The day before my wedding, I was driving a friend to their hotel when I ran into my fiancée and her ex-boyfriend checking into a room together. Just ten minutes earlier, she’d texted me: “Babe, can’t wait for you to make me your wife tomorrow.” I swallowed my rage and recorded a video of them kissing. The next day at the wedding, I played the video for everyone to see. The moment the cheating video started playing, the venue exploded. Michelle’s brother Anthony reacted fastest, pointing at the staff and shouting. “What the hell did you people do! Playing this kind of video at a wedding!” “You dare humiliate the Thompson family—does your event planning company have a death wish!” “Where’s your manager! Get me…” Anthony quickly fell silent, frozen like the other guests, staring at the screen. I nodded with satisfaction. “Everyone, today is Michelle’s and my breakup party. From now on, we’re done. Please, eat and drink your fill.” Michelle realized she was the star of the video and rushed over frantically, trying to grab me and explain. But I’d already dropped the microphone and walked out. The second I left the hotel, my dad called. I let my AI assistant handle him. When I’d first told him I was marrying Michelle, he’d been so thrilled he went on a three-day drinking binge. He’d told everyone he met that I was marrying a rich man’s daughter, bragging about how capable I was. Now that this marriage was falling through, he’d be the first to object. Back home, my dad kept calling non-stop. The more I looked at it, the more irritated I got. I just yanked out the SIM card. After tossing my wedding suit in the trash, I headed to a bar. With a new phone, I couldn’t see whatever chaos they were in. The bar owner spotted me and came over with a teasing smile. “Flying solo today? Where’s your fiancée?” I glanced behind me and smiled. “She’ll be here soon.” The next second, a familiar figure appeared. Michelle was frantically pushing through the crowd. Eyes on her phone, she squeezed her way toward me. A man who’d been watching me suddenly rushed toward her, but Michelle fought him off hard. I couldn’t hear what he said, but it made her face twist with resentment as she shoved him away ruthlessly and kept searching through the crowd. The man watched Michelle from a distance, his expression desolate and pained. In the flickering bar lights, I couldn’t make out his face clearly, but he looked familiar somehow. I assumed he was one of Michelle’s friends who’d spotted me and tipped her off. But thinking back, I couldn’t place him at all. Then the bar owner called out to me. “George, your fiancée’s been calling my phone. What, you two have a fight?” I looked up. The bar owner thought I wanted to answer and just picked up. Very considerately put it on speaker too. The moment he answered, Michelle’s shouts came through. “I know you’re at the bar. Please tell me where. Just give me a chance to explain.” I hung up immediately. The owner looked stunned. “Aren’t you going to find your fiancée? Aren’t you worried she might be in danger?” I glanced at the man from before—he’d already disappeared into the crowd. I muttered distractedly, “She’s not my fiancée. She doesn’t need me.”

When I got back from the bar, it was two or three in the morning. I looked up to find Michelle crouched by my door. This was always what she did after screwing up. “George, I went to the bar but couldn’t find you. Your phone’s off too.” “How much did you drink? You can barely stand.” “Come on, let’s get you cleaned up inside.” Michelle rushed up to me excitedly, acting like nothing had happened as she fussed over me. I shoved her away hard. “Get lost! Don’t touch me!” Michelle froze, her eyes wounded. “George, the event company pranked us. The video was deepfaked.” “I’ve already hired a lawyer to sue them. I’ll definitely find evidence…” “I took the video myself.” I looked at her coldly. “You were so into that kiss outside the room, you didn’t even notice I was nearby.” Michelle’s face went white. She stood there frozen and lost. My stomach was full of alcohol. The slightest stimulation made it churn. I shoved past Michelle blocking my way and dove into the bathroom, hugging the toilet as I vomited until tears streamed down my face. Michelle followed me the whole time. Handing me tissues, finding hangover medicine, cooking noodles—silently taking care of me without a word. But every second, my mind replayed the scene of her passionately kissing her ex. Seeing her meticulous care now just felt jarring and laughable. “Michelle, I don’t want to see you anymore. Leave my house right now.” Suddenly, the sound of a bowl shattering came from the kitchen. She didn’t say anything for a long moment. After a while, she placed the cooked noodles in front of me and cleaned up the broken pieces herself. “George, just calm down for now. I’ll come back in a few days so we can talk properly.” I leaned back on the couch, hand weakly covering my eyes. “Get out.” I didn’t touch anything on the table. I slept on the couch all night with my arms wrapped around myself. Early the next morning, someone pounded on my door. The moment I opened it, my dad charged in without caring if he knocked into me. “George! Did a donkey kick you in the head?” “Michelle’s a daughter of a wealthy family. Of course she has an ex—that’s completely normal. Once you’re married you’ll have everything. You’d ruin the wedding over something so trivial!” “All our friends and family were there—where am I supposed to put my face!” My head was splitting from his ranting. I said weakly: “Dad, did you not see the video from the venue?” “She was checking into a hotel with her ex the day before our wedding…” My dad waved his hand dismissively, refusing to listen. “Don’t give me that!! Michelle’s fourth-generation wealth. Men lining up to marry her. This happened because you couldn’t keep her satisfied. If you had what it takes to make her devoted to you alone, this wouldn’t have happened. You’re about to move up a whole social class. You want to just walk away? You’re 30 years old—where are you going to find another woman who can help you more than Michelle?” I wasn’t surprised at all to hear these words from my dad. He had no bottom line when it came to money, especially rich women. But I couldn’t be like that. “Dad, if you like Michelle so much, why don’t you have her call you daddy.” My dad was so furious his mustache bristled. He raised his hand to slap me. I’d drunk too much last night and hadn’t eaten a thing. With this provocation, my stomach cramped painfully and something started forcing its way up. I shoved my dad aside and rushed to the toilet, retching violently. My dad kept going, saying I didn’t know how to be flexible, had irregular eating habits and loved drinking. But every sentence ended with Michelle. “Michelle’s beautiful and considerate, with an unmatched family background. If you don’t hold onto her, she’ll immediately find someone more handsome, more capable, and more understanding than you. Then you’ll have nowhere to cry.” His words traveled down the hallway and pierced straight into my ears. I suddenly remembered that desolate-looking man from last night. The delayed realization hit me like a sledgehammer pounding my heart. “Such a grown man who can’t even clean up. Why is there blood on the floor?!” “Only Michelle would put up with you. Any other woman would’ve blown the roof off by now.” I slammed the door hard and buried myself under the covers. I curled up into a ball, wrapping myself so tightly in the blanket that no air could get through, and broke down sobbing.

How Michelle and I got together wasn’t what my dad described. It wasn’t about me wanting to climb the social ladder while she happened to be a non-assertive rich girl. We’d been together ten years. We fell in love during the craziest period when my dad controlled my life. In our tenth year together, through my own efforts, I bought a condo and a car in the district where her family lived. I teased her on purpose. “Paid off the condo and car in full, got the wedding gift ready, even bought the diamond ring in your favorite style. How much longer do we need to date before you’ll marry me?” She cupped my face and kissed me, her love consuming. When we separated, her eyes sparkled as she looked at me. “This year. Let’s get married.” “George, do you still want to marry me?” I didn’t. I should have said I didn’t want to earlier. Michelle, you said now and forever you’d only love me. I was the one who soothed your past. I was your peaceful present. I was supposed to be the one walking into marriage with you. So why, when I was closest to happiness, did you maintain this ambiguous connection with your ex? My dad clung to me, threatening and persuading by turns. All to make me reconcile with Michelle. When all his efforts got no reaction from me, he slammed the door and left in anger. I locked myself at home. Nobody came looking for me. I turned off my phone too. Couldn’t hear anything. I lay in bed like a corpse, completely lifeless. Monday, I went to the office. The moment my coworkers saw me, they congratulated me. “The wedding didn’t happen. Sorry about that.” My coworker’s face showed shock and embarrassment. “So sudden. Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” “Let me buy you coffee. Sorry…” I cut off their apologies with a forced smile. “No need. It’s all in the past.” The busy morning helped me temporarily forget those troubles. I grabbed my mug and headed to the break room, where I found several people huddled together whispering. “Why didn’t George get married?” “His fiancée’s gorgeous and from a great family. Did she look down on him?” “Don’t talk nonsense. His fiancée treated him so well. She made him stomach-soothing soups, different ones every day of the week. Last time he worked himself into a perforated ulcer and ended up in the hospital, his fiancée never left his side. After he was discharged, she drove him to and from work for a while. She loved him to the bone—you can’t just make things up.” “Then what could it be? Don’t tell me George was cheating on his fiancée.” “There you go making things up again! We’ve been coworkers this long—don’t you know him? Capable and responsible, easygoing with a good sense of humor, very reliable. That kind of man.” I didn’t keep listening. I bought coffee from the vending machine and went back to work. As soon as I sat down, my dad called again. I didn’t answer, but his messages kept coming. 「How could you block Michelle? Are you a child?」 「Can’t you two just sit down and talk things through calmly?」 I looked at these words with detachment. I didn’t know how to respond. I felt completely empty inside. By the time I snapped out of it, my dad was already in my blocked list too.

