phone when he suddenly stopped, lifting his head. His eyes lit up instantly. “Rowan. I knew you’d come.” He flashed a cocky, triumphant grin, boasting about his incredible hearing just like he used to. “I’d know your footsteps anywhere.” I stood in the doorway, offering no smile, no greeting. I just looked at him in total silence. Harrison Winthrop had amnesia. His assistant had briefed me in the hallway: during a site inspection for a new high-rise, a piece of scaffolding had collapsed on him. The neurologists had no timeline for his recovery. 2 His memory had hard-stopped at seven years ago. He was trapped in the era of the fierce, defiant boy who loved me. Back then, the trust-fund brats in his circle used to call me a social-climbing gold digger, placing bets on when I’d milk him dry and dump him. When Harrison found out, he flew into a blind rage and brawled with his own friends in the middle of a country club. He came back to my dorm that night, holding my hand, crying out of sheer frustration, promising me he would cut ties with all of them for disrespecting me. Shortly after, he moved out of the Winthrop estate and rented a cramped apartment with me off-campus. On our first night there, he held me so tightly I could barely breathe. He buried his face in the crook of my neck, refusing to let go, trembling like a puppy separated from its mother. In the dead of night, I heard him whisper into the dark, “Ro, you’re all I have left now.” On the eve of our wedding, he couldn’t stop talking. He held both my hands, his voice vibrating with a frantic, euphoric joy, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “Rowan, we have a family now. We have a home.” “I swear to God, Rowan, I will treat you like a queen. I will love you until the day I die.” But as the years bled on, Harrison forgot those promises. He stopped loving Rowan Hayes. He gathered up all his fierce, world-burning devotion and handed it to another woman. His home no longer had room for me. All he left me was a brush with death on a sterile operating table and a stack of legal documents severing my life from his. 3 But the Harrison sitting in the hospital bed remembered none of that. He didn’t understand why the girl who used to melt into his embrace was now standing ten feet away, staring at him like he was a stranger. “Ro?” He called out softly, his fingers anxiously twisting the edge of his bedsheet. “Did Pierce and those assholes say something to you again? Tell me. I’ll go beat the shit out of them right now.” When I didn’t answer, he tugged at my sleeve, trying to coax a smile out of me the way he used to. I lowered my gaze, letting it rest on the jagged, faded scar across his knuckles. He had gotten that scar fighting for my honor. What was once a pair of perfectly manicured, aristocratic hands had been permanently marred for my sake. Now, there were fresh cuts on his face and arms, yet none of it diminished his striking, arrogant beauty. He was still the dazzling, untouchable Harrison Winthrop. Time had seemingly spared him. —Except for the faint, almost imperceptible lines at the corners of his eyes. A quiet, cruel reminder that he was no longer the twenty-year-old boy who would burn down the world for me. I pulled my gaze away, took out my phone, opened the calendar app, and held it up to his face. My voice was utterly flat. “It is 202X. We have been divorced for three years.” Reality slammed into him. His expression froze, the light draining from his eyes. But a second later, he let out a breathless laugh, as if I had just delivered a punchline. “So we did get married.” He smiled—that arrogant, magnetic, irrepressible smile. “I knew it. I always knew I was going to marry you. Who else could it be? I’m so obsessed with you, it had to be my Rowan.” He was still wearing that boyish armor. Bold, unwavering, with a touch of stubborn childishness. But this time, there was no one left to play along with his banter. I let out a slow exhale, pulled up a vinyl chair, sat down, and began casually inspecting my fresh manicure. The glossy polish caught the harsh fluorescent light. Across from me, the room went dead silent. I finally looked up. His eyes were rimmed with red. The lazy, confident drawl was gone. “Rowan. If you want to take a knife and drive it straight into my chest, just do it. Don’t torture me with a sick joke like this.” His stare turned defiant, desperate. “What did I do wrong? Or… did you find someone else?” Even as he tried to flip the blame onto me, I didn’t feel a flicker of anger. I just looked at him, my eyes as still as a frozen lake. “Harrison,” I said softly. “You forgot.” “You were the one who handed me the knife. And you were the one who filed for the divorce.” “That’s impossible.” He shot back instinctively, the denial sharp and absolute. “I would never leave you. Not in this lifetime. I’d have to be dead first.” A short, hollow sound escaped my lips. “Hah.” At twenty, that exact sentence had brought me to my knees in tears of gratitude. At twenty-five, the memory of that sentence had nearly destroyed me. Now, pushing thirty, it was just a bad joke. He had said it a thousand times, and I had believed it with every fiber of my being. And then, he betrayed me. He grew disgusted by me. He discarded me. I remembered the day I called him. I remembered the careless, mocking lilt in his voice through the receiver. “I did love you once. But that was a long time ago. We’ve been together too long. It got stale. Isn’t it normal to lose the spark?” “And get rid of the kid. Stop standing outside the Winthrop lobby waiting for me. It’s pathetic.” I had been so desperate to save our marriage. He hadn’t come home in weeks, and I had no idea where else to find him. So, I had stood on the pavement outside his gleaming corporate tower, four months pregnant, waiting. I knew it was an ugly scene. I knew how it looked to the executives in their bespoke suits. But when the word pathetic slipped so easily from the mouth of the man I loved, my heart actually stopped beating for a second. 4 In the hospital room, his knuckles turned white as he gripped my coat, his hands trembling violently. His voice cracked into a plea. “Ro, you have to believe me. Look at me. How could I ever say something like that to you?” I smoothly pulled my coat from his grasp, looking down to adjust the chain strap on my leather purse. My voice didn’t waver. “Believe you?” “Harrison, you have a thousand different resources at your disposal to verify your own history. Don’t sit here grabbing at my clothes, telling me it’s impossible.” I turned on my heel and walked toward the door. Behind me came the violent clatter of crutches hitting the linoleum. Then, the heavy, agonizing thud of him dragging his shattered leg, stumbling frantically after me. “Rowan! Rowan, stop!” “Rowan Hayes, you are not walking out that door!” A heavy crash shook the floorboards, followed immediately by a nurse’s terrified scream and the chaotic squeak of rubber soles rushing down the hall. “Mr. Winthrop! You can’t put weight on—!” Dr. Aaron Miller rounded the corner, slowing his pace when he saw me standing by the elevator. He hesitated. “Are you… sure you don’t want to stay a little longer?” I shook my head. Aaron nodded slowly. “Right. Make sense.” “I mean, you guys have been over for a while. Listen, thanks for coming down anyway. I gotta go deal with this.” He pointed a thumb back toward the chaotic shouting in the ward and hurried off. I stood in the corridor for a moment, listening to the muffled commotion, and then I pressed the down button and left. I didn’t go back to see him. The incident didn’t so much as ripple the surface of my life. Aaron Miller called me a few times over the next couple of weeks. I didn’t answer, but I didn’t decline the calls either. I just let the phone vibrate on my desk until the screen went black. Harrison Winthrop and I were always meant to be parallel lines. When I was young, I crashed into his orbit with reckless abandon, foolishly believing it would earn me a lifetime of being cherished. In the end, I was nothing but collateral damage. The price of entry into his world had been so agonizing that, even now, I still woke up suffocating in the middle of the night from the nightmares. 5 A few weeks later, a crisis at the firm kept me late. It was nearly 10:00 PM by the time I stepped off the elevator on my floor. Leaning against the wall next to my apartment door was a woman with a perfect salon blowout. She arched a manicured brow at me, her expression radiating innocent concern. She offered a sickeningly sweet smile. “Rowan. It’s been a while.” My face remained blank. “Can I help you?” “Oh, it’s nothing major. I just really need you to stop clinging to Harrison.” Serena Montgomery blinked playfully, taking a step closer, the scent of her expensive Parisian perfume invading the hallway. “After all, the divorce is finalized, and he has a girlfriend now. It’s not a great look for you to throw yourself at him and play the other woman, is it?” I actually laughed out loud. I was too exhausted to even bother being insulted. “What’s wrong, Serena? You don’t trust the epic romance you’re so confident about?” Her sugary smile vanished instantly, replaced by a venomous sneer. “I’m just here to give you a reality check. Don’t flatter yourself. The person he is most disgusted by on this planet is you.” “Right. Got it.” My tone was deadpan. I brushed past her, unlocked my door, and slammed it shut without looking back. The very next day, I ran into Harrison. He had apparently broken out of the hospital. He was standing on the sidewalk outside my building, leaning heavily on a single crutch. He was wearing scrub pants and an oversized, mismatched wool coat. I kept my hands buried in my pockets, genuinely bewildered as to why the universe had suddenly decided to make me a magnet for Winthrop drama this week. At the sound of my footsteps, his head snapped up. Relief flooded his face, a brilliant smile breaking through his exhaustion—until his gaze drifted downward, and the smile shattered. I followed his line of sight down to the little hand wrapped tightly inside mine. Sophie’s hand. A second later, he was lurching forward, dragging his bad leg in a grotesque, desperate limp. Before he even reached us, his leg gave out. He collapsed hard onto the concrete, the crutch clattering violently against the pavement. Sophie jumped, terrified, and hid behind my legs. I turned slightly and gently stroked her hair. “It’s okay, Sophie, don’t be scared. This man is just… an old friend of Mommy’s. Why don’t you run upstairs and start your homework, okay?” She peeked timidly at Harrison, then looked up at me, gave a small nod, and scurried into the building. I stayed exactly where I was. Harrison Winthrop was kneeling on the cold sidewalk. He didn’t look like a thirty-something corporate titan; he looked like a lost toddler who had just watched his balloon float away into the sky. After a long pause, I walked over. I extended my hand, hesitated mid-air, but ultimately grabbed his arm to help him up. He stared up at me, his eyes wet and remarkably fragile. I hauled him to his feet, instantly let go, and took a half-step back. “You’re blocking the walkway.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. He let out a low, breathy chuckle. “When did you get so strong?” “None of your business.” He didn’t argue, but his eyes were locked onto my face, his voice tight and strained. “That little girl… is she your daughter?” “None of your business.” We moved into the narrow foyer of the building. His towering frame leaned heavily against the drywall, his expression bleeding with an unbearable sense of grievance. “You used to tell me we’d never keep secrets from each other.” 6 I smiled faintly. “You said it yourself. Used to.” His voice hitched. “Rowan, I—” I cut him off, having absolutely no desire to hear the rest of whatever he was about to say. “Save it. Why are you here? Did Serena send you to interrogate me?” At the mention of her name, his brow furrowed in sheer disgust. “Who cares about her? I saw her exactly once when I woke up. She wouldn’t stop whining. It was annoying as hell.” As soon as the words left his mouth, his gaze softened again, morphing into a tentative, agonizingly careful plea. He shuffled an inch closer, lowering his voice until it was almost a whisper. “I… I just wanted to come talk to you. Please?” Once I let him into the apartment, the crease between his brows never smoothed out. I poured him a glass of water and set it on the coffee table. The living room suffocated in silence for a long time. Suddenly, he looked up at me. His voice was hoarse, sounding like a man questioning his own sanity. “I don’t get it, Ro… All I ever wanted was to be with you. To protect you. To marry you and spend the rest of my life making you happy. But somehow, it all went completely wrong…” I looked into those confused, devastated eyes, and my voice came out eerily detached. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Harrison. It’s just biology.” “People stay together too long, and they get bored. They get annoyed. Eventually, they get disgusted. People change. Reality isn’t the immutable, frozen fantasy you cooked up in your head when you were twenty.” He had loved me. He had desperately wanted to marry me. He couldn’t bear the thought of me suffering even a papercut. But the promises made in the throes of love are only valid as long as the love remains. My words seemed to physically strike him. His eyelashes fluttered rapidly, his lips parting in mute horror. “But I remember…” he mumbled, shaking his head. “I remember we were in college. I loved you so much. I wanted to kill anyone who looked at you wrong. And you loved me. You used to blow on my bruised knuckles after a fight. When I got hurt, you would cry…” He started speaking faster, the words tumbling out in a broken, incoherent rush as tears spilled over his lashes. The sound of a man’s psyche fracturing filled my small living room. “Rowan, I didn’t do anything. I just went to sleep! And when I woke up, I was suddenly this… this evil bastard who betrayed you and destroyed your life… Do you have any idea how insane this is?” I let out a bone-deep sigh, letting the silence swallow his broken sobbing. He forgot. He refused to accept reality, or rather, he was terrified to face the monster he had become over the last seven years. But what did he expect me to do? In the years he had conveniently wiped from his brain, there was no domestic bliss. There was only a barren wasteland of cruelty. “Stop crying,” I said, pulling a tissue from the box and handing it to him. I walked into my bedroom to call Aaron Miller. When I came back out, Harrison was fast asleep on my cheap sofa, his breathing heavy. Noticing the bruised, purple exhaustion beneath his eyes, I instinctively softened my footsteps.

