Category: English

The day before my wedding, a notification popped up on my phone: a hotel reservation confirmation in my fiancée’s name. I didn’t scream. I didn’t call her. I sat in our living room, surrounded by half-packed suitcases and wedding favors, waiting for her to come home and give me a reason to keep the ring on her finger. But she didn’t come home. Instead, her “childhood best friend,” Riley, posted a photo to his Instagram. They were tangled together in a hotel bed, the lighting soft and intimate, her face tucked into the crook of his neck. The caption read: “If I’m going to lose you to someone else tomorrow, at least let me truly have you today.” … Caught red-handed at a Marriott with another man, and Brooke didn’t even try to explain. She just sent a text that read: “Everything is ready on my end. I’ll see you at the altar tomorrow.” A bitter laugh escaped my throat as I stared at the screen. What was I to her? A safety net? A “sensible” choice to please her parents? The air in the apartment felt heavy, like I was trying to breathe underwater. I looked around at the meticulously decorated room—the white orchids, the curated photos of us—and it all felt like a curated lie. I took a shaky breath, forcing the lump in my throat down, and typed back: “The wedding is off. We’re done.” Brooke didn’t reply. I didn’t know if she’d even seen it, and frankly, I didn’t care to speak to her again. I felt… tainted. Not by what she did, but by the fact that I’d shared a life with someone so hollow. I packed my custom-tailored suit back into its charcoal-gray garment bag. Brooke was beautiful, brilliant, and powerful—a Director at a top-tier consulting firm, the kind of woman people called “the pride of the city.” To the world, she was the ultimate prize. People always told me I was “punching above my weight.” Even before the wedding, friends hinted that I should be the “supportive husband,” the one who made sacrifices to keep a woman like her happy. And I had tried. I’d learned how to be the man she needed. But betrayal isn’t a one-time mistake; it’s a character flaw. I wanted a marriage built on glass-clear honesty, not a life spent sweeping dirt under a rug. I couldn’t live like that. Only my mother and my best friend, Zack, knew about the wedding. I sent them the news first. My mother was horrified, pleading with me not to be impulsive, to “think about the logistics.” Then I told her what I saw. The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. Finally, she whispered, “Okay, Gary. If this is what you need, I’m with you.” I spent the next few hours stripping the apartment of anything that looked like a celebration. The wedding was dead; there was no point in living in its graveyard. I turned off my phone, crawled into bed, and let sleep take me. The next morning, the pounding on my door started. I stayed under the covers, staring at the ceiling. Brooke knew what she’d done. She had to have known this was coming. I thought it was over. I thought I could just move on. But then Brooke showed up at my doorstep two days later. She looked exhausted, her usual polished exterior frayed at the edges. Her dark eyes searched mine, unwavering. “Gary,” she said, her voice raspy. “Are you done throwing your tantrum?” I blinked, stunned by her audacity. “On what grounds are you questioning me, Brooke?” “Stop it. I’ve had a hell of a week.” She sounded like she was trying to be soft, but it felt like a performance. She didn’t mention the hotel. She didn’t mention Riley. I let out a cold, sharp laugh. Must be exhausting, I thought, trying to keep two men on a leash at once. “And why is that my problem?” I tried to push past her to leave, but she grabbed my wrist. Her palm was warm against my skin—a touch that used to anchor me. Now, it made my skin crawl. I jerked my arm away as if I’d been burned. “Don’t touch me!” Brooke flinched. She looked at me as if I were a stranger. Her mouth opened, then closed. “Brooke, if you don’t want this to get ugly, stay away from me.” “Gary!” Her voice sharpened, irritation bleeding through. “I was left standing at the church alone. People laughed at me. I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours cleaning up your mess. Can we just talk like adults?” “Talk about what? What you did in that hotel room? Sorry, but I’m not interested in the details of your extracurriculars.” Her eyes turned cold, her face hardening into a mask of corporate indifference. “A dirty mind sees dirt everywhere,” she snapped. “Exactly. I’m the problem. I’m the ‘dirty’ one who isn’t good enough for the pristine Brooke Miller. So go find someone who is. We’re done.” She took a deep, shaky breath, clearly fighting back rage. “Gary, let’s go back to the house and talk. My parents are expecting us for dinner tonight.” The mention of her parents gave me a momentary pang of guilt. They were nothing like her. Her father was a kind-hearted man who loved to talk shop, and her mother was the warmest woman I’d ever met. They’d treated me like a son from day one. I’d always thought that if they were so good, Brooke had to have that same goodness in her. I’d spent three years catering to her every need, making sure dinner was hot when she got home from the office, just so she could have a moment of peace. But I realized now that she hadn’t been resting. She’d been taking. I knew I had to face them eventually to make the break clean. So, I agreed. But I refused to get in her car. I drove myself. Her face was a thundercloud, but she didn’t argue. We arrived at her parents’ house. Before we even crossed the threshold, I heard her mother’s voice from the kitchen. “We’re out of berries. Go grab some of those blackberries Gary likes, would you?” “On it,” her father called out. He walked toward the door and paused when he saw us. A warm, genuine smile broke across his face. “You’re back! Come in, come in. I’m just heading out for some fruit, I’ll be right back.” I felt like an imposter. In my head, I’d prepared for them to scream at me, to blame me for the canceled wedding. Instead, they were welcoming me with open arms. I couldn’t even bring myself to call them “Mom and Dad” like I used to. Brooke pulled a pair of guest slippers out for me. I looked at them, then at her. “Thanks,” I said flatly. She hesitated, her gaze lingering on me for a second too long before I brushed past her. Her mother came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron. “Gary, honey! Sit down, relax. Dinner’s almost ready.” They acted as if the wedding scandal had never happened. The guilt deepened, but it didn’t change my mind. I sat on the sofa, staring at the black screen of the TV. Brooke set a glass of water in front of me. “You’ve been here a hundred times. Why are you acting so stiff?” I didn’t look at her. “Because this isn’t my home. And this is the last time I’ll be here.” Brooke gripped her own glass so hard her knuckles turned white. Her lips thinned into a hard line, but she said nothing. Then, the doorbell rang. Brooke went to answer it, and a loud, cheerful voice echoed through the hallway. “Hey, Brooke! Smells amazing in here. What’s cooking?” It was Riley. He walked in, kicking off his shoes with the familiarity of someone who owned the place. He was carrying a gift bag. When he saw me, he froze for a fraction of a second, a strained, smug smile tugging at his lips. “Oh, hey, Gary. You’re here too.” My gaze dropped to his feet. He was sliding into a pair of blue slippers with a little bear embroidered on them. They were a matching set with the pink bear slippers Brooke was wearing. A cold, mocking smile touched my lips. I swallowed everything I wanted to say. Dinner was a slow-motion car crash. Her mother kept trying to bridge the gap, asking Brooke to pass me food, acting as if we were still the golden couple. Brooke’s brow was furrowed the entire time. She’d always hated the intimacy of sharing food—she thought it was unhygienic, “swapping spit,” she’d called it. Once, she’d even made a scene about it in front of my own family. But tonight, the disgust in her eyes was palpable. “It’s fine, Mrs. Miller,” I said softly. “I can get it myself.” Her mother’s smile faltered, and she shot Brooke a look of disappointment. Riley, sensing the tension, picked up a piece of honey-glazed salmon and dropped it onto Brooke’s plate. “Here, you need the protein, B.” Brooke didn’t flinch. She didn’t look disgusted. She just ate it. I wanted to laugh. She hated my touch, but she accepted his “spit-swapped” offerings without a second thought. If her parents hadn’t been sitting right there, I think I would have lost it. “Don’t ignore Gary,” her mother said, her voice tight. “Take care of your fiancé.” Brooke glanced at me, and with a heavy sigh of obligation, she dropped a grilled shrimp onto my plate. I stared at it. We had been together for three years. Three years, and she still didn’t know I was deathly allergic to shellfish. I didn’t touch the food after that. The shrimp sat there on my plate, a pink, curled monument to her indifference. “Thank you for having me,” I said, standing up abruptly. “But I need to be clear. Brooke and I have broken up. I’m sorry to disappoint you both, but it’s over.” The room went silent. Her parents stared at me, stunned. Brooke sat with her fists clenched, staring at the table. Riley was the one who spoke up. “Gary, come on. You’re being dramatic. You don’t just throw away a marriage over a misunderstanding. Don’t be a child.” I looked at him, my expression dead. “You know exactly why I’m doing this, Riley. Don’t pretend you don’t.” “Gary!” Brooke snapped, standing up. Her eyes were dark with warning. “I’ve told you, Riley is like a brother to me. Stop being so insecure.” I looked at her, and for the first time, I just felt… tired. I turned to her parents. “Thank you again for everything. I’ll make it up to you some other time. I have things to handle.” Her mother stood up, her eyes watery. “Gary, wait…” “It’s okay, Mrs. Miller. You’re always welcome to call me, but I can’t stay here.” I walked out. The air outside was cool and crisp, but the heaviness didn’t lift. I drove straight to Zack’s place. He’d helped me coordinate the limo for the wedding, and I needed to settle the bill. He saw me at the door and immediately pulled me in, grabbing a bowl of popcorn and settling onto the couch. “Alright, man. Lay it out. What happened?” “Incompatibility,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Different values.” “You were together for three years and you just now realized your values don’t align? Bullshit.” I stayed silent. Zack’s eyes widened. “Wait. Did she… did she cheat?” I didn’t have to say anything. My silence was his answer. “Motherfucker,” Zack breathed. “I knew she was cold, but I didn’t think she was a snake. She was just looking for a ‘nice guy’ to settle down with after she got tired of playing around, wasn’t she?” “Doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Everyone makes choices. I’m just making mine.” “Well, good for you,” Zack said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Plenty of fish in the sea, man. Better ones. Ones that don’t come with a ‘brother’ attached.” Talking to him helped. By the time I left, I felt a little more like myself. I wasn’t the problem. I was a good man who had been taken for granted, and I didn’t need to punish myself for someone else’s lack of integrity. I went back to work the next Monday. My colleagues, unaware of the drama, offered their congratulations on the “wedding.” I smiled and thanked them, feeling a hollow ache in my chest every time I saw a leftover piece of wedding cake in the breakroom. “So, Gary,” my coworker whispered during lunch. “Are you guys going for a honeymoon baby? Everyone knows that manager position is yours, but if you take paternity leave now, it might get tricky.” I leaned back in my chair. “You don’t have to worry about that. No kids in the cards for me anytime soon.” “Oh? Parents not nagging you yet?” I smiled thinly. “Nobody has the right to dictate my life. Whatever happens, happens naturally.” He looked impressed. “I wish I had your clarity, man. You’re right. It’s your life.” I threw myself into my work, scrubbing Brooke from my daily routine. It was surprisingly easy to avoid someone when you finally stopped trying to find them. For five days, I was free. Then, she showed up at my apartment again.

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The Smith family was a den of vipers. To break Dominic and me apart, they drugged him, orchestrated a night of “accidental” passion with his socialite ex, and ensured she ended up pregnant with twins. When I found out, I packed my bags, but Dominic—shattered and desperate—begged me to stay. He swore he’d never see them. He told me the pregnancy had been “handled.” He even held a blade to his own wrist to prove he couldn’t live without me. I was young, I was in love, and I believed the lie. Three years later, the lie imploded at a kindergarten orientation. In a fit of blind rage and betrayal, I kept the twins behind after the event to confront the teacher about why Dominic’s name was on their emergency contact list. On their way home, they were snatched. Dominic didn’t ask questions. He didn’t look for evidence. He blamed me instantly. To force a confession I didn’t have, he took my mother—who had a failing heart—to the top of a pier-side drop tower. I screamed until my throat bled, telling him I didn’t know where they were. Dominic only roared back, his face a mask of predatory fury: “I’ve given you everything, Leah! Why would you touch those children? If you don’t tell me where they are, I’m letting her go!” He shoved her toward the edge of the platform. Her safety harness was unbuckled, flapping uselessly in the wind. I had no answers to give. In his cold, calculated hatred, Dominic finally pushed the button. My mother plummeted. Moments later, his phone rang. The kidnappers had been found. It had nothing to do with me. Without a glance at my mother’s broken, lifeless body, Dominic turned on his heel and ran toward his “real” family. While he was holding those twins, I was in a sterile hospital room, pulling a white sheet over my mother’s face. In that moment, the love I held for him didn’t just die. It rotted. … I stared at the white shroud covering my mother, my eyes so dry they burned. I had no tears left. The doctor stood beside me, his voice heavy with a pity I couldn’t stomach. “I’m so sorry. If she had been brought in just twenty minutes earlier… she might have had a chance. Her heart simply gave out from the sheer terror.” I dug my nails into my palms until I drew blood. The guilt was a physical weight, crushing my lungs. I should have left him three years ago. I could have saved her. My mother had treated Dominic like her own son since the day we married. I had only asked the teacher to keep the kids for ten extra minutes to talk. I didn’t kidnap them. But Dominic wouldn’t listen. He chose his “legacy” over my mother’s life. After making the arrangements for her body, I dragged myself back to the empty house we once called a home. Seven days. I told myself I only had to survive seven more days. Then, I’d take her ashes back to the coast, and Dominic Smith would become a ghost in my past. Dominic didn’t come home until the following evening. He didn’t notice my ghost-white skin or my hollow eyes. He just walked into the kitchen, radiating a cold, sharp bitterness. “Leah, I honestly can’t believe you,” he said, his voice a low hiss. “You were willing to watch your own mother go over the edge rather than tell me where those boys were. Do you have any idea what they went through? They’re still in the hospital because of you!” They’re in the hospital, I thought, the irony tasting like copper in my mouth. My mother didn’t even get the chance to be a patient. She went straight to the morgue. My chest tightened so hard I couldn’t breathe. I looked him dead in the eye, but only a raspy, broken sound escaped my throat. Seeing my distress, a flicker of something—regret? pity?—crossed his face. “Fine,” he sighed, reaching out. “As long as the boys are okay, Tiffany and I will find a way to move past this. I know you’ve been stressed taking care of your mom. In a few days, once things settle, I’ll take you away for the weekend. We need to reset.” He tried to pull me into the familiar curve of his chest, but I shoved him away with every ounce of strength I had left. “No… no more… taking care of her,” I croaked. My voice was a ruined thing; he couldn’t even understand the words. He frowned, his patience evaporating. “Stop acting out, Leah. You were in the wrong here. I’m staying at the hospital tonight to be with the kids. Don’t call me unless it’s an emergency.” He turned to leave, but his phone buzzed. He looked at the screen, and his face went pale. Before I could move, he lunged forward, grabbing my wrist in a vice grip. “Get in the car. Now.” He didn’t care that I could barely stand. He dragged me through the hospital corridors like a piece of luggage. The moment we reached the private wing, Tiffany—the woman who had been a shadow over my marriage for three years—lunged at me. She slapped me so hard my head hit the linoleum wall. She wasn’t finished. She threw herself on me, screaming, clawing at my skin like a wild animal. Thinking of my mother, a spark of cold fire lit up in my gut. I tried to fight back, tried to push her off. Suddenly, Dominic’s hands were on me, pinning my arms to my sides. He held me still, letting Tiffany land blow after blow across my face. When he finally let go, I collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. Dominic looked down at me, his expression a complicated mess of guilt and resolve. “The twins are losing too much blood. Their levels are critical. Just let Tiffany vent, Leah. You owe her this.” I let out a jagged, hysterical laugh. Tears finally began to fall. A doctor stepped out of the ICU. “We need the units now.” Dominic didn’t wait. He hauled me up and shoved me toward the technician. “She’s a match. Take whatever you need.” I struggled, my weak hands fluttering against his chest, but he pinned me down on the cot. I watched, detached from my own body, as the thick needle pierced my vein. Dominic stroked my hair, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly tender tone he used when he wanted to manipulate me. “It’ll be over soon, honey. Think of this as your penance. Once this is done, we can start over.” I closed my eyes tight, systematically erasing every memory of love I had ever felt for this man. After two bags, the world began to tilt. My head rolled to the side, but Dominic grabbed my arm, his voice tight with anxiety. “Doctor, they’re twins. Shouldn’t you take more? Just to be safe?” The doctor shook his head, looking uneasy. “Sir, if we take any more, she’ll go into shock. She could die.” Dominic didn’t hesitate. He shifted my arm, offering it up like a piece of meat. “She’s stronger than she looks. Do it.” I broke into a cold sweat, my voice a mere whisper. “Dominic… please… I had nothing to do with the kidnapping…” He just looked at me with profound disappointment. “Still lying, Leah? Even now?” They took two more bags. By the end, I was a shell. Dominic’s eyes softened for a fraction of a second, and he reached out to help me up. But then, Tiffany called his name from the ICU window, her voice trembling with manufactured terror. Dominic turned and ran to her without a second thought. I was left on a gurney in the hallway, discarded like a used bandage. Later, I was moved—not to a room, but to a small chair in the twins’ suite, effectively tethered there by my own exhaustion. Dominic’s parents arrived an hour later. His mother, a woman who wore pearls like armor, walked straight up to me and backhanded me across the face. “You animal,” she spat. “We knew you were low-class, but to target three-year-old children? You’re lucky we don’t have you arrested.” I was too weak to even flinch. I looked toward Dominic, expecting the man who used to defend me against his mother’s barbs to step in. He stood by the window, his hands trembling as he stirred a cup of broth for Tiffany. He wouldn’t look at me. His eyes, once full of a heat that could melt me, were now as cold as a winter morning in the city. “Just endure it, Leah,” he said quietly. “You brought this on yourself.” His mother let out a sharp, jagged laugh and kicked me square in the stomach. I felt a sharp, hot burst of pain, followed by the sickening sensation of warmth spreading between my thighs. As the world faded to black, the last thing I saw was Dominic’s face, finally breaking into an expression of pure, unadulterated panic as he ran toward me. When I woke up, I didn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t. I just listened to the voices in the room. “Maybe it’s for the best that the pregnancy didn’t hold,” Dominic was saying, his voice sounding hollow. “If she could hurt the twins like that before she even had her own child, imagine what she would have been like later.” “Let’s just pretend it never happened,” his mother’s voice replied. “Don’t even tell her. The Smith heir should come from Tiffany anyway. We were never going to accept a child from her bloodline.” A single tear escaped my closed eyelids. Did he ever love me? I wondered. Or was I just a three-year distraction? When the room finally fell silent and the footsteps faded, I opened my eyes. I reached down and touched my abdomen. It felt empty. Cold. I should have left years ago. One wrong decision had cost two lives—my mother’s and my child’s. I was staring at the acoustic ceiling tiles, lost in a trance of grief, when the door creaked open. Tiffany walked in, her “grieving mother” facade replaced by a sharp, triumphant smirk. “Leah Smith. Still breathing? You really are like a cockroach.” She walked to the side of my bed and pressed her thumb hard into the bruising on my arm where the IV had been. “Oops. My bad. But hey, a little bruise is nothing compared to a miscarriage, right? You weren’t fit to be a mother anyway. Think of it as a favor.” She started to giggle—a high, tinkling sound that grated on my raw nerves. With the last of my strength, I grabbed the heavy thermal carafe from the bedside table and swung it at her. It clipped her shoulder, spilling lukewarm water everywhere. Tiffany didn’t get angry. Instead, a look of predatory glee crossed her face. She deliberately threw herself onto the floor, knocking over a chair as she went. A second later, the door burst open. Dominic was there, his face contorted in rage. “Leah! What the hell are you doing?” He lunged at me, his hand connecting with my cheek so hard I tasted blood. He froze when he saw how pale I was, his hand trembling as he pulled it back. But Tiffany began to sob from the floor. “Don’t hurt her, Dominic! It was my fault,” she wailed, her voice thick with fake tears. “I just wanted to apologize. I thought… maybe she lost the baby because of the stress I caused. I wanted to make peace, but she…” She let out a broken whimper. “It’s fine. I deserve it for trying to be kind.” Dominic looked at me with a disgust so deep it felt like a physical blow. He reached down and gathered Tiffany into his arms. “I never knew how truly venomous you were, Leah. You aren’t half the woman she is. My parents were right about you from the start.” He turned and walked out, carrying her like a prize. I watched them go, laughing until the sound turned into a sob. You’re right, Dominic, I thought. We both made a mistake. You chose her, and I chose you. I was discharged a week later. When I opened the front door of our penthouse, I found Tiffany and the twins sitting in our living room. Dominic stood in front of them, blocking my view like a bodyguard. “The boys have severe trauma from the kidnapping,” he said, his brow furrowed. “They need stability. I’ve moved them in so I can look after them personally.” There was a challenge in his eyes, a silent dare for me to object. I simply nodded, my face a mask of indifference. Dominic blinked, caught off guard by my lack of fire. He reached out to grab my hand, a look of confusion flickering in his dark eyes. Before he could touch me, Tiffany stepped in, slipping her arm through his. “Dominic, if Leah isn’t comfortable, the boys and I can leave. We can stay at a hotel. It’s just… they’re so scared, and you’re the only person they trust right now.” She shot me a look of pure malice over his shoulder. I remained silent. Annoyed by my lack of reaction, Dominic snapped, “This is a Smith property. I decide who stays. If Leah has a problem with it, she can be the one to leave.” He watched me, waiting for the explosion. In the past, I would have burned the house down. I would have screamed until he chose me. Now, I just felt tired. “I’m just here for my documents, Dominic,” I said, my voice sounding like it was coming from miles away. “Sign the divorce papers and leave them on the desk. When you have a gap in your schedule between playing house, let me know. We can go to the courthouse and end this.” Panic flared in his eyes, masked instantly by bravado. “Fine! Go! See if any other man with my bank account wants a woman as cold as you.” Then, his voice dropped, turning manipulative again. “Look, once the boys are better, I’ll send them to the estate in the Hamptons. This will be our home again. Just give it time, okay?” He tried to pull me into an embrace. I pulled back, smelling nothing but rot on him. The man I loved was dead. This was just a walking, breathing corpse of a marriage. I went upstairs to my office. On the way, I saw the boys in the hallway. They had found the porcelain urn I had brought home from the funeral parlor. They had poured water into it and were using my mother’s ashes as “gray paint,” smearing it across the wallpaper. My heart shattered into a million jagged pieces. I lunged forward. “You little monsters! Put that down!” The boys saw my desperation and grinned. Then, with a casual cruelty that could only be inherited, they smashed the urn onto the hardwood floor. I fell to my knees, frantically trying to scoop up the gray dust with my bare hands. The boys started jumping on it, their sneakers grinding my mother into the floorboards. I lost it. I shoved them back—hard. They fell, catching themselves on the sharp porcelain shards. They let out a synchronized howl of pain. Tiffany appeared instantly, her eyes wild with fury. “Leah! What is wrong with you? It’s just a jar! You pushed my children over a jar?” Dominic appeared behind her, his face darkening to a bruised purple as he saw the blood on the twins’ hands. I was still on the floor, weeping, trying to gather what was left of my mother. Dominic lunged forward and backhanded me. The world spun. I fell onto the broken porcelain, the shards slicing into my palms and knees. Dominic didn’t even look at my wounds. “You haven’t learned a thing,” he spat, his voice trembling with cold rage. “You need a lesson you’ll never forget.” He grabbed me by the collar and dragged me down the hall, throwing me into the windowless walk-in pantry. He slammed the heavy door and turned the deadbolt. I wasn’t let out until the following morning. The butler opened the door, his eyes full of disdain. “Get out. Mr. Smith says you’ve had enough time to think.” I stumbled out, clutching a small plastic bag containing the few ounces of ash I had managed to salvage. I had a flight booked for that afternoon. All I needed was my employment release from the preschool where I worked. When I walked into the Director’s office, she sighed heavily. “Leah, why did you have to cross Mrs. Smith? Dominic is a powerful man, and his family is everything to him. My hands are tied.” My heart gave a dull, familiar throb of pain. Because the Smiths never officially recognized me, I was still “Miss Susan” to the world. Our marriage was a secret they kept in a drawer. I just nodded, waiting for her to stamp the papers. Suddenly, there was a commotion in the courtyard. I walked to the window and saw Tiffany. She was standing in the middle of the playground, throwing handfuls of photos into the air. Behind her, two men were unfurling a massive red banner over the school entrance: [THANK YOU, MISS LEAH, FOR TAKING CARE OF MY HUSBAND’S NEEDS. I’M WILLING TO PAY THREE DOLLARS FOR YOUR NEXT SHIFT.] The parents waiting at the gates turned to look at me, their expressions curdling into disgust. The world began to tilt. I felt the bile rise in my throat. Tiffany saw me through the glass and raised her voice, her face twisted in a mocking grin. “This is the woman who tried to break up my family! Be careful, ladies. Don’t let your husbands come to pick up the kids. Miss Leah is always looking for a promotion.”

