This world is a novel. And I am its leading lady. I have known this fact from the moment I was old enough to understand anything. So, three days after I caught Preston cheating on me, I sat in my empty room with red eyes and spoke into the silence, acting just as spoiled as I always did. “Mother, this toy is dirty. Get me a better one.” The very next second, the air froze. The curtains billowed without a single breeze. The entire fabric of reality began to flutter and flip like the pages of a paperback book. A gentle, wildly excited voice echoed from the void. “What kind do you want, baby?” “Mommy will swap him out for you.” “If he doesn’t love my leading lady, he can go straight to hell.” … Finding out Preston was cheating on me was incredibly easy. The way he hid his phone screen, the canceled dates, the sudden distance. The signs were glaringly obvious. When a man loves you, he wants to tear his entire world open and lay it at your feet. When he doesn’t love you anymore, even a piece of plastic and glass becomes a highly classified restricted zone. I used to be able to grab Preston’s phone whenever I wanted. His passcode was my birthday. He used to tell me that I was allowed to see every single important thing in his life. Back then, Preston really was perfect. At least, when he still loved me, he was perfect. When my hands were freezing in the winter, he would tuck them into his heavy wool coat. When I worked myself into a stomach ache during endless board meetings, he would cancel hundred-million-dollar contract signings just to bring me medicine. When his grandfather tried to force him into an arranged marriage with another heiress, he knelt in the pouring rain outside the Lancaster estate for an entire night, just to beg my father for my hand. I remember him looking at me with bloodshot eyes, his voice trembling. “Audrey, I can lose absolutely everything else.” “But I cannot lose you.” I believed him back then. Because I was the female lead, and he was my leading man. The romance between the two main characters was supposed to be the strongest, most brilliant, most incorruptible thing in this entire universe. So when I first noticed him changing, I didn’t even suspect infidelity. I just thought he was overwhelmed with work. Harrington Corp was in the middle of negotiating a massive merger with Apex Ventures. The project was worth billions. It made perfect sense for him to be working late into the night. When he didn’t text back, I made excuses for him. When he said he had back-to-back meetings, my heart broke for his exhaustion. When he said he couldn’t make it to dinner, I had my private chef send hot soup to his office. Until that one rainy night. I waited outside the Harrington Corp headquarters for two hours. The rain was coming down in sheets. I sat in the back of my car, watching the lights on the top floor of his building flick off one by one. My driver turned around for the third time. “Miss Lancaster, would you like me to call Mr. Harrington?” I looked down at my phone. Half an hour ago, I had texted him: When are you coming down? I’m waiting out front. He didn’t reply. Ten minutes ago, I texted again: It’s raining so hard. I just really want to see you. Still nothing. I was never a clingy woman. I grew up knowing I was the main character, which meant I was suffocated by the world’s love. My father loved me. My friends loved me. The readers loved me. Even Mother, the author who wrote this universe into existence, played favorites with me so blatantly it was almost unfair. I never lacked love. So I never needed to act needy just to prove I was loved. But that night, I just desperately wanted to see him. Maybe it was because we hadn’t sat down for a proper dinner in seventeen days. Maybe it was because I had spent four hours sparring with a bunch of corporate sharks in the boardroom that afternoon. I won beautifully, but I felt inexplicably drained. Or maybe it was because, for the past two weeks, a strange, creeping anxiety had been gnawing at the edges of my heart. Like a flawless porcelain vase that looked perfect on the outside, but was secretly harboring a hairline fracture within. I wanted to see him. I wanted to hear his low, gravelly voice call my name. I wanted him to pull me into his arms. Just one hug. That was all I needed. But I didn’t get him. Instead, I watched a sleek black Bentley roll out of the underground parking garage. I knew that license plate by heart. It was Preston’s car. As the vehicle glided past me, the rear window was rolled halfway down. I saw Preston. And I saw the woman resting her head on his shoulder. She was wearing a white knit dress. Her hair was damp, her face pale. She looked like a fragile little wallflower battered by the