Thunder rumbled and rain poured down. Wind howled. Watching my coworkers leave one by one, I finally headed downstairs. When I opened my bag, I remembered—I’d never been in the habit of carrying an umbrella. For the past ten years, Michelle had always reminded me. Before leaving, her eyes would hint at me repeatedly, playfully watching until I grabbed an umbrella. I’d gotten used to following her lead. As long as it was her, I’d trust unconditionally. This kind of habitual trust was truly terrifying. I held my bag over my head and ran through the rain into the parking garage, only to find my car wouldn’t start. I punched the steering wheel in frustration. It had been fine. When did it break? In the end, I had to run through the rain to the subway station. Just as I left the garage, I saw Michelle standing in the rain. The moment she spotted me, she ran over with concern. “George, why are you soaked? Let’s go home first…” “Let go!” I struggled free of her hand and kept walking without looking back. She called after me while chasing me, constantly reaching out to try to shield me from the rain. “George, I drove here. Let me give you a ride!” “You have stomach problems—catching a cold will make you miserable!” “If you won’t get in my car, at least take the umbrella. I’ll worry if you get sick…” “Get lost! Stop following me!” I stopped abruptly and broke down screaming at her. “Get away from me! Get lost!” “I don’t want to see you! I don’t want to hear another word from you! Do you hear me!” “I’ll never trust you again in this lifetime! Get lost! Get far away!” I shouted until my whole body shook. I couldn’t tell tears from rain on my face anymore. My throat felt like it was bleeding from screaming. Why? Today had been so normal. I’d finalized a project with clients and eaten properly. I’d even decided to get my long-delayed stomach issues checked out. I thought I’d moved on. Why did seeing Michelle make me fall apart again? Our only umbrella got knocked out of my hand and was immediately swept away by the wind. Michelle in her elegant dress was completely destroyed by the wind and rain. We both stood there looking absolutely wretched. Despite my harsh rejection, she stood motionless like a statue. She stared at me blankly, her mouth opening and closing as if calling my name. Seeing her so confused and dazed didn’t give me any relief. My heart only felt heavier. The scattered people nearby all turned to look at us. I didn’t want to stay locked in this standoff. After wiping the water from my face, I left with determination. After getting home and showering, I felt congested with stomach pain. After taking medicine, just as I was about to lie down, my phone lit up with an unfamiliar number. “George, you bastard! You even blocked your own father!” “I’ve been going crazy! Michelle tried to kill herself—she slit her wrists!” “Downtown First Hospital, third floor emergency room. Get here right now!”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “392786”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster

I will never forget the day that was supposed to be the happiest of my life. Standing there in my pristine white wedding dress, my heart brimming with anticipation, I waited for my groom. Instead, what arrived was the news that he had been taken away by the police, accused of sexually assaulting a college student. My mind went completely blank. Driven by pure instinct, I chased after the squad cars, desperate to defend him, to prove his innocence to the world. But reality delivered a crushing, suffocating blow—he had turned himself in. Faced with my absolute shock and confusion, he looked at me with eyes full of apologies and explained. He said the girl’s name was Daisy. Her family had found out she had been taken advantage of, and now, they were forcing her to marry the scumbag who had assaulted her. He couldn’t bear to watch Daisy be condemned to such a tragic fate, so he stepped up and took the fall for the crime himself. He told me Daisy’s family had agreed to drop the charges on one condition: he had to marry her. As for the inevitable fallout at his job, the investigations, and the vicious rumors that would tear through our social circles—he hoped I could handle all of that for him. He and Daisy had already worked it out. It would just be a fake marriage. A three-year arrangement. After three years, he promised, he would come back to me. He would give me another wedding. He begged me to wait. Listening to this absurd, martyr-like confession, a strange, chilling calmness washed over me. I turned my back on him and walked away without a word. Passing a stray dog on the sidewalk, I casually pulled the delicate tulle veil from my hair and draped it over the animal’s head. Donovan, did you really think I’d be stupid enough to wait? …… 1. I took another heavy pull from my glass. Honestly, my friends hadn’t cursed him out nearly enough. They went too easy on him. Maybe the liquor was finally hitting my bloodstream. A different kind of regret started bubbling up in my chest—the regret that I hadn’t slapped Joseph across the face when I had the chance three years ago. I lost track of how many drinks I’d downed. I pushed my chair back, swaying slightly as I stood up to find the restroom. The moment I was on my feet, the room tilted. The ground felt like a sponge beneath my shoes. A coworker grabbed my arm, eyes laced with concern. I waved her off with exaggerated confidence and stumbled out of the booth. It wasn’t until I hit the hallway that I realized exactly how far gone I was. The recessed lighting seemed to pulse and sway. But I brushed it off, humming a tuneless melody as I made my way to the bathroom, and was still humming when I emerged. And then. I saw a painfully familiar silhouette standing at the end of the corridor. The slope of the nose, the sharp line of the jaw, the profile… Why… why did he look exactly like my ex-boyfriend? I narrowed my eyes, squinting through the alcohol haze for a few long seconds. The longer I looked, the more certain I became. It was Joseph. The arrogant, manipulative sociopath who had cosplayed as a starving artist to trick me, the guy who had looked down his nose and told me I’d hit the jackpot just by breathing his air. “Dead man walking,” I muttered under my breath. 2. Before my brain could process the command, my body was already launching forward. Smack— My palm connected with his cheek. The sound cracked like a whip in the narrow hallway. The man clutched his face, his eyes blown wide in absolute, horrified disbelief. I leaned in close, glaring at him, but something felt… off. This skin… wasn’t it a little smoother than I remembered? Then it clicked. I crossed my arms over my chest, a mocking smirk twisting my lips. “Well, well. Haven’t seen you in three years and you’ve somehow aged backwards. What, did you finally discover Botox?” But I had the wrong guy. The consequences of my impulsive, drunken rage were far more severe than I could have anticipated. The man called the cops. During the fifteen agonizing minutes it took for the police to arrive, the cold draft cutting through the hallway sobered me up entirely. My coworker came sprinting out of the bar, staring at me in sheer horror. “Nicola… did you actually hit someone?” I nodded, a sickening wave of remorse washing over me. Liquid courage really does make fools out of cowards. I couldn’t believe I had actually struck someone. The police arrived shortly after. We were ushered into a bleak mediation room at the precinct. The moment the door clicked shut, the officer turned a stern, unforgiving gaze on me. “Alright. Let’s hear it. What exactly happened here?” I let out a dry, nervous laugh, entirely resigned to my fate. “Officer, I was completely out of line. I hit him, and I’m wrong for that. I’m more than willing to apologize and pay for any medical expenses, as long as… well, as long as he doesn’t try to ruin my life over this.” The officer sighed, looking exasperated. “You look like a perfectly normal, quiet young woman. Why on earth are you going around slapping people?” The corner of my mouth twitched. I swallowed hard, forcing the words out. “I’m so sorry. It’s just… he looks exactly like my ex-boyfriend. I had way too much to drink, and I just lost it. I thought he was the guy who ruined my life, and I… I just swung.” The cop took a deep breath, his expression a mix of pity and exhaustion. “Even if it was your ex, you can’t just assault people in public. If he presses charges, you’re looking at assault and battery. Do you understand that?” I was drowning in shame, nodding frantically. “Yes, yes, I know. It’s my fault entirely. The alcohol clouded my judgment. I’ll apologize, I’ll pay, I’ll—” Before I could finish, the man sitting across the table let out a sharp, incredulous scoff. “Looks like your ex?” He dragged his eyes up and down my body, his gaze scraping over my messy hair down to my scuffed boots. A blatant, cruel sneer settled on his face. “You?” “Someone wearing head-to-toe clearance rack polyester, looking like a thrift store tragedy… and you think you dated someone who looks like me?” He paused, as if savoring the insult, before delivering the final blow. “Honestly, with eyesight like yours, you should just donate your corneas to someone who actually needs them.” I buried my face in my hands, completely incapable of formulating a defense. Who could have possibly predicted this? That there was someone out there walking the earth with Joseph’s exact face. Drinking really ruins lives. I had just wanted one night to numb the pain of a ruined wedding. And now, I might not even get to sleep in my own bed tonight. 3. Stripped of any right to defend myself, I kept my head down, staring blankly at the tips of my shoes. Seeing my silence, the man leaned into his arrogance, completely unleashed. “Officer, look at her. You see how insane this is, right? The woman is genuinely delusional!” “She belongs in a psychiatric hold! What kind of nonsense is she spouting about me looking like her ex?” “Any man who shares even three percent of my DNA would never be caught dead with someone of her… caliber.” I snapped my head up, unable to hold my tongue any longer. “Not three percent. You look ninety-nine percent like him! I literally thought he just got a chemical peel.” The man looked at me with unbridled disgust. “That makes it even more impossible. The only person on this planet who looks that much like me is my older brother.” He rolled his eyes, his tone dripping with mockery. “And my brother? You definitely don’t know him. He’s operating in a completely different stratosphere than you. There are millions of miles of tax brackets between you two. You’d have to get down on your knees and thank God just to be in the same room as him. Date him? You couldn’t even afford to dream about it.” I froze. My breath caught in my throat, and the words died on my tongue. Seeing me stunned into silence, the man threw his hands up in a dramatic, ‘I told you so’ gesture. But it wasn’t that I didn’t want to fight back. It was that my brain had short-circuited. His words… they sounded so familiar. “A girl from your tax bracket is lucky to even be breathing my air. You hit the jackpot with me. You should be down on your knees thanking God.” The exact same cadence. The exact same arrogance. The exact same suffocating condescension. This brother he was talking about… Maybe I really did know him. Maybe… Before my