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1 Miles Bennett claimed he had a crippling sleep disorder. By day, he was the city’s golden boy—a brilliant neurosurgeon, a man who treated me with a tenderness that felt almost holy. But the moment the sun dipped below the Seattle skyline, he became a ghost. He claimed he needed total sensory deprivation to function: earplugs, a blackout mask, and a heavy oak door locked from the inside. Because I loved him, and because his hands held the lives of others, I didn’t question it. I moved my things into the guest suite with my best friend, Sophie, who had been staying with us while she “got back on her feet.” I gave Miles the silence he said he needed to save lives. A week before we were supposed to sign our marriage certificate at City Hall, I woke up at 2:00 AM to grab a late-night UberEats delivery—a habit of my own restless heart. As I passed the master suite, I noticed the heavy oak door wasn’t clicked shut. It was a sliver of darkness in a hallway of shadows. Thinking he’d simply forgotten to lock it, I reached for the handle. Then I heard it. “Does it make you feel powerful, Miles?” Sophie’s voice was a low, honeyed purr I barely recognized. “Inviting me into your marriage bed while your little saint sleeps just down the hall?” Then came the laugh. Low, rumbling, and devastatingly familiar. “Let’s just enjoy our final week of freedom, shall we?” Miles whispered. “Once the papers are signed, I’ll tell her my ‘insomnia’ has miraculously cleared up. By then, you’ll have your own place, and we’ll find a new way to play.” I stood frozen in the hallway, the bag of Thai food in my hand suddenly feeling like lead. The “sleep disorder.” The “locked sanctuary.” It was all a curated lie, a stage-managed play to let them screw under my roof while I tipped-toed around their pleasure. I didn’t scream. I didn’t burst in. I turned around, went to my room, and opened my laptop. I canceled the ten-day honeymoon to Bora Bora and booked a one-way ticket to a town I hadn’t visited in years. Then, I pulled up the private listing for the penthouse—the one I had paid for in full with my inheritance—and sent a one-word email to my broker: Sell. I left the cold containers of Pad Thai on the marble kitchen island. My phone buzzed in my palm. [Expedia: Your trip to Bora Bora has been successfully canceled. Refund processing.] A sliver of warm, amber light spilled from the master bedroom. Miles’s voice floated out, dripping with that practiced, bedside-manner concern. “Is your stomach still cramped, honey? Did the ginger tea help?” “You have to be careful with what you eat, Serena. You know how sensitive you are.” A moment later, the door creaked open. Sophie—no, Serena—stepped out. She nearly walked into me. “Avery! You… you’re up late.” I looked at her. Really looked at her. She immediately shifted into her role: the fragile, wayward friend. “My gastritis flared up again,” she stammered, clutching her stomach. “I was doubled over in pain, and I knew Miles had his medical kit in there. I… I’m so sorry if I disturbed him. I know how much he needs his rest.” Miles stepped out then, draped in a charcoal silk robe. He saw me, and his brow furrowed with that perfect, theatrical display of worry. He reached out, his warm palm pressing against my forehead. I felt the slight, microscopic tremor in his fingers—the only tell of a man who knew he was standing on thin ice. “Hey,” he murmured, his voice like velvet. “You’re freezing. Are you okay?” I stared at his face—the face I’d spent three years adoring—and looked for a crack. There was none. He was a surgeon; he was trained to stay calm while everything bled out. “Serena had a spasm,” he explained, his thumb tracing my temple. “I’m a doctor, Avery. I couldn’t just ignore her, even if it meant breaking my ‘sleep protocol.’” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose—a gesture I used to think meant he was exhausted from saving lives. Now, I saw it for what it was: a reset button for his next lie. “I know,” I said. My voice was a flat, dead thing. He took the takeout bag from my hand. “This is cold. Let me microwave it for you. Go sit down.” He turned toward the kitchen, his silhouette tall and commanding. He was the man I had loved for a thousand days. Serena leaned in, whispering with a nauseating intimacy. “Avery, be extra sweet to him tonight. His insomnia is getting worse with the wedding stress. Don’t give him a reason to be edgy.” She patted my arm and disappeared into the guest wing. I sat at the table. Miles set the steaming bowl in front of me. “Eat. You need the strength.” He handed me a spoon. In the harsh glow of the pendant lights, I saw it: a faint, shimmering streak of rose-gold dust on the lapel of his silk robe. It was ‘Mermaid Glow’—the specific, overpriced highlighter Serena had bragged about buying yesterday. The last thread of my self-delusion snapped. Just then, his phone, left on the sofa, lit up. A notification from the Four Seasons popped onto the lock screen. [Reservation Confirmed: ‘Everlasting Devotion’ Suite booked for Friday the 14th…] My hand started to shake. Miles noticed my gaze. He didn’t panic. He walked over, picked up the phone, and looked at me with a smile so bright it was blinding. “You caught me,” he said, sounding playfully defeated. “I wanted it to be a surprise for the night we sign the papers. A little celebration just for us.” My stomach turned, a physical wave of nausea hitting my throat. I forced my lips into something resembling a smile. “I can’t wait.” I didn’t ask why the “surprise” had been booked three days ago—on Serena’s birthday. The next morning was a tableau of domestic bliss. Artisan coffee, poached eggs, and a bowl of steel-cut oats specially prepared for Serena’s “delicate stomach.” Miles was in his scrubs, looking every bit the hero, adjusting his tie in the hallway mirror. He leaned down and kissed my forehead, lingering a second longer than usual, inhaling the scent of my hair. I’ve always made my own botanical mists—lavender, cedar, and a hint of sandalwood. He called it his “anchor.” “Big day today, Avery. A complex craniotomy. The Chief is observing. I might have to stay at the hospital overnight for post-op monitoring.” He took a deep breath of my scent, his shoulders visibly relaxing. “Stay safe at home for me, okay?” I nodded and stood on my tiptoes to straighten his collar. “Don’t work too hard, Miles. Focus.” I watched from the floor-to-ceiling window as he pulled his Porsche out of the garage. Serena’s Prius followed a minute later, supposedly headed for a “job interview.” The moment they were gone, I pulled the spare key from the hidden compartment in my desk. The door to the master suite—the door that had been a barrier for three years—swung open. I walked to the bed. I lifted the corner of the heavy, king-sized mattress. Tucked away in the divan were several pieces of black lace lingerie that weren’t mine. Underneath them was a moleskine journal. I opened it. Two sets of handwriting filled the pages, chronicling dates, hotels, and the thrill of their “shadow life.” The latest entry was Serena’s: “Avery bought him more ‘calming’ essential oils today. Hilarious. She’ll never realize that I am the only medicine he actually needs. Holding him in her bed, in her house… it’s the ultimate high.” I closed the book, my nails digging into the leather. I remembered her holding my hand in college, crying about how “lucky” I was to be born into money, to have a life that seemed so easy. She hadn’t wanted a life like mine; she had wanted my life. As I moved to leave, I saw a folded slip of paper under the nightstand. It was a lab report from a private clinic. Patient: Serena Miller. Result: Positive (6 weeks). And at the bottom, the signature of the referring physician: Dr. Miles Bennett. I spent the day in a trance of cold efficiency. By 7:00 PM, the door lock clicked. Miles and Serena walked in together, Miles carrying a container of high-end bone broth. “Hey, beautiful,” Miles said, kneeling in front of my chair. “Sorry I’m late. Surgery ran long. I picked this up from that deli you like on the way home. Just in case I’m stuck at the hospital tonight, I wanted to make sure you were fed.” I took the bowl, the warmth of it seeping into my skin. “Thanks. But my stomach is a little off. I’m not hungry.” I set the bowl aside and picked up my phone. I hit ‘Send’ on a group message to my realtor and the legal team. “I just listed the penthouse,” I said calmly. The silence that followed was deafening. Miles blinked, his smile faltering. “What? Avery, what are you talking about?” “I’ve already accepted a cash offer from an investor. Quick close. The inspection is waived,” I said, showing him the Zillow ‘Pending’ status. “The movers are coming tomorrow morning. You should probably start packing your things.” Miles’s face went through a kaleidoscope of emotions—confusion, then a sharp, jagged anger he couldn’t quite hide. Serena gasped, her hand instinctively going to her stomach. As Miles stood up to argue, a small velvet box tumbled out of his coat pocket. Inside was a pink diamond ring—the one I had helped design months ago. He caught my eye, and for a second, he tried to pivot back to the script. “Avery, wait… I was going to give this to you at the hotel. I… I was stressed, I wasn’t thinking…” The next afternoon, while I was at the lawyer’s office finalizing the deed transfer, Serena’s Instagram story popped up. It was a photo of her hand, the pink diamond sparkling on her finger. The caption: “He said only a queen deserves a one-of-a-kind diamond. A little gift for the mom-to-be. Love you, Mr. B.” I called him. I didn’t yell. I didn’t cry. “Miles, why is she wearing my ring?” Miles didn’t even sound guilty. His voice was laced with a condescending, clinical coldness. “Serena’s hands are swelling because of the pregnancy. The ring fit her, and she was having a panic attack. I gave it to her to calm her down, Avery. Be rational. It’s just a rock. I’ll buy you a bigger one when this is over.” “I see,” I said. “Don’t bother with the bigger one. Enjoy your night, Miles.” I hung up. I looked at the ‘Expedited Title Transfer’ in my hand, stamped with the notary’s seal. Miles, you’re right. It is just a rock. And this penthouse? It’s just a building. But it’s my building. I hailed a Lyft. “Take me to the Waterfront. I have some packing to do.” When I entered the penthouse, Serena’s shoes were scattered in the foyer like she already owned the place. I ignored them and went to the guest room to grab my suitcase. Suddenly, a thick, familiar scent drifted through the air. It was Old Growth—a rare, vintage sandalwood oil my mother had left me. It was irreplaceable, a relic of a lost world. I only used a drop when Miles was truly suffering, treating it like liquid gold. I threw open the master bedroom door. Serena was lounging on my silk pillows, scrolling through her phone. Miles was standing by the humidifier, tilting my mother’s crystal bottle. He was pouring the last of the oil into the water tank. “What are you doing?” I screamed, lunging for the bottle. It was empty. Miles blocked me with his arm, his face a mask of annoyance. “It was just sitting on a shelf, Avery. Serena is nauseous and can’t sleep. Why are you being so materialistic? It’s just oil.” “It was my mother’s! It’s the last thing I had of hers!” My voice broke, my heart splintering in my chest. “People are more important than things,” Miles said dismissively. He turned his back on me and clicked the humidifier on. A mist of my mother’s memory began to fill the room, being inhaled by the woman who was trying to steal my life. I walked back to the guest suite. I didn’t say another word. Miles, thinking I had folded like I always did, went to the kitchen to slice some fruit. Serena walked to my doorway. She saw my suitcase, which only held a few old clothes and a framed photo of my parents. She laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. She walked over and, with the tip of her toe, hooked the frame. It shattered on the hardwood. Then, she stepped on my mother’s face in the photograph, grinding her heel into the glass. “You’re pathetic, Avery,” she hissed. “A little orphan playing house with a man who was bored of you a year ago. You think you’re so special because you have money? You have nothing.” I looked up at her. The grief was gone. In its place was something cold and sharp. “Get your foot off my mother.” “Make me.” I didn’t think. I stood up, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her toward the hallway with every ounce of rage I’d suppressed for years. She hit the edge of the wardrobe and slid to the floor, let out a piercing, theatrical scream. “Miles! Help! She’s trying to kill the baby!” Miles stormed in. Seeing Serena on the floor, his eyes went red. “Avery, you’ve lost your mind!” He shoved me—hard. My head hit the sharp corner of the nightstand. I felt the hot, wet slide of blood down my temple. Everything went blurry. Miles didn’t even look at me. He scooped Serena up in his arms. “I’m taking her to the ER. Don’t you dare follow us.” He walked out, and I heard the heavy click of the deadbolt from the outside. He had locked me in. “Reflect on what you’ve done!” his voice boomed through the door. “If anything happens to this baby, I will ruin you!” I listened to their footsteps fade. I sat on the floor, pressed a tissue to my bleeding head, and waited. Then, I walked to the closet, grabbed a 15-pound dumbbell, and smashed the lock until the door groaned open. I walked out into the Seattle night, my suitcase in one hand and my dignity in the other.

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1 A week before the wedding, my boyfriend Zane and I were lying in bed playing a game of Truth or Secret. Whoever drew the red slip had to reveal something the other person didn’t know. Zane drew it. He looked into my eyes, a gentle, practiced smile playing on his lips. “I was going to wait a couple more days to tell you, but I guess now is as good a time as any,” he said, his voice as smooth as velvet. He enunciated every word with terrifying clarity. “I’m getting married.” I froze for a heartbeat, then forced a small laugh. “Well, yeah. Next week is our—” “The bride isn’t you, Serena.” The smile died on my face. My brain went completely blank, a high-pitched ringing filling my ears. “What does that even mean? I’ve waited eight years for you!” I choked out. He reached out and stroked my hair, his touch as paternal and condescending as ever. “The firm is in trouble. We’re facing a liquidity crisis. I have to marry Bianca Moore. Her family is the only one with the capital to bail us out.” He leaned in, whispering like it was a sacred vow. “I swear, Serena, you’re the only one I’ll ever love.” I looked down at my right side—at the empty sleeve pinned up against my shoulder. I lost that arm in a car wreck years ago. I had thrown myself across him to take the impact. I remember how he held me afterward, sobbing, swearing to the heavens: “I’ll take care of you for the rest of your life.” I didn’t realize that “taking care of me” included marrying someone else. “Don’t take it so hard,” Zane continued, his tone nauseatingly tender. “It’s just a strategic merger. Once we weather this storm, I’ll find a way out and we’ll get married for real. Okay?” I felt a chill settle into my marrow. “You did so much for the company back in the early days,” he added. “You wouldn’t want to see it all go under, would you?” I stared at him. Back when we started Fletcher Tech, we were so broke we shared dollar-menu burgers. I was the one who landed our first seven-figure contract that put us on the map. “So, like every other executive decision we’ve made, this is for the company. For our future,” he said, still smiling. He had forgotten. In the beginning, he used to make a point of sitting three seats away from any other woman at a business dinner. He used to say: “The firm is the firm, but I won’t do anything that makes my sweet Serena jealous.” Now, he was attending his own wedding for “the company.” I took a deep breath, trying to claw back some dignity. “And our wedding next week?” “Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said casually. “The venue is booked, the catering is set. We’re just changing the names on the program.” Changing the names. Eight years of anticipation, discarded in a single sentence. I looked at Zane. His eyes were still as soulful as the day I met him, but the man inside was a stranger. “If you marry her, we’re done,” I said. Zane blinked, looking genuinely puzzled. “Don’t be dramatic. I know this is a lot to take in—I should have told you sooner. But it’s for the firm. I swear on my life.” He raised his right hand, four fingers extended in a scout’s honor. It was the exact same gesture he made the day I lost my arm. But a vow is only as good as the man making it. When I didn’t respond, his voice hardened. “Serena, be realistic. You aren’t exactly young anymore. And with the… missing limb… if you leave me and the company, where would you even go?” He didn’t finish the thought, but the implication hung in the air like a threat. His phone buzzed—a text. He checked it and stood up. “The office needs me. I have to go handle something.” I watched him leave, thinking about the man who once lived and breathed for the success of Fletcher Tech. I had poured everything into him. I remember when we hit our first major milestone, I told him: “This is enough. We have enough to live comfortably forever. We can finally start our real lives.” He had looked at me blankly and said: “That was a lot of work. You go home and rest, Serena. I have another meeting.” That was the moment I should have realized. The only thing he truly cared about wasn’t me. It was the empire. I picked up my phone, my hand trembling as I dialed a number I hadn’t called in years. The next morning, I woke up to an empty house. Zane hadn’t come back. He used to rush home after every late-night session, claiming he hated the thought of me being alone and scared in the dark. I sighed. My phone buzzed. A text from Zane. “I’m downstairs. I want you to meet someone.” I tightened my grip on my phone, then let go. Fine. One last time. I went down and got into the car. Zane handed me a bag. “Breakfast,” he said. I opened it: a cream-filled pastry and a latte. I felt a bitter laugh bubble up in my throat. He had even forgotten I was severely allergic to dairy. I set the bag aside. “Still pouting?” Zane asked, his voice breezy. I didn’t answer. He frowned slightly, and we drove in silence to a high-end restaurant where he usually took me for celebrations. He led the way into a private booth. A woman was already sitting there. Bianca Moore. Zane didn’t even flinch. He gestured toward her. “Serena, I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Bianca. Bianca, this is Serena.” I stared at him, waiting for the punchline. “She’s my sister,” Zane told her, his voice steady. “And one of the original founders of the firm.” I felt like I’d been kicked in the chest. Sister? Eight years of my life, reduced to a platonic lie. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by a cold hand. Zane looked at me, his eyes offering a sliver of that old warmth as he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the booth. I stumbled, my balance off without my right arm, and he practically shoved me into the corner seat while he sat down next to Bianca. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from him: “Important people are coming. This lunch is crucial for the firm. Play along.” He didn’t even bother to apologize for the “sister” comment. It was always about the firm. The pain started to fade, replaced by a cold, hollow numbness. The room filled up quickly. Partners, investors, family friends. Zane stood up, raising a glass of champagne. “I wanted to bring everyone together to celebrate my upcoming marriage to Bianca,” he said, beaming. “Thank you for your support. We look forward to a very successful partnership, both personally and professionally.” The room erupted in cheers. “A perfect match!” “To the happy couple!” “Come on, Zane! Give us a toast! A kiss!” The crowd started chanting. I looked at Zane, my eyes pleading. Please, don’t do this. Not in front of me. Zane caught my gaze for a split second, then looked away. “If you insist,” he laughed. They linked arms, drinking in the traditional wedding style. When they set their glasses down, they looked at each other as if they were the only two people in the world. Bianca tilted her head back, and he kissed her. The applause was deafening. I stood up slowly from my corner. I slipped out the door, unnoticed. In the restroom, I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was a mask of tears I didn’t even realize were falling. Every promise he’d ever made was shattering in the air around me. I splashed cold water on my face and headed for the exit. Halfway there, I passed a partially open door to another private room. I heard my name. I froze. I couldn’t help but lean in. Zane was in there with his oldest friend, a guy I vaguely remembered from college. “Serena just walked out without a word,” the friend said. Zane swirled his scotch. “Yeah, I know.” “You’re a savage, Zane. Kissing another woman right in front of her?” Zane chuckled. “Why worry? We’ve been together forever. She’s got nowhere else to go. She’s obsessed with me. Besides… she’s only got one arm. Who else is going to take her in?” The friend laughed, punching Zane lightly on the shoulder. “Man, you’re something else. Using the ‘sister’ bit to keep the peace?” I moved closer to the crack in the door. Using what? Zane set his glass down, his expression cynical. “Look, Bianca is high-maintenance. Very traditional. Unlike the others, she wouldn’t let me touch her until there was a ring on it. I had to sell the ‘sister’ story to Serena to keep her quiet until the deal is sealed.” The others? The air left my lungs. It hadn’t just been Bianca. “I promised her this is the last one,” Zane continued. “Once I’m bored with this, I’ll crawl back and give Serena the wedding she wants.” The friend rolled his eyes. “You said that about the last one too.” Zane sighed. “Well, Serena has sacrificed a lot. I’m not a total monster. I’ll marry her eventually.” “You better,” the friend said. “She lost that arm saving your life.” Zane went silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was lower, edged with a trace of disgust. “That’s exactly why I have to get out of the house. You have no idea… every time I look at that stump, I feel sick. In the rain, when the nerves twitch… it looks like a pile of—” “Miss Lin? What are you doing here?” A sharp female voice cut him off. A server was standing behind me. Inside the room, Zane and his friend turned toward the door. Through the gap, our eyes met. Zane reacted instantly. He walked toward me, his hand reaching out to stroke my hair. “Serena, you… how much did you hear?” Bianca stepped out behind him, looking confused. I didn’t wait for him to finish. I swung my left hand and slapped him across the face with every ounce of strength I had left. Before I could even register the sting in my palm, Bianca stepped forward and slapped me back. “What is wrong with you?!” she screamed, shielding Zane. “How dare you hit him!” She stood in front of him, fierce and protective. I looked at them and felt a hysterical urge to laugh. It was like a scene from a soap opera, and I realized with brutal clarity that I wasn’t the lead. In this story, I was the villain. The “other woman.” I looked at my empty sleeve, then at the “happy couple.” Fine, I thought. The villain is leaving. I stepped back, but the floor suddenly rolled beneath my feet. A low roar filled the building. “Earthquake! Get out!” someone screamed. The ceiling began to shed dust and plaster. The floor tilted violently. A heavy service cart laden with crystal and silverware broke loose, hurtling toward Bianca. “Bianca!” Zane didn’t hesitate. He lunged forward, shoving her out of the way and throwing his weight against the cart to deflect it. He saved her, but the momentum sent the heavy steel cart spinning. Straight toward me. I saw Zane look back. For a second, his face was a mask of panic, then confusion as he realized the cart was about to crush me. He opened his mouth to scream my name, but the impact hit. The world went black. As my consciousness faded, I saw the crowd trampling over each other to get to the exit. I saw Zane grab Bianca’s hand and run for the door. He didn’t look back again. But just before the dark took me, I felt a pair of strong hands catch me.