storm. Draped over her thin shoulders was Preston’s tailored suit jacket. When Preston looked down at her, his eyes were incredibly soft. It was a specific kind of tenderness I knew intimately. A tenderness that used to belong exclusively to me. My driver saw it too. All the color drained from his face. “Miss…” I raised a hand, signaling him to stay quiet. The silence inside the car became deafening. I watched the Bentley disappear into the curtain of rain, and a sudden urge to laugh bubbled up in my throat. So my anxiety hadn’t been paranoia after all. My leading man really was tainted. I didn’t chase after them that night. I went straight to our new house. It was a sprawling custom estate we bought right after getting engaged. The architecture, the interior design, every single detail was handpicked to my taste. Preston had told me this would be our home after the wedding. He said it while kneeling in the dirt of the backyard, planting a row of rosebushes for me. This untouchable, elite billionaire had his expensive white sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hands covered in mud. I had crouched next to him, teasing him. “Mr. Harrington, isn’t this ruining your ruthless CEO aesthetic?” He looked up at me, his eyes catching the sunlight. “For Audrey Lancaster, I’ll throw away any aesthetic I have.” But now, he wasn’t throwing away his aesthetic. He was throwing me away. I sat on the living room sofa, waiting from ten o’clock at night until two in the morning. Preston finally walked through the door. He carried the scent of rain mixed with the faint, lingering notes of a perfume I didn’t recognize. It was subtle. But I smelled it. The moment he walked in and saw me sitting in the dark, his brow instantly furrowed. “Why are you still up?” In the past, he would have said, Why are you waiting up for me? You must be exhausted. Look at that. Love and indifference don’t even share the same vocabulary. I looked up at him. “Where were you?” Preston paused in the middle of taking off his coat. “The office.” I let out a dry laugh. “The office?” He stared at me. “Audrey, what is that supposed to mean?” He rarely used my full first name like that in that tone. He used to call me his queen when he was teasing. Even when he was genuinely annoyed, he would just sigh and softly say, Audrey, please don’t be difficult. But now, he said it like we were entering a cold, calculated business negotiation. I didn’t scream. I just picked up my phone, pulled up the photo my driver had discreetly snapped, and turned the screen toward him. In the picture, Willow was leaning on his shoulder, buried inside his jacket. A rainy night. A luxury car. A fragile woman and a stoic billionaire. It looked exactly like a promotional poster for a romantic movie. Except, I was supposed to be the female lead of this story. I asked him, “Who is she?” Preston glanced at the screen. His expression barely shifted. He didn’t even look panicked. And honestly, his absolute calm hurt far more than panic ever could. Because his lack of panic meant he had already rehearsed this exact confrontation in his head a thousand times. He said, “She’s a new project assistant. Willow.” I nodded slowly. “Does a project assistant need to wear your clothes and use your shoulder as a pillow?” “She had a fever,” Preston replied, his voice cooling down. “I was just dropping her off.” “She doesn’t have family? She doesn’t have friends? She can’t call a cab? She can’t afford an ambulance?” Preston looked at me, a flicker of raw impatience bleeding into his eyes. “Audrey, could you stop being so suffocating for once?” That word finally made me freeze. Suffocating. Asking my fiancé why he was chauffeuring another woman home in the middle of the night was considered suffocating. I stared at him and let out a hollow laugh. “I ask you one single question, Preston, and you call me suffocating?” His frown deepened. “The way you’re acting right now. It’s just exhausting.” I didn’t say a word. The living room fell into a long, heavy silence. The rain battered against the floor-to-ceiling windows. I looked at the man standing in front of me, and he suddenly felt like a complete stranger. It was still the same face. The sharp jawline, the striking features. When he wore a black suit, he looked like a freshly sharpened blade. But I just had this overwhelming realization that the Preston who used to look at me like I hung the moon had died on some random night I wasn’t there to witness. The man standing in front of me was just a defective knockoff wearing my leading man’s skin. I stood up and walked right up to him. “Preston, do you have feelings for her?” He looked at me like I had just spoken a foreign language. “Audrey, stop being completely irrational.” I