racing thoughts could land, the heavy door of the mediation room swung open. The man, who had been aggressively running his mouth just a second ago, shot up from his chair. The haughty cruelty vanished from his face, instantly replaced by the exaggerated whine of a victimized child. “Joseph! You’re here! This crazy woman literally assaulted me! You have to destroy her for this!” I slowly lifted my head. My entire body went rigid against the hard plastic chair. He looked at me. His dark, fathomless eyes locked onto my face, and time completely stopped. In the fraction of a second our eyes met, my palms began to burn. For three years, I had fantasized about this exact moment. I had replayed our inevitable reunion a thousand times in my head. I thought I would slap him. I thought I would scream at him. I imagined standing tall, shoulders back, radiating success, letting him see exactly how brilliantly I had survived without him. But three years hadn’t diminished him. He was still the man who commanded the summit of the world. Dressed in an impeccably tailored, charcoal Brioni suit, the sheer, crushing weight of his authority was even more suffocating than I remembered. He was lightyears away from the man who used to cram into my tiny, drafty apartment wearing pilled sweaters. And me? I was wearing a cheap, oversized hoodie I’d bought on sale. My hair was a tangled mess, and I reeked of cheap tequila. Beside him, the younger brother was practically vibrating with excitement. “Joseph, seriously, you have to handle this. Call the legal team. Let’s lock this psycho in an asylum!” As soon as the words left his mouth, Joseph slowly turned his head and looked at him. Just one look. The younger brother snapped his mouth shut, visibly shrinking back, terrified to make another sound. When Joseph spoke, his voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an absolute, terrifying finality. “Apologize.” I swallowed thickly, my heart hammering against my ribs. I cursed my own cowardice. Where was all that fire I had when I slapped his brother? Hand up, strike down, clean and brutal. Now, with the actual villain standing right in front of me, I couldn’t even summon a single word. My palm still tingled. But I was stone-cold sober now. I knew the reality of the situation. The man standing before me had the power, the money, and the absolute ruthlessness to completely ruin my life with a snap of his fingers. I folded. I lowered my gaze. Even though every fiber of my being screamed in protest, I forced the words past the lump in my throat. “I’m sor—” “Not you,” Joseph interrupted, his voice slicing through the thick air. “Wyatt. Apologize to her.” 4. I sat there, dumbfounded. Wyatt looked equally paralyzed. The color drained from his face as he choked out, “Joseph… what did you just say?” Joseph’s expression dropped by several degrees, the air around him turning arctic. “Wyatt, I said apologize. What gives you the right to speak to a woman like that? What kind of garbage were you spewing? Who taught you to behave that way?” Wyatt’s jaw tightened in defiance. His lips parted to argue, but the sheer terror in his eyes forced him to swallow the rebellion. Joseph’s dark eyes narrowed slightly. “And another thing. Didn’t you swear to me you’d be back in your dorm by ten every night? Not only are you out past curfew, but you reek of alcohol. So, you’re lying to me now?” Wyatt physically flinched. He had completely forgotten about the leverage. To get Joseph to buy him a new Porsche 911, he had sworn up and down: “I’ll study hard, I’ll stay out of trouble, back in the dorms by ten, I promise.” Now, his entire facade had crumbled. Wyatt nervously rubbed the back of his neck. Though his face was flushed with humiliated reluctance, he muttered, “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have insulted you.” But he couldn’t let it go entirely. He added a petulant, “But she shouldn’t have slapped me either… she needs to—” “Enough. The matter is settled,” Joseph cut him off effortlessly. “It’s late. Go home.” Wyatt’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. He looked at his older brother, then at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. His face contorted with suppressed rage. He was the one who got hit. He was the victim here. How the hell did it end up with him getting chewed out, forced to apologize, and sent away like a scolded dog? But he didn’t dare say a word. He knew exactly how ruthless his brother was. Joseph held absolute, terrifying control over the family empire. Their father deferred to him, their mother feared him, and even the ancient, cutthroat board members of the company wouldn’t dare cross him. If Wyatt talked back, that Porsche was gone, and his trust fund allowance would be frozen by morning. Defeated, Wyatt shot me a venomous, secretive glare, before dropping his head and trailing miserably toward the exit. I sat there, completely dazed. The police officer, clearly eager to be done with the drama, sighed. “Well, since the aggrieved party considers the matter settled, we’re done here. You’re free to go, miss.” It took me a long moment to gather my bearings before I slowly walked out of the precinct. The night wind hit me instantly, biting and cold, making me shiver in my thin hoodie. I stood on the concrete steps, tilting my head to look at the sky. There were no stars tonight. Just a solitary, crescent moon hanging in the dark, looking incredibly lonely. A few feet away, I heard Wyatt dramatically whining by the curb. “Come on, Joseph! You’re already here, just give me a ride!” He tried to play the pathetic card. “Joseph, please. My dorm locked its gates an hour ago. I can’t get back in! Just let me crash at your penthouse tonight, please! I can’t go back to our parents’ house looking like this. Your driver can just drop me at campus in the morning!” Joseph’s face remained carved from stone. “You can stay at the penthouse. Call an Uber.” Wyatt stared at him like he had lost his mind. “I am your blood brother! Why do I have to get an Uber? You’re getting in a car right now!” Joseph ignored him entirely. His peripheral vision caught me standing on the steps. He bypassed his brother and walked straight toward me. When he spoke, the ice in his voice melted into something almost agonizingly gentle. “Nicola. It’s late, and it’s hard to get a cab in this area. Let me take you home.” Behind him, Wyatt looked like he was about to have an aneurysm, his eyes darting frantically between his untouchable brother and the girl in the cheap hoodie. I looked up at Joseph. A chaotic storm of emotions raged in my chest, a bitter, tangled knot I couldn’t even begin to unravel. Right now, less than three feet separated us. The amber glow of the streetlamp spilled across his face, casting deep, cinematic shadows over the sharp angles of his jaw and the intense, searching look in his eyes. Every survival instinct I possessed screamed at me to maintain the boundary. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Leonard,” I said, my voice deliberately flat. “My best friend is on her way.” As if on cue, the high-pitched beep of a moped horn pierced the quiet night. Gemma pulled up to the curb on her battered vintage Vespa, the engine sputtering as she hit the brakes in front of the precinct. She spotted me instantly, kicked the stand down, and pulled a spare helmet from the storage box. She marched up the steps, shoved the helmet onto my head, and loudly clicked the chin strap into place. Gemma didn’t spare Joseph an ounce of politeness. She knew exactly what he had done to me. As she walked past him to get back to the bike, she dragged out her words, her tone dripping with venomous sarcasm. “Well, well. Look at the Wall Street royalty gracing us with his presence. Careful, you might catch something from us peasants.” She turned to me, making sure he could hear every word. “Come on, Nat. We need to stay far away from people like this. They might look like gentlemen in their custom suits, but underneath, they’re nothing but rot.” She punctuated the insult with a massive, exaggerated eye roll aimed directly at Joseph. She yanked me onto the back of the Vespa. The second I was settled, she gunned the throttle, and the little engine roared as we shot down the empty street. I could hear Wyatt screaming obscenities in our wake. “Are you kidding me?! Who the hell does that trashy bitch think she is talking to us like that?! This is the worst night of my entire life!” …… The cold wind whipped violently against my ears. Wyatt’s screeching faded into the distance until there was nothing but the hum of the tires on the asphalt. I didn’t speak. I just gripped the grab rails of the seat so tightly my knuckles ached. There was a heavy, stinging pressure building behind my eyes. I sniffled softly against the chill. Gemma felt the shift in my posture. She called over her shoulder, her voice softening. “Nat, don’t tell me you’re crying over that piece of garbage. Hey… if it hurts that much—just lean on me.” I hesitated for a second, then slowly pressed my forehead against her back. I wasn’t crying. I just told myself the wind was blowing a little too hard tonight. 5. It was nearly midnight by the time I walked through my front door. I turned the key as quietly as possible, but when I stepped inside, my mother was sitting rigid on the living room sofa. She had clearly been waiting up for me. Still rattled by the collision of my past and present, I forced a casual tone. “Mom, why are you still awake?” The deep worry lines etched into her forehead relaxed slightly the moment she saw me safe. Her gaze swept over me, lingering on my face. “Nicola, why are you home so late? Your eyes are red. Have you been crying?” I waved my hand dismissively, forcing a bright, easy smile as I dropped onto the couch beside her. “I was just in a really good mood tonight. Went out with the girls from work and had a few too many.” I leaned in closer to her, exaggerating a sloppy grin. “Smell me. Don’t I reek of tequila?” A shadow of doubt crossed my mother’s eyes. She spoke quietly. “But you only ever drink like that when you’re heartbroken or stressed. Did something happen tonight? Did you… run into someone?” My stomach plummeted, but I kept my expression perfectly neutral. “Run into someone? Who would I possibly run into in a city this big?” “I never said a name,” she replied softly. I was completely trapped. I couldn’t find the words to spin a lie. She sighed, her voice frail and tender. “Nicola, honey… I don’t interfere in your love life. You know that. But as long as it’s not him… As long as it’s not Joseph. Not after what he did to—” She stopped herself, swallowing the rest of the sentence as if it were poison. “Never mind. Let’s not talk about him. I just… I never want to see you broken like that again.” A painful lump formed in my throat, burning all the way down to my chest. I forced the corners of my mouth up. “Mom, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. The only thing on my mind right now is making rent and keeping my head down at work. I don’t have the luxury for anything else.” My mother looked at me, a deep, complicated sorrow in her eyes. Her lips parted, clearly wanting to say more, to dig into the old wounds. But in the end, she just sighed and let the silence take over. I knew exactly what she wanted to ask. She wanted to talk about three years ago. And what exactly happened three years ago?