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1 The crash happened while Sean was speeding to get to her. He was halfway to Roxanne’s apartment when his Porsche spun out. Now, the doctors were saying the nerves in his spine were shattered. They said he’d never walk again. The moment the word “paralyzed” left the surgeon’s mouth, Roxanne—his “soulmate,” his “White Moonlight”—didn’t just distance herself; she evaporated. Within weeks, she’d already moved on to someone else, leaving the wreckage of Sean’s life for me to sweep up. I pulled back the sterile white sheets of his hospital bed, preparing to help him with his morning sponge bath. It was a humiliating routine for a man who used to command boardrooms. Before the cloth could touch his skin, he swiped a glass of water off the bedside table. It shattered against the wall, shards spraying across the linoleum. “Get out!” he roared, his voice raw with a mix of agony and venom. “Get the hell away from me!” I looked at the mess, then at him. For three years, I had been the perfect, dutiful wife, the one who stayed in the shadows while he chased the sun. “Fine, Sean,” I whispered. “I’m going.” I didn’t just leave the room. I packed my life into two suitcases, left the hospital, and went further than he ever expected. On the empty pillow next to him, I left the one thing he’d always claimed he wanted: signed divorce papers. Of course, life has a cruel sense of irony. Later, when his legs finally healed and his world turned cold, he came crawling back. But by then, the woman who would have died for him was gone. Sean’s face was the color of ash. His eyes were bloodshot, his knuckles raw and bleeding where he’d struck the bed rail. When he looked up and saw me, the tiny flicker of hope in his gaze died instantly, replaced by a searing, visceral disgust. “What are you doing here?” he spat. He let out a jagged, mocking laugh. “Come to watch the show? Come to see the great Sean Miller reduced to a piece of furniture?” My heart gave a familiar, dull throb—the kind of pain you get used to when you live with a man who hates you. I stepped carefully around the broken glass and placed a basket of fresh fruit on the table. “Your mother asked me to look after you,” I said softly, keeping my eyes down. CRASH. With a violent sweep of his arm, he sent the basket flying. It clipped my ankle before the fruit scattered across the floor like marbles. “Get out!” he screamed. “God, Autumn, do you have any idea how pathetic you look? Your spinelessness… it makes me sick.” I turned and limped out of the room, my own ankle throbbing, my chest feeling like it had been filled with frigid lake water. In the hallway, I nearly collided with Roxanne. She didn’t offer an apology. She just gave me a look of triumphant disdain before smoothing her silk dress and rushing into Sean’s room, her face instantly morphing into a mask of tragic concern. “Oh, Sean… honey, are you okay?” I heard her sob as she threw herself into his arms. “I’m fine, Roxie,” Sean’s voice was suddenly transformed—soft, melodic, brimming with a tenderness he hadn’t shown me in three years of marriage. “It doesn’t even hurt when you’re here.” They held each other as if they were the only two people in the world, completely oblivious to the wife standing just outside the door. A moment later, the attending physician entered to check Sean’s vitals and discuss the long-term prognosis. When the doctor mentioned the likelihood of permanent paralysis, I saw Roxanne’s entire body go rigid. She slowly untangled herself from his grip. She took a step back, her eyes darting toward the door. Suddenly, her phone was in her hand, pressed to her ear before it even rang. “I… I have to take this. It’s work,” she stammered, already backing away. The shift from “devoted lover” to “stranger looking for an exit” was so fast it was dizzying. I caught her in the hallway. “Roxanne,” I said, my voice steady. “The doctor said it’s a possibility, not a certainty. If he has the right care, he could recover.” She looked at me with pure, unadulterated annoyance, her red-painted lips curling. “Care?” she snapped. “Autumn, you’re the wife. If he needs a nurse, that’s your job. Why are you telling me?” 2 I couldn’t help the dry, bitter laugh that escaped me. Now she remembered I was his wife. Where was that realization when she was flirting with him in our own bedroom? Where was it during his birthday gala, when she lured him away from a hundred guests, leaving me to host his family alone? Where was it when she whispered in his ear that he should leave me, that he deserved a “real” life? Even the accident—the very reason he was lying in that bed—happened because he was racing through a storm to get to her. She had taken every ounce of the “good” Sean Miller, and now that he was broken, she was ready to wash her hands of him. Roxanne pulled out a Chanel lipstick, fixing her pout in the reflection of the glass door. “Don’t try to guilt-trip me,” she said, blotting her lips. “This was a mutual thing. I didn’t force Sean to come see me. Besides, I’m not coming back to this depressing place. It’s a waste of my time.” She turned on her heel and strode toward the elevators, her heels clicking a sharp, rhythmic goodbye. The hospital walls were thin. Inside the room, Sean was silent, but I knew he’d heard. I walked back in and saw him staring at the ceiling, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. A single tear tracked down his temple. I felt a strange, hollow mixture of satisfaction and grief. Does it burn, Sean? I wondered. Does it burn to be discarded by the only person you ever valued? 3 The days that followed were a slow descent into a living hell. Sean became a ghost inhabiting a corpse. He refused to eat, staring blankly at the wall as his body survived on IV drips and spite. I opened a thermos of homemade chicken broth—the kind my grandmother used to make—and held a spoonful near his lips. “Please, Sean,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Just a little. You need your strength.” He didn’t move. His face was a mask of frozen granite. My arm began to ache from holding the spoon, but I didn’t pull back. “Just one sip…” His eyes snapped to mine. They were dark, bottomless pits of rage. SMASH. He swiped the bowl out of my hand. The porcelain shattered on the floor, and the scalding liquid splashed across my hand and arm. I gasped, the sting immediate and sharp. Tears welled in my eyes, blurring my vision. Sean didn’t apologize. He just looked at me with utter loathing. “What are you doing, Autumn? Playing the martyr? Waiting for me to thank you?” He closed his eyes, shutting me out entirely. I bit my lip to keep from crying out. The burn on my hand was turning a vivid, angry red. I spent the next ten minutes on my hands and knees, cleaning up the mess, before retreating to the bathroom. I ran cold water over my skin, watching the steam rise. In the mirror, the woman looking back at me was unrecognizable. Pale, hollowed-out, her spirit frayed to a single thread. Sean had hated me from our wedding night. He’d moved into the guest suite before the cake was even cold. He’d spent three years staying late at the office, drinking himself into a stupor, or simply ignoring my existence whenever we were in the same room. Being trapped here with him, in this small, sterile box, was the most intimacy we’d ever had. And it was killing me. I took a deep breath, patted my hair into place, and walked back out. “Roxie must have a reason,” I heard a voice say from inside the room. “She was probably just overwhelmed… she’ll be back.” I froze at the door. 4 Blake Harrington, Sean’s best friend, was sitting in the visitor’s chair, his expression full of the same condescending pity Sean always showed me. Sean never introduced me to his inner circle. To them, I was just the “placeholder” his mother had picked. Roxanne, however, was their queen. “Blake, man…” Sean’s voice was shaky, devoid of its usual bravado. “Can you call her? Tell her I… I can’t do this without her.” He stopped, his head sagging. “Never mind.” He gripped the blanket over his useless legs, his knuckles white. “Look at me. I’m half a man. I don’t deserve her anyway.” I walked past them, heading for the nurses’ station to get a fresh bandage for my hand. My palms were clenched so tight my nails were drawing blood. He was making excuses for her. Even now, after she’d looked at him like he was a piece of spoiled meat and walked away, he was blaming himself. I remembered a gala we’d attended a year ago. I had been ten minutes late because I was running a fever of 102 and could barely stand. Sean hadn’t asked if I was okay. He’d hissed that I was an embarrassment, driven me to a dark stretch of road near our estate, and told me to walk the rest of the way in the cold. I leaned against the hallway wall, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. As I turned to go back in, I ran into Blake. He stopped, looking me up and down with an arched eyebrow. “Still hanging around, Autumn? Don’t you get tired of being the third wheel in your own marriage?” I didn’t answer. “If it weren’t for you,” Blake continued, his voice dropping to a cruel whisper, “Sean and Roxie would have been married years ago. He wouldn’t have been speeding to find her that night. He wouldn’t be in that bed.” He stubbed out his cigarette in a nearby bin and turned away. “You’re a curse, you know that?” The words hit me like a physical blow. I stood there, trembling, holding my burned hand. In their world, I was the villain. I was the one who had “stolen” a life that didn’t belong to me. 5 Sean began to drink. He used his status as a Miller to bully the orderlies into smuggling in bourbon. The room soon smelled like a dive bar—stale booze and despair. The doctors were furious, but Sean didn’t care. “Mrs. Miller,” the head surgeon said, pulling me into the hallway. “You need to take some responsibility. He’s a patient. He cannot be self-medicating like this.” I looked at the bandage on my hand, now stained with a bit of blood from where I’d tripped earlier after Sean pushed me away. The doctors didn’t see the bruises. They only saw a wife who couldn’t “control” her husband. “I’ll try,” I said, my voice hollow. When I walked back into the room, the scene was worse than I imagined. Sean was propped up against the pillows, a half-empty bottle in one hand and a woman I didn’t recognize in the other. She was a gorgeous, leggy redhead with the kind of perfume that gives you a headache. Sean didn’t even look at me. He cupped her jaw and kissed her deeply, a performative, cruel display. I stood there, paralyzed by the sheer indignity of it. Sean pulled back, breathless, and pointed a finger at the floor. “The trash, Autumn. Pick it up.” I lowered my head and began picking up the discarded clothes and empty bottles. The woman giggled, a shrill, sharp sound. “Sean, baby… there’s someone else in the room…” “She doesn’t matter,” Sean said, his voice cold. “Keep going.” The girl began to slip her dress off, straddling him on the hospital bed. “Well, if you can’t move much… I guess I’ll have to do all the work.” She leaned in to kiss his neck, throwing a smirk of pure malice my way. But then, the mood shifted. Sean suddenly shoved her. Hard. She went sprawling onto the floor with a muffled cry. Sean’s face was contorted, the veins in his neck bulging. “What did you say?” he hissed, his eyes glowing with a terrifying light. “Sean, I was just—” “You think I’m helpless?” He grabbed her hair, pulling her face close to his. “You think because I’m in this bed, you can mock me? Get out! Get out before I have my security throw you off the roof!” The girl scrambled up, sobbing, and ran out the door. Sean was gasping for air, a predator trapped in a cage. He looked at me, his eyes landing on the clothes I was holding—the stranger’s dress. He let out a jagged, mocking sound. “Look at you, Autumn. Have you no soul? No pride? You just stand there and take it.” 6 He kicked me out of the room shortly after. I found the girl crying in the hallway, half-dressed. I handed her her clothes. “Just go home,” I said quietly. I was used to this. Over the last three years, Sean had brought home a revolving door of women, treating them like disposable tissues. Only Roxanne was the exception. Only Roxanne was sacred. Later that evening, I returned with a basin of warm water. He smelled of sweat, bourbon, and the cheap perfume of the girl from earlier. He looked like a man rotting from the inside out. “Don’t touch me,” he warned, his voice dangerous. I ignored him, pulling back the covers. “Your mother will be back in the country tomorrow. I need to make sure you’re presentable.” “I said, don’t touch me!” he roared. “You’re not her! You’ll never be her!” The water basin tipped, soaking my shirt. I stood there, dripping, as he continued to scream into the empty air. “Nobody touches me but Roxie! Do you hear me? Nobody!” He was so far gone he was calling her name in his sleep. Even as she was likely in someone else’s bed, he was guarding his body for her like a temple. I felt a vibration in my pocket. A notification from my bank. The final installment of the “stipend” from Sean’s mother had been deposited. Looking at the balance, I felt a sudden, sharp clarity. I was done. I walked over to the bed and threw a stack of photographs onto his lap. “You want Roxanne?” I asked, my voice devoid of emotion. Sean froze, his eyes scanning the photos. His face went through a kaleidoscope of expressions—confusion, denial, and finally, a crushing, soul-shattering realization. The photos were from a wedding chapel in Vegas. Roxanne, looking radiant in white, was kissing a man. Not just any man. Grant Montgomery—Sean’s biggest rival, the man who had been trying to dismantle Miller Holdings for a decade. They’d been married for three days. Sean’s hands began to shake so violently the photos fluttered to the floor. “No… no, she wouldn’t…” “She did, Sean. She waited just long enough to make sure you weren’t going to stand up again, and then she cashed in. While you’ve been pining for her, she’s been giving your business secrets to Montgomery as a wedding present.” I pulled an envelope from my bag and dropped it on his chest. “Our three-year contract is up, Sean. I’m not playing the devoted wife anymore. You want to rot? Rot. But I’m not watching it happen.” I turned and walked out, leaving him in the wreckage of his own illusions.