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My boyfriend took me to a cruise party, but a big storm hit, and both he and his female colleague fell into the water. Without hesitation, he jumped into the river, but swam further and further away, leaving me to be swallowed by the current. I was rescued on the riverbank, and when I woke up in the hospital the next day, I saw his colleague’s post on social media: “My first kiss was CPR! I’m so grateful for his life-saving grace, I have no way to repay him, what should I do?” Our mutual friends were all watching my reaction. No one expected me to comment: “Then repay him with your body! May you stay together forever!” 1 Two days. Forty-eight hours since the dark, freezing water of the harbor had swallowed me whole, and Connor hadn’t spared a single thought for me—his actual girlfriend. I had just hit Send on my comment on his coworker’s Instagram post when he finally broke his silence. His name flashed on my screen, and the moment I answered, his furious voice filled the sterile hospital room. “Madeline, this was a matter of life and death! Why do you have to make everything so damn toxic? Aren’t you exhausted from acting so insanely jealous all the time?” Before I could speak, he plowed on. “You know how to swim! Faking a drowning just for attention? It’s sick. If Isabelle hadn’t tried to grab you, she wouldn’t have been dragged into the water. Do you realize she almost died? You have absolutely no conscience!” I closed my eyes. Connor grew up on the coast. He’d spent his teenage summers as a lifeguard. How could he possibly fail to tell the difference between someone faking it and someone actually drowning? Furthermore, Isabelle hadn’t been reaching for me. She had been frantically trying to catch her dropping phone when she lost her balance on the yacht’s deck. “Connor, I lost the baby…” “Enough!” he roared. “There is a limit to your lying, Maddie. I know you’ve had your period the last few days! You cause a massive scene, run off to play the victim, and now you’re spinning this sick web? How can you be so vicious?” With that, over the faint sound of Isabelle coughing delicately in the background, he hung up on me. I spent five days in the hospital. I thought I’d be cleared to go home, but the doctor insisted my body needed another forty-eight hours of rest. It was only after Isabelle was given a completely clean bill of health that Connor finally decided to unblock my number. Where are you? Need to talk. For a decade, every time we fought, regardless of who was right or wrong, I was always the one to shoulder the blame. We were childhood sweethearts. I cherished our history so much that no matter how far he ran, I always stayed right behind him. I did it because, years ago, he’d kissed my forehead and told me I was his forever, and that I needed to hold on tight. Emotional exhaustion is a quiet killer. I had a strict rule: never let an argument last overnight. No matter how earth-shattering the fight, I would swallow my pride, process my hurt, and make peace with him by midnight. This was the first time I hadn’t bowed my head. And his response was to block me for five days straight. I only discovered I was blocked when my breakup text failed to deliver. I had stared at the little red exclamation point in shock, followed swiftly by a cold, hollow clarity. Loving someone so subserviently was a miserable, degrading way to live. He must have grown impatient waiting for a reply, because my phone buzzed with his call. “Why aren’t you answering my texts? You always reply to me the second I message you.” His utter sense of entitlement didn’t make me angry; it made me laugh. A dry, rasping sound. “You blocked me for five days, Connor. Why on earth do I owe you a quick reply?” Not blocking him in return was my final act of mercy. It was the last shred of dignity I was leaving this relationship. A nurse walked in to check my vitals, and the rustle of the blood pressure cuff tipped him off. “Wait, are you in the hospital too?” he asked, his tone shifting. “Yeah. I’ve been here since I fell in the water.” My deadpan response was met with a stunned, heavy silence on the other end of the line. “What… what do you want for lunch?” he finally stammered. “I’ll go pick something up and come see you.” I told him not to bother, but he stubbornly insisted on ordering from my favorite bistro downtown. Figuring he would get here faster than DoorDash, I gave him my room number and canceled the hospital meal I’d requested. Hours passed. I almost fainted from a hypoglycemic drop while waiting for him to show up. The night nurse, taking pity on me, warmed up her own packed dinner and brought it to my bed. Once the dizzy spell passed, I texted Connor to tell him not to worry about food anymore. True to form, the message was read, but left unanswered. I waited until night fell. He never came. I knew for a fact he wasn’t coming, because I saw Isabelle’s latest Instagram update. “Tried to treat my hero to dinner, but he insisted on taking over my kitchen. What kind of fairy-tale gentleman is this?” The attached photo was meticulously curated. Connor, wearing a floral apron, was stirring a pot on the stove, while half of Isabelle’s face was visible in the foreground, bathed in the warm, dreamy glow of the kitchen lights. The angle was perfect. He looked incredibly masculine and domestic. The whole picture radiated the cozy intimacy of a young couple in love. In that moment, lying in the sterile dark of my hospital room, I didn’t feel rage. I didn’t feel betrayal. It just felt… right. Like this was exactly who they were meant to be. A memory floated to the surface: Connor pulling me into his chest years ago, swearing he would cook for me every night, swearing he would take a bullet for me. Today, he hadn’t taken a bullet for me. And he certainly wasn’t cooking for me. I had simply expected far too much from a love that had already expired. 2 I glanced at the clock. It was nearly midnight. I didn’t call Connor to demand why he had stood me up. Instead, I dialed the director of my medical board. Dr. Harrison didn’t even let me say hello before he started his pitch. “Madeline, please tell me you’re reconsidering. The slots for the UN Peacekeeping Medical Task Force are incredibly rare, especially for your trauma specialty. This is a once-in-a-lifetime deployment. Are you really going to walk away from it? Even if you want to settle down and have kids, you’re young! Putting it off for two years won’t hurt.” He paused, his voice softening. “Of everyone in our network, you are the absolute top candidate for this. The peacekeepers hold the line, and you stand beside them to save lives. Did you forget all the grand promises you made when you first became a doctor?” Dr. Harrison’s words hit me like a physical blow. How could I forget the vows I made to myself? Shame washed over me in a suffocating wave. When I discovered I was pregnant, I had voluntarily withdrawn my application for the task force. No matter how much Dr. Harrison pleaded, I refused to budge. At the time, marrying Connor and building a family was the absolute center of my universe. It was only when I was thrashing in the freezing currents, watching Connor swim toward Isabelle without a second’s hesitation, that I finally understood: I was never in his long-term plans. My hand instinctively dropped to my flat stomach. I felt so foolish it physically ached. I had traded my grand ambitions—my stars and my sea—for a man who once whispered that I was his whole world. I gave up my future for a dead-end love, and he had turned my sacrifice into a pathetic joke. “Madeline, tomorrow is the absolute final deadline,” Dr. Harrison pressed, still holding out hope for me. “If you let this go, are you absolutely sure you won’t regret it?” “Dr. Harrison,” I said, my voice steadier than it had been in days. “Please submit my name.” This relationship ended the moment I wasn’t his immediate choice. It was time to redraw the blueprint of my life. The dreams I had shelved were ready to breathe again. Thank God, it wasn’t too late. Perhaps the baby had sensed the profound unhappiness awaiting it and had chosen to spare us both. When I was finally discharged, the doctor noted that I was healing remarkably well. Connor arrived predictably late. The attending physician was going over my post-discharge instructions when Connor strolled into the doorway, his brow furrowing in irritation. “Isn’t this a bit dramatic?” Connor interrupted. “She spent a week in the hospital over a little dip in the harbor, and now she can’t even touch cold water at home? She’s not made of glass. Do we really need to go overboard?” The doctor blinked, taken aback, and looked at me. “Is this man your husband?” “No,” I replied smoothly. “Just an acquaintance.” The paperwork was already processed; I only needed my prescriptions from the pharmacy downstairs. Connor, his face darkening with annoyance, volunteered to go get them. “I assumed he was your husband,” the doctor muttered, watching him leave. “I was about to give him a serious piece of my mind.” I just smiled and let the comment fade into the air. I found Connor waiting for me in the main lobby, peering into the pharmacy bag with a look of supreme exasperation. “I thought you had some massive health crisis,” he scoffed, tossing the bag toward me. “You’ve had bad cramps before and been totally fine. You’re a doctor, Maddie. How are you acting this fragile over falling in the water?” I took the bag from him. I didn’t owe him a single syllable of explanation. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked flatly. “Let’s talk in the car.” Figuring a public breakup in a crowded hospital lobby lacked grace, I followed him to the parking garage. I walked to the passenger side, opening the door out of sheer muscle memory. Sitting right there on the leather seat was a tube of lipstick. It wasn’t mine. I shut the door, opened the rear door, and slid into the back seat. Connor’s face immediately turned thunderous. “What are you doing now? Stop throwing a tantrum and sit up front.” I pointed through the window at the passenger seat. “It’s common decency not to sit in a seat kept warm by another woman.” Connor followed my gaze, and his temper flared hotter. “Are you psychotic? That’s your lipstick!” “It’s Isabelle’s.” Women have an innate radar for lipstick shades. It was the exact gloss Isabelle had been wearing the night of the yacht party. “Isabelle doesn’t even wear makeup,” Connor fired back, rolling his eyes. “You’re the one who always drags a makeup bag everywhere. There’s no way it’s hers.” Isabelle. Since when did he drop her last name and speak about her with such fond familiarity? With me, it was always my full name whenever he was annoyed. I spent an hour getting ready for him twice a week because I wanted to look beautiful for the man I loved. Did he really think Isabelle’s perfectly flushed cheeks and dewy skin were entirely genetic? Was that why I lost? Because he bought into her manufactured “effortless beauty” act? 3 I remained stubbornly in the back seat until he finally surrendered with a heavy sigh. “Maddie, it was pitch black out there,” he began, gripping the steering wheel. “It was chaos. When I jumped in, I couldn’t see you. So I went for Isabelle because I knew she couldn’t swim. It was pure instinct.” Instinct. His instinct was to save Isabelle. The deck lights from the yacht had illuminated the black water like a stadium. He had been mere feet away from me. If he could spot Isabelle thrashing yards away, there was absolutely no way he couldn’t see me. “Okay. You don’t need to explain,” I said evenly. “She’s your coworker. It makes sense that you saved her.” My total lack of emotion infuriated him more than screaming would have. “You’re still holding this against me? You’re so mad that I saved her life that you won’t even admit I’m your boyfriend to a random doctor?” “You blocked me,” I said quietly. “I took that as a breakup.” “Madeline! What do you want from me?!” he yelled, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. “Will you only be happy if I confess I’m sleeping with her? Is that what you want to hear? Fine! I’m Isabelle’s boyfriend! Are you satisfied now?” “I’m not doing anything, Connor. Who you choose to date is your business. It has nothing to do with me.” Connor practically climbed over the center console, looking like he wanted to physically drag me into the front seat. But right then, his phone lit up the dashboard. The caller ID read Isabelle. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering it. “Yeah. Okay, I’ll bring it to you right now,” he said softly. I didn’t need to hear her side of the call. I knew she was calling about the lipstick. He hung up and looked at me sheepishly via the rearview mirror. “I… I guess you have a similar color. I got confused.” He cleared his throat. “I’m going to drop this off to her, and then the three of us can grab a nice dinner together.” I figured it would serve perfectly well as a breakup dinner, so I agreed. When Isabelle spotted Connor’s car pulling up to the curb, her smile was blinding. Her “no-makeup makeup” was flawless, making her look effortlessly radiant. She wore a flowing sundress that caught the breeze, giving her the aura of a delicate, untouchable fairy. She opened the passenger door with practiced familiarity. As she leaned in, her dress dipped just enough to showcase her cleavage. Connor’s eyes dropped to her chest. He froze for a split second before awkwardly darting his gaze away. Isabelle grabbed her lipstick, only then pretending to notice my presence in the back. “Oh! Maddie, you’re here too!” Her voice was sweet as syrup. “Let’s all get dinner tonight. Last time I tried to treat you guys to thank Connor for saving my life, he said you were too busy with work. I felt so bad when he ended up cooking for me instead. But since you’re free today, dinner is on me! We really need to clear up this silly misunderstanding.” She placed a delicate hand against her chest, feigning a look of distress that was perfectly calibrated to make a man want to protect her. I didn’t miss the brief, triumphant flicker in her eyes as her gaze swept over my much less spectacular figure. I had absolutely no desire to let a third party crash my breakup. Without a word, I opened my door, stepped out onto the pavement, and hailed a cab home. During the ride, Connor called me a dozen times. I ignored every single one. Then the text barrage began. I only cooked for her because she had a panic-induced asthma attack! I couldn’t just leave her. I took her to the clinic, and she insisted on buying me food. I didn’t want her stressing herself out, so I cooked instead. Why are you making a crime out of this? She fell in the water because she was trying to grab YOU! I cooked for her to thank her on your behalf! Why are you always so paranoid? You can swim. If I had ignored the girl who was drowning to check on you, I would be a monster. Can’t you just learn from Isabelle and be a little more understanding and gentle? Reading his messages drained the absolute last drop of my will to argue. He was so blinded by her act that he genuinely believed she fell in trying to save me. Yet, he refused to believe that I had miscarried his child. When exactly had this love rotted into something so vile? 4 That very night, I threw myself into preparing for the medical task force deployment. I wasn’t worried about the physical or psychological evaluations. My main hurdle was mastering the niche protocols—international crisis law, cross-cultural medical ethics, and triage in hostile environments. I had studied this material months ago, but I was a perfectionist. I needed to be over-prepared. I was so deeply immersed in my textbooks that I didn’t even hear the front door unlock. Though Connor and I had technically moved in together, I still maintained the lease on my own small apartment and spent most of my time here. “Madeline! Why aren’t you coming home?” I looked up, startled, not quite processing his anger. “This is my home.” “You know I mean my place. Our place.” “Why would I go to your place?” I truly didn’t understand his confusion. In my mind, the relationship was dead and buried. His lingering presence was just exhausting. His face hardened. He marched over to my dining table, his eyes snagging on a stack of paperwork I had left out. “What is this?” he demanded, snatching it up. I realized too late what it was. After filing my hospital insurance claims, I had absentmindedly left the discharge summary and billing reports on the table. I lunged to grab the papers back, but Connor held them out of my reach, his eyes scanning the medical jargon. His face went entirely pale, and then, slowly, a dark, terrible red crept up his neck. “Madeline!” he yelled, his voice cracking. “How could you not tell me something this huge?!” I pressed my lips together and stared at him, letting the silence stretch. I had planned to tell him I was pregnant at the yacht party. It was supposed to be a surprise. But before the words could leave my mouth, Isabelle and I were in the water. We locked eyes. It was clear he hadn’t connected the dots. The storm was still brewing in his gaze. “Just because I chose to save Isabelle instead of you,” he spat, his chest heaving, “you went behind my back and aborted our baby?” “I’ve told you,” I said softly. “You and Isabelle are completely innocent. She is just a coworker.” Connor was bracing for me to explode, to scream at him over the lost child. My total, chilling apathy hit him like a physical blow. It took the wind completely out of his sails. “Then why did you get rid of our baby?” he whispered, his anger giving way to a frantic confusion. I couldn’t bear the thought of my child’s memory being tainted by the idea that its mother didn’t want it. I looked him dead in the eye and stated the clinical truth. “I told you on the phone. I miscarried when I fell into the water.” Connor froze. It was as if the gears in his brain violently seized. The memory of my phone call—the one he had dismissed as a dramatic lie—finally slammed into him. The color completely drained from his face. “You’re saying… you lost it because of the fall? But you’re so fit. You know how to swim. How could falling in the water make you miscarry?” “Even Isabelle didn’t get hurt,” he stammered, his eyes darting wildly. “How could you possibly…” He trailed off. He couldn’t finish the sentence. He turned his head away, physically unable to look at me. If you know how to swim, you can’t get hurt. Was that the twisted logic he used to justify leaving me behind in the dark? I turned my back to him. I didn’t want to look at his face anymore. But he was desperate. He needed absolution. “Was it really an accident? From the water?” I picked up the glass of ice water from my desk and threw the contents squarely into his face. The water dripped off his nose, his chin, soaking his collar. “Are you awake now?” I asked. Ever since Isabelle entered the picture, his faith in me had constantly wavered. He questioned everything I said. He knew, better than anyone on earth, that I was not a liar. I had never lied to him in our thirty years of knowing each other. Yet, for Isabelle, he painted me as a manipulative liar time and time again. When I told him Isabelle had ulterior motives, he called me paranoid. When I pointed out her calculated innocence, he called me toxic. Now, I understood. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe me. He simply chose to blind himself because he wanted to buy what she was selling. The boy who swore he loved me had failed the ultimate test. He didn’t take a bullet for me. During one of our many fights over his blurry boundaries with Isabelle, I had been crying hysterically. He had thrown a glass of cold water in my face to “calm me down.” Now, Connor let the water drip from his eyelashes, his jaw tightening as he stared at me. “What do you want from me?!” he yelled, his voice thick with defensive panic. “You only lost a pregnancy! If I hadn’t saved Isabelle, I would be responsible for a dead body!” 5 The moment the words left his mouth, he knew he had crossed a horrific line. He recoiled from his own cruelty, quickly looking down at my medical charts to mask his panic. Scanning the page, he let out a loud, forced breath of relief. “Well, at least it was early. Barely over a month. It didn’t do permanent damage. You’re healthy, Maddie. You’ll bounce back quickly.” I stared at him. I literally rubbed my ears, wondering if my brain was misfiring. You only lost a pregnancy. Was the baby inside me not a living thing to him? Connor had always talked about wanting kids. He used to hold me in bed and whisper about the family we would build. I thought, at the very least, he would grieve. I thought he would feel an ounce of agony for the child we lost. I was incredibly naïve. He didn’t love me anymore. Why would he love a piece of me? “Don’t be too sad,” he rambled, stepping closer, his tone adopting a sickeningly patronizing comfort. “We’re young. Once your body heals up, we’ll start trying again. We’ll just… write this one off. It wasn’t meant to be.” His words weren’t comforting. They were cold, serrated blades dragging across my exhausted heart. “Connor,” I said, my voice eerily steady. “If you had pulled me out first, I might not have lost it.” When I fell, the impact threw me against the hull of the yacht. I started bleeding almost immediately, though the pain didn’t peak until later. Another memory fractured his composure. “God,” he whispered, his eyes widening in horror. “I heard someone on the deck screaming about blood in the water. I… I thought it was Isabelle.” I didn’t even have the energy to call him out on the absurdity of that. When the cramps hit me in the freezing water, my muscles locked. I couldn’t swim. I thrashed and swallowed water and screamed for help, just like anyone drowning. How did he not see I was going under? How did he not hear my voice? Or was Isabelle’s performance simply louder? More delicate? More worthy of saving? I remembered a wave crashing over my head, pushing me under. Through the stinging salt water, I saw Connor hauling Isabelle onto the illuminated swim platform of the yacht. Then the current took me, dragging me out into the dark. By the time I washed up on the rocky shoreline and a stranger found me, the baby was gone, and I was barely breathing. A phantom sensation of icy water filling my lungs gripped my chest. That night, a severe thunderstorm rolled over the city. Thunder rattled the windows, and Connor refused to leave. “You’re terrified of lightning,” he insisted, hovering near the door. “Let me stay with you.” “Go home, Connor. I’m not a toddler anymore. Being scared of the dark is pathetic.” He opened his mouth to argue, realized I was quoting him, and snapped his jaw shut. He turned and walked out into the rain. Months ago, during a massive storm, he had stayed at the office to keep Isabelle company because she was “scared.” When I begged him to come home to me, he told me to grow up and stop acting like a child. Over the next five days, we didn’t speak a single word to each other. I called a locksmith to change the code on my front door. I went through my apartment and packed everything he owned into two cardboard boxes. Sitting on my couch, I aimlessly scrolled through our text history. Years of me saying I love you, I miss you, sending him little updates about my day. My eyes burned, but not a single tear fell. He hadn’t kept much at my place anyway. Just a few changes of clothes and some toiletries. It wasn’t worth the gas money to drive it over to his place. I hit Select All on our chat thread. I deleted everything. I even went into my cloud storage and wiped the backups from when we were in college. Looking at the eighty gigabytes of freed-up storage space on my phone, I felt nothing but a strange, weightless relief. Right on cue, the deadbolt beeped. Incorrect Passcode. I checked the peephole. Connor was standing in the hall, looking confused. Remembering I had his boxes, I opened the door. “Maddie, why did you change the code?” “Because I wanted to. Do I need a permit?” Before Isabelle, his phone passcode had always been our anniversary. When he suddenly changed it and refused to tell me the new one, I had asked him why. I never snooped; I simply asked. He had completely blown up at me, accusing me of smothering him. I hadn’t understood his rage then. But a quote I read online recently cleared it up: A man’s sudden, unprovoked anger is always a shield for his guilt. Why was he guilty? It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. Connor frowned at my cold tone. “What’s the new code? Text it to me.” I didn’t answer. I just bent down, picked up his two boxes, and shoved them into his chest. For a second, his face lit up. He actually smiled, thinking I had bought him a gift. Then he looked inside at his folded gym shirts and shaving kit. His expression turned to stone. “What the hell is this? Are you doing this because of the business trip? I went to Chicago with Isabelle because we are on the same project team! We were never alone! I didn’t text you because we were in back-to-back conferences!” “If you want to think I’m throwing a tantrum over Chicago, then fine. I’m throwing a tantrum.” I picked up my phone and sent him two screenshots. He pulled his phone from his pocket, opened the message, and went perfectly still, as if struck by lightning.