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436744”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The ice rattled in my glass, a sharp, rhythmic sound that matched the thrumming of my heart. I’d lost the round of Truth or Dare, and my friends didn’t waste a second. “What was the exact moment,” my best friend asked, a predatory glint in her eye, “that you knew Thomas was ‘the one’?” I let the silence stretch, my gaze drifting lazily toward the dark corner of the lounge where he sat. “Probably the moment after we broke up,” I said, my voice carrying just enough of a sting. “When he saw someone else trying to move in on me and finally grew a spine. He came back crawling, literally in tears, begging for a second chance. That’s when I knew.” The room erupted in a chorus of whistles and laughter. But in the shadows, a young woman—a graduate student of Thomas’s—sat frozen. Her face was a violent shade of crimson, and I could see the liquid shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. I didn’t look away. I leaned back, letting my shoulder press firmly against Thomas’s chest, claiming him. He stiffened for a heartbeat, a micro-tension in his muscles, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he slid an arm around my waist, pulling me closer. The girl couldn’t take it. She stood abruptly, her chair screeching against the hardwood, and bolted out the door. Only then did Thomas lean into my ear, his voice a jagged whisper. “Lydia, for God’s sake. Enough is enough.” … Thomas had told me to get back to the venue immediately. He wanted me to “smooth things over” with the university board members and quell the whispers that were already spreading like wildfire through the faculty. I didn’t do that. I did two things instead. First, I called the university’s endowment office. I informed them that I was pulling my family foundation’s funding for his research project and effectively shuttering his lab. Second, I walked out of my own wedding. I drove back to the house we shared, my vision blurred by tears I refused to let fall. Once inside, I began to scrub him out of my life. I packed the couple’s mugs we’d fired ourselves during a weekend in Vermont. I grabbed the matching silk pajamas we wore every Sunday. Finally, I reached for the wedding portrait we’d picked up just yesterday—the one I’d spent a fortune framing. I threw it all into the oversized soaking tub in the master bath. I flicked a lighter and watched the edges of our “happily ever after” curl into black ash. As the smoke began to rise, I called the hotel. “The wedding is off,” I told the manager, my voice eerily steady. “Don’t look to me for the balance. Send the bill to the groom. And please, have the concierge pack up my personal belongings and deliver them to my new address.” There was a stunned silence on the other end. “But, Ms. Whitlock… the groom just called. He said the wedding is still on, just postponed by twenty-four hours? He said we’d made a mistake with the signage and the programs. He’s asked us to change the bride’s name to Piper Sampson.” A cold, sharp needle pierced my heart. That wedding was ten years in the making. Every peony, every hand-calligraphed place card, every inch of the lighting design had been curated by me over the last six months. It was the physical manifestation of a decade of devotion. Thomas knew that. He knew this was my dream. And he was going to hand it to his student like a second-hand gift? I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. “Do whatever you want with the party. Just send my things back. Especially the contents of the suite’s safe. The gold cuff. Make sure it’s there.” The manager sounded even more confused now. “But… the groom took the cuff an hour ago. He said it was part of the ‘traditional dowry’ for the bride.” My head spun. I hung up and began dialing Thomas’s number with shaking fingers. He declined the first seventeen calls. On the eighteenth, he finally picked up, his voice dripping with exhausted irritation. “Lydia, I told you! Stop calling me. I’m trying to help Piper through this. We’re essentially performing a ‘mercy marriage’ to save her reputation. I’m with her parents right now, and if they suspect this isn’t real, everything is ruined.” “Thomas,” I choked out, my voice thin. “Did you take my mother’s cuff?” He paused. Then came a small, dismissive huff of a laugh. “Yes. Piper’s mother insisted on a significant piece of jewelry as a gesture of good faith. I remembered that gold cuff of yours—it’s heavy, it looks the part. It’s just a prop for the ceremony, Lydia. You’ll get it back.” The pain was so sudden it felt like my chest had been cleaved open. “Thomas!” I screamed, the sound tearing my throat. “That was the last thing my mother left me! It’s an heirloom! You have no right to give it to that… that little home-wrecker!” “Give it back! Now! Or I swear to God, I will call the police. I’ll make sure you both spend your honeymoon in a cell!” I was shaking so violently I had to lean against the wall. Thomas’s voice turned icy. “Watch your mouth. I told you, it’s a performance. I’m borrowing it. I was going to buy you a replacement tomorrow anyway—something newer, something you’d actually like. I didn’t realize you’d be so petty.” I couldn’t listen to another word. I slammed the phone down, grabbed his suitcases from the hallway, and hailed an Uber. I gave the driver Piper’s address. On the way, my phone buzzed incessantly. A text from Thomas: “I’m sorry I snapped. I’m under a lot of pressure, Lydia. Let’s be adults about this. I’ll return the cuff tomorrow, but you need to show up at the ceremony as Piper’s maid of honor. If you’re there, people won’t think she stole me. If anyone asks, just tell them you were the one who moved on first… tell them you had an affair. Just don’t let this ruin Piper’s future.” I stared at the screen, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in my chest until it turned into a sob. The driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror and silently handed me a tissue. I thanked him, wiped my face, and hauled the suitcases out of the car. I didn’t take the elevator. I ran up the stairs and began pounding on Piper’s door with everything I had. The door flew open. “Who the hell is it at this—” Thomas stood there, wearing a pink floral apron, his forehead dusted with flour. My eyes stung. We had been together for ten years. I had watched him climb from a struggling PhD student to a tenured professor. I knew his deepest scars. I knew that in grad school, he’d worked a brutal shift as a line cook to pay rent, and a group of wealthy frat boys had cornered him, mocked his “servant” status, and dumped a bucket of kitchen scraps over his head. He had loathed the kitchen ever since. When we got engaged, and I brought him home to meet my dying mother, I had asked him to help me carry a tray of food into her room. He had turned cold, slammed the door, and left me there to explain his “shame” to a woman who just wanted to see her daughter loved. I had spent years protecting him. I had learned to cook—burned my hands, spent hours over a hot stove—just so he would never have to touch a pan again. And here he was, wearing an apron for her. Thomas froze when he saw me, his hand instinctively twitching toward the apron strings. “Lydia… what are you doing here?” Piper appeared behind him, her small face pale and wide-eyed. “Professor… I mean, Lydia… why are you here?” She stepped in front of him, her eyes welling up instantly. “If you’re going to be angry, take it out on me. He’s only doing this to save me.” Thomas looked at her with such visceral tenderness it made me nauseous. He turned his fury on me. “How can you be so heartless, Lydia? Piper was going to be forced into a marriage with a literal predator by her family. I’m just providing her a shield. Can’t you find an ounce of empathy?” “No!” I shouted, my voice trembling. “Her family problems are her business! She can go to the police! She doesn’t get to take my wedding, my husband, and my mother’s jewelry!” “Or maybe…” My voice cracked. “Maybe she was never ‘forced’ into anything. Maybe you two have been screwing around behind my back and this is just a convenient—” Crack. The slap echoed in the narrow hallway. My head jerked to the side, the sting blooming across my cheek. Thomas stood there, his hand still raised, his face a mask of righteous indignation. “I won’t let you slander her! I told you, it’s a legal arrangement! How can you be so malicious?” The noise had drawn the neighbors out. People were peering over the banister, whispering. “Piper, honey? Is everything okay? Who is this woman?” an older woman from the floor above asked. Piper sniffled, looking down at the floor. “She’s his… his ex.” The neighbor’s expression shifted to pure disgust. She stepped toward me, shoving my shoulder. “The man is getting married. Have some dignity and stop harrassing him! You’re acting like a obsessed mistress. Get out before we call the cops.” “Yeah, film her! Put her on TikTok!” someone else shouted. I laughed, a jagged, broken sound. I kicked Thomas’s suitcases toward them. “Tell them, Thomas. Tell them who the ‘mistress’ is here.” As the suitcases slid across the floor, Piper let out a sharp cry and collapsed to her knees. Thomas looked at her leg—there was a tiny, nail-sized red mark. His face went livid. “Lydia! Are you finished? I am legally married to Piper as of this morning! Who the hell do you think you’re calling a mistress?” I went still. “You actually signed the papers? This morning?” Thomas realized his slip, his eyes darting away. “It’s a shitty bracelet, Lydia! You came here to assault a girl over a piece of gold? I never realized how selfish and cold you truly were.” My eyes went wide as Thomas stormed back into the apartment. He returned a second later, holding my mother’s cuff. He didn’t hand it to me. He hurled it against the tiled floor of the landing with all his might. “You want your precious junk? There! Take it and get out!” “No!” I screamed, lunging for it, but I was too late. The gold hit the hard tile and the delicate filigree snapped, the jade inlay shattering into a dozen pieces. I looked up at him, and for the first time in a decade, there was no love in my eyes. Just a cold, dead hatred. Even Thomas seemed to flinch at the look in my gaze. But then Piper whimpered. “Thomas… my leg hurts so much. I think it’s broken.” Thomas snapped back into her orbit instantly. He scooped her up, stepping right over the shattered remains of my mother’s legacy. “Don’t worry, baby. I’ve got you. I’m taking you to the ER.” He moved so fast, with such reckless intent, that he slammed into me as I was still kneeling on the floor. I lost my balance and tumbled backward, down the steep, narrow flight of stairs. I hit the landing with a sickening thud. Through the blur of pain and the gasps of the neighbors, I looked up. Thomas didn’t even turn around. The last thing I saw before the world went black was Piper, her head resting on his shoulder, looking down at me with a slow, triumphant smile. In that moment, the sound of my heart breaking was as clear and sharp as the shattering of that jade. There was a time when Thomas would have fought the world for me. Back in college, when those frat boys were following me, whistling and making me feel small and hunted, he had appeared out of nowhere. He’d stood between me and them, his jaw set, refusing to budge until