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1 I met Silas Ford during the darkest year of his life. It was a night defined by a torrential New York downpour. I found him in a literal gutter, his clothes paper-thin and soaked through with blood. He had been beaten within an inch of his life. Back then, I was working two dead-end service jobs just to keep him in a hospital bed and pay off the surgeons. When he finally pulled through, I spent a year dragging him out of the psychological wreckage. Then, I spent three more years in a cramped, thirty-square-meter studio in Queens, watching him rebuild his empire from nothing. He used to hold my hands—calloused from scrubbing floors—and swear to me: “Once I take back what’s mine, I’m going to make you the happiest woman in the world.” And for a while, he kept that promise. He became the toast of Manhattan’s elite, a man famously, almost pathologically, devoted to his wife. Until our third wedding anniversary. I was heading to the parking garage of his office building when I saw his black Escalade. It was rocking—a rhythmic, violent motion that didn’t stop for a long time. I stood there, paralyzed, the air in the garage feeling like lead in my lungs. Eventually, the door opened. Silas stepped out, his silhouette as familiar to me as my own heartbeat. He reached back into the car to help a slender woman out, his arm draped possessively around her waist. He whispered something in her ear that made her erupt into a fit of giggles. “I never would have guessed,” she teased, her voice like a jagged piece of glass. “The legendary Silas Ford, the man who worships his wife, actually has a side chick.” Silas didn’t even hesitate. His voice was casual, light, as if he were discussing the weather. “Well,” he said. “She’s just… gotten old.” 2 Hearing those words felt like a physical blow. It wasn’t just a sting; it was a total internal collapse. I was twenty-four when I “awoke” in this world—a stranger in a strange land. Silas was the first person I truly connected with. We survived the lean years together. We shared the bitterness of hunger and the sweetness of our first real paycheck. We had lived a lifetime in seven years. Seven years. My entire youth. And it all boiled down to: She’s gotten old. I forced a brittle, ugly smile. I watched the elevator display. It stopped on the 16th floor. The irony was a physical weight in my stomach. She lived in the same luxury high-rise we did, just a few floors below our penthouse. How many nights had they spent together while I sat upstairs, keeping his dinner warm? The bitterness surged like a tide. I took a breath, smoothed my hair, and walked into our home as if nothing had changed. I sat on the sofa, the TV flickering with some meaningless show, waiting for him. When he finally walked in, he didn’t look at me. He headed straight for the master bath, stripping off his jacket. He glanced at the spread on the dining table—the steak, the wine, the candles I’d lit for our anniversary. “Summer,” he said, his voice flat. “Don’t wait up for me to eat anymore. Just have yours. I’m exhausted, I’m going to skip dinner and shower.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He just closed the bathroom door. 3 I sat at the table alone. I picked up a fork and forced a mouthful of cold steak into my mouth. It tasted like ash. When Silas emerged from the shower, he walked past me with a gaze so indifferent it made my skin crawl. The man who used to look at me with such fierce adoration was gone. In his place was a stranger who found my presence a chore. “Silas,” I said, my voice steady. “Sit down. Eat something with me.” He sighed, checking his watch. “I told you, I’m not hungry.” “Eat,” I repeated. “You might not get to eat my cooking ever again after tonight.” He frowned, his irritation flaring. He sat down purely to pacify me, taking a few aggressive bites. “There. Happy?” he snapped. “This is freezing, Summer. It’s terrible. Stop being so dramatic; it’s not like we can’t afford a private chef. You don’t need to do this.” A lump formed in my throat, choking me. I remembered him saying, Baby, your cooking is the best thing in the world. I could eat this every day for the rest of my life. I remembered him saying, I hate seeing you in the kitchen. I want to be the one taking care of you from now on. He had forgotten. He had forgotten the promises, the struggle, and the fact that today was our anniversary. His phone buzzed on the table. He checked it ten times in five minutes. 4 A notification popped up, and he immediately dropped his fork to head into the study. “Go to sleep,” he said. “Something came up with the firm.” He didn’t notice the small, involuntary smirk playing at the corners of his mouth as he turned away. Later that night, curled up in bed, my stomach began to cramp—a sharp, stabbing pain from the cold food and the stress. Silas wasn’t there. I texted him; no reply. I called; busy signal. I got up to find some antacids. When I couldn’t find them in the kitchen, I headed toward the study. Silas had always insisted on “total transparency” to give me security. He never locked his doors; he even used to take calls on speakerphone in front of me. He seemed to have forgotten to break that habit. I stopped at the door, hearing his best friend, Grant Miller, on the line. “Silas, man,” Grant’s voice was skeptical. “Do you even remember who stayed by your side when you were a nobody? Do you remember how much you loved her?” “I haven’t forgotten,” Silas replied. “It’s just… she’s become so dull. So predictable.” “In other words, you’re bored,” Grant surmised. Silas didn’t deny it. “So you’re really messing around with that new intern? What’s her name? Tiffany?” Silas’s tone sharpened with defensive pride. “‘Messing around’ is a bit crude, don’t you think?” “Wait. You’re catching feelings for this girl?” Silas gave a soft, wistful laugh. “She’s just so… vibrant. So innocent. She looks at me like I’m a hero, not like someone who remembers me when I was bleeding in a gutter.” “Be careful, Silas,” Grant warned. “We all saw what you went through for Summer. You were willing to lose everything for her. If she finds out, there’s no coming back.” “She won’t find out,” Silas said, his voice dripping with chilling confidence. “And even if she does… I don’t think she’d ever walk away. Not from this life. Not after seven years of her youth. Honestly, Grant, sometimes I wonder if she only saved me back then because she knew who I really was. It was an investment.” 5 His words turned my blood to ice. He had no idea. Saving him—”completing his route”—was the mission the System gave me when I first arrived in this world. But my final task was supposed to be leaving him at the height of his love for me. That was my ticket home. I had agonized over it for three days back then. How could I not fall for the man who looked at me like I was his entire universe? In the end, I chose him. I stayed. I sacrificed my only chance to return to my real world because I thought our love was the exception. The pain in my stomach intensified. It wasn’t just the food. It was the realization that his recent coldness wasn’t “stress.” He was simply done with me. He was so confident in my devotion. He thought my seven years were a cage that kept me trapped at his feet. He was using my love as a weapon against me. 6 I knew Tiffany’s name. I remembered the first time Silas mentioned her. He had acted so annoyed. “The new intern is a disaster,” he’d said, rubbing his temples. “She’s not half as sharp as you, Summer.” “Then why keep her?” I’d asked. “She’s the daughter of a major partner. I owe the guy a favor. It’s a political move.” Seeing my silence, he had pulled me into his lap, sounding desperate. “Don’t overthink it, okay? I’ll get rid of her as soon as the deal closes. She’s clumsy and honestly, she’s a headache to look at.” I had laughed, and he had looked relieved—as if he were genuinely terrified of losing me. I realized now that she was the first woman he had ever bothered to complain about to me. It was the oldest trick in the book. 7 By the time I crawled back into bed, the physical pain had gone numb, eclipsed by the hollow ache in my chest. I curled into a ball, trying to hold myself together. The next morning, Silas was gone. It was our housekeeper’s day off—I’d given her the holiday for our anniversary—so I dragged myself into the kitchen to make some simple oatmeal. I didn’t hear Silas come back in. Suddenly, he was standing behind me, his expression tight with disapproval. “You shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, reaching for the pot. “I’ve got it,” I said, my grip tightening on the handle. In the struggle, the boiling liquid splashed onto the back of my hand. I hissed in pain. Silas immediately turned off the stove and dragged my hand under the cold tap. “Clumsy,” he muttered, his voice cold. “I told you to stay out of the kitchen. Stay here, I’ll get the ointment.” His phone rang before he could step away. He checked it, glancing at me. This time, he didn’t use the speakerphone. But in the quiet kitchen, I heard everything. “Silas… I had a nightmare,” a girl’s voice sobbed on the other end. “I dreamt you didn’t want me anymore.” I saw Silas’s jaw relax. He was suppressing a smile. He didn’t get the ointment. He just dropped my hand and grabbed his keys. “Find the medicine yourself,” he said, not looking me in the eye. “There’s an emergency at the office.” He didn’t even grab his coat before he slammed the door. 8 He wasn’t gone five minutes before I got a friend request on Instagram. The bio said: Tiffany L. I hit accept with trembling fingers. Immediately, a photo popped up in my DMs. It was a selfie of her lying in Silas’s arms. “Sorry, Summer. Silas is just so impatient. He wore me out this morning.” “He says I’m his breath of fresh air. He told me you’ve gotten… well, ‘stale’ was the word he used.” “He won’t divorce you yet because he feels guilty about that whole ‘saving his life’ thing. But what do you think will happen if I tell him I’m pregnant?” A bitter laugh escaped me. He had told her everything. Our entire history was just pillow talk for them. I took a deep breath and screenshotted the conversation. I walked to the window and looked out at the New York skyline. I had no one in this world but him. If he was gone, I was truly alone. But I wasn’t going to stay a ghost in his house. I summoned the System—the interface that had been silent for years. “I’d like to trade my accumulated points,” I whispered. “I know I can’t go home anymore. But I want a new heart. I want to leave Silas Ford and ensure he can never find me again.” The System’s mechanical voice flickered in my mind. “Are you certain, Host? Once the ‘Disappearance Protocol’ is activated, it cannot be reversed.” “I’m certain.” “Understood. The protocol will take thirty days to finalize.” 9 One month. The countdown would end on the exact date I first met him. I began systematically purging my life. I packed a small bag of essentials and threw away years of mementos. Silas came home early that evening, but he went straight to the walk-in closet and started packing his own suitcase. “I have a business trip for a few days,” he said, his tone dismissive. “Why doesn’t your secretary pack for you?” I asked. Silas froze. He slowly turned around, his face a mask of calm. “She’s a young woman, Summer. It wouldn’t be appropriate for her to handle my personal things.” “Is that so?” I leaned against the doorframe, mocking him with a look. His face darkened. “Don’t start with the irrational jealousy. There’s nothing going on.” “Did I say there was? Why are you so defensive? Did something happen?” He realized he’d overplayed his hand. He gritted his teeth. “I don’t have time for this.” He zipped his suitcase and pushed past me without a second glance. 10 As soon as he left, his grandmother arrived. She was flanked by a nurse carrying a thermos. I knew exactly what was inside. “Summer, dear,” the old woman said, her voice sharp despite the endearment. “Drink this. You and Silas have been married long enough. It’s time we saw some results in that belly of yours.” Evelyn Ford was the only person Silas truly respected. I had spent years trying to win her over, despite her making it clear she thought a girl from the streets wasn’t fit for the Ford name. She had only tolerated me because Silas had been so unyielding about our marriage. Since the wedding, she had bombarded me with “traditional remedies” and fertility tonics. I used to drink them to keep the peace. I hated the smell of medicine—it made me nauseous—but I’d endure it, even if I threw it all up afterward. Not today. “I’m not drinking it,” I said. Evelyn’s face contorted. “Don’t you forget what you promised when you entered this family.” “I’m divorcing Silas,” I said clearly. The room went dead silent. Even the nurse looked up in shock. Everyone knew how much I loved him. They had built their cruelty on the foundation of my devotion. Now, that foundation was gone. 11 After kicking the old woman out, I went to a lawyer. I had the divorce papers drawn up and started looking for a new city. The rain didn’t stop for three days. It felt like the city was mourning the death of the woman I used to be. That night, I drank a little too much wine and fell asleep on the sofa. I dreamed of our Queens apartment. Those New York winters were brutal. I’ve always been sensitive to the cold, and back then, we couldn’t afford the heating bill. Silas used to wrap himself around me every night, acting as my human space heater. He had been so tender then. Everyone envied me for having a man so devoted. We had crawled out of the darkness together, hand in hand. On our wedding day, he had held me so tight his knuckles turned white. “I finally have you,” he had whispered, his eyes red. “I’ll make you the happiest woman alive. Just promise you’ll never leave me.” My phone vibrated, jarring me awake. It was a message from Tiffany. Three photos. One of her in a hospital gown. One of Silas sitting by her bed, looking at her with heartbreaking tenderness. And the last one: a photo of the door to the OB-GYN clinic. The dream was over. It was time to wake up. 12 “Sorry, Summer. The baby’s been a bit unstable these last three days, so Silas has been staying at the hospital to look after us.” “Oh, wait—did I forget to tell you? I’m pregnant. Silly me, it just slipped out.” I stared at the screen, unmoved by her amateur dramatics. I saved the photos and drove to the hospital. Silas was a man of habit; when he cared about someone, he bought the best. It wasn’t hard to find him. I found the maternity ward. I saw them immediately. He was supporting her by the waist, walking with agonizing slowness as if she were made of glass. “I’m not that fragile, Silas,” she giggled. “Maybe not,” he said, his voice thick with affection. “But he is.” He placed a hand gently over her stomach. She beamed, leaning in to kiss him. Silas caught her by the shoulders, then leaned down to press a soft, lingering kiss to her lips. It was a beautiful picture. They looked like a perfect, happy family.

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1 Brooks Montgomery’s assistant has a penchant for “pranks.” She waited until I was in the shower, then planted a dead rat in the bathroom to send me bolting onto the penthouse balcony in a panic. The moment I stepped out, she slid the glass door shut and engaged the deadbolt. I was trapped out there for three days, wrapped in nothing but a damp bath towel. I screamed until my throat was raw, but the wind off the city skyline swallowed my voice. No one came. By the time the door finally clicked open on the third afternoon, I was delirious with hunger and shivering from the damp cold. I stumbled into the living room, my eyes landing on a half-eaten artisanal cake sitting on the marble coffee table. It was stale, but I didn’t care. I shoved a handful into my mouth, the sugar hit feeling like a lightning bolt to my starved system. Brooks stood by the window, his silhouette sharp against the light. He didn’t offer a blanket. He didn’t offer water. He just looked at me with a gaze so cold it felt like a physical slap. “I want a divorce,” he said. I looked up at him, my eyelids swollen and my vision blurred. “Because… because I took a bite of this cake?” “Yes.” He wasn’t alone. He had brought a small circle of our social peers—the very people who used to envy us—to witness my degradation. He tossed a set of divorce papers onto the table, right next to the crumbs. He demanded I sign them then and there, leaving with absolutely nothing. No alimony. No assets. Just the towel on my back. Even among that cynical crowd, a few murmurs of protest broke out. “Brooks, for God’s sake,” one of our neighbors, Sarah, whispered. “Your assistant locked her out there for seventy-two hours. She’s starving. It’s just a piece of cake.” Brooks’s voice was like dry ice. “It wasn’t hers to touch. She has no right to things that don’t belong to her.” He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me. “Besides, isn’t this exactly how she became Mrs. Montgomery in the first place? By taking things that weren’t hers?” The room went quiet. People looked at me with a sickening mix of pity and judgment. I lowered my head, a ghostly, pathetic laugh escaping my cracked lips. “Fine,” I whispered. “I’ll sign.” I reached for the pen, but my hand was shaking so violently from hypoglycemia that I couldn’t even grip the barrel. “Brooks… please,” I rasped, looking at the remains of the cake. My stomach was cramping so hard it felt like it was folding in on itself. “Let me eat something first. Just a few more bites, so I can hold the pen.” I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. Brooks didn’t even blink. He reached down, picked up the plate, and dumped the cake into the trash can. I felt the last spark of life drain out of me. “Jesus, Brooks,” someone muttered. “What did she do that was so unforgivable? She’s been out there for three days without food.” Brooks looked around the room, his expression terrifyingly serene. “She deserves it. I’ve always said I have zero tolerance for people who don’t understand boundaries. She knew that cake belonged to Sienna. Even if Sienna was going to throw it away, it wasn’t for her to touch.” Sienna Hart. His “assistant.” The girl who had been the ghost in our marriage from day one. The girl he protected with a ferocity he never showed me. He spoke as if he’d forgotten—or simply didn’t care—that Sienna was the one who had orchestrated the “prank.” She was the one who had trapped me. I had called Brooks seventy-two times from the balcony’s emergency intercom. Not once did he pick up. “I’ll sign,” I said, reaching out to clutch his sleeve. “But please… not like this. Not in front of everyone.” I looked down at the pink towel, the only thing shielding me from the eyes of these strangers. “Let me go inside. Let me take a shower and put on a dress. Give me ten minutes of dignity.” I could feel the greasy, leering stares of some of the men in the room. I wanted to crawl into the floorboards and disappear. “No,” Brooks said, his voice a steel trap. “What if you try to run? No, Olivia. You’re signing these now, exactly like this. I want everyone to see. I want the world to know that Sienna isn’t the ‘other woman.’ She’s the victim here.” He shoved my hand away. I stumbled, nearly hitting the floor. My face was the color of ash. I finally understood. This wasn’t a divorce; it was an execution. This was his long-awaited revenge for the day I met Sienna. Sienna had been a charity case Brooks mentored back in college. At his graduation party, I’d caught her on the lawn, standing on her tiptoes to press a kiss against his jaw. I hadn’t played the victim then. I had slapped her across the face and told her, “We gave you a scholarship to learn a career, not to learn how to hunt other women’s husbands. If you have this much energy, use it to get into the Fortune 500.” That moment turned us into bitter enemies. Everyone knew we loathed each other. So, a year later, when Sienna got “accidentally” locked in a supply closet and missed a career-defining interview with a top-tier firm, she told Brooks I had sabotaged her. And Brooks, the man who supposedly loved me, believed every word she said. “She’s just a girl from nothing, Olivia!” he had screamed at me during our first real fight. “She saw me as a brother, a mentor! That kiss was just her being grateful, and you crushed her for it. You ruined her career because you were jealous.” I had been a rising star in the corporate world then, making seven figures, and I refused to let him gaspoint me. “Ruined her career? Brooks, look at her. She’s a mediocre girl with a victim complex. She’s not worth the effort it would take to sabotage her.” He had looked at me then with a hatred I should have recognized. “You think you’re so high and mighty because of your paycheck? Let’s see how long that pride lasts.” The next day, he hired her as his personal assistant. Twenty thousand a month for a “low-stress” job that mostly involved getting him coffee and looking pretty. The office rumors were deafening—everyone assumed they were sleeping together. I fought with him constantly, but he always dismissed me with a “we have nothing to hide” shrug. But I knew. I knew since that kiss on the lawn. The breaking point came when I walked into his office and saw Sienna eating a cupcake with the same spoon Brooks had just used. It was so intimate, so domestic, it broke something in me. I fired her on the spot. I told Brooks if she stayed, I left. He folded. He signed the termination papers. But shortly after, I “voluntarily” stepped down from my company to become a stay-at-home wife—for reasons I couldn’t even admit to myself yet. The moment I was out of the professional loop, he brought her back. Recalling it now, I closed my eyes against the stinging tears. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. When you’re broken and starving, pride is a luxury you can’t afford. “Sorry? It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” Brooks pushed the papers closer. “Sign. If you’re actually sorry, prove it by letting me go.” The words “Zero Assets” felt like a knife in my eye. I gripped the pen. “Can you… can you just give me something? Just twenty thousand dollars? Just enough to get an apartment and a doctor?” I looked up at him, my voice trembling. “Brooks… I’m pregnant.” His eyes didn’t even flicker. “No.” A man in the back, a former colleague of mine, stood up. “For God’s sake, Brooks! Are you a human being? She said she’s pregnant. That’s your wife. That’s your child.” Brooks leaned back in his chair, his expression mocking. “She’s my wife. But the kid? That’s up for debate.” The room went deathly silent. People traded uncomfortable glances. I felt the blood drain from my head. “What are you saying?” Brooks smirked. “Olivia, when you paid those men to ‘harass’ Sienna last year, what did you use to convince them? Money? Or did you offer them your body? Because I know for a fact you were ‘working late’ an awful lot.” The accusation was so vile, so far from the truth, that my brain short-circuited. My vision went red. I grabbed the heavy crystal ashtray from the table and hurled it at his head with every ounce of strength I had left. “You soulless bastard!” He didn’t move. The crystal caught him right at the temple. Blood began to leak down his forehead, staining his white shirt, but he just sat there, staring at me with a terrifying, triumphant coldness. “You’re a lunatic, Olivia,” he whispered. “And lunatics have to pay the price.” He pulled out his phone and dialed 911. “I’d like to report an assault. My wife just tried to kill me.” He looked me in the eye. “I’m going to make sure you rot in a cell.” I collapsed back into the chair, my head hanging low. The police arrived, and after a long, humiliating hour of being questioned while shivering in a towel, they gave me a “stern warning” because Brooks declined to press charges—provided I signed the papers and left immediately. “Fine,” I said, my voice dead. “You win.” If this marriage was a corpse, there was no point in trying to perform CPR anymore. I reached for the pen to sign my name, but a manicured hand slammed down on the paper. I looked up to see Sienna smiling at me. “Oh, Olivia. You’re giving up so easily? Where’s that ‘titan of industry’ I used to hear about? The woman who used to spend a million dollars on a weekend in Aspen without blinking?” She leaned in, her voice a poisonous honey. “Now you’re begging for twenty grand like a dog. How pathetic. You’re an embarrassment to women everywhere.” I didn’t fight back. I was a shell. “I’m signing, Sienna. You got what you wanted. What else is there?” She wasn’t done. She wanted to play with her food. “I just think it’s too easy. Where’s the fun in a mouse that won’t run?” Brooks waved his hand, dismissing the crowd. Once the room was empty of everyone but the three of us, he put his arm around Sienna’s waist. “What’s on your mind, babe?” he asked, his voice softening only for her. “I thought you wanted the divorce over with.” Sienna traced a finger down Brooks’s cheek. “I just think seeing her walk away with her life intact is… boring. Especially since she’s claiming to be pregnant. She’s trapped, Brooks. She has nowhere to go.” She looked at my stomach with a flash of pure, unadulterated venom. “Let’s increase the difficulty level.” A cold dread settled in my chest. I thought of the dead rat. I thought of the three days on the balcony. I looked at Brooks, praying for a shred of the man I used to know. He just smiled at her. “Whatever you want. How do you want to play it?” I felt like I had been plunged into ice water. Sienna’s gaze moved back to my stomach. “Since she’s so proud of this ‘pregnancy,’ let’s let her watch. Let’s let her watch as she loses it, step by step.” She touched her own flat stomach, her eyes darkening. “Let her feel what it’s like to know you’ll never, ever be a mother.” At the mention of infertility, Brooks’s face hardened into stone. “Done. It’s a debt she owes you.” I tried to beg, but the words died in my throat. I remembered then. The “accident” that happened after I fired Sienna. She had lost her high-paying job and, unable to maintain her lifestyle, had supposedly gone to a “networking dinner” that turned into a nightmare. She claimed she was drugged and assaulted by several men, leaving her with internal injuries that meant she could never conceive. It had nothing to do with me. But Brooks blamed me. He believed that if I hadn’t fired her, she wouldn’t have been at that dinner. Sienna had been waiting for this. For me to be broke, broken, and at her mercy. Brooks tore up the divorce papers. “We’re not divorcing yet,” he sneered. “Sienna says you need to truly ‘understand’ your mistakes first.” “Understanding” meant hell. When I tried to go to a clinic to check on the baby, Sienna forced me to go to a bar and entertain a group of “investors,” telling me that if I didn’t drink with them, I wouldn’t get a cent for rent. He cut off my credit cards. He told me I had to earn my keep by doing “housework” for Sienna. The lowest point came when I had to scrub Sienna’s heels with a toothbrush just to get ten dollars for a breakfast sandwich. Sienna sat in Brooks’s leather office chair, watching me. “If you knew it would end like this, Olivia, would you still have been such a bitch?” She spat out that she had a “great career” before me. I looked up at her, my voice quiet. “Sienna, do you even know why I’m in this position?” She laughed. “Karma. You thought you could lock down a man like Brooks just by getting knocked up? Please.” Everyone thought I chose to be a housewife. No one knew the truth. After the cupcake incident, Brooks had begged for my forgiveness. He had been so sweet. “Olivia, I don’t want you working so hard. Let’s have a baby. Let’s start a real family.” But Brooks had a low sperm count. Conception was nearly impossible. To get pregnant, I went through brutal rounds of hormone injections. The side effects were agonizing—I suffered from severe bladder control issues during the process. I had a humiliating accident during a board meeting. The whispers, the pitying looks… I couldn’t face the office anymore. I crawled into the “safety” of home. I hadn’t realized I was crawling into a trap they had set together. Brooks’s voice echoed in my head, a constant, dull ache: “It’s your fault, Olivia. If you hadn’t fired her, she wouldn’t have been hurt. You owe her your life.” A few days later, Sienna’s kite got stuck in a high branch of a tree on the estate. She insisted I climb up to get it. I was four months pregnant. I practically knelt at her feet. “Please, I’m dizzy, I can’t climb a tree…” She called over the estate security guards. “Watch her. If she doesn’t get the kite, she doesn’t eat today.” Halfway up, my palms were shredded. Two-thirds of the way up, a sharp, stabbing pain erupted in my abdomen. My foot slipped. I hit the ground hard. I felt a warm, terrifying rush of heat between my legs. I grabbed Sienna’s ankle. “Please… call an ambulance… the baby…” “Oh, stop being so dramatic,” Sienna said, kicking my hand away. “Weren’t you the one complaining about how hard it is to be a mom anyway?” My head was spinning. “You did this on purpose… you wanted me to fall…” Sienna laughed. “You think a little fall is what’s doing this? You really are as stupid as you look.” She pulled out her phone and called Brooks, her voice turning into a sweet, chirping trill. “Brooks, honey? I think the game is over. Should we tell your wife our little secret? Should we tell her that the reason she’s losing the baby isn’t the tree, but the ‘special ingredient’ I’ve been grinding into her breakfast every morning for a week? I wonder what her face looks like right now.” Before she could finish, a car door slammed. Brooks appeared, his face pale and sweating. “What’s happening?” he asked, his voice rough. Sienna faltered. “Brooks? What are you doing back so early?” He didn’t answer her. He looked at me, sprawled on the grass, the white fabric of my sundress staining a deep, horrific crimson. Shock and something that looked like genuine grief flashed in his eyes. He ran toward me. “Olivia! Oh god, Olivia!” I looked up at him with bloodshot eyes, my voice a whisper of pure venom. “I have a secret too, Brooks.”

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The company’s annual holiday party was in full swing when I pulled the raffle ticket that effectively ended my career. “I’m so sorry, Sloane,” Brenda, our HR director, said, her voice dripping with a sickly sweet, unmistakable schadenfreude. “You know how the market is right now. The tech sector is taking a beating, and we just can’t afford to keep everyone. We have to let you go.” I stood there, staring at the Q4 sales dashboard projected on the wall behind her. My name sat at the very top, boasting a cool $6 million in closed revenue for the quarter. I let the silence stretch, my mind spinning trying to process the sheer audacity of it. I had never, in my life, heard of a company stupid enough to lay off their top-performing sales director to cut costs. By that afternoon, I had packed my desk, walked out the door, and taken my ongoing $20 million client portfolio directly to our biggest competitor. When my now-former boss finally realized the magnitude of his catastrophic error, he called me, practically in tears, begging me to come back. But my new firm offered a culture and a compensation package that made my old job look like a bad joke. My new CEO even took the phone from my hand during one of those desperate calls. “Back off, Declan,” he barked into the receiver. “Sloane belongs to us now. You cut your own jugular to save a buck. Don’t come bleeding on my carpet.” 1 “Oh my god!” Ashley, one of the junior account executives, let out an ear-piercing squeal. “I won the five-day stay at Declan’s Aspen cabin!” The rest of the staff waiting in line buzzed with restless anticipation, practically vibrating with the hope of pulling a winning ticket. I was the only one standing off to the side, entirely unfazed. I knew exactly how this company operated. A startup that expected you to log into Zoom on a Sunday morning wasn’t suddenly feeling generous. Whatever “perks” were handed out tonight would undoubtedly be squeezed back out of us in unpaid overtime by mid-January. When there was only one folded slip of paper left in the glass bowl, Brenda waltzed over to me, a plastic smile plastered across her face. “Come on, Sloane. The whole floor has drawn a ticket except for you. I’ve got exactly one left. Just play along for the sake of the party.” Cornered by the HR director in front of half the marketing team, I felt a familiar flush of awkwardness. I didn’t want to be the office killjoy. “Sure. Thanks, Brenda,” I muttered, taking the slip. I unfolded it. Printed in bold, cheerful letters were the words: Indefinite Sabbatical. We hope you enjoy your time off! What the hell was this? An indefinite sabbatical? That wasn’t a prize. That wasn’t even a corporate concept. Before I could ask Brenda to clarify, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a Slack message from Declan, our CEO. Sloane, emergency meeting in Conference Room A. Need you here right now. I typed back a quick On my way, my stomach tightening into a cold knot as I navigated through the crowd. As I passed the women’s restroom, the heavy oak door was propped open, and I caught the hushed, urgent voices of two colleagues. “I don’t know whose toes Sloane stepped on,” one whispered, “but firing the top earner? It’s insane.” “Keep your voice down!” the other hissed. “If Declan hears you defending her, you’ll be next. Just keep your head down.” I stopped dead in the hallway. I looked down at the stupid little slip of paper in my hand—Indefinite Sabbatical—and suddenly, the pieces clicked together with sickening clarity. This was a setup. Declan and HR had orchestrated this entire humiliating spectacle. A bitter, incredulous laugh escaped my lips. Even through the shock, my dominant thought was simply: Who the hell fires their cash cow? 2 I had been with Hayes Digital since day one. Four years ago, this company wasn’t the sleek, five-hundred-person operation it was today. It was a no-name digital agency operating out of a cramped, poorly ventilated loft. In the beginning, we barely made payroll. Declan, a trust-fund kid playing entrepreneur, frequently had to dip into his own pockets just to keep the lights on. But even in our darkest months, he never missed a paycheck. Because of that bare-minimum loyalty, I turned down lucrative offers from established firms. I poured my soul into his vision. When the pandemic hit, I saw the shift in digital consumption and pivoted our entire strategy. I became a one-woman production house—writing scripts, shooting content, handling client outreach. There were weeks where I survived on black coffee and adrenaline, going three straight days without seeing a bed. The grind paid off. Our accounts exploded. A modest following turned into millions of impressions, and suddenly, premium brands were knocking on our door. Our monthly revenue didn’t just grow; it skyrocketed. We outgrew the loft, then the midtown office, expanding rapidly until we hit five hundred employees. Everyone was stunned by the hyper-growth. The original core team I’d started with were all bumped up to VP or C-suite roles. All of them except me. I was left in middle management, still doing the heavy lifting on the floor. I hadn’t fought it. Office politics and schmoozing weren’t in my DNA. I was a worker bee, happiest when I was in the trenches, closing deals and building campaigns. Because I didn’t care for the spotlight, someone else was more than happy to steal it: Harper Montgomery. Harper was Declan’s personal hire. The rumor mill had long since deduced she was sleeping with him, but everyone was too afraid of Declan’s temper to say it out loud. When she first arrived, she was placed under me to “learn the ropes.” For exactly two weeks, Harper played the eager, humble protégé. Then, the mask slipped. She didn’t want to learn; she wanted a stage. She started taking subtle digs at my background, weaponizing her elite education against me. “When I was at Columbia, my professors always emphasized macro-trends,” she’d purr during meetings. “But it’s so cute how much you’ve managed to pick up, Sloane, considering you just went to a state school.” Harper was there to build a resume without doing the work. When I landed in the ER for exhaustion after working three consecutive all-nighters, Harper took my meticulously crafted quarterly presentation, slapped her name on the title slide, and delivered it at the corporate summit. She was promoted to department head the next day. When my team and I stayed up until 4:00 AM drafting a massive pitch for a legacy retail brand, Harper took the client out for mimosas and shopping on Madison Avenue, casually handing them my proposal as if she had written it on a napkin over brunch. Whenever anyone dared to question the sheer imbalance of it, Declan shut it down immediately. “Harper is an Ivy League graduate with an eye for the big picture,” he would say, looking pointedly at me. “Some people need to stop being bitter just because they don’t have the pedigree for executive leadership.” Pedigree. He used my state university degree like a weapon, conveniently forgetting that it was my blue-collar work ethic that bought him his glass-corner office. The digital space is brutal and fast. Recently, newer, hungrier agencies had started eating into our market share. Revenue was dipping, and HR had been whispering about “optimizing headcount.” I had been too busy working to see the writing on the wall. I had outlived my usefulness. Now that the empire was built, they were throwing out the architect. 3 I hadn’t even officially been terminated yet, and Harper’s loyal lapdogs were already dancing on my grave. As I approached Conference Room A, a sharp, nasal voice echoed from the open bathroom door, stopping me in my tracks again. It was Jessica, Harper’s newly appointed deputy and chief sycophant. “Are you guys seriously falling for Sloane’s martyr act?” Jessica scoffed. “If Sloane was actually some genius rainmaker, why is she still slumming it in middle management while Harper is running the department?” Jessica continued, her voice echoing off the subway tile. “Think about it. Everyone who started with Sloane is a VP now. It just proves she doesn’t have what it takes. Honestly, if she wasn’t riding on the ‘original employee’ pity card, she would have been fired years ago.” “But Harper totally takes credit for Sloane’s campaigns,” one of the younger girls murmured hesitantly. “Jessica, are you sure?” another voice chimed in. “Sloane is always the last one to leave the office. And whenever I need help with a client brief, she actually knows the product inside and out…” Jessica scoffed loudly, the sound sharp and condescending. “That’s exactly why you juniors are so easily manipulated. It’s all a performance. Sloane just acts busy to cover up the fact that she’s incompetent. Trust me, give it two days and she’ll be out on the street with her things in a cardboard box.” They were doing this right out in the open. They were so confident in my demise that they didn’t even bother to lower their voices. I pushed the bathroom door all the way open. It hit the wall with a dull thud. “Wow, Jessica,” I said, my voice eerily calm, though my heart was hammering against my ribs. “I had no idea I was such a manipulative mastermind. You seem to know my career trajectory better than I do.” Jessica stiffened, the color draining from her face. But she quickly recovered, crossing her arms and jutting out her chin. “Sloane? I thought you liked playing the quiet, unbothered victim. Why are you suddenly trying to pick a fight? Did HR finally give you the boot? Barking because you’re backed into a corner?” I didn’t waste time on a witty comeback. I closed the distance between us in two strides and slapped her. It wasn’t a movie slap. It was a sharp, stinging crack across her cheek that echoed through the tiled room. I was never one for corporate diplomacy. If you pushed me to the edge of the cliff, I was going to take a piece of you with me on the way down. Jessica gasped, clutching her face, a high-pitched scream tearing from her throat. “I’d advise you to brush up on your legal terminology,” I said, leaning in close so she could see the absolute zero in my eyes. “What you were just doing is called defamation. Say my name again, and see what happens.” I turned on my heel and marched out of the bathroom, leaving her sobbing in shock. I was getting fired anyway. To hell with networking. 4 The moment I stepped into Conference Room A, Brenda slammed a stack of exit paperwork onto the mahogany table. “Sloane! You are literally on your way out the door, and you have the audacity to pull a stunt like this?” Brenda’s face was flushed purple with rage. “Harper just told me you physically assaulted Jessica in the restroom! She’s threatening to call the police!” The adrenaline from the bathroom was still coursing through my veins, hot and volatile. “She was spreading malicious lies about me to junior staff,” I snapped back, refusing to cower. “That does not give you the right to put your hands on another employee! You need to pack your personal belongings and vacate the premises immediately.” “I want to hear it from Declan.” “This is Declan’s directive,” Brenda countered, her voice dropping into that robotic, liability-dodging HR cadence. The injustice of it formed a hard, suffocating lump in my throat. I swallowed it down. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me cry. “What about the handover for my accounts?” I asked, my voice dangerously tight. “I have twenty million in active Q1 pipelines.” “That is no longer your concern. Just pack your things and go. Frankly, Sloane, our hiring standards have evolved. We only take Ivy League or top-tier candidates now. Your role isn’t something we can’t easily replace with a fresh graduate.” I let out a dark, humorless laugh. If she wanted to devalue me, I wasn’t going to stand here and beg for my worth. I flipped open the termination letter. Under Reason for Dismissal, it read: Failure to meet performance standards and suspected ethical violations regarding client kickbacks. The fire that had just started to cool roared back to life, scorching my lungs. They weren’t just firing me; they were trying to destroy my reputation so I couldn’t poach my clients. They were making me the scapegoat for their declining numbers. My knuckles turned white as I gripped the paper. I spun around, bypassing Brenda entirely, and marched toward the executive suites to find Declan. But I didn’t make it to his office. The moment I stepped out of the conference room, I ran straight into Harper. She wasn’t alone. She had two of the building’s burly security guards flanking her, looking like a queen presiding over an execution. “Well, if it isn’t the violent liability,” Harper sneered. “Running away now that you realize you’re actually in trouble?” “Get out of my way, Harper. I’m talking to Declan.” “Oh, honey. You really think you’re important enough to demand an audience with the CEO? Look in a mirror. You don’t belong here.” “I built here,” I hissed, taking a step toward her. The security guards tensed. “I bled for this company when it was a ten-person operation running out of a basement. I am the reason you have a job to play pretend at. We both know you couldn’t close a deal if your life depended on it. Let’s see how long you survive playing executive once I’m gone and my numbers walk out the door with me.” Harper’s smug smile faltered. For a split second, genuine panic flashed in her eyes, quickly replaced by vicious anger. “You’re delusional! Everyone knows I’m the one driving the sales department! You’re just a bitter, aging dinosaur coasting on the fact that you’ve been here since the start.” A few people in the open-plan office muttered in agreement, too terrified of Harper to do anything but nod along. Realizing that logic was useless against a cult of personality, I decided to cut my losses. I turned to walk back to my desk to grab my things. But Harper stepped in front of me, her hand pressed flat against my chest to stop me. “You aren’t going anywhere until the police get here. Jessica is in the breakroom with an ice pack! You psychopathic bitch, you’re going to pay for that.” My vision blurred at the edges. I raised my hand, fully prepared to give Harper the exact same treatment I’d given her lapdog, when a booming voice echoed down the hall. “What the hell is going on out here? This is a corporate office, not a reality show!” Declan strode out of his glass suite. Instantly, Harper morphed from an attack dog into a wounded butterfly, fluttering over to his side and lightly gripping his bicep. “Declan, thank god,” she breathed, her voice trembling with manufactured distress. “Sloane completely lost her mind when Brenda gave her the news. She attacked Jessica!” Right on cue, Jessica emerged from the breakroom, clutching her cheek and looking appropriately devastated. “It’s true, Declan,” Jessica whimpered. “Sloane thinks just because she’s an original employee, she can bully anyone she wants.” Watching Harper and Jessica execute their synchronized performance, a profound, heavy exhaustion washed over me. I had spent weeks mentoring Harper when she first arrived. I had stayed late to help her fix her mistakes. And this was the return on my investment. 5 “That’s a lie,” I said, my voice cold and steady. “And you know it.” Declan held up a hand, cutting me off, his expression dripping with disdain. “Save it, Sloane. I know exactly what kind of person you are.” Harper’s grip on his arm tightened. “Declan, don’t let her manipulate you. She’s been undermining this company for months—” “Enough,” Declan snapped, silencing Harper. He turned his gaze back to me, shaking his head with a theatrical sigh of disappointment. “Security,” he commanded, gesturing to the guards. “Since Ms. Hastings is no longer an employee, escort her off the premises. If she causes a scene, call the NYPD for criminal trespassing.” He looked back at me, his eyes dead and unfeeling. “Consider this a mercy, Sloane. I’m not pressing charges for the assault, out of respect for our history. But you are going to pack your shit and leave, right now. I have a massive client coming in fifteen minutes, and I don’t have time for this middle-school drama.” It felt like the floor had dropped out from under me. To have four years of my life, my health, and my relentless dedication dismissed in three sentences… it was a betrayal so profound it physically hurt to breathe. But beneath the crushing grief, a slow, hot fury was igniting. I stood on the sidewalk twenty minutes later, the December wind biting through my coat. One of the security guards callously dumped my cardboard box of belongings onto the concrete. A few of my pens and a framed photo spilled onto the pavement. “You soulless corporate hack!” I screamed at the glass doors, not caring who heard me. “I built you! I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me?!” Harper had followed the guards down to the lobby. She stepped out through the revolving doors, shivering in her designer silk blouse, an ugly smirk on her face. She casually kicked my spilled photograph further down the sidewalk. “I’d shut my mouth if I were you,” Harper sneered. “Our VIP investor is about to pull up. If you do anything to jeopardize this deal and embarrass us, I will personally make sure you are blacklisted from every agency in New York.” As I knelt down to gather my scattered pens, a sleek, jet-black Maybach silently glided to the curb, stopping mere inches from where I crouched. Instantly, Declan burst through the revolving doors, practically vibrating with eager subservience. He and Harper rushed toward the rear passenger door, elbowing me out of the way like I was an unruly panhandler. I clutched my cardboard box to my chest and stayed exactly where I was, watching the pathetic display unfold. They had absolutely no idea that their “VIP investor”—the savior they were banking on to keep Hayes Digital from going under—was my cousin. The only reason he had even agreed to look at Hayes Digital’s bloated, rotting financials was because I had spent three months begging him to give us a chance. Carter was a ruthless venture capitalist. He didn’t throw money at failing companies. He was only doing this because he believed in me. The gull-wing door slowly rose. A man stepped out, adjusting the cuffs of his bespoke suit. He had sharp, intelligent eyes framed by tortoiseshell glasses. Declan immediately launched into a sickeningly sweet greeting, bowing his head like a peasant greeting a king. Harper shoved her chest forward, flashing a dazzling, flirtatious smile that she usually reserved for happy hours. Carter didn’t even look at them. His icy gaze landed directly on me, kneeling on the concrete with my box of desk supplies. Harper, sensing the tension, quickly tried to do damage control. “Mr. Sinclair, I am so sorry,” she cooed, gesturing dismissively at me. “That’s just a disgruntled former employee having a mental breakdown. She’s insane. We’re having security remove her right now.” Carter slowly turned his head to look at Harper. His brow furrowed in a way that made the temperature on the sidewalk drop ten degrees. “Excuse me?” Carter’s voice was dangerously soft. “Did you just call my sister a lunatic?” (Note: While cousins, ‘sister’ or ‘little sister’ is often used by protective older male figures in US contexts when asserting familial dominance, but for clarity of the original text’s “cousin/brother” dynamic, I will adjust to the exact American equivalent of a fiercely protective older cousin). “Did you just call my family a lunatic?” Carter corrected himself, his tone lethal.

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1 On Valentine’s Day, my fiancé told me he was suffocating under work stress and needed to clear his head, so he dragged me on a wilderness hike. Halfway up the trail, we ran into armed muggers. But the woman they grabbed and held at knife point wasn’t a stranger. She was Sienna Cross—the high school golden girl Marcus had pined over for years, the phantom ex he could never quite get over. Marcus didn’t hesitate for a single second. He shoved me into the muggers’ arms and dragged Sienna to safety. To save myself from something far worse, I was forced to leap off the edge of a cliff. I lay broken at the bottom of the ravine for three agonizing days before a search party spotted me and rushed me to the ICU. I ended up with a shattered leg and a fractured arm. Yet when Marcus finally showed up at my bedside, arm around Sienna, his eyes weren’t filled with relief—they were filled with exasperation. “If you’d just given them your money, none of this would have happened,” he scolded, his voice dripping with condescension. “Why did you have to throw such a dramatic fit and do this to yourself?” In the days that followed, the social chatter was merciless. Everyone whispered that I was nothing more than a placeholder, a discount substitute. Three years of absolute devotion couldn’t compete with a single tearful glance from his high school sweetheart. That was the moment the fog finally cleared. I realized I had never been his partner; I was just a second-best option he settled for when his first choice walked away. Lying in that sterile hospital bed, staring at the white ceiling, I pulled out my phone and typed a message to my parents overseas: I’ll do it. I’ll accept the family match. “They just wanted cash, Paige! If you had handed over your wallet, you’d be fine right now. How could you let yourself get beat up like this?” Marcus stood by my bed, holding Sienna’s small, delicate hand in his. He stared at the traction frame holding my crushed leg in place, his face twisted in what looked like pity, but every word out of his mouth was an accusation. “When did you become so ridiculously cheap? Your life is worth more than a few hundred dollars!” I stared up at him, a cold shiver running down my spine. The man I had loved for three years looked like an absolute stranger. “If it were Sienna lying in this bed with a shattered femur, would you be saying the same thing?” I swallowed the bitter lump in my throat, trying to suppress the hollow ache in my chest. “No… of course you wouldn’t. You’d never let her get hurt in the first place.” Three days ago, when he shoved me toward those men, his eyes had been entirely consumed by Sienna’s safety. And now, standing here, he couldn’t even bring himself to ask me if I was in pain. Sienna leaned against his side, playing the part of a fragile, traumatized victim, but I didn’t miss the faint, triumphant smirk gleaming in her eyes. Marcus let out a long, weary sigh and sat down on the edge of my mattress. “Pai, Sienna has a frail constitution. She isn’t tough like you. Look at you—you fell off a cliff and survived three days out in the elements. If that had been Sienna, she wouldn’t have made it through the night.” “So I deserved to have my bones crushed?” My voice cracked, rising an octave. “Do you honestly think those men were going to take a couple hundred bucks and politely walk away? If cash was all it took, why didn’t you hand over your wallet to buy Sienna’s freedom? Why did you swap me for her?” He hadn’t even come looking for me. I had laid in the dirt beneath that cliff for seventy-two hours, shivering, bleeding, waiting for him. If a group of local trail surveyors hadn’t stumbled upon me, I would have rotted down there. “Marcus, we’re done,” I said quietly, turning my head toward the window. Tears welled up and spilled over my temples, soaking into the thin hospital pillow. “I want a breakup.” Marcus’s face drained of color. He turned quickly, murmuring something soft to Sienna, gently guiding her out into the hallway and closing the door behind her. “Baby, please don’t say that,” he whispered, sinking to his knees beside my bed. He grabbed my uninjured hand, his eyes instantly turning bloodshot and glassy. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have left you behind. But you know how much damage she caused me when she left all those years ago… I just… I had unresolved closure. It was an instinct.” I bit my lip until I tasted copper, refusing to look at him. My mind flashed back three years ago—to the night Sienna dumped him to go abroad. Marcus had spiraled into a self-destructive wreck. I had secretly loved him for two years back then, and when I saw him drowning, I stepped in, pulling him back to the surface until he finally accepted me into his life. “Baby, everyone has a past they can’t quite shake,” Marcus pleaded, his voice trembling like a chastised child. “She’s going back overseas in a week. Just give me seven days. Let me settle things with her properly so I can put the past to rest once and for all. Please?” Looking at his tear-streaked face, the foolish, soft part of my heart gave an involuntary twitch. Against my better judgment, I gave a faint, exhausted nod. A flash of relief washed over his features, and he leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to my forehead. Then came the blow that shattered whatever was left of me. “Rest up, baby,” he said, pulling away and smoothing down his jacket. “I’m going to step outside to check on Sienna.” The repentant, heartbroken fiancé vanished in an instant. He spun on his heel and practically sprinted toward the door, so fast and careless that his shoulder slammed heavily against the metal pole supporting my IV line and leg traction setup. The sudden, brutal jolt sent a wave of agony screaming through my shattered leg. I bit down on my lip so hard I broke the skin, clutching the bedsheets as silent tears flooded my vision. I wanted to scream, but my throat was entirely constricted. That’s your idea of an unresolved past, Marcus? A past that gives you permission to throw me away anytime, anywhere? Wiping the wet tears from my cheeks, I signaled to the nurse across the room to hand me my phone. I opened the messaging app. The last text from my parents was from three months ago, when they had urged me to move abroad and accept a strategic match with a prominent family friend. I tapped the microphone icon and recorded a brief voice note: I agree to the arrangement. I’ll come home. 2 On the day I was discharged, Marcus didn’t come. I had prepared myself for his absence, but when the hospital taxi dropped me off and I stood alone in front of our apartment building, my heart still ached with a deep, dull throb. Three years of quiet devotion, and I had lost completely to a woman who didn’t even have to try. I limped up the stairs, using my crutches to balance myself, and pushed open the front door. The moment the door swung inward, a suffocating wave of heavy, unfamiliar perfume knocked the breath out of me. The entryway was a disaster. On the floor lay my favorite glass perfume bottles—fragrances I had carefully collected over the years—shattered into sharp, glistening shards, their liquids pooling on the hardwood. Drawers were pulled open, clothes tore off hangers, papers scattered everywhere. It looked as though a burglar had methodically ransacked the place. My hands shook violently as I dialed Marcus’s number. He didn’t answer. I quickly typed out a text: Marcus, what happened to the apartment? Did someone break in? Holding my breath, I dragged my bandaged body toward the bedroom, frantically checking the hidden spots where we kept our emergency cash and documents. The small cash stash was untouched, but the high-yield savings card—the account containing our joint house deposit—was gone. A sudden spell of dizziness hit me. My knees buckled, and I barely caught myself on the edge of the dresser. My phone buzzed in my hand. A notification from Marcus. Sienna’s stomach issues are acting up again. I’m temporarily moving into her place to stay with her and cook her meals. I’ll be back in a week. Be a good girl and wait for me at home, okay? I stared at the screen, my mind going completely blank. I replied with a single punctuation mark: ? Sienna had a sensitive stomach, so my fiancé was moving into her apartment to play private chef for a week. Meanwhile, I was standing in a ruined hallway with a broken arm and a leg held together by steel pins, and he couldn’t care less. His reply came seconds later: Don’t be difficult, baby. I’ll be back in seven days. I promise you, nothing physical is going to happen between us. A harsh, hysterical laugh escaped my throat. I felt like the punchline of an agonizing joke. In a fit of sudden, overwhelming rage, I swept my good arm across the vanity, sending makeup bottles, picture frames, and glass jars crashing to the floor. The loud, sharp noises shattered the silence, then died away, leaving an eerie, suffocating quiet behind. I sat on the edge of the bare mattress for a long time, numb, before grabbing my phone again to ask if he had taken the savings card. It took him fifteen minutes to send back a succinct reply: Yes. That card held over two hundred thousand dollars—savings we had scraped together over eighteen months, denying ourselves small luxuries so we could put a down payment on a place of our own. He had wiped out our entire future without so much as a word. And it didn’t take long for me to figure out where that money went. In the mountains just outside the city, there was an exclusive resort built around a centuries-old “Lover’s Tree.” Over the years, influencers had turned it into a viral phenomenon. The full custom ritual—engraved golden locks, silk ribbons, private ceremony packages—cost upwards of two hundred thousand dollars. Sienna posted a screenshot on her social media feed. It was a cross-post of a picture Marcus had put up on his own private page: the two of them kneeling side by side beneath the majestic canopy of the ancient tree, surrounded by floating red ribbons. Marcus’s caption read: No regrets in the next life. Sienna’s repost caption was short and sweet: May nothing stand in our way next time. The message was crystal clear. I was the obstacle. I was the “this life” mistake standing in their way. Credit where credit was due—Marcus wasn’t entirely brain-dead. He had remembered to block me from viewing his post. But Sienna had made sure the privacy settings on her own profile were open to the public, just so I would see it. I looked around the cavernous, half-empty apartment. It felt hollow, not just because Marcus had packed up his personal belongings, but because we had deliberately avoided buying proper furniture to save money for the wedding. We couldn’t afford a comfortable couch for our living room, but he had two hundred thousand dollars readily available to buy a fairy-tale promise for another woman’s next lifetime. I pulled my legs up to my chest, wrapped my good arm around my knees, and wept quietly in the dark. The sharp ring of my phone broke the quiet. Expecting it to be Marcus coming up with another weak excuse, I snatched it up, only to see an unfamiliar, international number on the caller ID. “Hello?” I rasped, wiping my face. A deep, smooth voice answered on the line, calm and composed. “Paige Miller? Hello. I’m Logan Mercer—your fiancé.” 