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “394513”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Just before the holidays, my younger boyfriend dumped me out of nowhere. My mother issued an ultimatum: If you don’t bring a man home for Christmas, don’t bother bringing the dog either! In a panic, I posted an ad online to rent a date. My only requirement was supposed to be: Must be willing to sit with my dog in the backseat. The next morning, my inbox exploded. My ex-boyfriend had completely spammed my DMs:[We’ve barely been broken up for a few days and you’re already looking for a dog?!][Fine, if you had just said that’s what you were into, I wouldn’t have held back.][Answer me! Did you actually find someone?!] [Who could be a better dog than me?! I’ll rip his throat out!!] I blinked, thoroughly confused, and pulled up my original post. My vision went dark. How did the words “sit with” get deleted?! 1 I stared at the row of exclamation points on my screen, picturing Chase’s face—a face that looked unfairly handsome even when he was throwing a tantrum. I felt absolutely nothing. A week ago, I had reminded him. When you come home with me for Christmas, you don’t need to pack that many heavy coats. The South is pretty mild this time of year. He had paused, looking down at his phone. “Sure.” That very night, I got an automated email notification that his flight had been canceled. I called him immediately, asking what was going on. It rang for a long time. When he finally answered, the deafening, pulsating bass of a crowded club flooded the speaker. Chase said he was out having drinks with some guys from his graduating class. His tone dripped with obvious impatience, like my call was a nagging disruption to his big night out. Worried he couldn’t hear me, I yelled over the noise, asking if he had accidentally canceled the ticket. I had moved heaven and earth to book that holiday flight; we couldn’t just lose it. He hesitated. It took him a long moment to formulate an excuse. “Oh, that. I lost a bet playing Truth or Dare. The dare was to cancel my flight right then and there and go snowboarding in Aspen with them instead.” The music pounding in my ear grew louder. I genuinely thought I was having auditory hallucinations. I asked again, slowly, “You canceled your ticket to meet my parents… so you could go snowboarding with other people?” “Harper, just listen to me—” “Chase! Stop using the phone as an excuse to dodge shots! Get your ass back in here~” A bright, flirty female voice cut through the background noise, urging him on. Chase laughed and yelled back at her, “Shut up! I’m talking to my girlfriend. Keep drinking, it’s on my tab.” Then, his voice shifted back to that practiced, lazy charm. “Baby, they were egging me on, and I just got caught up in the moment. I’m graduating this year, and I won’t have many chances left to just wild out with my friends. How about we go see your parents next year?” I took a deep breath, fighting to maintain the calm, collected demeanor expected of the older girlfriend. “Chase.” I enunciated every word. “I am giving you two options right now.” “Option one: when you sober up, you buy a new ticket immediately. I will pretend tonight was just a bad, drunken joke.” The bass through the phone seemed to lower slightly. “Or, option two… we’re done.” I tilted my head back, swallowing down the sharp, acidic lump in my throat. “Let’s break up.” Before Chase could even process the choice, someone else chimed in nearby: “Ooh, drama. Lexi was just crying saying you told her to get lost, even though you promised you’d take her to Aspen to clear her head.” “Is your older girlfriend giving you a curfew again? Good boy, always rushing home to mommy~” A chorus of mocking, mean-spirited laughter erupted. I don’t know how much time passed before Chase finally spoke again. “Harper, do you have to be so intense about everything? I’m twenty-four. You keep pressuring me to go home with you for the holidays—what is that? A hint that I need to put a ring on it the second I graduate? I am under a massive amount of stress right now. Can’t we just keep things light and easy?” His sudden explosion of anger caught me off guard. But looking back, the signs had been there all along. For the past six months, Chase had stopped dropping by my office. Whenever I wanted to plan a weekend date, he either had “school stuff” or “bro time.” His texts devolved from clingy voice notes to brief messages, and finally to indifferent emojis. When we did manage to see each other, his face was perpetually buried in his phone. Whenever I brought up going home for Christmas, he found an excuse to change the subject. So that was it. He thought I was trying to trap him into marriage. I was twenty-seven. But it wasn’t a death sentence if I didn’t get married at twenty-seven. My mother knew I had been dating someone for three years. But in those three years, she had never once met him. She was beginning to suspect he was entirely made up. This year, she laid down the law: if I didn’t bring my boyfriend home, I wasn’t allowed to bring Lucky back for the holidays either. Lucky was my dog. I’d had him for ten years, and his health had been rapidly declining lately. There was no way I was leaving him in a boarding facility. The dog was coming home with me. That was non-negotiable. As for the boyfriend… “Got it. I know your answer then.” Adults are supposed to keep things dignified. You part ways amicably. Even if your heart feels like it’s being dragged over broken glass, watching three years of your youth swirl down the drain. Facing a boy three years my junior, my last shred of pride absolutely forbade me from becoming hysterical. Chase froze. He probably thought his little outburst would force me to back down and coddle him. He never expected me to just flip the board and walk away. He gritted his teeth. “You want to break up? Fine! We’re broken up!” 2 My inbox was still flooded with aggressive interrogations from my ex. I didn’t scroll down. I just blocked him. Over the past three years, blocking me whenever he threw a tantrum was his favorite party trick. He would unblock me shortly after, but every time I had to type out paragraphs of apologies just to be met with that red “Message Not Delivered” icon, it felt like a punch to the gut. I never thought the day would come where I would be the one blocking him. The world went blissfully quiet. Just before I logged out, I noticed a separate, unread message in my inbox. [Hello. Do you have any specific physical requirements?] Someone actually applied? I hesitated. I was terrified this person had also completely misinterpreted my post. Missing the words “sit with” made the “be my dog” typo incredibly compromising. Should I just ask what he meant? That felt borderline insulting. My phone buzzed. It was my sister, Claire. She was already laying it on thick. “Harper, Mom has been bragging to literally everyone in the neighborhood that you’re bringing a guy home. The extended family is practically camping out in the living room waiting for the show.” “Please tell me you’re not going to flake.” I hung up, feeling too nauseous to eat. Tell Mom the truth? Would she even believe me? And even if she did, the humiliation in front of the relatives would crush her. After wrestling with it for ten minutes, I opened the DM and rapidly typed back: [Hi. No special requirements. Just be a normal human being.][For payment, you can choose: 1. If you also need a fake date to get your family off your back, we can swap favors. 2. Cash.][But this has to be a mutual fit. You can look at my picture first.] I attached a photo. To my surprise, the user was online and replied almost instantly: [Can I have some time to think about it?] Me: … [Sure. Let me know.] Before bed, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. I leaned in close, inspecting my forehead, the corners of my eyes, the lines around my mouth… No deep wrinkles yet. But somehow, the face I used to carry with such effortless confidence had reached the age of being “evaluated.” Was I really getting old? 3 It was the final office holiday party before the break. Everyone in my department was getting trashed. I tried to pace them, reminding them that even though we had tomorrow off, a hangover was still a hangover. One of the fresh-out-of-college trainees nudged me, giggling. “What are you worried about, Harper? Your hot younger boyfriend is totally going to pick you up and take care of you, right?” The table erupted in teasing laughter. I forced a tight smile. “Quit it, you guys. Keep having fun, but I’ve got to head out early. Put the drinks on my card.” “You’re the best, boss!” Even though it had all crashed and burned, Chase and I did have moments that made other people jealous. When he didn’t have classes, he would come to my office. If I was in a meeting, he’d sit quietly in the lobby, reading a book. He’d pick me up from the airport after my business trips, even for the red-eye flights. He loved buying matching couples’ stuff, leaving his specific neck pillow in the passenger seat of my car so everyone knew it was his spot. We used to kiss in that car, talking about everything we were going to do together. Back then, I really thought we were going to make it. Three years isn’t that long in the grand scheme of a lifetime. But the years from twenty-four to twenty-seven? Those are long. Heavy. 4 On the ride home, the algorithm served me a video of a young girl. It was a sensual, choreographed couples’ dance. The girl was adorable, practically radiating youthful energy. The guy had his baseball cap pulled low, hiding half his face, but their bodies moved together in tight, suggestive synchronization to a heavy bassline. The comments were mostly shipping them, praising their chemistry. But one comment stood out:[The guy looks super familiar. Isn’t that the hot guy from NYU? But didn’t he already have a serious girlfriend? Did they break up?] I refreshed the page. The comment vanished. I hit the ‘Like’ button on the video. When I got home, I immediately checked on Lucky. Lately, I’d been waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of his wet, rattling breaths. Yesterday, he had thrown up. One look told me he was getting worse. I gently scooped him into his carrier and mapped the nearest 24-hour emergency vet. It was approaching midnight. There was only one doctor on duty. He was young. He wore a surgical mask, but the eyes above it were sharp, calm, and striking. He glanced at the dog, then up at me, a slight crease forming between his brows. My heart instantly lodged in my throat. “How is it? It’s not good, is it?” He lowered his gaze, leaning over the metal table to examine Lucky with quiet precision. Finally, he spoke. His voice was steady. “He is trying very hard.” My knees buckled. I had to grip the edge of a plastic chair to keep from hitting the linoleum. “How much time?” I heard my own voice, thin and trembling. “Two weeks. Maybe two months. It’s impossible to be certain. In human years, he has already lived a very long, full life.” I knew. Of course I knew. I was just a kid when we brought Lucky home. Now I was staring down thirty. To stabilize him, the doctor suggested keeping him overnight for observation. “Here is my personal number,” he said, handing me a card. “If anything comes up, or if you just need an update, text me anytime.” I fought back the burning behind my eyes and took one last look at my sweet, tired boy. “Thank you, Doctor. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.” He looked up, his eyes softening. “Just call me Miles.” 5 One girl and one dog left the apartment. Only the girl came back. Stepping into the freezing December air, a chill wracked my entire body. And there, slumped in front of my door, was a dead-drunk pile of garbage. It was Chase. 6 When he saw me, his eyes lit up. He scrambled up and grabbed my arm. He immediately started demanding answers—why did I block him? Why wasn’t I replying? I was drained. The absolute last thing I wanted to do was argue. “What exactly do you want from me?” You don’t want to go home with me? Fine. You want to break up? Also fine. What else was I supposed to give him? He suddenly went quiet. That perfectly sculpted face crumpled. He wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “You were suffocating me. I’m at an age where everyone else my age is out living their lives…” “Other people are skiing for the holidays, and I’m supposed to meet your parents, plan a wedding, have kids, take responsibility for someone else’s entire existence…” “Just thinking about it makes me feel like I can’t breathe.” “You were twenty-four once. Can’t you just understand that? Can’t you just give me some grace?” For a split second, an echo from the past rang in my ears. Harper, can’t you just like me? Just believe in me a little, just love me? Chase had chased me for six months, and I had remained completely unmoved. I was getting ready to graduate; he was only a sophomore. On the day of my graduation, he confessed his feelings again in front of everyone. I turned him down again. Even though my heart had fluttered. Logic told me we were at different stages in life. That night, he got blackout drunk and passed out right in front of my apartment door. When I tried to help him up, he just stared at me with these big, tear-filled eyes. And then he started crying, begging me to give him a chance. That night, I didn’t have the heart to push him away. But now… I shoved him off me, looking dead into his bloodshot eyes. “And that gives you the right to treat me like garbage and mess around with other girls?” I knew that even if there was no one else, we still might not have survived. But the absolute betrayal of being cheated on—it was a vicious, biting pain. The kind that wakes you up at 3 AM crying into your pillow, making you want to claw your own skin off. “I just wanted to introduce you to my mother. I was stressed too, even if we were just going through the motions to keep her happy. Of course, if we made it in the long run, great. But meeting parents doesn’t mean you’re signing a marriage license tomorrow.” He was the man I had considered marrying, but he wasn’t the only man I could marry. “I…” Chase ran a hand through his hair. “I only went to Aspen to keep Lexi company. She just went through a bad breakup.” “Then go to her,” I said flatly. No one is stopping you. Chase blinked. “You’re not mad anymore?” “No.” I put my key in the lock. “We’re broken up.” Hearing that, Chase slammed his hand against the door, pinning it shut. “Broken up? Are you really so sure you can find someone better than me?” “Let’s be brutally honest here. You’re twenty-seven. The only reason you’re posting online to rent a date is because you literally have no one else.” “Or do you honestly think guys are lining up for a woman pushing thirty? Even guys with weird kinks have standards.” His face twisted into something ugly and cruel. He pulled out his phone, shoving his contact list in my face. It was an endless scroll of beautiful, young girls. “I have twenty pages of girls in my phone who are younger and prettier than you. But I kept my distance from all of them, for you.” “I’m just taking a junior on a ski trip to cheer her up. It’s not even just the two of us. Did you really have to blow it up like this?” “I am giving you one last chance. Harper, tell me you don’t want to break up. Say it!” He grabbed my shoulders, shaking me like a lunatic. “Excuse me.” A deep, quiet voice drifted out from the shadows of the hallway. “Are you quite finished? I have business with Ms. Harper.” A tall man in a tailored wool coat stepped out of the dim lighting. I had no idea how long he had been standing there. He had an imposing, elegant presence, but his voice was as cold as ice. He was incredibly handsome. And slightly familiar. But I definitely didn’t know him. Chase glared at him. “Who the hell are you?” The man ignored him completely, keeping his eyes fixed on me. “It’s me,” he said, raising a hand to cover the lower half of his face. It was Dr. Miles, the emergency vet! Panic spiked through me. Did something happen to Lucky?! I rushed toward him, only then noticing he was holding my empty pet carrier. I had left it at the clinic. I could have just picked it up next time. Why did he personally deliver it in the middle of the night? Seeing my confusion, Miles gave the bag a gentle shake. “I’m here to interview for the position.” The position? What position? Chase had been rolling his eyes, completely unbothered, until he saw what was inside the mesh bag… His expression violently shattered. His face drained of color. Inside the bag, was the leather dog leash I had left at the clinic. 7 Chase looked like his brain was short-circuiting. How could any man willingly debase himself to be a woman’s dog? Let alone his discarded, aging ex-girlfriend? “Bro, how much is she paying you?” Chase let out a sleazy, mocking laugh, reaching out to clap Miles on the shoulder. Miles smoothly sidestepped him. “I’m doing it for free. Purely voluntary.” Miles offered a polite, devastatingly innocent smile while delivering the most unhinged sentence imaginable: “Why? Are you looking to submit an application too?” Realizing he wasn’t going to get a rise out of Miles, Chase spun back to me, sneering. “Harper, I know what you’re doing. You hired an actor to piss me off, didn’t you?” He eyed the leash in Miles’ hand. “Otherwise, what are the odds he just happens to show up the second I come looking for you?” “We have three years together. You can’t just throw all of that away over one stupid fight.” Watching Chase throw a tantrum like a spoiled toddler in front of my veterinarian, I felt only one emotion. Profound embarrassment. “Chase, you love bringing up those three years,” I said, my voice dropping to a freezing register. “But how exactly did you treat those three years?” Some things lose their meaning once spoken aloud. But if it meant cutting this cancer out of my life once and for all, I didn’t mind making a scene. I pulled out my phone and hit play on an audio file. The background noise was a chaotic, thumping club.[Chase, are you actually serious about Lexi?] The voice coming from the speaker was crystal clear.[What does ‘serious’ even mean? She confessed her feelings, but I didn’t say yes. Are we not allowed to be friends?] [Man, that’s kinda messed up. Your girlfriend is obviously looking to settle down.][I never said I wouldn’t marry her. But she’s my first real girlfriend from college. If I just marry the very first girl I dated, aren’t I missing out on the rest of my twenties?][So you’re stringing the older girl along for marriage security while hooking up with freshmen to gain experience. Damn, you’re cold.] … “Enough!” Chase lunged forward, panic flashing in his eyes. “Who gave you that?!” I stepped back, dodging his grasp. “Who gave it to me doesn’t matter.” Chase lunged again, reaching for my arm— Smack! A heavy leather leash whipped through the air, striking the back of his hand with a sharp, brutal crack. A bright red welt bloomed instantly across his skin. He hissed in pain, jerking his hand back. Miles stood there, leash in hand, his eyes darker than a winter lake. Chase sucked in a breath, glaring daggers at Miles. Then, his eyes shifted back to me. He held up his red, stinging hand, shoving it into my line of sight. “Harper… it hurts.” His eyes were wide, wet with unshed tears. His voice caught in a pathetic whimper. I knew that look entirely too well. For three years, anytime he got a scrape, a headache, a minor inconvenience, I was the one panicking. No matter how swamped I was at work, I would take PTO to pick him up from campus and nurse him back to health. But today… I stepped right past him, completely ignoring his outstretched hand. I reached out and grabbed Miles by the wrist. “Let’s go inside.” I pulled him in and slammed the door in Chase’s face. Leaving him to rot in the hallway. 