they backed off. He’d taken my hand and led me to safety. Later, when I found out they’d targeted him because of it, I had gone to him in tears. He’d just smiled, tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, and said, “It’s okay, Lydia. I just can’t stand to see you cry.” The man who once couldn’t bear a single tear of mine was now the reason for my agony. When did Piper start living in the spaces between us? Maybe it was the day she became his research assistant. He’d talk about her constantly, saying she reminded him of his younger self. But the look in his eyes wasn’t nostalgic—it was proprietary. Or maybe it was the night she called him, sobbing, saying a group of guys were cornering her at a campus bar. Thomas, usually the most rational man I knew, had sprinted out the door and ended up in a fistfight. When I went to bail him out, looking at his bruised lip, I felt the first real pang of bitterness. “I heard what was happening to her,” he’d explained, “and I just thought of you, back then. I lost my head.” But back then… he had just led me away. He hadn’t tried to be a martyr. I woke up in the hospital with a dull, throbbing ache behind my eyes. The doctor told me I was lucky—I’d suffered a concussion and a small brain bleed. If I’d stayed on that landing any longer, I might not have woken up at all. I discharged myself as soon as I could. I needed to breathe. But as I reached the entrance to my new apartment building, three men stepped out of the shadows. “You the bitch from the internet?” one of them sneered. “Look at her, acting all high and mighty,” another said. “Spends her daddy’s money to hire goons to harass a poor student? You like men so much, let’s see how you like us.” They lunged. I screamed, trying to fight them off, but they were stronger. They tore at my clothes, leaving bruises like dark thumbprints on my skin. Only the arrival of the building’s security guard and the sound of a police siren sent them running. I collapsed on the pavement, sobbing, my body wracked with tremors. The security guard looked down at me, his lip curled in a sneer. “Honestly, you probably had it coming,” he muttered. “Who does that to a young girl?” I looked up, my voice a broken rasp. “What did you say?” He just shook his head and walked away. My phone buzzed. I pulled it out, my hands shaking so hard I nearly dropped it. And there it was. A public post from Thomas Beckett. “I hate to bring private matters into the public eye, but I have to clear the air. My ex-fiancée, Lydia Whitlock, has been orchestrating a campaign of harassment against my student, Piper. Out of jealousy, she hired local thugs to intimidate this girl. I stepped in to protect Piper, but Lydia’s behavior has only escalated. I cannot remain silent while an innocent woman is terrorized. I will be standing by Piper, and I will be taking her as my wife to ensure she is protected for the rest of her life.” Piper had commented below it: “With you, I’m not afraid of anything.” The blood roared in my ears. Below the post, there were thousands of comments. Strangers calling for my head. My photo had been photoshopped into horrific, degrading images. People were leaking my address, promising to “teach me a lesson.” I tried to reply, to explain that I had done nothing, that Thomas was lying. But no one cared. “Your own boyfriend called you out! You’re a monster!” “Where’s your proof? Oh, wait, you don’t have any. Burn in hell, bitch.” I forwarded the post to Thomas. “Why are you doing this to me?” His reply was instantaneous: “I told you to handle the board members yesterday. You walked out and left me to drown. I had to protect my career, Lydia. Everyone was calling Piper a slut; she was suicidal last night. I did what I had to do to save her reputation.” “What about mine?!” I typed back. “What about my life?” “Lydia, they’re just words on a screen. Don’t look at them. People have short memories. By the way, the ceremony starts in an hour. You need to come. Be the maid of honor, apologize to Piper in front of everyone. We need to complete the narrative.” Then, his final sting: “Be a good girl. If you keep acting out, I can’t promise I’ll come back to you in a few years. Remember, your mother is gone. I’m the only family you have left in this world.” I sat there, the phone cold against my palm. Years ago, at my mother’s bedside, he had held my hand and sworn to be my rock, my family, my forever. And now, he was using my loneliness as a weapon to keep me under his thumb. As the tears started to fall, a notification popped up from an unknown number. “Ms. Whitlock, I have something you should see. I have the security footage from the night of the ‘incident’ at the university. I think you deserve to know what actually happened in that equipment room.” I clicked the file. I froze. A month ago, during the graduation gala, Piper and Thomas had vanished. As the primary donor for the lab, I’d gone backstage with some faculty members to find them. We’d seen Thomas carrying a semi-conscious Piper to his car. At the hospital, the doctor’s report had been “heat exhaustion and dehydration.” They’d been locked in a storage room for three hours with high-intensity stage lights. Piper claimed someone had trapped her there, and Thomas had “found” her. The school was ready to expel her for the scandal, but Thomas had threatened to pull my funding if they didn’t drop it. I had tried to help her find “the attacker,” but Thomas had screamed at me to drop it, saying I was “retraumatizing” her. Now, watching the video, I saw the truth. I saw Piper and Thomas practically tearing each other’s clothes off as they ducked into that room. I saw them accidentally kick the door shut, engaging the heavy-duty latch from the inside. They weren’t victims. They were caught in the act of their own betrayal. But as I scrubbed through the footage, I saw something else. My eyes widened. I stared at the screen for a long time, a bitter, hollow laugh escaping my lips. Oh, Thomas. You think you’re her savior. You have no idea you’re just her fall guy. My phone buzzed again with another demand from Thomas. I wiped my eyes and typed back a simple response. “Fine. I’ll be there.” I wasn’t going there to save them. I was going to bury them. When I arrived at the venue, the air turned cold. Guests looked at me with open sneers. Piper’s mother saw me and immediately spat at my feet. “You disgusting woman! How dare you show your face here after what you did to my daughter!” She and a few other relatives began pulling at my dress, calling me every name in the book until security finally pulled them away. I didn’t say a word. I straightened my silk blazer and walked into the ballroom. The room was packed. Thomas had invited the press, the university board—everyone. He wanted a public sanctification of his “noble” choice. When he saw me, he looked relieved. He walked over, his gait confident, and tried to take my hand. “See? I knew you’d come around. It’s better this way, Lydia.” “I’ve already sent the cuff to a jeweler. They’ll fix it. It’ll be like it never broke.” He handed me a piece of paper. “Read this when the officiant calls you up. It’s a confession and an apology. Once this is over, I’ll come home to you tonight, okay? I’ll even buy you a ticket to Europe. Stay there for a year or two, and when the dust settles, I’ll come find you. We’ll get married then.” I looked down at the paper. It was a detailed script of how I had “hunted” Piper out of “unstable jealousy.” If I read this, I would be socially and professionally dead. I looked at him, then slowly, deliberately, tore the paper into shreds and let them flutter onto his polished shoes. I walked up to the podium, signaled the technician I’d paid off earlier, and turned to the crowd. “Everyone!” I said, my voice echoing through the speakers. “I’m here to clarify the record.” “I’m here to show you exactly who targeted Piper Sampson.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436743”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I’d lost the round of Truth or Dare, and my friend, perfectly on cue, leaned in with a glint in her eye. “Out of all the years you’ve been with Holden,” she asked, her voice carrying over the low hum of the lounge, “what was the exact moment that made your heart skip the hardest?” I knew exactly what she was doing. I offered a serene, practiced smile. “When we broke up a few years ago,” I said, my voice steady, “and he realized he couldn’t live without me just because some other girl threw herself at him. When he came crawling back, begging for a second chance.” The room erupted into a chorus of overly enthusiastic awws and raised glasses. But my eyes were fixed on the girl sitting in the far corner of the velvet booth. Her face was flushed with humiliation, her eyes red-rimmed, sticking out like a raw, bleeding thumb. A surge of cold satisfaction washed over me. I held her gaze straight on, deliberately leaning my body closer to Holden. He stiffened. But he let me pull him in, even wrapping his arms around my waist to complete the picture. It was too much for her. Unable to bear it a second longer, she grabbed her purse and fled the room, the heavy door slamming shut behind her. As soon as she was gone, Holden leaned down, his lips brushing my ear. “Daphne,” he whispered, his tone laced with gentle reprimand. “Don’t you think that was taking it a bit too far?” 1 I froze. Slowly, I pulled back, putting an inch of cool air between us, and really looked at him. He was wearing a bespoke charcoal suit I had meticulously picked out for him. The navy silk tie resting against his throat was the one I had knotted myself before we left the apartment. Every single detail of him aligned perfectly with my aesthetic. But I hated the words coming out of his mouth. It felt like looking at a masterpiece I had spent years curating, only to notice a jagged, ugly crack running right down the center. A flicker of profound regret passed through my eyes. I was annoyed, and when I’m annoyed, the filter comes off. “Was it taking it further than when you were fucking Jocelyn?” Holden choked on his next breath. The sheer shock paralyzing his handsome features was almost boring to look at. I glanced around the table. The music was still playing, but the silence among our friends was deafening. They were exchanging wide-eyed, terrified looks. I let out a soft, airy laugh and picked up the deck of cards from the table. “Come on, keep playing. Whose turn was it?” I was a good host; I knew how to warm up a dead room. Following my lead, they awkwardly picked up the pieces of the conversation, tossing out jokes until the tension thinned. We were here to have a good time. If Jocelyn hadn’t crashed the party just to be an eyesore, I wouldn’t have ruined the vibe. A while later, when the game was in full swing, I looked over my shoulder. Holden was gone. When he finally reappeared at the entrance of the VIP room, the guy who had brought Jocelyn as his plus-one was trailing behind him like a kicked dog. I couldn’t hear what the guy was saying—he was nodding and bowing in apology—but Holden’s brow was deeply furrowed in blatant irritation. After dismissing the guy, Holden kept checking his watch. The second the hour hand hit ten, his voice cut through the noise. “Daphne. It’s time to go home.” I looked down at the cards in my hand, feeling a fleeting sense of disappointment, but I nodded anyway. “Alright. Let’s go.” Everyone