kept my eyes locked on his. “Answer the question.” He went silent for three seconds. And in those three seconds, I had my answer. He didn’t deny it immediately. That was all I needed to know. I really didn’t want to make a scene. It felt beneath me. But in the end, I lost control. Because at that exact moment, I still loved him. When a woman truly stops loving a man, she doesn’t scream. She doesn’t break things. Screaming is a cry for help. Cursing is just struggling against the pain. Tears mean you still want to be caught when you fall. I grabbed the antique vase he had given me and hurled it across the room. He had bought it for me at an auction three years ago for three million dollars. He had told me, It’s a beautiful piece of history, but it doesn’t hold a candle to you. Now that I think about it, when a man is spitting out sweet nothings, you can’t even trust the punctuation marks. The vase shattered against the hardwood floor. Porcelain shards exploded everywhere. Preston finally snapped. “Audrey, are you out of your damn mind?!” My eyes were burning. “I’m out of my mind? Preston, you’re the one cheating on me!” “I did not cheat on you.” “Then tell me right now, do you have feelings for her?!” Preston’s face turned to stone. He refused to speak. I took a step closer, my chest heaving. “Say it.” He finally opened his mouth, his voice dripping with ice. “Willow is not like you.” I laughed bitterly. “How so?” He looked down at me. His gaze was incredibly complex, yet entirely cruel. “She’s simple.” “She doesn’t feel the need to win every single battle, Audrey. Not like you.” I stopped dead in my tracks. So that was it. I was too strong. Too proud. Too radiant. Too incapable of playing the helpless victim. When he loved me, my sharp edges made me a breathtaking rose. Now that he didn’t, those exact same edges were just an annoyance. I asked him, “Preston, did you forget? When your family threw you to the wolves, I was the one who stood by you and helped you win your empire back.” The color drained from his face, replaced by a dark, ugly flush. “And?” he spat. “Are you going to hold that over my head for the rest of my life?” That single sentence disgusted me more than the actual cheating. I wasn’t trying to hold the past over his head. I just wanted him to remember that we used to stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the world. But he had already forgotten. Or rather, he hadn’t forgotten. He just refused to acknowledge it. Because acknowledging our history meant admitting how pathetic he was acting right now. I looked at him, and the tears finally spilled over. “Preston, you’ve changed.” He looked away, his voice dropping into a cold monotone. “People change.” He was right. People change. Which meant even a male lead could become absolute trash. After that night, Preston and I didn’t speak for three days. On the first day, I cried until I couldn’t breathe. My eyes swelled up, and my throat went raw. I sat on the floor of my massive walk-in closet, pulling out every single thing he had ever given me. Diamond necklaces. Ruby earrings. Haute couture gowns. Handwritten cards. I read his old handwriting. Happy birthday, my queen. May my Audrey always keep her chin up. Never bow your head. I will always be standing right behind you. I read the words never bow your head, and I laughed so hard fresh tears streamed down my face. Preston, you’re the one trying to force my head down now. On the second day, the crying stopped. I started cleaning house. I had my assistant box up every piece of jewelry he ever bought me and sent it straight to an auction house. I had my staff pack up every item of clothing he left at my place and ship it to his corporate headquarters. I called the venue we booked for the wedding and canceled the reservation. The designer crafting my custom wedding gown texted me, asking if I was absolutely sure. I stared at the screen and typed back a single word. Positive. By the third day, I had found complete and utter peace. Preston finally sent his first text since our explosive fight. Are you done throwing your tantrum? Ten minutes later, another message popped up. Come home when you’re finished acting like this. I read those two sentences and suddenly realized all the tears I shed on day one were a total waste of hydration. Look at him. He didn’t even think he was in the wrong. He genuinely believed I was just having a dramatic episode. He thought I was going to follow the old script. Be angry, cry it out, and inevitably run back into his arms. I stared at the glowing screen, absolute clarity washing over me. I typed out a reply. Preston, do you honestly believe that no matter what you do, I will always forgive you in the end? He replied almost