8 For the first time since moving in, my apartment with its ten-foot ceilings felt incredibly cramped. How did adding one 6’2″ man instantly consume all the oxygen in the room? I awkwardly scratched the back of my neck. “Dr. Miles… thank you for bailing me out out there.” I took the pet carrier from his hands, catching a glimpse of the leash inside. Remembering what had just transpired in the hallway… my face burned so hot I could have fried an egg on it. “Ms. Harper, you do realize I’m the one who messaged you online, right?” “I’m not blind,” I forced a laugh. “Your WhatsApp profile picture and the forum avatar are the exact same cat.” Miles chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. “Very observant.” “Just call me Harper. But I really think you misunderstood the post… I wasn’t actually looking for… that.” Thinking about the typo, I actively wanted the floorboards to open up and swallow me whole. Miles let out a quiet, muffled laugh. “I know. I’m perfectly capable of understanding context clues and auto-correct fails.” Translation: I’m not as brain-dead as the guy out in the hall. But that just raised more questions. If he knew it was a typo, why was he volunteering to be my fake boyfriend? “Dr. Miles… is the clinic going bankrupt or something?” He blinked, taken aback. “No.” “So if you don’t need the money… why are you doing this?!” Miles thought about it for a second. “Consider it me hitching a ride. I’m originally from the coast too.” “Wait, seriously? We’re from the same area?” Thank God I didn’t actually cry over the typo. “More or less,” Miles said. “But I had a falling out with my family. I haven’t been back in years.” “Dr. Miles, what if I told you…” I took a deep breath. “You got the job. Do you want to come to my parents’ house for Christmas? Since we’re from the same state, consider it a taste of home. My mom is a terrifyingly good cook.” Miles stared at me for a long moment, then a slow, genuine smile spread across his face. “I’d love that.” 9 Since I had officially “rented” a boyfriend, we needed to commit to the bit. “Do you mind if we take some photos?” “Not at all.” Miles didn’t ask a single question. He just let me direct him—stand here, look here, tilt your head. The man had the bone structure of a Renaissance statue. There wasn’t a bad angle on him. Standing next to him in selfies was genuinely intimidating. After applying an aggressive amount of filters, I set our best selfie as my phone’s lock screen. He caught it out of the corner of his eye, a flicker of surprise crossing his face. “Is that…?” “The devil is in the details!” I showed him the phone, establishing the fake-dating lore. “My mother is a detective. She knows I’ve been dating a guy for three years. If she checks my phone and there isn’t a single photo of you, she’ll smell blood in the water.” Click. The flash went off. I looked up to see Miles aiming his phone at me. He immediately looked down, tapping away to set his own lock screen. I was about to say, You don’t have to do that, my mom isn’t going to audit your phone. But seeing how intently he was focusing on it, I thought it was kind of sweet. I didn’t want to ruin the moment. “By the way, how well do you hold your liquor?” He considered it. “I do alright,” he smiled. “Oh, thank God.” I let out a breath. “My dad judges a man’s entire character based on how he drinks. He’s definitely going to corner you with a bottle of scotch. Don’t worry, I’ll run interference for you.” Miles raised a brow slightly. “Understood. Thank you, Harper.” That night, right before I went to sleep. Miles texted me: Goodnight. I stared at the screen, thinking that Dr. Miles was an incredibly thorough guy. He wasn’t missing a single detail of the ‘doting boyfriend’ act. Though, I had my own selfish reasons. Having Miles in the car meant if Lucky took a turn for the worse during the drive, I had a literal doctor on hand. 10 The next afternoon, we packed up the car for the long drive down the coast. We were supposed to leave in the morning, but an emergency came up at the clinic, and Miles had to go handle it. I told him it was fine; a few hours wouldn’t kill us. When we finally met up in the afternoon, Miles didn’t just have a duffel bag. He was dragging a massive, heavy-duty suitcase. Inside were premium vitamin supplements, La Mer skincare sets, imported teas, and high-end LEGO sets—a demographic spread covering every possible age group. I stared at him. “What is all this?” His tone was perfectly even. “You can’t meet your future mother-in-law empty-handed.” I burst out laughing at his deadpan delivery. “Alright, alright. Employee of the month over here. What kind of bonus are you expecting for this?” I meant it as a joke, but Miles fired back instantly: “I’ll let you know when the time comes.” Lucky’s condition really wasn’t suited for a long road trip, but thankfully, the drive wasn’t grueling. And having Miles in the backseat gave me immense peace of mind. I drove. Miles sat in the back, tending to Lucky the entire way. Every time I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the two of them together, the knot in my chest loosened a little more. Hours later, we finally pulled into my parents’ driveway. The moment the engine cut, my sister Claire heard the gravel crunch and bounded out of the front door. She slapped me hard on the shoulder. “Damn, Harper. You weren’t kidding. He is gorgeous.” Miles was undeniably gorgeous, though I still hadn’t asked his age. He felt older, more grounded than me. The tall doctor unfolded himself from my tiny sedan, rubbing his lower back. My car was practically a clown car for a guy who was 6’2″. Being cramped back there for hours couldn’t have been fun. He efficiently popped the trunk, grabbed both our bags with one hand, and hoisted Lucky’s supply tote with the other. All I had to do was hold Lucky’s leash. It was bizarrely domestic. Claire watched Miles unload the car, her eyes wide. “And this handsome specimen is…?” Miles immediately set the bags down and extended a polite hand to my sister. “Hi, I’m Harper’s boyfriend. Miles.” “Hi, boyfriend, I’m Harper’s—wait, hold on.” Claire froze. Her eyes darted from me to him, bugging out of her skull. She pointed a shaky finger toward the living room window. “You’re… her boyfriend?” “Yes.” Claire looked like her brain had bluescreened. “Then who the hell is the guy currently sitting in our kitchen?!” I froze. What guy in the kitchen?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “394529”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When we were six years old, the monsters who took us made a game of our survival. They told us one would be the voice, and the other would be the prop—a mute beggar to kneel on the city sidewalks and bleed sympathy from strangers. I dropped to the concrete, sobbing, begging them. “Please don’t hurt him! Let me do it. I’ll beg! I’ll bring back so much money, I promise!” In the end, it was acid. It burned a fiery, agonizing trail down my throat, and from that day on, my voice was nothing but a graveyard of sound. The day the police finally pulled us from that dark basement, Cole held me. His tears soaked into my collarbone, hot and desperate. He swore, his voice cracking with a boy’s fierce conviction, that he would protect me forever. That he would be my voice for the rest of our lives. Yet, years later, when the most popular girl in our high school framed me for stealing her diamond necklace, I found myself standing in the principal’s office, frantically signing, trying to explain my innocence. Cole didn’t defend me. He just looked at my trembling hands, his expression a mask of cool indifference. “She says,” he translated to the room, his voice perfectly level, “that she took it.” “She says she realizes now that she’s a thief, and she’s willing to apologize to Blair in front of the entire school.” 1 I stared at Cole, the air rushing out of my lungs. I waved my hands wildly, a harsh, panicked “uh” and “ah” tearing from my ruined throat. But the principal’s face had already hardened into stone. The disappointment radiating from the faculty felt like physical blows to my chest. I reached for a pen, desperate to write the truth, but Cole grabbed my arm and yanked me out into the fluorescent-lit hallway. He shoved me into a corner, his jaw tight with irritation. “If you stole it, just own up to it. Making up lies is just going to make everyone look down on you more.” But I didn’t steal it! I signed, the movements sharp and frantic, tears of absolute frustration threatening to spill over. “So what, Blair’s lying?” Cole sighed, a cruel, mocking edge creeping into his tone. “Stella, just because you’re disabled doesn’t mean the rest of the world has to bend over backward to cater to you.” My heart plummeted, hitting the floor of my stomach. The tears finally fell, hot and humiliating. Why? I looked at him, searching for the boy who had held me in the dark. Why don’t you believe me? When I walked back into the classroom, numb and hollow, I found my desk had been dragged to the very back of the room, isolated in the corner. “I’m not sitting next to a kleptomaniac. I don’t want to have to count my cash every time I go to the bathroom.” The girl who said it was standing next to Blair. They both looked at me with open, theatrical disgust. The room went dead silent. The whispers that followed were loud enough to be intentional. “The mute girl always looked so pathetic. Guess she’s got sticky fingers.” “Honestly, I feel bad for Cole. He’s been dragging around that dead weight for years.” “Well, you know disabled people. They’re always a little twisted in the head.” Cole was standing in the doorway. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets. His face was a blank canvas. He looked like he hadn’t heard a single word. I lowered my head, silently shoving my notebooks into my backpack, and took my new seat in the corner. From that day on, I became a ghost in the hallways. No, worse than a ghost. People ignore ghosts. I was the school thief. The burden. The morally bankrupt mute. People threw crumpled paper at the back of my head. If I sat at a lunch table, the others would stand up and leave. When I raised my hand in class, boys in the back would mockingly wave their hands in fake sign language and snicker. Only Cole would occasionally step in. If someone blatantly tripped me, he’d offer a hand to pull me up. If someone poured chalk dust into my water bottle, he’d frown and mutter, “Alright, knock it off.” But the desperate, heart-wrenching protectiveness was gone from his eyes. All that remained was a heavy, suffocating blanket of obligatory pity, mixed with exhaustion. Whenever he did help me, Blair would magically appear, looping her manicured arm through his. “Come on, Cole, let’s go. Don’t waste your breath on her,” she’d coo. And Cole would turn and walk away with her. Leaving me kneeling on the linoleum, slowly picking up my scattered textbooks. I thought of the damp, rotting smell of the basement when we were six. I thought of the kidnapper’s belt lashing across Cole’s back. He had bitten his lip until it bled, refusing to cry out. I had thrown my tiny body over his, taking the hits, babbling nonsensically, my fingers making wild, frightened shapes in the air. I’ve got you, Stella, he had whispered into my hair, his tears burning against my skin. I’ll protect you. Always. The vow still echoed in my ears, but the words had turned to ice. 2 I spent three days suffocating in plain sight, a fish thrashing on dry land. The malicious glares, the whispers, the cruel pranks—they were killing me by a thousand tiny cuts. I had to clear my name. During the lunch hour, I slipped past the cafeteria and snuck into the security office. Mr. Henderson, the old guard who always smiled at me, was on duty. When he saw my frantic gestures and read the desperate plea I scribbled on his notepad, his eyes softened with a grandfatherly sadness. He didn’t ask questions. He just rolled his chair over to the monitors and pulled up the footage of the junior hallway from the afternoon the necklace went missing. Minutes ticked by. I stared at the screen so hard my eyes burned, my heart hammering against my ribs. And then, there it was. The classroom was emptying out. Blair lingered by the door, pretending to organize her tote bag. When the room was finally clear, she reached into her pocket, pulled out the silver chain, and swiftly shoved it deep into the front pocket of my backpack. She even smiled. A wicked, satisfied little smirk. It wasn’t me. It was never me. A tidal wave of euphoric relief and profound, agonizing vindication crashed through my chest. I started to shake. Tears spilled over my eyelashes, entirely unprompted. I pointed at the screen, looking at Mr. Henderson, letting out rough, broken sounds that were half-sobs, half-laughter. Mr. Henderson sighed heavily. He clipped the video file and transferred it to an old, battered flash drive. When he handed it to me, he patted my shoulder gently. I gripped the flash drive so tightly its plastic edges dug into my palm. It felt like a glowing coal. It was my weapon. My salvation. My immediate, undeniable instinct was to find Cole. I needed to run to him, to shake his shoulders and say, Look. I didn’t do it. She set me up. Even you were wrong about me. I practically sprinted toward the West Wing. Cole had detention duty today; he was supposed to be cleaning the science labs. The door to the chemistry lab was cracked open. I could hear the wet slosh of a mop and the loud, echoing laughter of the boys on the basketball team. I reached out to push the door open, but the words drifting into the hallway stopped me cold. They poured over me like a bucket of ice water. “Man, Cole, that was brutal,” one of the guys laughed. “The little mute is practically a pariah now. She just hides in the corner. Bet she won’t dare cling to you anymore.” “For real. Look at her, walking around like a kicked puppy, actually thinking you were gonna play her knight in shining armor forever. She’s a broken toy. What did she expect?” Their laughter was sharp, jagged glass in my ears. Then, I heard Cole’s voice. It was the voice I had memorized over a decade. The voice that had narrated my entire life. But right now, it sounded bored. Cold. Utterly inconvenienced. “She’s so damn loud. Always waving her hands around. Just looking at it exhausts me.” I heard the screech of a metal stool being kicked back. “Blair’s idea with the necklace was actually brilliant. I just rode the wave. Saves me from Stella constantly weaponizing that childhood trauma against me. She looks at me like I owe her my soul.” “Cole the savage! She definitely won’t have the guts to come near you now. Gotta hand it to Blair, that was a one-hit knockout.” “Hey, we should thank Cole for his generous sponsorship of the fake evidence!” …I couldn’t hear the rest. The hallway dissolved into a ringing, high-pitched static. The world narrowed down to Cole’s indifferent, careless words, looping endlessly in my mind. It wasn’t a sharp pain. It was a slow, agonizing flaying. So that was it. He wasn’t manipulated. He wasn’t blinded by Blair’s lies. He just thought the mute girl was annoying. A nuisance. An eyesore. And that totally oblivious, idiotic mute had been sprinting down the hallway, carrying a flash drive like a trophy, desperate to prove her innocence to him. Desperate to earn a shred of his guilt or an apology. How unbelievably pathetic. 3 I ran. I fled blindly until I collapsed in a forgotten stairwell, crying until my ribs ached and there was nothing left inside me but a vast, hollow crater. When I finally tried to leave, a shadow blocked the landing. It was Blair, flanked by two of her loyal disciples. She wore a sugary-sweet smile, but her eyes were venomous. “Well, well, Stella. Where are you rushing off to? Running away because you feel guilty?” I took a defensive step back, calculating a way around them. Before I could move, she lunged and snatched my backpack right off my shoulder. I threw myself forward to grab it back. “Ooh, she’s feisty today,” Blair mocked, sidestepping me smoothly. One of the girls beside her shoved me hard in the chest. I stumbled backward. They closed in, pushing and herding me down the hall until we reached the abandoned girls’ bathroom at the end of the corridor—a place slated for renovation, plumbing shut off, completely dead. With a hard shove, I hit the tiled floor inside. Bang. The heavy wooden door slammed shut. The metallic clack of the exterior deadbolt sliding into place echoed like a gunshot. I scrambled to my feet, pounding my fists against the wood. I threw my entire body weight against it, but it didn’t even rattle. Panic, dark and suffocating, began to rise in my throat. “Save your energy,” Blair’s voice drifted through the thick wood, dripping with malicious glee. “Let’s play a little game, Stella.” I slid down the door, my knees pulling into my chest. The air was freezing. Outside, I heard the faint beep-boop of a phone dialing. Then, Blair’s voice, sickly sweet and whining: “Hey… Cole? Where are you?” She was calling him. I held my breath, my fingernails biting half-moons into my palms. “Yeah, just got out of practice… I miss you,” she purred. “Oh, by the way. Your little mute shadow tried to corner me again just now. She is so annoying.” My stomach free-fell. Through the phone’s speaker, Cole’s voice filtered through the wood, tinny and distorted. “She’s bothering you again? Just ignore her. She’s acting like a psycho.” “Cole…” Blair’s voice softened, testing the waters. “Tell me the truth. Did you ever, even for a second, have feelings for her? I mean, she did lose her voice for you.” The silence on the other end of the line was absolute. Those few seconds stretched into an agonizing eternity. Against all logic, against all the shredded remains of my dignity, some pathetic, dying part of my heart waited for his answer. Then came his laugh. Short. Derisive. “Have feelings for her? Are you insane?” He paused, and when he spoke again, the sheer resentment in his voice made my blood run cold. “Honestly? Sometimes I think… if the kidnappers had just killed her back then, it would have been better. Just rip the band-aid off. Then I wouldn’t have spent the last ten years emotionally blackmailed, walking around like I owe her my life. I’m so sick of it.” He hesitated, then added, “But she’s stopped following me around. Leave her alone from now on, alright? You guys have been taking it a little far lately.” I didn’t hear whatever Blair said next. I didn’t hear the beep of the phone hanging up. There was only his voice, a drill boring directly into my brain, dragging out bloody, ragged chunks of my soul. If she had just died back then. The sacrifice that cost me my voice, my childhood, my entire identity—to him, it was a mistake. An inconvenience. He wished I had died so he wouldn’t have to feel guilty. For ten years, my very existence had been a burden he was desperate to shed. My stomach convulsed. I dry-heaved over the cracked linoleum, gagging on nothing, hot tears blinding me. “Did you hear that, Stella?” Blair whispered right against the crack of the door. The triumph in her voice was absolute. I bit down on my lower lip until I tasted copper. “The game isn’t over yet,” she laughed softly. “Let’s test his loyalty.” I heard the clicking of a keyboard. She was using my phone. As she typed, she narrated out loud: “Cole… please help me. Blair locked me in the old bathroom in the West Wing. They’re kicking the door. I’m so scared. Please come…” She was impersonating me. Then, she pulled out her own phone. “Now, for my turn.” She recorded a voice note, her tone oozing seduction. “Cole, I suddenly miss you so much. Meet me at our usual spot? I’ll be waiting~” She knocked on the heavy wood. “So, Stella. Place your bets. Is your knight coming to rescue the little mute, or is he coming to meet me?” “I can’t wait to find out.” The staccato click-clack of her heels faded down the hallway, leaving behind a silence so deep it felt like the bottom of the ocean. I beat my fists against the door until my knuckles bruised purple. I screamed until my ruined throat bled, making only the sound of rushing air. Hours bled into one another. The stench of stagnant water and rust filled my nose. The cold seeped into my bones. I curled into a tight ball in the darkest corner, shivering violently, my ears straining for the sound of footsteps that never came. No one came. Once again, Cole had chosen to leave me in the dark. 4 I was hovering on the edge of consciousness when the muffled shout of voices finally broke through the walls. A blinding flashlight beam cut across my face, making me flinch. And then, my mother was there. She dragged me into her chest, her whole body violently shaking, while my father stood behind her, his voice a low, terrifying rumble: “Who did this?!” I was limp, a broken ragdoll in my mother’s arms. I wanted to tell her I was okay, but I couldn’t make a sound. I just let the tears fall into her coat. The principal and the head of the junior class were crowded into the narrow antechamber of the bathroom. “Stella, what exactly happened here?” the principal asked, his face pale. Leaning against my mother, I slowly, painfully raised a heavy arm. I pointed directly at Blair, who was standing at the edge of the crowd, her hands over her mouth in a picture-perfect display of shock. Every eye in the room snapped to her. Blair recoiled, her eyes instantly filling with tears. “Stella, how can you point at me? I was at the public library with the girls until six, and then I went straight home! You can ask them!” She looked at the teachers, her lip trembling. “I know Stella is angry with me because of the necklace situation, but I would never do something like this. You have to believe me.” Her two friends immediately stepped up. “Seriously, Stella. Just because you got caught stealing doesn’t mean you can just accuse people of kidnapping you.” The principal frowned, looking around. “Are there security cameras in this wing?” Mr. Henderson, standing by the door, shook his head. “Renovations. Wires were cut weeks ago.” No cameras. No witnesses. To the adults in the room, my trembling finger just looked like the vindictive retaliation of a disgraced thief. My mother was sobbing openly now. “Stella, baby, look at me. Was it her? Did she do this to you?” I opened my mouth to force out a sound, to recreate the mocking cadence of Blair’s voice, when the crowd parted. Cole walked in. Blair immediately launched herself at him, gripping his jacket sleeve. “Cole! Tell them! We were together yesterday evening, right? We were at the café going over the AP Physics study guide.” Cole looked at Blair’s wide, pleading eyes. Then he looked at me. He reached out and gently pushed my pointing hand down. His voice was gravelly. “Yeah.” “We were together after school. Around eight, I walked Blair home.” He looked down at me, his eyes dark. “Stella, I know you’re upset, but trying to ruin someone else’s life over a grudge isn’t the answer.” It was eight o’clock yesterday when Blair had locked the door. The boy I had loved, the boy I had traded my voice for, was providing an alibi for my abuser. The last fragile, fighting ember inside my chest was crushed into dust. We stared at each other. His eyes were a storm of conflicting emotions. Slowly, carefully, he raised his hands and signed to me—using the private, shorthand signs we had invented as children, the ones no one else knew. Let it go. Blair didn’t lock you in. Her friends did. I know it’s bad, but they are her only friends. Just forgive them, okay? He paused. His fingers were stiff, moving deliberately. If you do… we can be together. We can date. Even now. Even after the basement, the locker rooms, the isolation, the dark bathroom. He still looked at me and saw a stray dog. A creature so desperate for his affection that I would trade my own dignity for a pat on the head. I didn’t look at him again. I just buried my face in my mother’s coat and let her lead me out of the building. That night, in the safety of my own room, I wrote down everything for my parents. Every word. And I asked them to pull me out of that school immediately. In the brief interim before my transfer was processed, Cole started acting strangely. He would leave my favorite fruits on my desk. He chased off anyone who even looked at me sideways. When Blair tried to approach me, he physically blocked her, telling her to back off with a coldness I’d never seen from him. He was trying to compensate. To offer me an umbrella long after I had already drowned. … For reasons he couldn’t explain, Cole felt a creeping, suffocating unease settling into his bones. Maybe it was because Stella had been too quiet lately. The wrong kind of quiet. A chilling stillness, like the ocean drawing back before a tsunami. He felt like something terrible was happening right in front of him, and he was completely powerless to stop it. He emptied his savings account and bought a necklace. A real one. Delicate white gold and a small, perfect diamond. He reasoned with himself: Stella was just hung up on the necklace thing, right? If he gave her something real, something ten times better than Blair’s cheap jewelry, she would let it go. They could hit reset. They could go back to the way they were. He showed up to school earlier than he had all year. He slipped the velvet box into the back of her desk and sat in his chair, his leg bouncing, waiting for the moment she walked in and found it. First period started. The seat remained empty. A gnawing anxiety chewed at his stomach all morning. He couldn’t focus on a single word his teachers said. Finally, during homeroom, the door opened. But it wasn’t Stella. It was Mr. Harrison, their advisor. “Just a quick announcement, everyone. Stella has transferred to a new district. She won’t be joining us for the rest of the year.”