in our circle knew I had a fragile constitution; I wasn’t built for late nights, and Holden was notoriously strict about my curfew. No one tried to stop us. Just before I walked out the door, I caught Maeve’s eye—the friend who had asked the question. I gave her a subtle wink and mouthed, Thank you. Maeve gave me a tiny, knowing salute. She had lobbed that question perfectly to help me vent. If Jocelyn hadn’t been so desperate as to show up where she didn’t belong, I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to humiliate her. After all, I had a massive heart. I had even forgiven my cheating fiancé. The drive home was suffocatingly silent. When we walked through our front door, Holden didn’t kneel to help me off with my heels like he usually did. Instead, his face dark as a storm front, he headed straight for his study. It took me a second to realize he was actually furious. “Are you mad? Why?” I tilted my head, genuinely baffled. “Just because I made Jocelyn a little uncomfortable?” Holden stopped dead in his tracks. He didn’t turn around. “You didn’t have to target her like that. I really don’t have any contact with her anymore.” “No contact? Then how did she magically track us down tonight?” I dropped onto the sofa, kicking my feet up onto the coffee table, arguing just for the sake of it. Holden whipped around, his eyes locking onto mine. For several agonizing seconds, he just stared at me. Then, he closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. When he opened them again, his gaze was resolute. “Daphne, when I say I’m not in contact with her, I mean I will never initiate contact with her again. The guy who brought her tonight was a connection I gave her back in the day. I promise you, she will never appear in front of you again.” I almost laughed. Six months ago, when I caught him in bed with Jocelyn, he had sworn the exact same thing. “Saying things like that… it doesn’t just humiliate her, Daphne. It hurts you, too.” Holden softened his approach. He walked over to the sofa, dropping to one knee beside me, his voice melting into that warm, tender register I used to love. “Don’t say things like that anymore.” I looked down at him, the silence stretching between us. I reached out, my fingertips lightly tracing the line of his jaw. “But it was the truth.” That moment—when he had come back to me, desperate and devoted—had been his get-out-of-jail-free card. It was the only reason I had allowed him back into my life after the ultimate betrayal. Holden hadn’t expected me to say that. He looked utterly lost. I pulled my hand back, a sudden wave of profound apathy washing over me. 2 Holden left for work early the next morning. As if she had set a timer the moment his car pulled out of the driveway, Jocelyn started texting me. I ignored her. But she was waiting for me outside my art gallery. “I need to talk to you,” she said, blocking the glass doors. “Unless you want this perfect, curated life you’ve built to come crashing down…” I didn’t even know I was supposedly curating a “perfect life.” I had some time before my first appointment, and a morbid curiosity to hear whatever delusional script she had prepared, so I didn’t tell her to screw off. I regretted it almost immediately. It was entirely pointless garbage. “Do you have any idea how much funding and resources Holden has been funneling to me behind your back?” Jocelyn asked, her chin tilted up in triumph, finally catching my attention. “Every single one of my academic proposals—whether they have merit or not—gets pushed through without a hitch. I know he’s pulling the strings.” Seeing my expression shift, Jocelyn grew bolder. “I’m about to get tenure. Once I reach a status where I can actually stand as an equal beside Holden, you’ll have no choice but to bow out.” In the second half of her speech, I actually detected a note of condescending pity. “I suggest you do the smart thing and leave him on your own terms. Don’t wait until he dumps you. You don’t want the illusion of your happy life to shatter. Save yourself the embarrassment.” Looking at her beaming, unearned confidence, I let out a soft laugh. My voice was eerily calm. “I don’t know if I’ll be embarrassed in the future. But I can absolutely ensure you’re embarrassed right now. Care to test that theory?” Jocelyn rolled her eyes. “You’re just a painter. What could you possibly do to make me—” “I kept the photos of you and Holden in bed,” I interrupted, my tone conversational. Jocelyn’s face drained of all color. “You said you deleted them!” “Did Holden tell you that? I did delete them. But deleting a copy is technically deleting it, isn’t it?” I tapped my chin, pretending to be deep in thought. “I wonder… if those photos ended up on the university’s faculty forum, would that affect your tenure review?” … Watching her stumble away in a panicked frenzy didn’t bring me any joy. I looked down at my hands resting in my lap; I had clenched my fists so tightly that crescent moon-shaped cuts were bleeding into my palms. Using cold logic to smother my fury, I pulled up the faculty roster for her university. If she wanted to bring the war to my doorstep, she had to pay the toll. She might be shameless, but I wasn’t morally bankrupt enough to post revenge porn on a public forum and subject innocent people to that filth. Instead, I casually zipped the folder of photos and emailed them directly to Nadine, Jocelyn’s fiercest competitor for the tenure track position. I didn’t need to lift another finger. Her rival would gladly bury her. My fleetingly good mood died the second I walked through my front door that evening. I stood in the entryway. From the living room, I could hear Holden on the phone. Jocelyn was sobbing through the speaker. Holden was silent for a long time. Finally, he spoke, his voice a soothing balm. “Jocelyn, I’ll take care of this. I told you I’d protect your career. I will always be your safety net.” What a breathtakingly charming thing to say. I didn’t wait for him to hang up. I couldn’t help myself. I started clapping. Clap. Clap. Clap. Holden whipped around. The sound of my applause echoed through the room, bleeding right through the phone for Jocelyn to hear. I didn’t have to wonder. I knew exactly how pathetic I looked. 3 Leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over my chest, I watched Holden. It took him only a fraction of a second to compose himself. “When did you get home?” he asked, abruptly ending the call. His voice was devastatingly normal. I tilted my head, pretending to think. “‘Holden, it’s all Daphne’s fault, what are we going to do?’—right about then.” Just mimicking her whining tone sent a physical shiver down my spine. Holden’s expression didn’t so much as twitch. He walked over to the shoe cabinet, pulled out my house slippers, and knelt on the floor in front of me. “Put your shoes on first. The floor is cold.” I rested my hand lightly on his shoulder to steady myself and slipped my feet into the slippers. A few minutes later, I was sitting on the sofa, taking tiny sips of the warm water he had poured for me. Holden was in the kitchen, bustling around, preparing dinner. This used to be the sight that brought me the most profound peace. Now, it just made me bone-tired. I set the glass down and walked to the kitchen threshold. “So. Is this what ‘no contact’ looks like?” Holden went rigid. The knife hovered over the cutting board. “You’ve been secretly feeding her resources, keeping a direct line wide open.” I couldn’t suppress a dry, hollow laugh. “‘I will always be your safety net.’ Truly, a touching sentiment.” I stared fiercely at his back. The emotions violently thrashing against my ribcage felt like they were going to tear me apart from the inside. After a suffocating standoff, Holden finally moved. He turned around, his eyes brimming with earnest desperation. “She was with me for a while, Daphne. I can’t just leave her to drown. But I swear to you, I will never do anything to betray you again.” Looking at him, I felt a toxic wave of irony wash over me. His promises were cheaper than dirt. Like a bucket of ice water to the face, clarity finally struck me. My mind flashed back to the day he had shown up at my door, bags in hand, begging to get back together. Three years ago, like so many ordinary couples, the distance had broken us. It wasn’t a lack of love; it was just the grinding friction of life eroding what we had. But shortly after we split, my parents were killed in a head-on collision. The grief shattered my psychological floor. On a completely unremarkable Tuesday, I had planned to end my life. But Holden showed up. After Jocelyn had confessed her feelings to him, he realized I was the only one he wanted. So, he abandoned his perfectly stable, successful life in his hometown and moved across the country to my city, starting over from scratch. He showed me through his actions that there was still one person in this world who would fiercely, unconditionally choose me. He sat in the waiting room during my therapy sessions. He whispered into my hair, night after night, promising he would never leave me. But six months ago, right as we were planning our wedding, I found him naked in our bed with Jocelyn. And now, he was telling me he would always be her safety net. How long, exactly, was his forever? Perhaps the absolute devastation on my face broke through his defenses. Holden dropped the knife, wiped his hands, and closed the distance between us. Holden had these incredible, expressive eyes. When he looked at you, it was so easy to drown in them. I reached up and gently covered his eyes with my hand. “One story last night. A completely different story tonight,” I whispered. “Holden, which lie am I supposed to believe?” He let me cover his eyes. His lips parted, but he couldn’t form a single syllable of defense. He was the one giving another woman the ammunition to humiliate me. And here I was, still trying to put a fresh coat of paint over a rotting house. All because he had once run to me when I was dying. But gratitude has an expiration date, and today, mine had finally run out. I pulled my hand away. Blinking against the sudden light, Holden looked disoriented. A second later, panic flared in his chest, and he reached out to grab my arm. I stepped back, dodging his touch. His hand hung in the dead air between us. I turned my back to him. “Just make dinner,” I said quietly. Once we finished this final supper, I was done. 4 Over the next few days, Holden was frantic, using every connection he had to salvage Jocelyn’s imploding career. He was so distracted he completely missed the fact that I had sold the art gallery my parents left me. I planned to take the money and relocate to my parents’ hometown—a small, rainy island in the Pacific Northwest. To keep it off Holden’s radar, I only told a few close friends about the sale. The day after the paperwork was signed, Maeve showed up at my apartment. “Are you seriously retiring to be a full-time housewife?” Maeve asked, leaning against the counter. “You’re not even going to keep the gallery running?” She sighed, her tone shifting into something maternal and urgent. “Listen to me. Holden is practically parading Jocelyn around town right now. You need to keep a safety net for yourself.” I frowned, genuinely confused. “Who said anything about me getting married?” Maeve’s brow furrowed. “Holden did. I was in the private room next to theirs last night. He took Jocelyn out to dinner with