instantly, as if I had asked the dumbest question in the world. Audrey, what we have isn’t something ordinary people can compare to. He sounded so incredibly entitled. As if the phrase what we have was a magic spell that could instantly erase betrayal. I let out a soft scoff and typed back. So you think just because you have protagonist armor, you get free passes to screw up? The moment that message delivered, my phone started ringing violently. It was Preston. The ringtone grated against my ears like nails on a chalkboard. In that split second, I knew for sure. He knew. He knew he was a “main character.” But he didn’t understand the full scope of the rules. He knew he had plot armor, but he had no idea where that armor actually came from. He forgot one crucial detail. He didn’t write the rules of this universe. On the night of the third day, I slipped into his favorite black silk dress and poured myself a heavy glass of red wine. I sat in the middle of my cavernous, empty bedroom and looked up at the ceiling. I rarely called out to Mother directly. Mother was the author of this world. She created me. She favored me above all else. She gave me my beauty, my wealthy background, my intelligence, my flawless plot armor. And she had given me the Preston who used to love me with his entire soul. When I was a little girl and tripped in the garden, Mother would write a gust of wind to blow soft petals into my palms to cushion the fall. When I was nervous before an exam, she made sure the test only covered the exact chapters I had reviewed. When I got kidnapped for the first time, she immediately wrote in ten police cruisers and a spectacularly unlucky car crash for the kidnappers. Mother used to tell me. Audrey, you are mommy’s leading lady. I didn’t write you into existence just so you could suffer. I always remembered that. But I never expected that the first person to ever truly break my heart would be the male lead she wrote specifically for me. I drained the glass of wine. My eyes were still slightly red, but my voice was completely soft. Just like when I was a little girl asking for a favor. “Mother.” “This toy is dirty.” “Get me a better one.” And so, the world hit pause. The curtains billowed. Every light in the room flared blindingly bright, then dimmed all at once. I heard the sound of pages turning. One page. Two pages. Three. It sounded like someone angrily flipping through a manuscript that had gone horribly wrong. Then, Mother’s voice echoed in the room. She sounded loving, thrilled, and laced with a barely contained, homicidal rage. “What kind do you want, baby?” “Mommy will swap him out for you.” “If he doesn’t love my leading lady, he can go straight to hell.” My eyelashes fluttered, and I finally smiled. In that exact moment, I knew. Preston was finished. Not just because I was done with him. But because the universe itself was done with him. Mother’s voice grumbled in my ear, cursing up a storm. “I am so entirely sick of this guy.” “I wrote him to be deeply devoted. I gave him a billion-dollar empire, an eight-pack, a genius-level IQ, a clean background, and a borderline obsessive love for you. And he turns around and catches feelings for a pathetic little wallflower?!” “Is his brain actively rotting?” I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Mother, your language is very unprofessional for an author.” Mother scoffed. “He’s cheating on my daughter. Why the hell would I care about being professional?” “Tell me, baby, what exactly are you looking for in the new one?” I leaned back against the velvet sofa and actually thought about it. “He needs to be gorgeous.” “Obviously,” Mother replied. “Better looking than Preston.” “He needs to be rich.” “Filthy rich. Richer than Preston.” “He needs to be obedient.” “Taking notes on that one.” “And he needs to be a little unhinged.” Mother went silent for two full seconds. Then, her voice spiked with pure excitement. “Baby, you’ve finally grown up.” I was speechless. She didn’t need to sound quite so proud. I swirled the remaining drops in my glass. “But not the irrational, annoying kind of crazy. I want him to be a ruthless monster to the rest of the world, but perfectly behaved when he’s with me.” Mother snapped her fingers. “Understood. A gentle, unhinged, devoted hound. The absolute premium upgrade.” I nodded. “Add a little bit of danger.” “Done.” “And he absolutely cannot have a soft spot for helpless little white lotuses.” Mother’s voice dropped to absolute zero. “I’d like to see any of them try.” I smiled. “Mother.” “Hmm?” “Will Preston regret it?” Mother stayed quiet for a moment. Then she said. “Yes.” “But not because he deserves the luxury of regret.” “He’s going to regret it because mommy is going to show him exactly