3 My bags were packed. I was leaving tomorrow. In the thirty-six hours since that phone call, Marcus hadn’t sent a single text to ask how I was doing, whether I had eaten, or if my leg was healing. Dragging my heavy cast across the wooden floor, I limped over to the closet and pulled out a large, black industrial trash bag. Then, I began clearing out every gift Marcus had ever given me over the last three years. Simple silver necklaces, delicate bracelets, synthetic designer dupes, small bottles of drugstore perfume. Because we were supposed to be saving every penny for a house, he had rarely spent more than fifty dollars on any gift. I used to treasure every single piece like it was made of solid gold, keeping them neatly arranged in velvet pouches. Now, looking at them, they felt like a series of cruel, humiliating slaps across the face. I dumped them all into the heavy plastic bag, tied a tight double knot at the top, and prepared to carry it down to the dumpster behind the building. The night air was crisp and chilly, the streetlights casting long, amber shadows across the pavement. I stood in front of the large green trash bins, took a long, stabilizing breath, and tossed the heavy bag inside. Hearing the thud as it hit the bottom felt like severing an infected limb. I turned around to head back inside. Before I could take a step, a thick, coarse burlap sack was slammed violently over my head. A foul stench of dried sweat, metallic blood, and a sharp chemical odor instantly filled my lungs. I panicked, flailing desperately to fight back, but my pinned leg gave out under the weight, and my casted arm was completely useless. A heavy, chemical-soaked rag was pressed hard against my nose and mouth. My vision spun, the world went dark, and I lost consciousness. When I finally drifted back to reality, my head was throbbing with an intense, sickening ache. My wrists were tied tightly behind my back with rough hemp rope, biting into my skin. A stale rag was stuffed into my mouth, making every breath taste like dust and mildew. “Hey, Sienna, the substitute’s awake,” a raspy male voice sneered nearby. Footsteps approached, and a rough hand yanked the gag from my mouth. I gasped, drawing in lungfuls of damp air, my eyes adjusting to the dim, flickering light overhead. We were in an abandoned, cavernous industrial warehouse. Two men stood over me—one bald with a jagged scar across his cheek, the other with greasy, bleached-blonde hair. Behind them, the sharp click-clack of high heels echoed against the concrete floor. Sienna stepped into the light, wearing a tailored cream trench coat, her freshly manicured nails glistening under the fluorescent bulbs. “Sienna?” I coughed, my voice raspy. “You kidnapped me?” “Tsk, tsk. Wrong word, Paige,” Sienna sat down on a folding chair brought over by the blonde guy, leaning forward until her perfectly manicured hand was inches from my eyes. “You didn’t get kidnapped. You hired these men to kidnap me.” I looked around the shadowy space, my pulse racing. “What are you talking about? What do you want?” “I want you to know your place,” Sienna’s voice dropped, turning ice-cold. “A placeholder is supposed to fade into the background the moment the main act comes back. I’m back now, Paige. You should have packed your trash and scurried away like a good little girl.” She suddenly reached out, her fingers locking tightly around the bandaged forearm of my broken arm, and gave it a brutal, vicious twist. A sharp, unbearable spike of pain shot straight through my shoulder. I let out a choked scream, my body contorting away from the pressure, which only ended up twisting my broken leg against the hard floor. “Look at you,” Sienna hissed, her face contorting with ugly pleasure. “Isn’t it pathetic? He swears up and down that he cares about you, yet all it took was one fake phone call from me saying I had a stomachache, and he abandoned you without a second thought. If you had an ounce of self-respect left, you’d have walked away. But no—you had to stay, forcing me to handle this myself.” “I was already leaving!” I panted, tears of intense physical agony streaming down my face. “Take him! Take Marcus! I don’t want him anymore!” “The problem is, he won’t leave with me!” Sienna shrieked, her voice suddenly spiking into a sharp, unhinged pitch. She jumped up, her high heel stomping directly onto my casted knee, grinding her weight down with deliberate malice. I cried out, the pain so intense my vision flickered to total white. “He refuses to sign the marriage papers!” Sienna roared, her face twisted in rage. “He keeps blabbering about how he owes you, how he can’t abandon you, how you’re the only one he loves now! To hell with his sudden conscience! If it weren’t for his promotion and his massive stock options coming up, do you really think I’d waste my time playing sweet and helpless for a middle-management loser?” I curled into a ball on the cold concrete, gasping for breath, unable to move a muscle. “So here’s how this is going to play out,” Sienna continued, smoothing down her coat and regaining her composure. “In a few minutes, he’s going to walk through that door and see you holding a knife over me. He’ll think you were so consumed by jealousy that you tried to have me killed. Once he sees me as the innocent victim again, his guilt will eat him alive. And he’ll marry me.” I stared at her, dazed through the pain. “Sienna… why did you really come back from abroad?” I knew the rumors. Three years ago, her wealthy stepfather had funded her move to Europe to study art. By all accounts, she should have been living a glamorous life. Why come back to claw at Marcus? Sienna’s face darkened, a flick of dark, bitter anger crossing her features, but before she could answer, the blonde man sprinted in from the loading dock door. “Sienna, he’s here! Marcus’s car just pulled up to the trail base!” Sienna smirked. “Good. Tie me up.” 4 When Marcus burst through the heavy metal doors of the warehouse, his eyes wildly searching the dark space, he froze. Near the back of the building, hanging over the edge of an opening that led to a steep cliff drop, two ropes were suspended from a high steel beam. I was tied to one; Sienna was tied to the other. The bandages wrapped around my leg were already soaked in fresh, deep crimson blood. “Paige!” Marcus gasped, his eyes widening in horror. He took a desperate step forward, but before he could move any closer, his gaze shifted to Sienna, who was hanging beside me, sobbing hysterically. “How much money do you want?” Marcus called out, his voice shaking as he edged toward the platform. “I brought cash! Just don’t hurt them!” The bald man stepped out from the shadows, twirling a long hunting knife in his hand. He gestured casually between Sienna and me. “Well now, Mr. Hayes. The cash you brought in that little duffel bag is only enough to buy freedom for one of these pretty ladies. You’re gonna have to pick.” Marcus stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes darted nervously between us, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. Sienna looked at him with tear-filled eyes, shaking her head violently, muffled wails escaping from behind her gag. I didn’t make a sound. I just stared at him, a tiny, foolish spark of hope lingering deep in my chest. “I…” Marcus squeezed his hands into tight fists, his voice trembling as he took a slow, agonizing step toward my side of the beam. “I choose…” Snap! Without warning, the pulley mechanism holding my rope slipped. My body dropped abruptly by two feet, swinging wildly over the dark abyss behind the warehouse floor. My heart lodged in my throat, a wave of dizziness washing over me as cold sweat drenched my back. “Paige!” Marcus yelled, his face turning pale as he instinctively lunged toward me. Behind the beam, the bald man shoved the blonde guy, muttering under his breath in a low voice: “Careful, idiot! Don’t actually drop the boss’s girl, or we won’t get paid the rest of the fee! Loosen the other bitch’s rope instead!” The warehouse had an echo. The low murmur, though quiet, traveled across the high ceilings and landed straight in Marcus’s ears. Marcus stopped in his tracks. The terror on his face melted away, replaced instantly by an expression of cold, bitter disgust. He slowly pulled his leg back, looking at me as if I were something vile he had stepped on. “Paige… is this entire thing just a pathetic stunt you staged?” He let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Yesterday Sienna told me you were acting paranoid and jealous. I didn’t want to believe her. But today, you actually hired actors to fake a kidnapping?” My heart plummeted straight into an icy void. “N-no…” I struggled against the gag, trying to shake my head, but all that came out were muffled, desperate grunts. Right on cue, Sienna began writhing frantically against her ropes. The pulley above her creaked loudly, making her let out a sharp, terrified squeal as she swayed over the edge. Marcus’s attention snapped back to her instantly. “I choose Sienna!” he blurted out, without a second of hesitation. The bald man let out a boisterous laugh. “A true romantic! Splendid choice, Mr. Hayes!” He motioned for the blonde guy to lower Sienna to safety, while deliberately releasing the tension on my line, letting my rope drop another harrowing foot. I was hanging by a thread, supported only by a frayed cord cutting into my bruised shoulders. Marcus didn’t look at me once. He rushed forward, gathering Sienna into his arms the second her feet hit the ground, gently working to untie the knots around her wrists. “It’s okay, Sienna. You’re safe now,” he murmured softly. He didn’t turn around as he addressed me, his voice dismissive and annoyed. “Enough with the theatrics, Paige. Stop making a fool of yourself. When I get home, we’ll talk about how childish you’ve been.” Snap. The main knot above my head creaked under the strain, a few fibers tearing apart. Sienna collapsed against Marcus’s chest like a delicate glass doll, wrapping her arms around his neck. As he turned her toward the exit, she looked over his shoulder at me. The tears were gone. Her lips curved into a cold, victorious smile. “Let’s go, baby,” Marcus said gently, guiding her toward the doors. “Paige, untie yourself and walk home. Stop playing the victim before someone actually gets hurt.” I lowered my head, staring down at the dark, jagged rocks far below. The very last thread of hope inside my heart snapped cleanly in two. Three years of quiet, devoted love. And he believed a stranger over me without a second thought. The bald man watched them leave, letting out a loud, mocking snort. “Man, your boyfriend really doesn’t give a damn about you, does he?” The blonde guy walked over, grabbing my shoulder with a rough, heavy hand and dragging me back onto the solid concrete floor before slicing the rope with his knife. I hit the floor hard, my knees smashing against the sharp edge of a steel beam. The pain was excruciating, blinding me for a moment. “What do we do with her now?” the blonde guy asked, wiping sweat from his forehead. The bald man squatted down, grabbing my chin forcefully and turning my face toward the flickering overhead light, a sinister grin spreading across his face. “She’s got a pretty face. We can turn a massive profit on her. My contacts over the southern border are always looking for fresh stock.” A cold dread flooded through my veins. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Looking past them toward the open warehouse door, I could still see Marcus’s tall frame walking away into the moonlight, his arm wrapped tightly around Sienna’s waist. My mind suddenly drifted back to a rainy night three years ago. I had found Marcus slouched in a dark alley, plastered out of his mind, sobbing into my shoulder as he clung to me: “Please… don’t leave me too…” I took a deep, agonizing breath. Then, using every ounce of strength left in my broken body, I threw myself backward, rolling straight off the edge of the cliff platform. When the bald man’s terrified scream echoed out over the ravine, Marcus froze and turned around. All he saw were the two men leaning frantically over the edge, staring down into the darkness. I was gone. “PAIGE!”

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1 “I heard Summer Holloway is back in town.” “She’s the one who walked away from Grant, right? Filed for divorce herself?” “Grant is running the family firm now. You’d think she’d be kicking herself. He’s the most eligible man in the state.” “Why would she regret it? She only got the ring because her sister ran off. She was just a placeholder. The crown was always going to return to its rightful head.” I stood outside the heavy mahogany doors of the country club lounge, the muffled whispers drifting through the cracks like a foul draft. For three years, I had been the ghost of this town, a cautionary tale whispered over mimosas. They called my departure a “gambit,” a desperate play for attention. Even my parents believed that lie. The day the ink dried on the divorce papers, my mother hadn’t offered comfort. She’d offered a warning. “Since it’s over, Summer, don’t you dare reach out to him,” she’d said, her voice sharp as a razor. “Sloane’s leg is still healing. She needs Grant right now. Don’t you dare stir the pot.” When I didn’t answer, her expression hardened. “That marriage belonged to your sister. If she hadn’t gone to London for the Royal Ballet, you never would have even been in the room.” Sloane and Grant. The golden couple of our social circle. But on the eve of the most anticipated wedding of the decade, Sloane had fled to Europe to chase a spotlight she loved more than him. With the press already hovering and the merger of two family fortunes at stake, the Holloways and the Huxleys made a cold, tactical decision: Swap the bride. I don’t know what they said to Grant to make him agree. All I knew was that for three years, he treated me with the polite distance of a stranger. Everyone knew he was still mourning the ghost of my sister. He kept his study locked. But one afternoon, he left the door ajar. I made the mistake of looking. The walls were a shrine. Framed photos of Sloane—Sloane dancing, Sloane laughing, Sloane in a white dress that was supposed to be hers. I had never seen Grant look at me the way he looked at those pictures. In those photos, he was alive. With me, he was a statue. The seed of divorce took root in my heart that very moment. The day I finally reached my breaking point, I overheard him on the phone. His voice was a low, tender murmur I had never earned. “Hey, don’t be scared. I’ll be there in ten minutes… You can’t walk on that leg yet. Wait for me. Just stay put, okay?” He turned and saw me standing in the hallway. “Dinner is ready,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “You should eat before you go.” He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t even look at the table. He just grabbed his coat. “Eat without me. Don’t wait up.” As he reached the door, I called his name. “Grant.” He stopped, his hand on the knob, a flicker of impatience crossing his handsome face. “What is it, Summer?” “Grant,” I said, the words feeling like a heavy weight finally being lifted. “I want a divorce.” 2 By the time the news reached my parents, the papers were already signed. Grant hadn’t fought me; in fact, he’d been surprisingly generous, granting me a settlement that amounted to half his personal assets. My parents hauled me home that night like I was a criminal in the dock. They interrogated me, disgusted that I had “gutted” a man who was practically family. “Summer, how could you be so cold-blooded?” my father barked. “Did you marry him just for the payout? Is that who you are?” Sloane stood by the fireplace, leaning heavily on her crutches, tears welling in her eyes. “Summer… is this about me? Do you hate me because I came home? Because he’s been helping me?” Before I could speak, my mother cut in. “Grant was supposed to be her husband. If Sloane hadn’t been so impulsive three years ago, they’d be raising our grandchildren by now.” Sloane loved Grant, but she loved the stage more. After he’d proposed, she’d received an offer from a world-class troupe. She had chosen the limelight and left him in the dust. For three years, they’d been silent. Until that night. The night his phone rang at 3:00 AM. He was pressed against my shoulder, his breathing just beginning to level out. He answered it right there, in our bed. Because we were so close, I heard the broken, sobbing voice of my sister on the other end. Grant froze. One second. Five seconds. Ten. It took thirty seconds for him to snap out of it. He threw on a robe and walked out without a single word to me. He didn’t come back that night. The next morning, I learned from my mother that Sloane had suffered a career-ending fall during a performance. Grant had flown out personally to bring her home. Even though she moved back into our parents’ house, Grant was the one who managed her doctors, her physical therapy, her every need. My parents even had the audacity to give me a “pep talk.” “Don’t take it personally,” my mom said. “She can’t dance anymore. Her life is over. Grant is the only one who can pull her out of this depression.” Sloane was always the masterpiece; I was just the rough sketch. She was beautiful, talented, the sun everyone orbited. I was the “smart one,” the quiet one, the girl who didn’t know how to charm a room. Everyone hovered over the broken star. Including my husband. His patience for me evaporated. One evening, he promised to pick me up from work. I waited for two hours in a torrential downpour. I caught a fever that night, a brutal, bone-shaking chill that landed me in the hospital. Grant was forced to leave Sloane’s side to sit by my bed. My mother saw it as a tactical move on my part. She stormed into my room, screaming. “You dragged him away for a common cold? Sloane almost tried to hurt herself last night because she felt so alone!” she hissed. “You’re healthy, Summer. How can you be so cruel to a sister who is disabled?” I looked at her, my vision blurred by fever. “But Mom… Grant is my husband.” “So what? You only have him because she let you have him! You stole her life!” The irony was suffocating. Sloane was the one who had begged me to marry him. Before she’d left for London, she’d sat me down in her room. “Summer, I know you’ve had a crush on him since we were kids. This is your chance. It’s better if it’s you than some stranger. You don’t want Grant to end up with some gold-digger, do you?” I had remained silent, my heart aching. “Please,” she’d pleaded. “Unless… you’re worried I’ll come back and take him from you?” I had flinched then. She’d laughed, relieved. “Don’t worry. I’m going to be a star. I’ll never look back. I promise.” She kept that promise for three years. Then she broke it, and my world along with it. 3 Once the divorce was finalized, I moved south. I bought a small, aging inn on the South Carolina coast and didn’t look back. I didn’t call home for three years. Then, out of the blue, Sloane called. “Summer, come home for the wedding,” she said, her voice sweet and cloying. “I won’t feel right starting my life with Grant unless you’re there to give us your blessing.” I stared at the ocean for a long time. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll be there.” The day I arrived at my parents’ house, the autumn air was crisp. As I rolled my suitcase through the front door, Sloane came flying down the hallway. “Summer!” She moved with ease—the “permanent” disability seemed to have vanished. Despite the chill, she was wearing a thin, silk slip dress. Following closely behind her was Grant, carrying a pair of slippers and a cardigan. “Sloane, put your shoes on,” he scolded, his voice soft. “If you catch a cold, I’m going to have to—” He stopped dead. He saw me. It was the first time we’d stood in the same room since the courthouse. I forced myself to be civil. I nodded toward him. “Grant.” Three years hadn’t changed him much. He was still striking, but the cold edges of his face had softened into something warmer. He looked… happy. He gave me a stiff nod and turned his attention back to Sloane, draping the cardigan over her shoulders. “I’ll leave you two to catch up. I have some calls to take.” Sloane looped her arm through mine, her grip surprisingly tight. “I was so worried you wouldn’t come. We’re doing my final fitting tomorrow. You have to come with me.” I pulled my arm back gently. “I have plans tomorrow.” Sloane pouted. “Something more important than your sister?” “Yes. Much more.” “Well, maybe we can move it to the day after? You’ll be staying here, so—” “I’m staying at a hotel,” I interrupted. “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll see them at the rehearsal, but I won’t be staying in this house.” I turned and walked out before she could protest. I hadn’t gone two blocks when a sleek black SUV pulled up beside me. The window rolled down to reveal Grant. “Get in. I’ll give you a lift.” “I’m fine, thanks,” I said, keeping my eyes on the sidewalk. He was persistent. He crawled the car forward at my walking pace. “It’s impossible to get an Uber in this neighborhood. Just get in, Summer.” The walk to the hotel was miles away. I gave in and climbed into the passenger seat. I gave him the address of a modest boutique hotel downtown. He frowned. “Why aren’t you staying at the condo on the Waterfront?” The Waterfront condo was part of the divorce settlement. “I don’t like that place,” I said. He didn’t know I’d sold it the month the divorce went through. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t push. When we arrived, he got out and grabbed my suitcase before I could reach for it. “I’ll take this up.” “I’ve got it, Grant.” I reached for the handle, but he didn’t budge. He looked at the hotel—it was clean, but far below the luxury he was used to. “Are you having money trouble, Summer?” “No.” He ignored me and walked into the lobby. “What room?” Grant had always been like this—once he decided on a course of action, he was a bulldozer. I led him to the elevator in silence. When we reached my door, I took the suitcase from him. “Thanks. I’m pretty tired, so I won’t invite you in.” “Summer, wait.” I turned. “Have you been… okay? These last three years?” His gaze was searching, almost sincere. I couldn’t remember him ever using that tone with me when we were married. Before I could answer, the hotel door swung open from the inside. A man stepped out. He was tall, with the kind of effortless, rugged grace that made the hallway feel too small. He had messy dark hair and a jawline that could cut glass. He didn’t even look at Grant. He just wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me flush against his chest. “You’re late. I was starting to think you got lost.” He leaned down, his lips brushing mine. “What the hell is going on?” Grant’s voice was like a thunderclap. The man ignored him, deepening the kiss for a lingering, possessive beat before finally looking up. He looked at me with a lazy, teasing grin. “I leave you alone for three hours and you already found a stray? You’re a handful, Summer.” I tried to push him away, but he was like a mountain. I looked at Grant, whose face was pale with fury. “We’ll talk later, Grant.” Grant’s hands were curled into fists. This was the silent rage he usually reserved for boardrooms. But before he could explode, I was pulled inside the room and the door was shut in his face. The man—Jude—pinned me against the door. “If I recall, your flight landed at eleven. It’s two o’clock. Three hours, and you’re already making eyes at the ex?” I poked his solid chest. “Jude…” He caught my hand, his voice dropping an octave. “Don’t ‘Jude’ me.” I gripped the hem of his shirt and looked down. He sighed, his large hand cupping my chin to force me to look at him. He saw the shimmer in my eyes and his anger vanished instantly. “I haven’t even started teasing you yet. Why are you crying?” I sniffled. “I just… I missed you.”