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At noon, my online girlfriend sent me a picture of my lunch, asking for compliments. It was a spicy tuna poke bowl . [Baby, I ate lunch properly, I was so good, praise me~] I was about to send “Good girl” when I noticed four large red characters printed on the plate in the photo: AETHER INC.. This immediately made my heart skip a beat. Because… my company is also called “AETHER INC.”. I froze on the spot. No way, are you kidding me? My online girlfriend of over a year works at the same company as me?! 1 Lunch hour. I was sitting in the company cafeteria, mindlessly forking a spicy tuna poke bowl into my mouth—my absolute go-to comfort food. I was scrolling through my phone, thinking about the girl I’d been talking to online for over a year. She’d mentioned earlier that her workload was insane lately, the kind of grind that makes you forget to eat entirely. Being the dutiful virtual boyfriend, I’d sent a gentle reminder: No matter how crazy the deliverables get, don’t skip lunch. Be a good girl for me and go eat. Ten minutes later, my screen lit up. A reply from Kitten. Babe, look at me being all responsible. I’m eating. I’m being so good… don’t I deserve a little praise? Attached was a photo. It was a steaming hot bowl of ramen, the broth glistening under overhead lights. I was halfway through typing “That’s my girl” when my thumb hovered over the send button. I froze. There was something unsettlingly familiar about the photo. I zoomed in. It wasn’t the food; it was the tray. Printed in bold, unmistakable red letters on the rim of the dining tray was a logo: AETHER INC. My stomach dropped. Because… I work at Aether Inc. I sat there, stone-faced, my brain trying to process the statistical impossibility of this. You have to be kidding me. The girl I’ve been sexting, pouring my heart out to, and falling for over the last year… she’s in this building? She works at my company? I looked down at my own tray. Then back at the photo. Suddenly, the tuna didn’t taste so good. The Aether cafeteria is strictly employees-only. There was no way around it. My internet girlfriend was a colleague. I was speechless. 2 Babe? Where’s my praise? (Sad kitten face) I’m really listening to you. I’m eating well. (Crying cat GIF) Are you mad? Did I do something wrong? (Cat hiding in a corner) The notifications were stacking up, buzzing against my palm like a frantic heartbeat. I still hadn’t recovered from the shock. I knew we lived in the same city—San Francisco is small, but it’s not that small. But the same office building? The same payroll? It was a cosmic joke. I started typing: “Kitten, which department are you in?” Deleted it. “Wait, you work at Aether?” Deleted that too. I didn’t know what to say. If I asked, she’d ask where I worked. She’d figure out I was here too. She’d want to meet. And then what? The thought of walking past someone in the hallway, making polite copy-machine small talk while knowing we call each other “Baby” and “Kitten” at 2:00 AM, made my skin crawl with second-hand embarrassment. Before I could spiral further, another text came through. Babe, you’re ignoring me. Are you eating lunch with someone else?? Babe, seriously, my anxiety is spiking… talk to me. I couldn’t let her spiral. I needed to play it cool until I figured this out. Sorry, was just stuffing my face and didn’t see the screen. You’re such a good girl. Proud of you. That seemed to defuse the bomb. Yay! I’m all done now. Heading back to the grind. Love you! 3 I exhaled a breath I didn’t know I was holding and scanned the cafeteria. It had thinned out. Mostly guys from Engineering left, plus one older gentleman near the recycling bins. Definitely not her. I needed to think rationally. I needed a strategy. I had three burning questions: a. Who is she? b. Is she actually a decent person in real life? c. Once I find her, do I come clean? Keep it virtual? Or break up? (Because, let’s be honest, the potential for awkwardness here is nuclear.) I replayed our entire relationship in my head. We had been rigorous about privacy. No names, no addresses, no face pics. The most I’d ever gotten—at my persistent begging—were a few mirror selfies of her abs, cropped at the neck. That wasn’t much to go on. I couldn’t exactly walk around the open-plan office asking women to lift their shirts so I could compare oblique definitions. That was a one-way ticket to a lawsuit. 4 Back at my desk, I felt paranoid. I looked at the women in my department—Marketing. I shuddered. I spent my days fighting passive-aggressive email wars with half of them. If Kitten turned out to be Sarah from Accounting or Jessica from HR, I would simply have to fake my own death. I scrolled back through months of chat logs, hunting for clues. And then, I found something. Last month, she was agonizing over which travel mug to buy. Babe, I’m at Santana Row with my bestie. I need a new cup. Help me pick? I’ll buy you one too. She’d sent a dozen photos of high-end drinkware. I’d pointed her toward a limited-edition, hand-thrown ceramic tumbler from Heath Ceramics—the “Midnight Glaze” version. I had declined her offer to buy me one to protect my address. “Just knowing you chose the one I liked is enough,” I’d said. Smooth. She bought it right then. All I had to do was find the Midnight Glaze mug. I took a “lap” around the office, acting like I was stretching my legs. I walked past rows of cubicles. Nothing. I went back to my desk and texted her: Are you using that new mug today? She replied instantly. Yes! It’s right here looking pretty. Photo attached. There it was, sitting on a white desk. Weird. I hadn’t seen it. I was still analyzing the background of the photo when a Slack notification popped up on my desktop. It was Harper, my boss and the CEO of our division. Wes, there are still holes in the pitch deck. Come to my office. I walked into the glass-walled office. Harper was on her cell, her back to the door, voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Babe, I miss you too. Come by the office tomorrow.” “Oh, and Blaire is coming in tomorrow, so you can catch a ride with her.” “I just worry about you driving alone, you know?” “Okay, fine, listen to you. Drive safe. I have to go. Mwah.” I stared at the carpet, trying to make myself invisible. Gross. I had never seen Harper, the “Iron Lady” of Aether Inc., act so… soft. She hung up, cleared her throat, and spun around with her usual professional smile. “Wes. The investors looked at the draft this morning. Overall, they’re happy, but they have notes. I’ve left comments in the doc. Need you to turn it around ASAP.” “Got it, Harper.” I turned to leave, and that’s when I saw it. Sitting on the corner of her mahogany desk. The Heath Ceramics “Midnight Glaze” tumbler. It was identical. I felt like I’d been tasered. I froze, my feet rooted to the floor. Harper looked up from her laptop. “Wes? Something else?” Her voice snapped me out of it. I took a deep breath, forcing a casual expression onto my face. I pointed at the mug. “Nice cup, Harper. Where’d you get it?” She barely glanced at it. “Santana Row.” I felt the blood drain from my face. Harper smiled, her eyes crinkling in a way that was terrifyingly familiar. “Why? You like it?” I arranged my face into a mask of indifference. “Oh, no. Just making conversation.” I fled her office. My brain was screaming a single, horrific conclusion: Harper is Kitten. But wait. If I’m her online boyfriend… then who was she just calling “Babe” on the phone? Who was coming to visit tomorrow? Is Harper cheating on me? Holy shit. 5 The rest of the day was a blur. I was a zombie. I ignored Kitten’s texts. I couldn’t deal with it. I mechanically updated the pitch deck, filed it, and drove home in a daze. When I finally collapsed on my couch, my phone was full of notifications. Babe, what are you doing? Hello? Why are you ignoring me? Babe, you’re acting weird today. Did Kitten do something wrong? Tell me and I’ll fix it! You’re scaring me… My hands shook as I typed a reply. Kitten, is there anything you’re hiding from me? She replied instantly. No, babe! I’ve always been honest with you. Why would you ask that? Are you misunderstanding something? No, I typed. I needed to calm down. Okay. Hypothesis: Harper is Kitten. Fact: Harper was talking to a “Babe” on the phone who is coming to the office tomorrow. I needed to confirm if Harper was cheating. Maybe I misunderstood the phone call? Maybe “Babe” is a pet dog? (Unlikely). Then, a new text came in. By the way, babe, that new Valentino collection dropped. Help me pick a top? I want to wear it tomorrow! Photos attached. This was my chance. I deliberately chose a distinct, black knit sweater with the V-logo embroidered subtly over the left breast. It was specific. It was recognizable. If Harper walked in wearing that Valentino sweater tomorrow, she was Kitten. And if she was also meeting her “Babe,” then she was a cheater. And I was the other man. 6 The next morning, I walked into Harper’s office with the revised deck in hand. Harper was sitting on her sofa, sipping tea. She was wearing the black Valentino sweater. It was black as night, and the logo seemed to mock me. “Deck is ready, Harper.” She flashed me that warm, professional smile. “Great work, Wes. The lead investor is coming in this afternoon. Be ready.” “Will do.” I stared at the sweater. I had to be sure. “Never seen you in that knit before, Harper. It suits you.” She touched the fabric lightly. “Thanks. Bought it yesterday.” That was the nail in the coffin. Harper was Kitten. I went back to my cubicle and stared through the glass walls at her office. She had said her “Babe” was coming in today. I needed to see who this guy was. If it was what I thought it was, I had to end it. 7 An hour later, a guy walked in. Tall, handsome, confident. He strolled right into Harper’s office like he owned the place. I grabbed my water bottle and walked past the open door, slowing my pace. I heard laughter. “Babe, I missed you,” the guy said. “That sweater looks amazing on you. You really pull off black.” Harper’s voice was dripping with honey. “I’m glad you like it, babe. I picked it out specifically for today. Since we’re meeting your parents tonight… I didn’t want them to think I was too flashy.” “Are you kidding? I love you, so they’ll love you.” I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. She asked me to pick her outfit so she could wear it to meet her real boyfriend’s parents. What was I? A digital plaything? A dirty little secret? Rage, cold and sharp, flooded my chest. I pulled out my phone. I didn’t hesitate. You are absolutely rotten. We’re done. Block. Delete. 8 I watched through the glass as Harper held hands with the guy—let’s call him Carter—and walked him to the elevator. She didn’t look heartbroken. She looked radiant. I felt like the world’s biggest clown. Every sweet text, every late-night confession… it all turned to ash. The only silver lining was that I’d used a burner account. She didn’t know it was me, Wes, her employee. If she did, I’d have to move to Antarctica. I told myself to get a grip. I’m a professional. I’m not going to quit a good job over a catfish. I just needed to bury my feelings and focus on the money. 9 That afternoon, a message popped up from Harper. Wes, the investor reviewed the deck. She thinks it’s viable but wants you to come in and walk her through the strategy. I straightened my tie, swallowed my pride, and marched into the office. “Wes, meet our lead investor and, coincidentally, my best friend—Blaire. Don’t be nervous. Just tell her what you told me.” I ignored Harper and looked at the woman on the sofa. My eyes met hers, and the air left the room. Unlike Harper’s warm, chaotic energy, this woman was ice and steel. She radiated ‘old money’ and ‘don’t touch me’. She was wearing a sharp, black blazer with a plunging neckline that revealed a simple black camisole underneath. She held a teacup with slender, pale fingers, taking a delicate sip. Her presence was overwhelming. I audibly gulped. “Go on,” Harper nudged me. I went into autopilot. I delivered the pitch. Once I started talking work, the confidence returned. When I finished, Harper clapped. “See? He knows his stuff. Blaire, what do you think?” We both looked at the woman on the sofa. Blaire didn’t look at the screen. She was staring at my neck. “Mr. Davis,” she said, her voice cool and low. “That is a very unique silver chain.” My hand flew to my collar. I was wearing a slightly unbuttoned shirt today, and my silver chain was visible. Panic flared. When I bought this chain, I had sent a close-up photo of it to Kitten. Kitten, look at the new chain. Thoughts? Attached: Close up of my neck and collarbone. Kitten: Babe makes anything look good. If she recognized the chain… I glanced at Harper. She looked bored, just waiting for Blaire’s approval on the business deal. Right. She has a boyfriend. She’s meeting his parents tonight. She probably deleted my photos the second she looked at them. I was just entertainment. I buttoned my collar, hiding the silver. “Just something I picked up. Cheap trinket.” 10 Harper sat down next to Blaire. “Okay, enough about the jewelry. What’s the verdict?” Harper was looking at Blaire. But Blaire was looking at me. Intensely. Finally, she spoke. “Exceptional.” Harper let out a whoop and slapped Blaire on the shoulder. “I knew you’d like it! She’s tough to please, Wes.” I exhaled. Thank God. All those sleepless nights paid off. Blaire brushed Harper’s hand off her shoulder with a look of distaste, but then the corner of her mouth quirked up. She looked right at me. “Mr. Davis is clearly very talented.” It was the first time we’d met, but the weight of her gaze made my ears burn. Harper looked shocked. “Whoa. Blaire offering a compliment? That’s a collectors’ item. Usually, you just tear people apart.” Harper laughed. “But then again, Wes is great. Who wouldn’t praise him? Unlike you—you finally compliment a guy and it’s an employee. Maybe the breakup is making you soft? Oh, wait—” Harper covered her mouth. “Oops. Shouldn’t mention the ex-fiancé who dumped you. My bad.” My ears perked up. The Ice Queen got dumped? Who on earth would dump a woman who looked like a billionaire supermodel? Then, I felt a chill. Blaire was glaring at me. I looked down, feeling inexplicably guilty. Blaire turned her gaze to Harper. “Keep talking, and I pull the funding.” Harper raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! Sorry. You have zero sense of humor.” My heart was hammering against my ribs. “Harper, Ms. Vanderbilt… if that’s all, I’ll get back to work.” I practically ran out of the room. Back at my desk, Harper messaged again. Wes, are you free tonight? Blaire has a few lingering questions about the scaling strategy. She wants to take you to dinner to discuss. I typed back: No. If you go, I’ll double your end-of-year bonus. I’m a man of principles, but everyone has a price. Fine. Send the address. I put my phone down. Harper was off to meet her boyfriend’s parents, and I was being pimped out to her scary best friend for a bonus. Wes, I told myself, unlucky in love, lucky in money. 11 I arrived at the address. It wasn’t a business dinner spot. It was Lumière, one of the most romantic, expensive French restaurants in the city. Blaire was waiting in a private booth. “Sorry I’m late,” I said, checking my watch. “You’re not. I was early,” she said.