the dean of her faculty.” A cold laugh bubbled in my throat. Brilliant. To kill the rumors about Jocelyn sleeping with a taken man, he simply fabricated an impending wedding for himself. “Stop being foolish, Daphne,” Maeve pleaded. “Holden is not worth destroying your life over.” We weren’t best friends, and she was stepping over a boundary, but looking into her worried eyes, a genuine warmth spread through my chest. “Don’t worry,” I said softly. “I’m never marrying him.” When I got home that night, Holden was slumped on the living room sofa. My heart seized. In the corner of the room, several large, packed suitcases were sitting in plain sight. But seeing him leaning his head back, eyes closed in utter exhaustion, I quietly let out a breath. “Everything okay?” I asked. Holden opened his eyes. They were bloodshot. His voice was a raspy whisper. “You’re doing the seasonal closet swap again? Sorry, baby. I’ve been so swamped, I haven’t had time to help you.” Right. Jocelyn’s mess was proving difficult. Holden had power, but the university had its own politics. It was the perfect time to throw a little gasoline on the fire. “Daphne? Daph?” I snapped out of my thoughts. “Hmm?” “Why don’t you leave the boxes for a few days? I’ll help you organize when things quiet down.” I rejected the offer instantly. I was praying he wouldn’t have a free second to spare. Thank God for my well-documented, neurotic habit of overhauling my entire wardrobe every time the seasons changed. For the next few days, Holden left before sunrise and came back after midnight. It gave me the perfect window to log onto his home computer and dig up the hard evidence of Jocelyn’s academic fraud. On my final day in the city, I shipped my suitcases via overnight freight, then headed to a café to meet Nadine. A moral failing might be swept under the rug by an influential man, but plagiarized data? Fabricated peer reviews? Let’s see Holden try to bury that. After handing Nadine the flash drive, I walked out. As I passed a high-end hotel lobby, a familiar voice drifted from one of the private alcoves. I stopped. Through the partially open sliding door, I saw a man’s wrist resting on the table. The custom watch face—an engraving of my first award-winning painting—caught the light. Then, an older man’s voice drifted into the hallway. “Look, why make this so complicated? If you and little Jocelyn just announce you’re officially together, this whole scandal disappears.” Jocelyn, tucked perfectly into Holden’s side, flushed a deep, beautiful red. They looked like a Renaissance painting of young, tragic lovers. I glanced at my phone. I was going to miss my flight. Whatever answer Holden gave them, I didn’t care to stick around to hear it. The mountains are high and the rivers are long. May we never cross paths again. 5 By the time the tiny puddle-jumper landed near Orcas Island, the sky had bruised into a deep, stormy purple. I found myself wondering, just for a second, if Holden had realized I was gone yet. Probably not. He probably took the older man’s advice, reignited the flame with Jocelyn, and they were currently tangled up in hotel sheets, entirely dead to the world. The fact that my breakup text still read Delivered and not Read only solidified my theory. It never occurred to me that Holden’s phone had simply died. When Holden walked into the apartment, it was suffocatingly quiet. He pulled his phone from his pocket—the screen was black. Dead. He walked into the master bedroom. Daphne wasn’t there. He didn’t think much of it. Lately, she had taken to sleeping in the guest room. He assumed his erratic hours and the smell of whiskey and stress clinging to him were disturbing her peace. After a scalding shower, driven by a gnawing, nameless anxiety in his gut, Holden stood outside the guest room door. He raised his hand to knock, but smelling the faint trace of alcohol that the soap hadn’t washed away, he hesitated. Daphne had been so cold to him these past few days. He knew she was punishing him for running himself ragged over Jocelyn’s mess. But Jocelyn had carried the weight of his darkest impulses when he had nothing left to give, and he couldn’t just watch her drown. The timeline he had given Daphne wasn’t the truth. Jocelyn had been in his life long before he confessed to it. Back then, Daphne was drowning in clinical depression. Holden was trying to build a corporate empire from the ground up while simultaneously keeping the woman he loved from jumping off a balcony. A man made of iron would have broken under that pressure. He needed a release valve. And Jocelyn had simply offered herself up. Even now, Holden couldn’t rationalize it. There were a million ways to vent stress, but his mind had short-circuited, and he had taken Jocelyn to bed. What was done was done. Agonizing over it now was pointless. Holden let out a breath so faint it wouldn’t have disturbed a feather. He was terrified of waking Daphne, terrified of dragging them back to the apocalyptic screaming matches of six months ago. So he let her hide from him. Even now, he just stood outside her door in the dark, silent and bowed, like a sinner at an empty altar. He didn’t know how long he stood there before the sharp creak of a floorboard from inside the room startled him. Panicking like a teenager caught out after curfew, he scrambled back to the master bedroom, completely forgetting his dead phone sitting on the coffee table. He stared at the ceiling all night. Just as the sky outside the window began to turn a bruised gray, sleep finally started to pull him under. Then, the frantic buzzing of the doorbell shattered the quiet. Holden threw on a shirt, grabbed his phone, and plugged it into the kitchen wall. Massaging his throbbing temples, he walked to the door. The video monitor showed Jocelyn’s tear-stained face. It was like a shot of adrenaline straight to Holden’s heart. He ripped the door open and stepped out, physically blocking her from seeing inside the apartment. “What are you doing here? Why are you here? Who told you where I live?” Faced with the machine-gun fire of his anger, Jocelyn’s bottom lip trembled. “Holden…” Whatever she was about to say was cut off as Holden grabbed her elbow and practically shoved her down the hallway toward the elevators. After finally getting rid of her, Holden slipped back inside the apartment. He crept to the guest room door and pressed his ear against the wood. Silence. His racing heart finally slowed. Any trace of sleep was gone now. He went to the kitchen, unplugged his phone, and walked into his study to start the day’s emails. As the screen booted up, a flood of notifications battered the screen. But Holden only saw one. A single text from Daphne, sent yesterday afternoon. [Holden, we’re done.]

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436742”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

When I opened my eyes again, I was right back on the day the wealthiest man in the city stood with red-rimmed eyes, begging my mother to come home. This time, I was not going to let history repeat itself. My mother was just about to deliver her signature line from my past life—something tragically poetic about how an apology this late is worth less than dirt—when I lunged forward and wrapped my arms around the billionaire’s leg like a vise. “Daddy! Take me back to the mansion! I want to sleep in a giant bed, and I want to eat Maine lobster!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. The billionaire froze, utterly stunned. My mother’s face instantly drained of color, turning a sickly shade of gray. In my previous life, she had played the role of the proud, wounded heroine to perfection. To “punish” the male lead, she refused every cent of his help, going so far as to force me to steal and scavenge for food, which ultimately led to my miserable death on a freezing street corner. And then, she used my ashes to bring the billionaire to his knees. She traded my dead body for a tearful public apology and the wedding of the century. The internet worshipped her as the fiercely independent single mother who had survived against all odds. But I was the only one who knew the truth: she was clinically unhinged. She had slapped a billionaire across the face on a live stream, dragged her “illegitimate” daughter away into the slums, and rocketed to viral fame. But here was the thing: she might not have wanted the life of a billionaire’s heiress, but I did. I smiled against the fabric of his tailored suit. In this life, I was going to hold onto everything that belonged to me with a death grip. 01 My name is Mia. I am five years old. And I have already died once. In my last life, I died on a sidewalk in the dead of winter. I had been starving for three days and burning with a fever for two. I took my last breath huddled next to a frozen dumpster. My mother, Caroline Frost, stood in front of my grave and wept until her voice gave out. Her makeup didn’t run at all. Because she had set it with setting spray right before the cameras arrived. That performance of grief shot straight to the number one trending topic online. “Heartbroken Single Mother Suffers Unimaginable Loss. Billionaire Father Leaves Five-Year-Old to Die on the Streets.” The comment sections were a bloodbath. Jonathan Garrison was harassed until he stepped down from his company’s board of directors. He was publicly shamed until he dropped to his knees right there on the pavement in front of my urn. The moment his knees hit the concrete, my mother smiled. Just a tiny twitch of her lips, hidden behind the crowd. But I saw it clearly. Because my soul hadn’t dissipated yet. I watched with my own ghost eyes as she traded my ashes for a thirty-million-dollar post-nuptial agreement, a fairy-tale wedding, and the internet’s collective blessing for the “tragic heroine who finally got her happy ending.” I died, and she won. That was my past life. So, when I opened my eyes again and found myself holding my mother’s hand, standing at the intersection of a high-end shopping district—I knew exactly what was happening. Across the street, Jonathan Garrison stood with bloodshot eyes in front of three black Maybachs, flanked by a dozen bodyguards in dark suits. The wind was howling, snapping the hem of his wool overcoat. He looked at me with eyes hollowed out by guilt. His voice was gravelly and low. “Caroline, come back with me. Mia needs a home.” My mother’s chin instantly tilted upward. I knew this angle by heart. A perfect forty-five-degree tilt, eyes glistening but not spilling over, bottom lip trembling just enough. Backlit by the streetlamp, she looked devastatingly beautiful. She took a deep breath—no, she elegantly curated her emotions—and opened her mouth: “Jonathan, your money can’t buy my forgiveness. An apology this late is worth—” She had practiced this line in the mirror no less than a hundred times in my past life. I remembered the follow-up line, too: “Keep your billions. Caroline Frost doesn’t need your charity.” Then, she would yank me by the arm, turn on her heel, and walk right into the pouring rain, giving the paparazzi hiding in the bushes the perfect, cinematic shot of her tragic departure. And then we would go back to that mold-infested, basement apartment in the worst part of town. No heat. No hot water. Dinner would be half a packet of expired instant noodles. In my last life, I was a good girl. I followed her into the rain. This life? She was only halfway