what it looks like when a male lead gets reduced to absolute garbage in just three days.” I lowered my eyes. The lingering ache in my chest was slowly being smoothed away. Not because I wasn’t sad anymore. But because I knew my sadness wasn’t going to be a pointless waste of energy. There are so many women in this world who have to swallow their pain and suffer in silence. But I was different. I was the female lead. If I suffered, the heavens would rewrite the script just to make it right. This was a romance novel, after all! When I woke up the next morning, the sunlight was pouring through the windows. I walked downstairs in my silk robe. My butler informed me that Preston was here. He was sitting in the living room, looking terrible. We hadn’t seen each other in three days, and he looked visibly exhausted. I used to hate seeing him like this. A single crease in his brow used to make my heart ache. Now, looking at him just felt like a mild annoyance. Preston stood up when he saw me coming down the stairs. His eyes locked onto my slightly swollen eyelids, and he hesitated. “You’ve been crying?” I gave a dry smile. “Isn’t it obvious?” His brow furrowed deeply. “Audrey, we really don’t need to make this so ugly.” Ugly. There he goes again. I walked over to the sofa, sat down, and took a sip of the coffee my maid handed me. “Did Mr. Harrington come all this way just to lecture me?” He hated it when I called him Mr. Harrington. Predictably, his expression darkened. “Audrey.” “Don’t call me that,” I cut him off. Preston fell silent for a few seconds, actively suppressing his temper. “I can explain what happened the other night.” I looked up over the rim of my cup. “Explain why you were playing chauffeur for Willow in the middle of the night?” “She had a fever.” “Explain why you let her sleep on your shoulder?” “She was incredibly weak.” “Explain why you gave her your clothes?” “It was raining.” “Explain why it took you three entire days to show up here?” He had no answer for that one. I let out a short laugh. “Look at that, Preston. Every single one of your excuses sounds perfectly reasonable on its own.” “But when you put them all together, it’s just repulsive.” Preston’s face turned grim. “Do you always have to speak to me like this?” “I’ve always spoken like this.” I stared right back at him. “Didn’t you used to love it?” His breath caught in his throat. I set my coffee cup down, taking my time. “You used to tell me that I had every right to be proud, to have sharp edges, to never back down.” “Why don’t you like it anymore?” “Because Willow isn’t like that?” Preston’s eyes turned freezing cold. “This has absolutely nothing to do with Willow.” I just gave a soft, noncommittal oh. Right on cue, a timid, fragile voice drifted in from the foyer. “Mr. Harrington…” I glanced toward the door. Willow was standing there in a pristine white dress. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she was clutching a stack of folders to her chest. When she saw me, she practically flinched, taking a half-step back like a startled deer. “Oh, Miss Lancaster, you’re here too…” I raised an eyebrow. What an interesting choice of words. We didn’t know each other at all, yet she was acting like she had stumbled into my territory. Anyone watching would think we were a couple of concubines fighting over the emperor’s favor. Preston whipped his head around, frowning. “What are you doing here?” Willow lowered her voice to a pathetic whisper. “Mr. Harrington, the paperwork for Apex Ventures needs your signature immediately. The executive secretary said you were here, so I just…” Her eyes welled up with fresh tears. “I’m so sorry. Am I interrupting something?” Give the girl an Oscar. I looked down at my coffee and stayed quiet. Preston looked at Willow, then looked back at me. In that split second, I could practically hear the gears turning in his head. Willow was fragile and helpless. I was cold and dominant. Therefore, he automatically assumed I was about to verbally destroy her. Sure enough, his next words were aimed at Willow. “Go wait for me outside.” Willow bit her lower lip. “But the documents…” “Outside.” A single tear spilled over her lashes. She shot me a terrified glance, spun on her heel, and practically sprinted out the door. I clapped my hands slowly. “Spectacular.” Preston’s face was livid. “Audrey, are you happy now?” I looked at him like he was insane. “She ran away on her own. What does that have to do with me?” “Did you really have to push her like that?” I almost laughed in his face. “What exactly did I say?” Preston froze. Because I literally hadn’t said a single word to her. But his savior complex was so deeply ingrained that he instinctively blamed me for her tears. I looked at him, and the very last shred of nostalgia I held in my heart was thoroughly, completely eradicated. “Preston.” “What?” “Did you know? Three days ago, I was actually pretty heartbroken over this.” His eyes flickered. I kept going. “But I’m not heartbroken anymore.” He seemed to realize where this was going. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “What are you trying to say?” I stood up and walked until I was standing right in front of him. “I’m saying I don’t want you anymore.” Preston froze completely solid. For a second, he just looked bewildered. As if the mathematical possibility of me ever saying those words had never even entered his brain. After a few beats, he let out a dark chuckle. “Audrey, is this your new strategy to force me to apologize?” I smiled. “You flatter yourself.” I picked up a thick manila envelope from the coffee table and shoved it into his chest. “Notice of cancellation for the engagement. Confirmation of cancellation for the venue. The asset division strategy for all our joint ventures, and a finalized ledger of every single asset you ever transferred to my name, all ready to be returned.” “Preston, you know me. When I cut dead weight, I don’t drag my feet.” The color drained out of his face, inch by inch. “You’re serious?” “What did you think?” I tilted my head. “Did you really think I was playing some childish game of hard to get?” Preston stared at me, his eyes burning. I could see the rage. But beneath the rage, I finally saw the creeping panic clawing its way to the surface. Too bad it was way too late. “Audrey.” His voice dropped into a low, commanding register. “Calm down.” My smile only grew sweeter. “I’ve been calming down for three days.” “I am completely, entirely calm.” Right at that moment, a sharp gasp echoed from the front porch. “Mr. Harrington!” It was followed immediately by the shattering of glass. Preston’s instincts kicked in. He spun around and sprinted out the door without a second thought. I stood in the center of the room, watching him run. Look at that. Habits really are terrifying. He didn’t even look back at me once. A few minutes later, my butler walked in, looking incredibly strained. “Miss, the young woman outside accidentally knocked over the Ming dynasty replica vase by the entrance. She scraped her hand.” I asked, “Is it serious?” “Not at all. Barely broke the skin.” I nodded. “Make her pay for it.” My butler blinked. “Pardon?” I smiled. “That vase was three million dollars.” He immediately bowed his head. “Yes, Miss.” From the porch, I could hear Willow’s pathetic sobbing. Preston’s furious voice cut through the air. “Audrey! It’s just a damn vase. Do you really need to be this vindictive?” I strolled out to the front door and looked down at them. Willow had a single band-aid wrapped around her index finger. She was hiding behind Preston, crying her eyes out. Preston was shielding her with his body, glaring at me like I was the villain of the century. I drawled, taking my time. “Mr. Harrington, it’s just a vase. Three million dollars. Will that be cash or wire transfer?” Willow turned ashen. “I… I didn’t mean to…” I nodded sympathetically. “Oh, so if it’s an accident, it’s free? Good to know. If I accidentally bulldoze the Harrington Corp headquarters, I assume I won’t have to pay for that either?” Willow sobbed even harder. Preston gritted his teeth. “She can’t afford that.” “And?” I looked him up and down. “Are you going to pay for it?” Preston hesitated for a fraction of a second. I laughed. “Make sense. She can’t afford it, but you definitely can.” “After all, you two are so very close.” Preston’s face was practically black with rage. “Audrey Lancaster!” I was bored with his yelling. I turned to my butler. “Add it to his tab and have the legal department draft the lawsuit.” Then I looked back at Preston. “Mr. Harrington, the gate is that way.” “Take your little project assistant and get off my property.” After dropping that line, I felt better than I had in weeks. Maybe it was the sheer power trip of having main character privileges. Or maybe it was just knowing that my shiny new toy was going to arrive very soon. That very night, disaster struck Harrington Corp. Apex Ventures abruptly announced the immediate suspension of all merger negotiations. Preston had been bleeding himself dry over this project for six months. He had bet the entire next three years of the company’s strategy on this deal. The second the news broke, Harrington Corp’s stock plummeted, wiping out billions in market value in a single afternoon. The financial news networks were having a field day. I was sitting in my dining room eating dinner when my phone started vibrating off the table.
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