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The day we buried my father, the grief was a physical weight that finally crushed me. I collapsed right there on the manicured grass of Arlington National Cemetery. When consciousness slowly trickled back, the scent of lilies and damp earth filled my lungs. Then, I heard the voices through the ajar door of the cemetery’s reception room. It was Carter. Carter Kensington and his father, a high-ranking senator. “Carter, with the Secretary of Defense gone, the Harper family has zero political capital left in D.C. Have you thought about your engagement to the Harper girl…?” The older man was cut off. Carter’s voice drifted in, low, gravelly, and entirely detached. “I know, Dad. It’s bad timing this week, but give it a few days. I’ll find a PR-friendly excuse to break it off. Honestly, I’ve always preferred the Croft family’s daughter anyway. This just accelerates the timeline.” His words were surgical strikes. They bypassed my skin and splintered right into my ribcage. And just like that, the bleeding heart I’d carried for him stopped beating. It went entirely, numbly cold. It was in that quiet, devastating clarity that I decided to accept the arrangement my late father had secretly orchestrated—a marriage alliance with Nathaniel Prescott, the heir to a massive political dynasty up in New York. Later that evening, my mother, Caroline, took my trembling hands in hers. Her voice was a fragile whisper. “The President called. Out of respect for your father, he’s authorizing a full Secret Service motorcade to escort you for the move. Do you have a preference for who heads the security detail?” “Let Carter do it,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “We grew up together. I know he’ll get me there in one piece.” 1 My mother froze, staring at me as if searching for a fever. Tears immediately pooled in her exhausted eyes. “Mia, sweetie… are you still holding onto him? If you are, please don’t punish yourself like this.” I reached out, my thumb gently catching a tear before it could fall into her laugh lines. “I’m not a fool, Mom. I stopped caring about him the second I realized he never cared about me. Marrying into the Prescott family keeps the Harpers on the map. It ensures you’re protected here in D.C. It’s the smartest move we have left.” A knot seemed to loosen in her chest. She rubbed the back of my hand, exhaling a shaky breath. “Okay. If you’re sure. The Prescott representatives are waiting in the drawing room to finalize the date for next week. I’ll go give them our answer.” She stood up, smoothing down her black mourning dress. “Mom,” I called out before she reached the door. “Let’s keep Carter out of the loop on this. No need to give him a heads-up and invite unnecessary drama.” She gave me a helpless, weary sigh, nodded, and quietly closed the door. Once I was alone, a hollow ache bloomed in my chest. To say I felt nothing would be a lie. You don’t just erase a boy who took up the entirety of your teenage years. By mid-afternoon, I had our driver take me back to my father’s freshly covered grave. Dad used to rave about Nathaniel Prescott over Sunday dinners. A sharp mind, Mia. A good, steady man. Looking at the flowers piled on the dirt, I knew this would have made him proud. I sat there talking to the headstone until the D.C. sky bruised into shades of violet and gray. It was dark by the time the towncar pulled back into our Georgetown driveway. Parked idling by the gate was a sleek black SUV. Carter was already walking toward me, hands in his pockets, a devastatingly arrogant smirk playing on his lips. “Mia,” he said smoothly. “I just left your mother. I’ve come up with a flawless solution. A way for you to still have the life you were promised.” My heart stuttered. For a terrifying second, I thought my mother had cracked and told him about the New York arrangement. I forced my posture straight, locking my knees. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Carter closed the distance between us. He was close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his chest, smell the expensive scotch and leather clinging to his jacket. Heat rushed to my cheeks, an involuntary betrayal of my body. Seeing the flush, he leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “Vanessa Croft will be my wife on paper. But I’m going to set you up in a penthouse downtown. You can move in the same day she and I get married. I’ll even buy you the white dress. What do you say?” The heat instantly evaporated into a sickening, icy dread. It felt like a physical hand had reached into my chest and squeezed my lungs. I took a massive step back, staring at his smug, handsome face. “I say you’re out of your mind. It’s late. I’m going inside. Move, Carter.” But he didn’t take me seriously. He chuckled, stepping out of my way but maintaining that predatory gaze. “Mia, I broke the engagement. No one in D.C. high society is going to touch you now. We grew up together; I’m not just going to leave you out in the cold. My people are already drafting the trust fund papers for you. You’re going to be mine, one way or another.” He didn’t even wait for my answer. He turned, got into his SUV, and sped off into the night. Beside me, my family’s longtime driver brushed the gravel dust from his suit, muttering under his breath. “Thank God you aren’t marrying him, Ms. Harper. The staff here despises him. He acts like he’s the only man on earth who would want you.” I gave him a tired smile, told him to keep his voice down, and walked into my empty house. 2 Carter wasn’t bluffing. The very next morning, before I had even finished my coffee, a fleet of luxury delivery vans pulled into our courtyard. Movers in pristine uniforms began hauling in absurdly expensive, custom-made furniture and designer wardrobe boxes—all bearing the subtle logo of the Kensington family’s holdings. My mother looked out the window, her palms sweating. “Mia, the Prescott family’s wedding gifts are supposed to arrive any minute. If they cross paths… what do we do?” Before she could finish, she grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the grand foyer. Carter was already making himself at home on our velvet sofa. And sitting right beside him, draped in a Chanel tweed jacket, was Vanessa Croft. My mother opened her mouth to speak, but I squeezed her arm, stopping her. Carter caught the silent exchange. He stood up, offering a polite, practiced nod to my mother. “Caroline, there’s no need to thank me. The Kensingtons and Harpers have decades of history. I’m not going to let Mia become D.C.’s biggest tragic spinster. I talked to her last night. She’s going to move into the city property the same weekend Vanessa and I have our ceremony.” He glanced at Vanessa. Her smile was tight, but Carter looked absolutely thrilled with his own diplomacy. He patted the hand she had resting on his arm. “Caroline, Mia… Vanessa is incredibly understanding. She’s fine with the arrangement. She even insisted we buy your furnishings from the same Italian designers we’re using. You two are going to be great friends.” Vanessa shifted her weight, feigning grace, and walked over to take my hand. “Carter is right. We have to stick together, don’t we, Mia?” Thinking of the New York convoy arriving soon, my only goal was to get them out of my house before the collision. I plastered on a fake, compliant smile and nodded. Seeing that I wasn’t fighting back like last night, Carter’s ego inflated further. “The White House just gave me an assignment,” he boasted. “In three days, I’m heading up a security detail to escort some VIP bride across state lines. The second I get back, my mother is going to pick a date for the two of you to get settled.” My mother, catching my drift, smiled tightly and played along. Believing he had masterfully conquered the situation, Carter exchanged a few more pleasantries before leading Vanessa out the door. The moment they were gone, I stepped out onto the front porch. A group of wealthy D.C. socialites were walking their purebred dogs down our brick-lined street, their voices carrying over the wrought-iron fence. “…did you hear about the massive motorcade heading to New York? Someone is marrying into the Prescott family. I heard the engagement ring alone is worth a small country.” “They’re shutting down the interstate in three days for it.” One of them looked up, catching my eye. The gossiping smiles instantly vanished. “Keep walking, keep walking. Stay away from the Harper house. With the Secretary dead, they’re radioactive. Such a tragedy.” “I heard the Kensington boy dumped her. How embarrassing. Let’s cross the street.” They hurried away, pulling their dogs tightly against their designer leggings. These past few days had been a masterclass in human cruelty. But honestly? I didn’t care. The social exile worked in my favor. With no one paying attention to us, the massive Prescott family moving trucks slipped into our service entrance completely unnoticed. Sometimes, hitting rock bottom is the best camouflage you can ask for. 3 The next morning, the White House called. I dressed in a sharp, tailored blazer—the closest thing I had to my father’s formal uniform—and headed to the Oval Office. My stomach was in knots the entire drive. I kept wondering if Carter had pulled some string to sabotage me. When I was ushered into the room, the President was signing documents. He looked up, his expression softening, and walked around the Resolute Desk. “Mia. Your father gave his life serving this country. And now you’re moving up to New York to marry the Prescott boy. An alliance between our two greatest political families. Tell me, what can I do for you? Name it.” Hearing my father mentioned brought a sharp, stinging tear to my eye. I stood tall, though my voice wavered. “With my father gone, the Harper name isn’t what it was. My only fear is leaving my mother here alone, unprotected in this city.” His voice boomed, warm and commanding. “Done. In two days, you will leave D.C. with the security clearance and motorcade of a visiting head of state. And I will personally see you off from the Capitol steps. After that, I assure you, no one in this town will dare look down on your mother.” “Thank you, Mr. President,” I whispered, the crushing weight on my chest finally lifting. “That is all I could ever ask for.” Walking out of the West Wing, I felt like I could breathe again. Carter’s petty threats meant nothing now. But my relief was short-lived. Exiting the gates, I practically collided with Carter and Vanessa. Seeing me in my formal blazer, Carter leaned against the wrought-iron fence, a mocking grin on his face. “Well, well. Dressed up for the West Wing, Mia? Don’t tell me you went crying to the President because you aren’t happy with the penthouse I picked out.” Vanessa’s personal assistant, lingering behind them, scoffed. “As if complaining would do anything. Your dad is gone. The President doesn’t care about you anymore. My boss is being more than generous, and you’re just being ungrateful.” Vanessa gave her assistant a half-hearted scolding, but her eyes danced with malicious triumph. I was about to fire back when my eyes locked onto something in the assistant’s hands. She was mindlessly twirling a hand-braided paracord keychain. I had made that for Carter years ago. My fingers had bled weaving it. Now, it was a discarded toy for a stylist. Carter followed my gaze and cleared his throat, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “Mia, it dropped in the car. Chloe just picked it up. She’s young, she was just playing with it.” He was a terrible liar. The cord was frayed and worn down. She’d been using it for weeks. Vanessa, sensing the tension, turned and snapped at the assistant. “Give that back immediately! Why are you touching trash anyway? We have a whole vault of jewelry at home!” She lunged to snatch it, but the assistant fumbled, dropping the keychain onto the pavement. Looking at it lying in the dirt, I remembered the nights I stayed up making it. A quiet, pathetic ache flared in my throat. I knelt down to pick it up. Just as my fingers grazed the cord, Vanessa’s red-bottomed stiletto slammed down directly onto my hand. She put her entire body weight into it. A blinding, white-hot pain shot up my arm. The heel dug into my bones, breaking the skin. I gritted my teeth, yanking my hand back with violent force. Because I pulled away so hard, Vanessa lost her balance. She shrieked, tumbling onto the concrete. “Carter! Oh my god, it hurts! I think my wrist is broken!” she wailed. I looked down at my hand. It was an ugly, bloody mess. Before I could even stand up, Carter’s shadow loomed over me, his voice dripping with fury. “What the hell is wrong with you, Mia?! She was trying to help you get your stupid keychain back! If you didn’t want it, fine, but did you have to shove her? Do you really think she stepped on you on purpose? Could you not just endure it for one second?” I looked up at him. My hand was actively bleeding onto the White House pavement, right in his line of sight, and he was telling me to endure it because Vanessa took a clumsy fall. It was as if someone had taken a knife and dragged it slowly down my sternum. The sheer injustice of it forced hot, angry tears from my eyes. Seeing me cry, Carter’s tone softened slightly, pivoting to a patronizing lecture. “You have to learn to share my life, Mia. You need to fix this attitude if we’re all going to coexist. Go home. I’m taking Vanessa to the hospital.” He helped her up and walked away. A few steps down the sidewalk, Vanessa glanced back over her shoulder at me, a cruel, victorious smile curving her lips. 4 For the next two days, the gossip in our household staff was that Carter had spent every waking hour at the Croft estate, showering Vanessa with apologies and gifts. He didn’t have a spare second to bother us. It was a blessing. Under the radar, the rest of the Prescott family’s wedding gifts arrived, quietly filling our private storage. Then came moving day. I was fully dressed in a breathtaking, custom white gown, standing in my childhood bedroom. Just as we were about to leave, Carter suddenly barged into the house in his full tactical uniform. From the top of the stairs, I listened to him speak to my mother. “Caroline, I’ve got to run this detail for the White House. Tell Mia not to panic. The second I get back, I’ll move her into the city. Start packing her things.” My mother forced a smile, nodding politely until she managed to shepherd him out the door. As Carter walked out to the driveway, my favorite bodyguard, a guy who had been with our family for years, called out to him. “Commander Kensington! Big mission today?” Carter puffed out his chest. “Escorting some VIP bride out of state. The President authorized a presidential-level motorcade. Must be a cabinet member’s daughter. Don’t ask questions you don’t have the clearance for, kid.” Once Carter’s SUV pulled away, my bodyguard looked up at my window and shot me a wicked grin. “Ms. Harper, I would pay a million dollars to see his face in about twenty minutes.” He vanished around the corner. My mother helped me with my veil, and we slipped out the back. A private car whisked us to the secure staging area behind the Capitol building. Through the tinted windows of the Maybach, I could see Carter at the rear of the convoy, sitting tall in the lead security SUV, barking orders into his comms. Right on the dot, the President stepped up to the podium on the Capitol steps. His voice echoed across the plaza through the PA system. “Today, a daughter of D.C. travels to New York to join two of our nation’s greatest families. It is a profound honor to personally send off this brilliant young woman. May she and her husband have a lifetime of peace and prosperity!” Over the muffled radio chatter coming from the vehicles, I heard Carter’s voice over the open frequency. “Anyone get a visual on the bride? Who merits the President himself…” His voice cut out as the President’s booming announcement filled the air. “Please welcome the bride, daughter of our late, great Secretary of Defense… Mia Harper!” A shockwave of murmurs ripped through the gathered press and security detail. I lowered the tinted window just an inch. The wind caught the edge of my white veil, fluttering it against the glass. I looked back at the lead security SUV. Carter was staring right at my car. His face was the color of chalk.

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It took twelve years to get Gavin to say “I do.” Twelve years of playing the devoted shadow to a man who ruled the city’s underworld with an iron fist. But on the morning of our engagement gala, a single phone call from his “childhood friend” was all it took. Gavin abandoned me and a ballroom full of elite guests to chase her into the rainy night. Twelve years of sacrifice, all rendered worthless by a girl’s whimpering voice on the line: “If you don’t care about me, I’ll just disappear.” Inside my head, the System let out a cold, metallic sigh. [Host, would you like to switch your target?] I stood in front of the vanity, my fingers trembling as I tore the silk veil from my hair. The lace snagged on my skin, drawing a thin line of red. [Switch him,] I whispered. I cashed in every point I had earned over a decade to pivot to a new target: Dominic Cross, the enigmatic heir to the largest offshore criminal syndicate. To my surprise, the progress was dizzying. When I was cornered in a dark alley by Gavin’s enemies, Dominic deployed his entire security detail to pull me out. When I was hospitalized with a high fever, he stayed by my bed for three days, refusing to eat or sleep. The day he had to fly back to London to handle family business, he pulled me into his arms, his voice thick with a promise that felt like a lifeline. “Madeline, wait for me. When I get back, I’m giving you the wedding of the century.” I leaned into his chest, closing my eyes, truly believing that my long winter was finally over. Then, the System’s notification pierced through the fantasy like a shard of ice: [Target: Dominic Cross. Favorability Rating: -60.] On this scale, a stranger starts at zero. A negative number… that means loathing. I didn’t want to believe it. Using the passcode he gave me, I let myself into his penthouse and searched every corner. Deep in the back of a mahogany cabinet in his study, I found a heavy iron box. Inside were forty-four handwritten letters. Each one was signed by Dominic. And each one was addressed to a single name: Melanie Frost. 1 It was her again. A tear hit the parchment, blurring a dried, dark-red stain. It wasn’t ink. It was blood. I traced the jagged handwriting, and all I could think about was the blood I’d seen pouring from Dominic’s side when he took a knife for me. It was the same shade. At the time, I had pressed my hands against his wound, sobbing, while he whispered, “I’d bleed a thousand times over just to keep you safe.” But that -60 rating was a serrated blade cutting through the hallucination. The life-saving heroics, the tender whispers—it was all a performance. Desperate for some other explanation, I dug to the bottom of the box. There, I found a photocopied letter in Gavin’s unmistakable, sharp script. I had spent twelve years memorizing his handwriting; it was etched into my marrow. “Dominic, Madeline is stubborn. She’ll hate Melanie because I left her at the gala. She’s only using you to get back at me. I know you love Melanie, but for her sake, please make Madeline fall for you while she’s vulnerable. Keep her occupied so she doesn’t use her family’s influence to hurt Melanie.” “Melanie is fragile. It’s hard for her to be with me, and I’m too busy to protect her from every angle. I’m counting on you to keep Madeline away from her.” Every word was earnest, stripped of Gavin’s usual coldness. The alleyway ambush, the hospital vigil, the airport promise—it was all a scripted play. A grand conspiracy between two powerful men to safeguard their precious Melanie. I put everything back, my mind a hollow shell. As I walked out of the building, I ran straight into Melanie. She was wearing a custom-made Dior dress—a gift from Gavin—and her smile was a venomous thing. “Coming to bring Dominic more ‘warmth’?” she asked, her voice sugary and sharp. “He flew back overseas last week. Didn’t he tell you?” I looked at her, my lips twitching into a ghost of a smile. “He only said goodbye to you, then? If he’s that devoted, why didn’t you go with him?” Melanie’s face paled, her eyes instantly welling with tears. “Dominic and I are just old friends. Why do you have to be so cruel? My heart belongs to Gavin.” Before she could finish, a black Bentley screeched to the curb. Gavin stepped out, his strides long and aggressive as he shielded her behind him. He looked at me, his eyes freezing over. “Madeline, that’s enough.” I watched him stand there like a knight protecting a princess, and I started to laugh until the tears came. “One word of ‘bullying’ from her, and my twelve years of devotion become the joke of the town,” I said, my voice cracking. “The night of the gala, when you left me to chase her, did it ever cross your mind that I was the victim?” Gavin’s brow furrowed, a flicker of something—guilt, maybe—passing through his eyes, but his voice remained hard. “The past is the past. Stop clinging to it.” “You have Dominic now,” he added, dismissively. “Be content with that.” Melanie peeked from behind his shoulder, her eyes shimmering. “Madeline, it’s all my fault. Please don’t blame Gavin…” My phone rang. An international number. The moment I answered, Dominic’s voice came through the speaker, warm and honeyed. “Madeline, I’ve just landed. As soon as I settle the family affairs, I’m coming back to marry you. Wait for me, okay?” 2 Dominic came back earlier than expected. When he walked toward me, his eyes flickered toward Melanie for a split second before settling on my face. He smiled beautifully. “Madeline, I’ve missed you these forty days. I’m here to take you home.” If not for that -60 favorability and those forty-four letters written in blood, I might have drowned in his gaze again. The System’s electronic voice rang out, delivering a cold verdict: [Host, the mission has failed again. In forty-five days, you will be extracted from this world. ‘Madeline’ will cease to exist.] A strange sense of relief washed over me. “How do you define failure?” [The target’s love and their ‘first choice’ have never been you.] Twelve years plus forty days. I had hollowed myself out only to be the punchline of two carefully choreographed scams. Dominic took my hand, his thumb stroking my knuckles. He looked almost pained. “Madeline? You’re quiet. I swear, I’ll never marry anyone but you.” I caught the flash of jealousy in Melanie’s eyes and smiled thinly. “Fine,” I said. “In forty-five days. Let’s get married.” I looked at Gavin, my voice deliberate. “Mr. Westbrook, I expect you to be there. Bring your assistant, Melanie, with you.” Gavin’s jaw tightened. He looked conflicted, but finally, he nodded. “We’ll be there.” Good, I thought. By then, you’ll see my body, and you can finally be at peace. Dominic’s preparations for the wedding were almost frantic. Within half a day, the ring was chosen and the date was set. He bought a penthouse in the city center with a panoramic view of the skyline. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Madeline, I want the whole world to know you’re my only wife.” I leaned back against him, my fingertips touching the cold glass of the window. All this splendor, all this “devotion”—it was just a mirage. I resigned from my position at the research institute and stopped going out. But Melanie began visiting under the guise of “apologizing.” I didn’t want to see her, but Dominic always let her in. Watching him subconsciously shield her made my eyes ache. One afternoon, Melanie held my arm, offering a beautiful box of pastries. Her eyes were red. “Madeline, I was so immature before. I made these myself as a peace offering. Please, try one.” A faint, bitter scent of sandalwood wafted from the box. Sandalwood Toxin. I had spent years in pharmacology; I knew this poison. At first, it showed no symptoms. Slowly, it would corrode the internal organs. When it finally took hold, the victim would cough up blood and die in agony. There was no cure. I looked into her eyes and saw the naked calculation. I swiped the box off the table. The porcelain shattered. Pastries and shards scattered across the floor. Melanie’s eyes flashed with hatred before she dropped to her knees, sobbing. “Madeline, even if you hate me, why waste food? I know you’re a high-born socialite and I’m just a commoner, but I put my heart into this…” Before she could finish, my wrist was seized in a crushing grip. Dominic’s voice roared in my ear. “Madeline! Enough! Melanie went out of her way for you. You’ve gone too far!” I looked into his bloodshot eyes and felt a bone-deep exhaustion. “Dominic, are you sure you want me to eat this?” He frowned, his grip softening into a fake tenderness. “Madeline, just eat it. Don’t be petty. She’s younger than you—just let it go. Once we move overseas, we’ll never have to see her again.” I looked at him for a long time, then slowly nodded. I bent down, picked up a piece of cake that hadn’t touched a shard, and put it in my mouth. The cloying sweetness of the cream masked the bitter sting as it melted on my tongue. I only had forty-five days left anyway. I might as well give them a grand finale. I wanted to see Dominic’s face when he realized he was the one who forced the poison down my throat. 3 Seeing me swallow, Dominic wiped a bit of cream from the corner of my mouth. He smiled. “Good girl.” After that, Melanie brought sweets every day. Under Dominic’s watchful, “encouraging” gaze, I ate every single one. Twenty days passed. The toxin began to take hold. My skin turned a translucent, sickly white, and my lips lost their color. I started wearing heavy makeup to hide the fact that I was dying. Fifteen days before the wedding, Gavin’s firm held a New Year’s Eve gala. I had no choice but to attend. When Gavin saw me, his brow twitched. “Why are you so thin? You look terrible.” He seemed to regret the question immediately, turning away to leave me with nothing but his cold silhouette. How could he know? The poison was already mapping out my veins. Every breath felt like a dull blade twisting in my chest. Feeling faint, I found a quiet spot by the hotel’s ornamental lake to rest. Melanie found me almost instantly. Seeing my pale face, a look of triumph flickered in her eyes, though she maintained her mask of concern. “Madeline, why are you all alone? Let me keep you company.” I closed my eyes, ignoring her. She grabbed my wrist, her voice dropping to a whisper as she pointed toward the black, freezing water. “Tell me… if we both fell in, who do you think Gavin and Dominic would dive for first?” I opened my eyes and looked at her. My voice was eerily calm. “They’d save you. That’s why, if I go down, I’m taking you to the bottom with me.” Melanie flinched, stepping back into the old, decorative railing. The wood groaned and snapped. She grabbed my wrist as she fell, dragging me into the icy depths of the lake with her. The winter water hit me like a thousand needles. In my weakened state, I didn’t even have the strength to struggle. I just sank. Through the distorted surface, I saw two figures plunge into the water. Gavin and Dominic. A stupid, tiny part of my heart skipped a beat. A final, pathetic spark of hope. A second later, they both swam right past me. They didn’t even look. They both reached for Melanie. Madeline, what were you waiting for? Twelve years of devotion wasn’t enough to wake me up. I guess I needed the freezing water to finally clear my head. My consciousness faded into the black. When I woke up, I was in a hotel suite. My assistant was the only one there, her eyes red as she wiped my face with a warm towel. Across the room, on the sofa, Gavin and Dominic were flanking Melanie like twin gargoyles. She was wrapped in a plush blanket, sobbing into Gavin’s chest, the picture of a traumatized survivor. A surge of bitter pain hit my chest, and I began to cough violently. My assistant handed me a tissue. I pulled it away and saw a splash of warm, dark crimson. Blood. I balled it up and shoved it into my pocket. Gavin heard the noise and looked over, his eyes sharp with ice. He walked over and grabbed my wrist so hard I thought the bone would snap. “Madeline, Melanie almost went into shock. And the first thing she did when she woke up was beg me not to be mad at you. How can you be so malicious? Why did you push her?” The pain in my wrist radiated through my chest, triggering another coughing fit. Dominic stepped over and pried Gavin’s fingers off my bruised skin. He started rubbing my wrist gently, but his next words were a killing blow. “Madeline, stop the drama. Just apologize, and we can put this behind us.” The tears finally fell, hot against his hand. They never believed me. They would always choose her. I nodded slowly, my voice as thin as a reed. “Miss Frost… I’m sorry. It was all my fault.” It was just an apology. In fifteen days, ‘Madeline’ would be gone. Right and wrong wouldn’t matter anymore. 4 The night before the wedding, Melanie brought a custom couture gown to the penthouse. It was a stunning champagne-colored silk, encrusted with micro-diamonds. As I ran my fingers over the embroidery, I smelled it—that familiar, bitter scent of sandalwood. The toxin had been infused into the very fabric. I tried it on calmly. Melanie watched me in the mirror, her eyes burning with a jealousy she could barely hide. She handed me one last box of pastries, her smile sweet. “You’re getting married tomorrow. This is the last thing I made for you. I hope you and Dominic are happy forever.” I looked at the pastries and laughed. I took the largest one and swallowed it whole. The bitterness exploded in my throat. A sharp, agonizing cramp seized my stomach. I gripped the silk of the dress, forcing the metallic taste of blood back down. Melanie watched me finish, then leaned in, her voice a poisonous hiss in my ear. “You can’t win, Madeline. Gavin is mine. Dominic is mine. You should have died a long time ago.” I closed my eyes as she walked away. Tomorrow. Tomorrow it all ends. The day of the wedding was a spectacle. Dominic had rented out the entire top floor of the Grand Hyatt. Red silk draped the crystal chandeliers, and thousands of roses lined the aisle. A hundred-carat diamond crown sat on my head. The city was buzzing. They said the disgraced socialite had finally found her happy ending. Only I knew this wasn’t a wedding. It was a funeral. I walked down the aisle in my poisoned dress. The heavy makeup covered my ghostly skin, leaving only my eyes, flat and vacant. Dominic stood at the end of the carpet, his voice projecting through the speakers. “Madeline, you look breathtaking. After this, we’re leaving for Europe. Just us.” I nodded slowly, stepping onto the carpet of crushed roses. The guests stood on either side. Gavin was there, dressed in a sharp tuxedo, his gaze fixed on me with an unreadable expression. As I passed him, his lips moved. “Madeline… don’t…” A celebratory cannon went off, the roar drowning out his voice. I didn’t hear him, and I didn’t care to. Melanie stood next to him in a soft pink dress, smiling at me like I was a clown in a circus. I reached Dominic. In my mind, I whispered to the System: [Extract me when we exchange rings.] [Understood, Host.] The officiant’s voice boomed: “Do you, Dominic Cross, take this woman—” I reached out to take the ring from Dominic’s hand. At that moment, the toxin in the dress and the toxin in my blood met. A sensation like ten thousand needles piercing my heart surged through me. The blood I had been holding back erupted. I didn’t take the ring. I just looked at Dominic. The cheers and applause felt miles away. All I could hear was my own heart, slowing… stopping. My life was a candle flickering in a gale. Dominic’s smile froze. He reached out to steady me. “Madeline? Take the ring.” Gavin stepped forward, his face pale. “Madeline, stop playing games. It’s your wedding.” Melanie’s smile widened, her eyes gleaming with anticipation. I looked at the three of them one last time. I looked at Dominic and forced a bloody, jagged smile. The next second, a torrent of crimson sprayed from my mouth, splashing across the white silk of the dress like a dying rose. Blood poured from my nose and mouth, staining the diamond crown. My strength evaporated. I collapsed onto the red carpet. The crown tumbled away, diamonds scattering like glass shards. My hair spilled out, mingling with the roses and the gore. Every bone felt crushed. Every breath was a scream. The last thing I saw was Dominic’s face turning a horrific, ghostly white. His smile didn’t just fade; it shattered. He lunged for me, his voice finally sounding real for the first time. “Madeline! What’s happening?! Get a doctor! NOW!” Gavin’s face transformed into a mask of pure terror. He shoved Melanie aside and threw himself onto the carpet next to me. His hands shook as he reached for my face. “Madeline… why are you bleeding? What did you do?” I turned my head away from his touch. With the last fragment of my soul, I whispered into the silence of the room. “Gavin… I’ll never… bother you again…” “Dominic… you don’t have to write… those letters anymore…” “Melanie… the sweets… were delicious. You won. I’m finally… gone.”