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In the circles Declan Cross ran in, I was famous for one thing: being his ultimate, pathetic doormat. Once, someone at a party asked him what he actually thought of me. He clamped a cigarette between his teeth, exhaled a plume of smoke, and drawled, “Harper? She’s like a stray dog nobody wanted. Honestly, I bet she’d take a bullet for me.” Later, I actually did. I stepped in front of a gun for him and nearly bled out on foreign soil. After that, everyone whispered about my blind, desperate devotion. They said my love for Declan was a feral, solitary crusade. Until the day he wrecked his car trying to show off for his first love. I was sitting beside him, quietly dabbing antiseptic onto his bruised skin. He reached up, patted my head like a pet, and let out a sudden, cruel scoff. “Harper, does your mother know how cheap you make yourself look?” I froze. Then, I picked up the entire bottle of iodine and splashed it directly into his face. My eyes were bloodshot. “Don’t you ever,” I snarled, “say a goddamn word about her.” 1 Declan hadn’t expected me to react at all, let alone like that. He sat completely stunned. The dark iodine dripped down his nose, blurring his vision. He wiped blindly at his face, his voice wavering with a rare uncertainty. “Are you… crying?” I didn’t answer. The violent, boiling rage inside my chest was already beginning to cool, hardening into something brittle and smooth. In that single, suspended second, a profound sense of exhaustion washed over me. The whole thing suddenly felt terribly pointless. Him. Me. And that heart beating inside his chest—the one I had been obsessing over for so long. Once the obsession evaporated, what followed was a suffocating, overwhelming wave of relief. I turned my back to him and began pulling my things from the closet. Declan’s brow furrowed. He kicked the glass coffee table, sending it shattering against the hardwood. He had a volatile, explosive temper; the moment the world stopped spinning on his axis, he’d scorch the earth. “Harper, stop throwing a tantrum. Come here,” his voice dropped into that cold, authoritative register he used when he expected to be obeyed. I sped up, shoving cashmere and denim into my suitcase. He crossed the room, grabbed my chin in a bruising grip, and roughly wiped away a stray tear clinging to my eyelashes. When I just stared at him—dead-eyed and unresponsive—he forced his brow to unknot. His tone softened, just a fraction. “I’ve been drinking. I was out of line,” he muttered, his voice tight with the foreign effort of an apology. It was a rare concession from Declan Cross. Yet, even in his apology, he looked down at me from a pedestal, tossing me a scrap of affection like a beggar. I zipped my suitcase, yanked the handle up, and walked straight toward the front door. “We’re done,” I said, my hand wrapping around the cold brass knob. “Throw the rest of my shit away. I don’t care.” Crash! A heavy crystal tumbler slammed into the wall inches from my head. The explosive force sent a shard of glass slicing across my cheek. A bead of warm blood welled up. I turned my head, my face completely devoid of emotion. Declan’s face was thunderous, a sneer twisting his handsome features. “Don’t think you can come crying back in a few days begging for another chance, Harper. Everyone in this city knows you’re my shadow. I’m giving you an out right now to save you the embarrassment.” He pointed a finger at me. “Apologize, and we’ll pretend this didn’t happen.” I looked at him, raised my middle finger, and smiled. “I’ve wanted to say this to you for a really, really long time.” “You’re a fucking psychopath, Declan.” 2 To be fair, I’d thought Declan was out of his mind since the day we met. It was a suffocatingly elegant charity gala in the Hills. The room was packed with tailored tuxedos and polite, synchronized smiles. Declan, sporting bleached-blonde hair that screamed trust-fund rebellion, had just ruthlessly smashed a champagne flute over the host’s head—who happened to be his illegitimate half-brother. As he walked away from the bleeding man, he passed me. I was frozen by a pillar. Misinterpreting my shock, he paused to offer a twisted kind of comfort. “Pretty color, right? His head matches his tie now.” At his words, my eyes welled with tears. I stared intently at his face—a face I had researched endlessly, stared at through a phone screen late into the night—before my gaze slowly, inexorably dropped to his chest. Without thinking, I whispered, “How is your heart doing?” Declan blinked, taken aback, and then let out a sharp laugh. “I’ll give you points for originality, sweetheart. Never been hit on quite like that.” He gave me a lazy, mocking wave. “I’m busy today. But I’ll take you for a drive sometime.” It was just a careless, throwaway line to him. But from that moment on, I glued myself to his side. I shadowed him, catered to his moods, obsessed over his diet, his sleep, his stress. Eventually, he cornered me in his penthouse and said, “You’re in love with me, Harper.” He said it with absolute, unbreakable certainty. I thought about it for a long moment before answering honestly. “If caring about your body and your heart is a form of love, then yes. I love you.” Because taking the shape of a “girlfriend” gave me the access I needed to protect him. To monitor him. So, I was willing to play the part. Naturally, we became a couple. But Declan was a terrible boyfriend, entirely enabled by my relentless compliance. At first, I tried to gently steer him away from the adrenaline-junkie lifestyle he craved. He’d smirk, promise to be careful, and then go cliff diving in Maui or street racing down the winding Malibu canyons anyway. Over time, my nagging annoyed him. So, he dumped me. Just like that, he vanished from my orbit. I couldn’t accept it. I went to every single one of his wealthy, snide friends, begging for his location until I finally tracked him down to a VIP room at a club. Knowing I was outside, his friends brought me up just to watch the show. That was when I heard him say it, cigarette between his lips: “She’s like a stray dog… I bet she’d take a bullet for me.” I pushed the door open. Ignoring the mocking stares of the room, I walked right up to him. I lowered my voice, stripping away my dignity. “Please don’t push me away. I’ll do whatever you want.” Declan stared at me for a long, suffocating minute before letting out a dark chuckle. “Alright. As long as you learn how to behave.” From that night on, in the eyes of his social circle, I ceased to be Harper Hayes. I became a punchline. Declan Cross’s pathetic lapdog. But I didn’t care. As long as I could stay by his side, as long as Declan kept breathing, that was enough. 3 After I walked out of his apartment that night, my phone blew up. His friends called one after another, thoroughly convinced it was a publicity stunt. The idea that his devoted shadow had finally snapped the leash was incomprehensible to them. Some even texted me, warning me not to play hard to get, saying I’d overplay my hand and lose him for good. I blocked every single number associated with Declan’s circle in one clean sweep. The next morning, I requested a temporary transfer to my firm’s Chicago office. By the time I returned to Los Angeles, three months had passed. The moment I landed, an old college friend called, practically vibrating with excitement. “Harper! You back? They’re running the canyon tonight. You in?” A heavy wave of nostalgia washed over me. My voice sounded a little rusty when I replied, “I haven’t been behind a wheel in years. I think I’ll pass.” My friend didn’t know about Declan. She just kept pushing, reminding me of who I used to be. After a long pause, I caved. Three years ago, before I ever knew the name Declan Cross, the underground racing scene was my entire life. But out of all the canyon checkpoints in Southern California, I never expected to run into him at this one. I hadn’t seen him in three months. He looked a little leaner, his hair grown out and—surprisingly—dyed back to his natural jet black. When we were together, I had begged him to ditch the bleach. I told him it drew too much attention. He had smiled, but his eyes were hard. “Do you get off on trying to control me, Harper?” My memory was interrupted by the sound of a bright, musical laugh. Serena Blair slipped her arm through Declan’s, beaming up at him. “I told you my taste is flawless, Dec. The dark hair makes you look so much more dangerous.” The crowd around them hooted in agreement. I watched them for a second, feeling nothing but a dull sense of inevitability. Serena was Declan’s childhood neighbor. His golden girl. The one who got away. Before she returned from Paris, I was constantly measured against her ghost. After she returned, Declan laid the world at her feet. If Serena wanted his hair black, it was done before dinner. Not wanting the drama, I grabbed my friend’s arm to leave. “Harper!” Declan had spotted me. He gritted my name through his teeth. I didn’t even break my stride, turning my back to him. He ripped his arm away from Serena, bridged the distance in seconds, and snatched the fabric of my jacket. His hand was physically shaking. His face was a storm of suppressed fury. He opened his mouth, but Serena’s honeyed voice cut through the exhaust fumes first. “Harper, you finally decided to show your face. Playing hard to get is cute for a week, but three months? You’re pushing it, don’t you think?” She smiled, playing the concerned mediator. The atmosphere shifted. The racers nearby snickered, looking at me with familiar pity. I met Serena’s gaze dead-on. “A breakup is a breakup. Since when does it come with a ninety-day waiting period?” Declan looked at me, then looked at the tuned-up Porsche I was standing near. His dark mood suddenly evaporated, replaced by a triumphant, cocky smirk. He clicked his tongue. “I thought you hated it when I raced. Held out for three months, and you still had to come track me down?” Someone in the back laughed loudly. “Classic Harper! Out of all the canyon routes in LA, she magically finds this one.” Declan’s ego was practically radiating off him. He was absolutely certain I was here to beg for my spot back in his bed, just like I always did. The anxiety that had clearly been gnawing at him for three months vanished. He cleared his throat, playing the benevolent king. “Alright, fine. Sit in the passenger seat and behave. After my run, we’ll swing by your place and get your bags.” I stared at him. The sheer audacity of his narcissism would have been funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. I realized just how deeply sick my own obsession had been to endure this man for three years. My voice was ice. “You love the canyon, right? You think you’re untouchable behind the wheel?” Declan frowned, confused by my tone. I pointed toward the jagged silhouette of the Angeles Crest mountains. “The Devil’s Spine. Deadliest drop in the county. You and me. Right now.” Serena gasped, putting a delicate hand on Declan’s chest. “Dec, don’t. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s just throwing a tantrum. Give her an inch so she doesn’t embarrass herself.” Her words fueled him. Declan scoffed, looking at me like I was a child holding a loaded gun. “Harper, you’ve never touched a clutch in your life. What exactly do you think you’re going to do?” I had already walked over to my friend’s car and popped the door. I gestured toward the starting line. “Let’s find out.” Minutes later, our tires were lined up on the asphalt. Declan rolled his window down, his eyes dark and unreadable in the moonlight. “You don’t have to push it this far, Harper. Step out of the car. Now.” I wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel, my eyes locked on the starter. Go. I slammed the pedal to the floor. The engine screamed, and I shot off the line like a bullet. Apexing, drifting, riding the edge of the guardrails—I didn’t let up for a fraction of a second. The G-force threw me against the bucket seat, tires screaming as they kissed the edge of a three-hundred-foot drop. In my rearview mirror, I could see Declan fighting to keep up, his face a mask of absolute shock. He found a brief straightaway and tried to overtake me, aggressively wedging his front bumper into a hairpin turn, grinding metal against my side panel. I was forced to decelerate, my tires kicking up dirt over the sheer cliff edge. Through the glass, I saw that arrogant, victorious smirk return to his face. He mouthed something at me. I shifted gears, pinned the throttle to the floor, and turned my wheel violently into him. The impact sent my car airborne for a terrifying, weightless second. Half of my chassis hung over the abyss of the canyon before gravity slammed the tires back onto the pavement. I let out a massive, unhinged breath, laughing as adrenaline flooded my veins, washing away three years of suppressed misery. This. This was what I had been missing. I crossed the finish line a full ten seconds ahead of him. I threw the car in park and leaned back, letting the beautiful, violent hum of the engine vibrate through my bones. Bang. Bang. Bang. Fists slammed against my window. I rolled it down. Declan stood there, pale as a ghost, his chest heaving, absolute terror in his eyes. “Are you out of your fucking mind?! You could have died!” I looked up at him, studying his face. “Your heart seems to be handling the stress just fine.” Declan stopped panting, utterly derailed. “What the hell are you talking about?” His chest rose and fell rapidly, the pulse in his neck hammering against his skin. The rhythm was so frantic, so loud in the quiet night air. I listened to that familiar, beautiful heartbeat greedily, and without warning, a tear slipped down my cheek. Panic flashed in Declan’s eyes. He reached through the window. “Harper—” “I wasn’t afraid of dying. That’s why I won,” I cut him off smoothly, rolling the window back up an inch. “I’ve loved this mountain a lot longer than you have, Declan. And honestly? Your driving is mediocre.” I dropped the car back into gear. “You spent three years looking down on me,” I said quietly over the idle of the engine. “But I never thought that highly of you, either.” Declan stood frozen in the exhaust smoke as I turned the car around and drove away. 4 Returning to the underground circuit gave me my life back. With no one to babysit, I picked up the obsession I’d buried three years ago. In a single month, I swept through dozens of local bracket races, taking first place in almost all of them. The raw, life-or-death adrenaline scrubbed my mind clean. For the first time in years, the crushing loneliness was gone. Which was why it was so deeply irritating to find Declan Cross leaning against my apartment door on a Tuesday night. Given his towering pride, I thought my stunt at the canyon would have severed his ego beyond repair. I stopped at the end of the hallway and just looked at him. He ran a hand through his hair, looking agitated, before breaking the silence. “My hair is black.” I gave him a weird look. Did he think I was blind? Unable to process the sheer stupidity of the statement, I gave him a flat response. “Yeah. Serena has good taste.” He choked on his next breath. He stood there for a long moment before forcing the words out. “It wasn’t for her. You… you said you wanted it black.” I didn’t understand, and frankly, I didn’t care to. “Why are you here, Declan?” “Let’s get back together.” The moment the words left his mouth, he winced, looking disgusted with himself for actually saying them out loud. But it was a phrase I had offered him a hundred times. “What’s the point?” I asked. Before he could stumble through an answer, I gave him one. “There is no point. You don’t even like me. This is just bruised possession. The fact that your devoted little shadow actually walked away is eating you alive. That’s all this is, right?” Declan’s eyes darkened, but he didn’t speak. I walked past him and reached for the keypad to my door. Suddenly, he moved. He grabbed my shoulders and slammed me hard against the wall, crowding into my space with a dark, bitter sneer. He was too close, his breath hot against the skin of my neck, triggering a violent wave of revulsion in my stomach. “You’re doing all of this, tearing us apart, over one stupid comment?” he growled, the mask of the apologetic boyfriend melting away to reveal the volatile, aggressive boy underneath. “What do you want, Harper? You want me to beg?” He pressed his forearm against the wall beside my head, boxing me in. “Fine. Listen closely. I’m sorry. I misspoke. Are you going to forgive me now?” It was framed as an apology, but he was looking at me the way a predator looks at a trapped rabbit. I met his eyes, unblinking. “Are you off your meds again?” Declan’s pupils blew wide. A tremor ripped through his shoulders. When you spend three years monitoring a man’s every breath, you know exactly where the armor is thinnest. You know where to slide the knife. I shoved him back. “If you’re having an episode, call your doctor. Stop showing up at my door looking for a fight.” Declan stumbled back, staring at me. Then, he let out a harsh, cracked laugh. “You’re gonna regret this.” I looked at him, dead serious. “I hope your health stays stable. I hope you live a long life.” He froze, then laughed louder, the sound echoing down the sterile hallway. “You’re out of your fucking mind, Harper.” “You wanted to break up, remember? What I do now is none of your business.” I punched my code into the door. Without looking back, I said quietly, “When I took that bullet for you in Bogotá, you swore you owed me a favor. Anything I wanted. I’m cashing it in now. Leave me alone.” I locked the door. A second later, a massive kick shuddered against the wood. Declan screamed on the other side, punching the door, cursing my name until his voice went hoarse. I walked away. It had nothing to do with me anymore. I went into my bedroom, sat on the edge of my mattress, and pulled a framed photograph to my chest. I held it tight, anchoring myself to the only person in the world I truly loved.

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