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Four years. That’s how long I’d been with Miles. He was all sharp angles, wire-rimmed glasses, and a thoroughly glacial temperament. He had ruthlessly rejected an endless parade of women who threw themselves at him, his public excuse always the same: I have no interest in romance. I’m only focused on my research. I was the only one who didn’t take the hint. Eventually, the entire campus knew: Harper was an idiot, trailing after Miles like a lost puppy day in and day out. I remember the day it all culminated. It was pouring. After my nth rejection, I slipped and wiped out right into a muddy drainage ditch. I crawled out looking like a drowned rat and slumped against the wet hedges by the science building. I pulled out my phone and called my best friend, Stella. “Oh my god, he’s just…” I wailed into the receiver. “Lose my number,” Stella replied, and hung up. … The next morning, I was the top trending topic on the university’s anonymous forum: A Day in the Life of a Hopeless Romantic. Attached were several photos, including a spectacularly pathetic shot of me sitting by the curb, drenched in the rain. There were thousands of comments underneath: Pretty face, absolutely zero brains. Hey gorgeous, consider me instead! I can… Beauty paired with literally anything else is a killer combo, but sadly, she’s got nothing else going on upstairs. But nobody saw it coming. Through sheer, unadulterated persistence, I actually landed the ultimate prize. The problem was, not every prize is exactly what you bargained for. After Miles and I got together, he rarely smiled, and he was always, invariably, busy. I’ve always been someone who craves noise and life. Stella used to drag me to every party in the city, but then she and the rest of our circle started coupling up, settling down. That left me in a relationship that felt dangerously close to being a widow. He didn’t show up on my birthday. He had been bogged down with a massive field project and had essentially been MIA for an entire month. I bought a cake anyway. I sat in the quiet apartment, mentally counting the minutes, my chest tight with the stubborn, foolish hope that he might make it home early. The second the clock struck midnight, I made a wish to the empty room and blew out the candles myself. Miles came home hours later. It was raining again. He stood in the entryway, radiating the damp cold of the storm, the shoulder of his jacket entirely soaked through. I broke up with him. I had a million reasons loaded in the chamber, but looking at his exhausted, emotionally detached face, the words just died in my throat. Honestly, he wasn’t terrible to me. Stella always told me I was self-sabotaging. I couldn’t deny it. But I also couldn’t stomach the sudden, month-long disappearances. I was left alone to work, to wander the city by myself. Whenever I sent him a text buzzing with good news, it vanished into a void. Occasionally, I’d get a sterile reply hours later: Busy. Let’s talk when I’m back. When I was upset, I was always guarding a phone that wouldn’t ring, dialing his number over and over just to stare blankly as it went straight to a dead-end voicemail. I began to deeply question myself. Why had I chased him so blindly back then? What was the point of all this? “I deserve better.” That was the only reason I managed to articulate. I sounded like an insatiable, demanding girlfriend. Miles stood there in the quiet apartment. He listened to me, was completely silent for a long moment, and then simply said, “Okay.” The night we broke up, I threw every single memento of our relationship into the dumpster. That included a Prada crossbody bag, the strap of which I had accidentally ripped off while frantically using it to bludgeon a cockroach to death. I got black-out drunk that night. The next morning, battling a skull-crushing hangover, my phone rang. Stella told me he was getting married. Running on pure, chaotic adrenaline, I dragged my hungover, disheveled self straight to the front doors of The Ritz-Carlton. Stella was trailing right behind me, tugging desperately at my arm. “Harper, please do not do anything crazy. It’s the man’s wedding day…” It was a big day, sure. But whether it was going to be a happy one was entirely up for debate. I calmly handed over my cash gift envelope at the reception desk and took a seat in a dimly lit corner. I wanted to see exactly what kind of blind, delusional woman had agreed to marry him! The soaring notes of the wedding march swelled through the ballroom. The bride and groom made their grand entrance. I saw the groom’s back. He looked… a little heavier. Wow, leaving me must have done wonders for his mental health, I thought bitterly. It’s barely been a day and he’s already gained weight. Thankfully, the orchestra was loud enough to drown out the sound of my sobbing. God, I loved him so much. Even knowing he had seamlessly replaced me—probably cheating on me while we were together—I still couldn’t let him go. Stella shoved a cloth napkin over my mouth to muffle my wailing. The tragic, suffocating aura of my grief seemed to infect everyone at our table. A few of the guys sitting next to me even had red-rimmed eyes. That was the exact moment I realized the table we were sitting at had a small placard that read: Ex-Girlfriends. I sat there, looking like a complete trainwreck, watching them pledge their lives to each other. Watching them exchange rings. Watching them kiss. I felt like I had fed the best years of my youth to a stray dog. Seeing an opening during the dinner service, I decided to make the most of it. I pulled out photos of myself on my phone and started taking shots with every single person at the table, trading war stories and pouring our hearts out. By the time the newlyweds began making their rounds for the toasts, I had mostly pulled myself together. I wanted to see the look on his face. Let’s see how he handles a table full of ghosts from his past. The bride floated over, champagne flute in hand, a perfect, practiced smile plastered on her face as she made introductions. Then her eyes landed on me, and the smile completely froze. I let out a cold, sharp laugh. I extended my hand. The words, Hi, I’m his ex, were already locked and loaded on the tip of my tongue. Suddenly, the bride dug her manicured nails brutally into the groom’s arm. Her words hissed out through gritted teeth. “I thought you said you didn’t have any exes?” The groom whipped his head around. For a split second, our eyes locked. Who the hell is this? Where is Miles? This guy was a little stockier. His features lacked the sharp, striking intensity of Miles’s face. He looked… softer. But the resemblance was uncanny. The immediate, sobering realization hit me: I crashed the wrong wedding. Suddenly, someone seized my wrist, yanking me hard out of my chair and off to the side. A chillingly familiar, calm voice drifted over me. “What exactly are you doing here?” I blinked stupidly, tilting my head up to meet Miles’s quiet, dark eyes. He was wearing a sharp, tailored suit. Pinned to his lapel was a boutonniere identifying his role—Brother. A brother. A twin brother. The groom was his twin brother! … This was entirely too absurd. Stella has terrible vision. First thing tomorrow, I am booking her an appointment with an optometrist. A few minutes later, Miles dragged me up to the hotel’s rooftop terrace. I was standing there in a little black slip dress, my hair an absolute rat’s nest, eyeliner tracks streaming down my face like war paint. I sniffled loudly, the tears flowing like a river. “They told me you were getting married!” I still lashed out at him anyway. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you had a twin?!” Miles pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to me. When I refused to take it, he let out a heavy sigh and stepped in to wipe my face himself. I completely lost my grip on reality, my voice cracking. “Did you ever even plan on marrying me?! What the hell was I to you?!” Since my Prada bag was ruined, I had brought a much smaller, cheaper clutch. I started whacking it against his chest. It probably felt like a mosquito bite to him. “Stop moving.” He grabbed the little clutch out of my hand, his tone shifting into that cold, commanding register I knew too well. “Settle down.” That only made me cry harder. I shoved a finger aggressively against his lips, furious. “Don’t you talk! Let me finish!” “Do you want to get back together?” Miles cut right through my hysterics, taking the lead. I stared at him, hiccuping through a sob. For a long second, the silence hung heavy before my utter lack of backbone betrayed me. “…Yes.” “But…” My voice wavered, thick with tears. “Can I get my cash envelope back? I don’t even know your brother…” As we walked out of the hotel lobby, the humiliation began to set in, burning hot under my skin. Miles had asked me how much I put in the envelope. “Five hundred bucks,” I muttered. He immediately Venmoed me the money. But this whole transactional dynamic made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. My dramatic streak flared up again. I instantly declined the transfer and insisted, stubbornly, that I needed my actual physical cash back. Miles humored me. He walked back inside with me to track it down. At the reception table, my envelope stuck out like a sore thumb—it was absurdly thick compared to the others. I spotted it instantly and lunged for it. But Miles was taller, his reach longer. He pressed his hand down on the envelope right over my shoulder, picking it up before I could. “You’re too good to me,” he remarked dryly. Then, he flipped the envelope over. I watched the array of complex emotions flicker across his normally stoic face. One eyebrow arched up as he read the messy scrawl on the back, pronouncing every word with agonizing clarity: “Miles is a piece of shit.” I ducked my head, though my petty streak wasn’t entirely satisfied. “Well, you are a piece of shit,” I mumbled. He spoke with excruciating slowness. “Every word is worth its weight in gold, I see.” I tilted my head up, my little clutch knocking rhythmically against my shin. I watched as Miles calmly pocketed the envelope. My eyes went wide. “Are you seriously that broke?!” Miles leaned down, plucking the clutch from my grip with infuriating ease. “Are you done insulting me?” “No.” He nodded. “That’s why I’m keeping it. Consider it compensation for being called a piece of shit.” I realized I’d been backed into a rhetorical corner and jumped up, trying to snatch it from his pocket. “I wasn’t finished yelling at you!” Miles held the envelope high out of my reach, then suddenly dipped his head, pressing a firm kiss to my lips. “Go ahead. Keep yelling. I’m listening.” Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but my ears betrayed me, burning bright red. “You can’t just bully me because I’m not as articulate as you,” I said, my voice thick with lingering tears. This time, Miles actually laughed—a rare, entirely unapologetic sound—and took me home. His apartment looked exactly the same as the day I left. It was a disaster zone. Miles clearly hadn’t even bothered to clean up. My fuzzy pink slippers were still sitting exactly where I’d left them on the shoe rack in the entryway. My rabbit-eared mug was sitting on the coffee table. The half glass of milk I’d left in it was gone, the mug scrubbed impeccably clean. My silk nightgown was draped haphazardly over the arm of the sofa—it must have been pulled straight from the dryer and never folded. I stood rooted to the spot in the entryway, feeling completely numb. Miles broke the silence. “Have you eaten?” I hadn’t eaten a single thing all day. Now that the adrenaline and the crying had burned off, I was actually starving. But we had literally just been in the middle of a screaming match. My pride wouldn’t let me just say yes. Instead, I became his shadow, following him around the apartment. Wherever he went, I went. Right outside the bathroom door, Miles stopped dead in his tracks. He shot me a cold look over his shoulder. “Care to join me?” I snapped out of my daze and scrambled backward a few steps. Miles leaned down so we were perfectly eye-level. His gaze was sharp, unyielding. “Harper, if you’re going to keep throwing these little tantrums, I don’t mind finding a different room for you to throw them in.” I caved instantly. “I’m hungry,” I mumbled. “Who’s hungry?” I turned my head away, refusing to meet his eyes. “I… I’m hungry.” Whatever happened, I refused to die on an empty stomach. The faintest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Miles’s mouth. He straightened up. “Wait here.” People always said I was domestically useless. I couldn’t boil water if my life depended on it. After Miles and I started dating, I had a sudden burst of inspiration one afternoon. I bought all these ingredients and somehow managed to put together a massive, elaborate dinner for him. I rested my chin on my hands, beaming, and asked him how it was. Miles took one sip of the tomato bisque. He looked at me and said, “It’s good. Never make it again.” Right then and there, I decided Miles was the one. He was gorgeous, in incredible shape, cooked like a chef, and treated me well. Once we got married, this man would be entirely mine. Who could have predicted he’d just vanish for a month like a ghost? Did he even want to marry me? Stella told me I was nothing more than a convenient distraction to him. But doesn’t a distraction deserve to have dreams too? As we ate the meal he threw together, I kept stealing glances at him. I nudged his knee with my foot under the table. His chopsticks paused mid-air. “Do you want to die now, or wait until you’re full?” I’d prefer neither, honestly. “Did you… did you ever actually think about marrying me?” I knew it was an incredibly awkward question to drop out of nowhere, but I asked it anyway. “If you want to get married, we can. When?” I had played out a hundred different responses in my head. That was the absolute last thing I expected him to say. I sucked in a sharp breath, covering my mouth with both hands. “Wow. What a massive surprise.” Miles watched my theatrical performance with utter, deadpan indifference. Feeling slightly foolish, I dropped my hands and bit down on my spoon. “You’re supposed to propose first. There needs to be a ring, at the very least. And we have to meet the parents…” Miles set his chopsticks down. “…And we need to pick a honeymoon destination.” Miles stood up from the table. “…A villa by the ocean.” Miles walked around the table and scooped me up into his arms in one fluid motion. I shrieked, instantly throwing my arms around his neck to steady myself. Miles pinched the back of my neck lightly, right at the pressure point, like handling a unruly kitten. “Keep dreaming. You can have all of that when you’re asleep.” “No! Let me finish! Miles, you never listen to me!” He carried me straight into the bedroom, kissing me to shut me up, spinning us around before dropping me onto the mattress. Miles’s mattress was notoriously firm. Every time I slept on it, I woke up feeling bruised. I kicked my legs in protest. “I am not laying on the bottom!” Miles stopped. He looked down at me with that infuriatingly stoic expression. “A firm mattress is essential for spinal alignment.” “My spine is fully aligned! I’m done growing!” Miles lowered his gaze slowly to my neckline. “Debatable.” Without entertaining another word of protest, he pressed me down into the sheets. I obviously wasn’t going down without a fight. “This is psychological manipulation!” Miles casually pointed to the constellation of scratches and faint bite marks already littering his collarbone and neck. “If this is manipulation, I must have manipulated an absolute feral cat.” With that, he flipped us over, dropping onto his back and giving me exactly what I wanted. Even then, I was still utterly exhausted by the end of it. At first, I had the energy to be wild and combative, but it didn’t take long before I was completely quiet. Life got happy again after Miles came back into the picture. He was just as busy as before, but now he spent the vast majority of his day working from his laptop at the kitchen island. I constantly tried to bridge the gap and find common ground. One day, I leaned over his shoulder, stared at a ridiculously complex architectural blueprint, and gasped, “Oh my god! It looks exactly like Hello Kitty!” He very gently picked me up, carried me into the bedroom, and we didn’t emerge for two hours. I learned my lesson. I rarely dared to interrupt his working hours after that. One lazy afternoon, I was curled up on the couch rewatching an old, tragic early-2000s romance movie. I had cried my way through half a box of tissues. I sniffled, turning my head to look at Miles, who was laser-focused on his screen. “Do you love me?” Miles, the man who had agreed to marry me without batting an eye, actually hesitated. He peered over the top of his laptop, the wire-rimmed glasses sliding slightly down his nose. He looked at me with an intense, deadly serious expression. “Harper, do you even know what love is?” I felt completely blindsided. We’ve been dating for years, and you’re dropping this question on me now? Was that supposed to be an insult? I padded over barefoot, leaned down, and planted a loud, wet kiss right on his thin lips. I looked him dead in the eye and said with absolute conviction, “I love you.” Miles just shook his head. He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me close, but didn’t say another word. I started overthinking everything. “Is it possible I don’t actually love him?” When I floated the theory to Stella later, she rolled her eyes so hard I thought they’d get stuck in the back of her head. “You think what you feel is love? Please. You’re just thirsty. You’re obsessed with his body and the fact that he cooks for you. I’m not trying to insult you, but Miles literally keeps you fed and pampered like a house cat. What have you ever actually done for him?” I scowled, defensive. “I… I… I let him kiss me! I hug him! I give him—” “Exactly. You’ve never put any actual emotional labor into it. Go home and seriously reflect on your life choices.” That evening, I got caught right in the middle of rush hour traffic. Stella and I were sitting in the back of an Uber, casually gossiping. As we went through a busy intersection, a sedan blew a red light. Our driver swerved, couldn’t clear it in time, and slammed hard into the guardrail. The impact caused a massive pile-up behind us. The force of the crash nearly knocked my soul straight out of my body. By the time we made it to the ER, Stella realized her phone was gone. She panicked and borrowed mine to call her family. I was left sitting alone on a crinkly paper bed in an examination room, letting a nurse clean and bandage a nasty gash on my forehead. When I finally wandered out to the hallway, I heard Stella was stuck in line at the billing department. I just sort of aimlessly paced the corridor. A gurney went flying past me, a swarm of doctors shouting about a code blue. A second later, a voice rang out over the chaos. “Family of Harper!” “Here!” I yelled back. “And what is your relation to the patient?” the nurse asked the man standing at the desk. The man didn’t miss a beat. “I’m her husband.” The voice sent a shock down my spine. I whipped my head around. Miles was standing at the nurses’ station, his face entirely devoid of color. “Alright, I just need you to verify some information for me.” My brain was still scrambled from the crash, but all I registered was the word husband. Something visceral slammed against my ribs, desperate to break free. Without thinking, I practically skipped toward the desk, chirping loudly, “Husband!” Miles froze at the sound of my voice. He snapped his head around, his eyes locking onto me instantly. The moment he saw me, his eyes went pitch black. He closed the distance between us in three massive strides. I opened my mouth to say, How did you know I was here? Before I could get a word out, Miles grabbed me by the arms, dragging me flush against his chest. A second later, a torrential downpour of pure fury unleashed on me. “Where the hell is your phone?! You’re in an accident and you don’t call me?! You just wait until I track you down?! What are you doing wandering around a massive hospital by yourself?!” I was too stunned to speak. My own parents had never spoken to me with that kind of terrifying, commanding intensity. Miles just had. My bottom lip jutted out. The terror and shock I had been suppressing since the crash suddenly bubbled over. It mixed with a sudden, overwhelming wave of grievance, turning instantly into hot tears that streamed down my face. God, I had been so terrified. After the crash, people were screaming in the street, some drivers were physically fighting. I had just stood there shivering on the side of the road, holding my bleeding forehead, terrified the paramedics wouldn’t see me and would just leave me behind. Miles’s shirt smelled exactly like the floral laundry detergent I always bought. I buried my face in his chest, wiping my snot on his shirt, and mumbled into the fabric, “Miles, please stop yelling at me. I was so scared.” Miles stopped breathing for a second. His massive hand slowly came up, resting heavy and warm against the back of my head. “When did the doctor say you need the dressing changed?” “The 8th.” Because of the concussion and the stitches, I had to take sick leave. I didn’t have to go back to my job at the preschool for an entire week. The director called to check on me, telling me I worked too hard anyway and that I’d get full paid time off. I completely morphed into a couch potato. Between the lingering headaches and my general lack of energy, all I did was sleep. I didn’t know if I was imagining it, but Miles seemed to be sleeping a lot more too. He’d pull me into his arms, and we’d sleep from noon straight through until the sun went down. One night, Stella sent me a link. I opened it to find a Cosmopolitan-style article: 99 Ways to Capture Your Boyfriend’s Heart. Since I got you yelled at by Miles the other day, consider this playbook my apology. I had always thought things like this were stupid. I mean, I was adorable. How could he not be obsessed with me? But then I remembered yesterday, when Miles had looked me dead in the eye and asked, Do you even know what love is? A dark cloud of doubt settled over me. Maybe Miles really didn’t love me the way I thought he did. Time to put in the work! Rule 1: Cook for him. Absolutely not. Pass. Rule 2: Take an interest in his hobbies. Find common ground. Right. Looking for Hello Kitty in architectural schematics. Pass. Rule 3: Never joke about breaking up. Too late. Pass. Rule 4: Be gentle with him. I glanced over at his nightstand. The cash envelope from the wedding was still sitting there, my jagged handwriting screaming Miles is a piece of shit in black ink. Pass. Rule 5… I ended up falling asleep. When I woke up, my phone was placed perfectly on the nightstand, and Miles was sitting in the armchair next to the bed, reading. I wiped a trail of drool from my chin and reached across Miles to grab my phone. My arm blocked his view of the book. Miles sighed heavily. “If you’re planning on putting any of those ‘tactics’ from that article into practice, I highly recommend you don’t.” I froze, phone in hand. “Why?” Miles snapped his book shut and pulled me by the waist until I was flush against him. “Because applied to you, that list is essentially 99 Ways to Get Dumped.” I thought about it for a second, pulled my arm back, and deliberately tugged on the collar of his shirt. “You’re right. I think the direct approach is much more effective.” Miles looked down at me, his lips pressed into a tight, thin line. His eyes were slowly darkening with heat. “Is your head feeling better?” he murmured, brushing a thumb lightly near my bandages. I tossed my hair over my shoulder, fully draped across his lap, grinning like an idiot. “Miles, let me take very good care of you.” He scoffed, completely ignoring my absolute lack of subtlety. In three swift motions, he stripped me down and dragged me under the covers. Early the next morning, I was still drifting in that hazy space between sleep and waking when I heard Miles’s phone ring. He answered it briefly, then stepped out into the living room. My feminine intuition immediately sounded the alarm. Something was off. I padded out to the living room just in time to catch the end of the conversation. “Let’s find time to meet,” I heard a woman’s voice say faintly through the speaker. Miles was standing on the balcony, his back to me. “Alright. I’ll make a reservation.” He hung up the phone. When he turned around and saw me standing there, his expression was completely unreadable. I threw my hands up. “Do you have anything you want to share with the class?” Miles stared at me in silence for a long time before simply saying, “No.” Fine. Perfect. He was sneaking around having secret dinners with other women! That night, I went to a massive outdoor music festival with Stella and a few other girls. The heavy bass rattled my teeth, the chaotic, euphoric energy of the crowd washing over me. Stella leaned in close. “Where’s Miles tonight?” “Don’t know. Don’t care.” Thinking about the secret phone call made my blood boil, so I chose to just shut it out. I screamed the lyrics until my throat was raw. The festival didn’t wrap up until almost 1 a.m. Throughout the night, a handful of guys tried to hit on me, but Stella blocked them like a bouncer, flashing a brilliant fake smile. “Sorry, boys. She’s extremely taken.” My ego was through the roof. “See?!” I shouted over the noise. “I have absolutely no shortage of options!” Stella rolled her eyes. “With the way your brain is wired, unless you lock down someone rock solid, any random toxic guy could play you like a fiddle.” Stella’s fiancé, Colin, picked her up, and they were nice enough to drop me off right outside my apartment building. At this hour, the only thing open was the 24-hour convenience store on the corner. I pushed the glass door open, lingering by the feminine hygiene aisle for a minute, before catching the cashier giving me a sympathetic “I’ve been there” look. I pivoted hard, marching over to the refrigerated section. I grabbed two cartons of whole milk, a dozen eggs, and then, completely ignoring the cashier’s bewildered expression, pointed at a small bag of premium short-grain rice. “How much for this one?” He gave me an awkward smile. “Oh, that’s just a promotional giveaway.” I fluttered my eyelashes. The poor kid turned violently red. A few minutes later, I walked out of the store clutching my free bag of rice like a trophy. The lights in Miles’s apartment were completely off. I hadn’t expected him to be home anyway. Taking another woman out to dinner and lying to my face about it? He had another thing coming. The second he walked through that door, I was dumping him. I stepped into the pitch-black entryway. Before I could even reach for the light switch, a heavy body crashed into mine, spinning me around and pinning me hard against the reinforced steel of the front door. SLAM! The door rattled in its frame. The grocery bags slipped from my hands, everything crashing to the floor. “Ah! Mmm—” The hand I tried to use to grab my phone was suddenly seized and pinned firmly behind my back. “Harper. Where were you?” I froze instantly. It was Miles. He had been drinking. The sharp, bitter scent of alcohol hung heavy in the dark space between us. His massive frame pressed flush against mine. He leaned down, his lips brushing against the sensitive skin beneath my ear, biting down with a possessive, punishing pressure. “Where. Were. You?” I swallowed hard, my heart hammering against my ribs. I slowly, cautiously wrapped my free arm around his waist. “Did you have a few drinks?” I asked softly. He kept his head buried in the crook of my neck, refusing to say a word. He seemed… incredibly upset. “Ah! Wait!” His hand slipped beneath the hem of my dress, his fingers finding the zipper with practiced, terrifying efficiency. “Miles! I’m exhausted! I don’t want to!” His hand stopped instantly. His breathing was ragged, hot against my skin. He went completely rigid. When he finally spoke, his voice was laced with an icy, devastating bitterness. “Are you tired of playing with me?” “You used to just want my body, but now you don’t even want that, do you?” Playing? Playing?! Has he lost his damn mind?! He let out a hollow, mocking laugh, gripping my chin and forcing my face up, kissing me with an aggressive, desperate intensity. “What do you want to do then? Break up?” If this had been the old me, I would have thrown a massive fit and screamed, Yes! But inexplicably, my intuition kicked in. Every instinct screamed: Do not provoke the lion. You will not survive. I swallowed the venomous retort hovering on my tongue. Instead, I wrapped both arms securely around his neck, gently rubbing his back. “Did you eat dinner?” I asked softly. He stopped moving entirely. He stood frozen against me in the dark for what felt like an eternity. When he finally spoke, his voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper. “Four years. Four years, Harper, and this is the first time you’ve ever asked me if I’ve eaten.” Was that… the faintest trace of joy in his voice? It made me feel like an absolute monster. Now that I thought about it… he was probably right. “Well, did you eat? Don’t give me that attitude! If you’re hungry, use your words!” I snapped back, perfectly mimicking the stern tone he usually used on me. It felt incredibly validating. Miles answered instantly. “No.”

I am the apex predator of the deepest trenches of the ocean, yet for seven years, I played the role of a pathetic, fragile trophy wife on dry land. I bore three sons for a ruthless billionaire. Every single one of them was a certified genius. And every single one of them was a cold-blooded ingrate. My husband found me utterly boring, treating me like a decorative canary in a gilded cage. My three sons found me useless, openly calling me a parasite who merely leached off their father’s greatness. Until the day the moisture began to evaporate from my veins, and the sharp edges of my scales finally pierced through my human skin. Right in front of their eyes, I threw myself into the raging, black waves. When my colossal, iridescent silver-blue tail breached the surface and summoned a tidal wave that eclipsed the sky, they entirely lost their minds. 1 I was a siren masquerading in high society. Seven years ago, I saved a man from drowning in the violent undertow of the Pacific. His name was Harrison Crawford. To repay the cosmic debt of altering his fate—and to maintain my human legs—I paid an agonizing price. I became perpetually sickly, anemic, and in the eyes of his elite circle, entirely “useless.” In the cutthroat world of corporate America, Harrison was known as the Grim Reaper of Wall Street. He was ruthless, volatile, and terrifyingly brilliant. Everyone whispered that I was just the most obedient pet he kept locked in his sprawling, cliffside Malibu estate. Even I had started to believe it. Until the afternoon I was scrolling idly on my phone and stumbled upon a viral Reddit thread: What do you do when you realize you genuinely despise the children you birthed? The comments were a mixed bag, mostly people telling the original poster to seek therapy or look on the bright side. I stared at the glowing screen, entirely numb. Look on the bright side? I was splintering apart from the inside out. Because my three precious sons were currently standing in the center of the vaulted living room, looking at me with the exact same expression one might use to inspect a piece of rotting garbage. My eldest, Oliver, a sixteen-year-old boy with a verified IQ of 180, pushed his designer glasses up the bridge of his nose. His voice was like cracked ice. “Mother, if you interrupt Father’s board meeting again over something as trivial as nicking your finger with a paring knife, I am going to suggest we replace all the cutlery in the house with plastic.” My middle son, Hunter, the infamous fourteen-year-old terror of his elite private school, kicked his expensive sneakers onto the marble coffee table, rolling his eyes. “Seriously. You’re so dramatic. Everyone else’s mom is a CEO or a partner at a law firm. And you? You just sit at home, cry, and faint. It’s humiliating.” Then there was Mason. My five-year-old. He was at the age where everything he did should have been endearing, but the words slipping past his cherubic lips were the most venomous of all. “Mommy is stupid. Without Daddy, Mommy would starve to death in the street.” I looked at these three miniature, carbon copies of Harrison. And in that quiet, devastating moment, the flickering flame of my maternal love didn’t explode. It didn’t burn the house down. It just gave a soft hiss and extinguished completely. Genetics were a terrifying thing. They hadn’t inherited a single drop of my majestic, oceanic grace. But they had absorbed every ounce of Harrison’s cold, transactional cruelty down to their very marrow. I looked down at the shallow cut on my index finger. I wasn’t being dramatic. I was in agony. It wasn’t the cut that hurt. It was the flesh beneath the cut—the place where my dormant scales lay hidden—that felt like it was being held to an open flame. My time was up. The ocean was calling me back. If I didn’t submerge myself in the sea soon, this delicate, pathetic human skin of mine was going to rupture. “I understand.” I pulled a tissue from the box and casually wiped the blood from my finger. My voice was eerily flat, devoid of its usual trembling apology. Normally, this was the part where my eyes would well with tears. I would stutter, shrink into myself, and try to explain that I had only brought the fruit into the study because I was worried about their father skipping lunch. But today, I was just so unbelievably tired. The suffocating dehydration in my lungs made every breath feel like inhaling crushed glass. Oliver blinked, clearly thrown off by my profound apathy. He frowned, opening his mouth to issue another biting remark, but the heavy oak front door swung open. Harrison was home. He was wearing a bespoke charcoal suit that clung perfectly to his broad shoulders. He was undeniably breathtaking—aloof, untouchable, like a solitary peak covered in alpine snow. It was this very face that had short-circuited my brain seven years ago, making me reckless enough to drag him from the deep and tether my existence to his. “Dad!” The three boys who had just been crucifying me instantly transformed. Their faces lit up with adoration as they rushed the foyer, practically tripping over themselves to greet him. Harrison gave a low hum of acknowledgment, shrugging off his jacket and handing it to the housekeeper. His dark eyes bypassed his sons entirely and landed dead on me. His gaze was heavy, saturated with a suffocating possessiveness, yet entirely devoid of warmth. He looked at me the way a man looks at a very expensive, very private piece of real estate. “What happened to your hand?” he asked. His voice was a low, magnetic baritone that usually made my heart skip a beat. If this were yesterday, I would have already crossed the room, burying my face in his chest and seeking his comfort. Right now, the sound of his voice just gave me a headache. “Nothing. Slipped while cutting an apple.” I didn’t move from the plush sofa. Harrison’s hands stalled as he loosened his silk tie. He walked slowly across the room, stopping right in front of me. He towered over me, his long, aristocratic fingers snapping out to grip my chin, forcing my face up to meet his. “Gemma, what kind of tantrum is this?” His brows knitted together. He detested my indifference. “It’s your birthday today. I canceled a massive dinner gala to come home to you, and you’re going to give me an attitude?” Oh. So it was my birthday. I had completely forgotten. The birthday printed on my human driver’s license was actually the exact date I had pulled his half-dead body from the reef. My actual age was measured in centuries. “I’m not throwing a tantrum.” I swatted his hand away. Where his skin touched mine, it felt blisteringly, uncomfortably hot. “I’m just tired. I want to sleep.” Harrison’s face darkened instantly. In this house, no one defied him. No one except the old me, who had worshipped the very ground he walked on. “Gemma.” The warning in his tone was unmistakable. “Do not test my patience today. You know very well how much I despise disobedient things.” Things. This was the man I had loved for seven agonizing years. To him, I wasn’t a wife. I wasn’t a partner. I was a “thing.” A beautiful, fragile ornament that was good for breeding and looking pretty at charity galas. My three sons stood a few feet away, watching the exchange with thinly veiled amusement. They loved a good show. Hunter even whistled under his breath. “Mom, just drop the act and apologize to Dad. He bought you that limited-edition Birkin. It cost like, a hundred grand.” I stared at the four of them. The perfect, untouchable Crawford men. Suddenly, the whole charade felt incredibly mundane. I was the sovereign of the abyss. The queen of a million tides. And for what? To play the submissive, weeping housewife to this arrogant prick for seven years? What the hell was the point? In human terms, yes, Harrison Crawford was the apex of power, wealth, and masculine perfection—a man countless women would kill for. But looking at him now, through the eyes of a dying creature of the sea, he just looked pathetic. “Harrison.” I stood up, holding his gaze without flinching. It was the first time I had ever addressed him by his given name without a prefix of endearment. Harrison narrowed his eyes. The air around him turned instantly dangerous. “I want to go to the ocean,” I said. “No,” he rejected the request immediately, his tone final. “There’s a hurricane moving up the coast. The water is volatile. It’s not safe.” “I am going.” I held my ground. The drought in my veins had reached a critical mass. I could feel a terrifying heat radiating through my legs—the biological imperative of my body trying to fuse my thighs together to form a tail. If I didn’t touch saltwater within the hour, I was going to transform right here on the Persian rug. And that would probably give this entire miserable family a collective heart attack. “Gemma!” Harrison’s temper finally snapped. He grabbed my wrist, his grip like a steel vise, squeezing so hard I felt the bones grind. “Have you completely lost your mind today? You have a perfect life. Why must you deliberately provoke me?” “I haven’t lost my mind.” I tasted copper in the back of my throat. I swallowed down a violent wave of physical agony and managed to curve my lips into a smile that felt more like a grimace. “Harrison, I regret it.” I regret saving you. I regret loving you. I regret giving birth to your three little sociopaths. Harrison’s pupils dilated in shock, and his grip tightened bruisingly. “Regret? What right do you have to regret anything? Without me, you wouldn’t even have a roof over your head! You’d better remember exactly who you are, Gemma!” “Yeah, Mom. Without Dad, you’re literally a nobody,” Hunter chimed in from the sidelines. “Enough!” I violently wrenched my arm out of Harrison’s grasp. Perhaps it was the adrenaline of impending transformation, but my strength surged. The sheer force of my pull sent Harrison—a man who was easily six-foot-two—stumbling two steps backward. The entire room went dead silent. Even I was briefly stunned. I glanced down and saw it. Along the pale skin of my wrist, a cluster of fine, iridescent, silver-blue scales had flared up. It was only for a split second, but I knew I couldn’t hide it anymore. “I am going to the water.” I stared into Harrison’s eyes, my expression hollow. “Consider it my final birthday request. I’m begging you.” Maybe the absolute desolation in my eyes frightened him. Or maybe he had simply never seen me look so utterly detached from him. He stared at me for a long, heavy silence, before finally spitting out a single word: “Fine.” “If you want to go freeze in the wind, go. But don’t expect me to pity you when you get sick.” 2 The Crawford family’s private mega-yacht was massive and obscenely luxurious. The weather outside was apocalyptic. On the eve of the hurricane, the ocean was an expanse of inky, churning blackness, roaring like a beast with its jaws unhinged. Harrison stood on the teak deck, a crystal glass of bourbon in his hand, letting the violent winds whip through his dark hair. The three boys huddled safely inside the climate-controlled cabin, pressing their faces against the reinforced glass to watch me. Their eyes were full of mocking pity, like they were watching a madwoman perform. I was wearing the diaphanous white silk dress Harrison liked so much. Barefoot, I walked methodically toward the railing. The gale-force winds hit me, carrying the sharp, metallic tang of sea salt and crushed kelp. It smelled like home. I took a greedy, shuddering breath, feeling every single pore on my dying body scream in absolute euphoria. “Are you done with this performance yet?” Harrison had materialized beside me, his voice slightly muffled over the roar of the squall. “When you’re done acting out, go inside. Gemma, my patience has expired.” He thought this was a cry for attention. He thought I was playing some pathetic human game of ‘hard to get.’ I turned around, leaning my lower back against the slick metal railing, and looked at this man I had worshipped for a near-decade. He was aging. There were faint lines creeping around his eyes, a dusting of silver at his temples. As a siren, time meant nothing to me. It left no mark on my flesh. For seven years, to make myself look like a proper human wife, I had worn heavy, mature makeup. I had feigned human frailty. “Harrison.” I called his name. The wind was deafening, but my voice cut through it, light and crystalline. “Actually, I never told you the truth about that day. The person who dragged you from the riptide… it was me.” Harrison frowned, annoyed. “What kind of nonsense is this? The person who saved me was…” He was about to say a passing local fisherman’s daughter. That was the narrative he had always believed. It was the lie I had spun to protect us both. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter anymore.” I smiled softly, reaching up to pull the pins from my intricate updo. My long, dark hair whipped wildly in the storm. Deep within my chest, a dormant, ancient power began to uncoil. “Harrison, I’m going home.” “Going where? This is your home!” He reached out impatiently, intending to drag me away from the edge. “Back to the sea.” I took half a step backward. My body was now entirely suspended over the precipice of the railing. Below me, the black, frothing waves screamed for my return. Harrison’s face went chalk-white. For the first time in seven years, genuine, unadulterated terror shattered his composed facade. “Gemma! What the hell are you doing?! Get down! Are you insane?!” Inside the cabin, the boys finally realized this wasn’t a tantrum. They threw the sliding glass doors open and poured onto the slick deck. “Mom! Stop! Don’t be stupid!” “Mommy!” Ah. So this was their belated concern. It weighed less than dust. I looked at their terrified, panicked faces, and found that the cavern in my chest where my heart used to beat for them was completely, blissfully empty. “Harrison, keep the children. I don’t owe you a single thing anymore.” With that, I spread my arms wide. Like a kite with its string violently cut, I leaned back, letting gravity take me. “GEMMA—!!!” Harrison’s raw, throat-tearing scream was instantly swallowed by the roar of the ocean. He lunged forward like a madman, his fingers closing desperately around the hem of my dress. Riiiiiip. The sound of silk tearing. I plummeted into the freezing, violent depths. The moment the dark water swallowed me whole, the agonizing suffocation of the past seven years vanished. In its place was a blinding, intoxicating rush of power. My human legs fused. The bones cracked and lengthened, morphing rapidly into a massive, breathtakingly radiant silver-blue tail. The fragile, useless human skin melted away, replaced by impenetrable, glittering scales. With a single, violent thrust of my tail, I shattered the surface of the water. The colossal wave I generated slammed into the mega-yacht, sending it violently tilting on its axis. A jagged fork of lightning illuminated the sky. And in that flash of blinding white light, Harrison and his three sons stared down at the ocean. They saw it. They saw the frail, sickly woman who couldn’t even cut an apple without bleeding. Right now, she was suspended in the heart of a raging hurricane, her ethereal, monstrous tail longer than the yacht itself, glowing with a bioluminescent fire against the black waves. I looked up at them, my golden, slitted pupils filled with nothing but cold, ancient indifference. “Goodbye, humans.” I opened my mouth, but the sound that tore from my throat was no longer human. It was the haunting, earth-shattering, ethereal wail of a siren. It was a song that could drive a man to absolute madness, or force him to forget everything he ever loved. But I didn’t cast a spell on them. I merely gave them one final, lingering look of disdain. Then, with a magnificent flick of my tail, I dove straight into the abyssal depths. I left nothing behind but a massive, swirling vortex in the water, and four paralyzed statues on a violently rocking deck.

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