through her monologue. I moved. I ripped my hand out of hers, pumped my tiny little legs, and sprinted straight across the pavement. With a heavy thud, I threw my entire body weight onto Jonathan Garrison’s leg. The fabric of his suit trousers was slick, and I almost slid off, so I scrambled up a few inches and clamped my arms and legs around his thigh like a koala. “Daddy!!” I pushed the volume of my vocal cords to the absolute maximum. The entire street heard it. Jonathan looked down, his entire body going rigid. He probably hadn’t expected a five-year-old to possess the lung capacity of a siren. “Daddy, I want to go home! Take me to the mansion! I want a big bed! The kind you can jump on! And I want Maine lobster! Ten of them!” I stood there and demanded every single thing I had been denied in my previous life in one breathless rush. Behind me, my mother’s voice stuttered. Her monologue had completely derailed. “Mia… what… what are you doing?” I twisted my neck to look back at her. Under the glow of the streetlamps, the meticulously crafted mask of the ‘beautiful, suffering martyr’ was cracking. Beneath it was a very specific shade of green. It was the look of an actress who had just gathered her tears for the climax of the play, only to have the stage crew accidentally drop a sandbag on the set. I smiled. A bright, gap-toothed, genuinely sweet smile. “Mommy, this is my daddy.” I turned my face back up toward Jonathan. He slowly knelt down on the damp pavement, his eyes still red. But I noticed something shift in his gaze. In my last life, his eyes had held nothing but guilt and desperation. This time, mixed into the guilt, was shock. And… a fragile, terrified kind of joy. His voice was hoarse. “Mia… you want to come home with Daddy?” “Yes! More than anything!” I reached out my two short arms and wrapped them around his neck. He smelled like expensive pine and cedarwood. I had never smelled that in my past life. I buried my face into the crook of his shoulder and whispered something so softly that only he could hear: “Daddy, can I stay with you forever?” His shoulders jerked, muscles locking tight. Then, a large, warm hand cupped the back of my head. The touch was incredibly gentle, but his fingers were trembling. “Yes.” Just one word. But the restraint in his voice was breaking. I rested my chin on his shoulder and looked past him. Five yards away, Caroline stood frozen. The wind whipped her skirt around her legs as her expression cycled through shock, fury, calculation, and finally settled into a tight, jaw-clenching mask of endurance. She forced a smile. She was smiling directly at a bystander diagonally behind her who was secretly filming on a phone. “The poor dear… she’s just missed her father so much…” Her voice was dripping with sickening sweetness. But I knew the truth. She was going to be staring at the ceiling all night tonight. Because I had just ripped the first page right out of her script. 02 Jonathan’s estate was located in The Palisades. It was an ultra-exclusive enclave with only twelve properties, each sitting on acres of private land. As the convoy of SUVs rolled through the gates, I pressed my face against the tinted glass. Perfectly manicured sycamore trees lined the driveway, and a massive stone fountain was lit up with a warm, golden glow in the dark. At the end of the drive, a sprawling, modern white estate came into view. Two lines of uniformed staff were waiting by the grand entrance. The car glided to a stop, and a butler opened the door. “Mr. Garrison. The house is prepared.” Jonathan stepped out first, then turned around and lifted me out of the seat. He was incredibly awkward at holding a child. One hand hovered tentatively under my bottom, while the other seemed to have no idea where to go. He finally settled for placing it flat against my back. I played along, keeping my arms looped around his neck while I took in the house. Italian marble steps. A sweeping spiral staircase. A chandelier that looked like frozen rain. In my last life, I gnawed on stale, moldy bread in a damp basement. In this life, I was the little princess of a multi-million-dollar estate. The disparity between human lives was wider than the gap between a human and a dog. “Are you hungry, Mia?” Jonathan set me down on an oversized velvet sofa and crouched down to my eye level. He really had no idea how to talk to kids. His face was as deadly serious as if he were negotiating a corporate merger. “Starving.” I was being brutally honest. In my last life, I was hungry every single day. When you get used to starving, you eventually stop feeling the hunger. And then you die. “What do you want to eat?” “Lobster.” I held up my little hand, fingers splayed. “Five of them.” I had downgraded from ten to five. I was learning to be a reasonable heiress. Ten minutes later, the private chef didn’t bring out five lobsters. He brought out a feast that covered the entire dining table. Whole Maine lobsters, Alaskan king crab legs, Wagyu beef sashimi, and truffle shavings over foie gras. I sat in a dining chair that swallowed me whole, staring at the mountain of food. The silverware was too heavy; my little hands couldn’t grip the fork properly. Jonathan sat across from me. He watched me struggle for exactly three seconds before he stood up and walked over. He picked up a small silver fork and began clumsily extracting the lobster meat from the shell, placing it piece by piece into my bowl. He moved slowly. His hands were elegant, with long, distinct knuckles—hands meant for signing billion-dollar contracts. And right now, they were meticulously dissecting a crustacean for a five-year-old. “Is it good?” he asked. My mouth was so full of butter-soaked lobster that my cheeks bulged out. I nodded violently. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. It wasn’t me being dramatic. It was the phantom memory of how badly it hurt to starve to death. I swallowed hard and looked up at him. He was intensely focused on shelling the second lobster tail for me. This man. In my last life, my mother tortured him until he broke. He ended up on his knees in the freezing rain, clutching my ashes. It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to save me. It was that my mother wouldn’t let him. Every time he sent people with money, food, or winter coats, my mother would shove it back into their hands while the cameras rolled. “I don’t need your pity, Jonathan Garrison!” Then she would slam the door in their faces, turn around, and hand me a cup of tap water and a piece of stale bread. It wasn’t pride. She was cultivating a tragedy. She needed me to suffer. She needed me to die to complete her masterpiece. “Mia.” Jonathan’s voice pulled me out of my dark thoughts. “Yeah?” “Eat slower. You’ll choke.” He slid a glass of warm milk toward me. I took it with both hands and took a sip. It was sweetened. “When you’re done, I’ll show you your room.” “Okay.” I shoved another piece of crab meat into my mouth. Right at that moment, his phone buzzed on the table. The screen lit up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the caller ID: “Caroline”. Jonathan glanced at it. He didn’t answer. The phone kept vibrating against the wood. He reached over, switched it to silent, and flipped it face down. I paused my chewing for half a second, then went right back to my crab. She was starting. According to the script of my past life, this unanswered call would be followed by twenty-seven massive text messages, every word dripping with manufactured blood and tears. The core message would be: You stole my child. You are a monster. And tomorrow, screenshots of those texts would conveniently leak to the press. But it was fine. I was the one writing the script for this life. After dinner, Jonathan carried me up to the third floor. He pushed open a heavy white door. The room was absurdly large. Soft blush-pink walls, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city skyline, and a four-poster canopy bed that was larger than the entire apartment I had lived in last year. The walk-in closet was already lined with rows of expensive little dresses, the designer tags still dangling from the sleeves. A massive, pristine stuffed rabbit sat propped against the pillows. I stopped in my tracks. “When… when did you get all this?” Jonathan stood in the doorway, suddenly looking very unsure of himself. “I had it prepared a while ago.” “A while ago?” “It’s always been ready.” I knew what he meant. He meant he had been waiting for me to come home. This room hadn’t been thrown together this afternoon by an interior designer on a panic deadline. He had prepared it the day he found out I existed. A sharp ache hit the bridge of my nose. In my last life, this room sat empty for five years, waiting for a little girl who never came. In the end, all it held was a wooden box of ashes. I walked over to the bed, clambered up the mattress, and let myself sink into the absurdly soft duvet. It smelled like lavender and clean cotton. It was so warm. I rolled over, wrapping myself up like a burrito. “Daddy.” “Yes?” “Goodnight.” When he reached out to turn off the light, his movements were incredibly gentle. Just before the door clicked shut, I heard his phone buzz again out in the hallway. His voice was a low, dangerous rumble, but my ears were sharp. “She is staying here. This is not up for debate.” Then the line went dead. I squeezed the stuffed rabbit against my chest, lying in the center of the massive canopy bed, and fell asleep with a smile on my face. 03 When I woke up the next morning, sunlight was pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I laid in the cloud-like bedding for a full ten minutes, just letting myself exist. In my last life, the thing that woke me up every morning was the gnawing pain in my stomach. In this life, I was woken by a maid carrying in a silver breakfast tray. French toast, freshly squeezed orange juice, and a bowl of perfectly tempered oatmeal. Next to the plate was a heavy cardstock note with jagged, messy handwriting: “Good morning, Mia. Daddy had to go to the office. I will be back to have lunch with you.” The pen strokes were heavy, indenting the paper. Some letters had been crossed out and rewritten. It was hilarious that a billionaire CEO wrote like a third grader. No, it wasn’t that. He just wasn’t used to writing something so soft and emotional. I folded the card carefully and tucked it under my pillow. After breakfast, I started wandering around the mansion. There was a heated indoor pool on the first floor. A private home theater on the second. On the third floor, down the hall from my bedroom, was an art studio and an indoor playroom. The toys in the playroom were immaculate. A wooden slide, a sprawling block set, a rocking horse—none of the safety seals had even been broken. Mr. Carson, the butler, shadowed me silently, offering polite explanations when I paused. “Miss Mia, Mr. Garrison had his assistants purchase all of these last year. Please let me know which ones you prefer, and we can have anything you don’t like replaced.” Last year. Last year I was digging through the trash behind a convenience store. I bit my lower lip and didn’t say a word. Just then, a commotion echoed from the grand entrance downstairs. The crunch of tires on gravel, the heavy thud of car doors, and the frantic, hushed footsteps of the staff. “The Dowager Mrs. Garrison has arrived!” Mr. Carson’s face instantly paled. I knew exactly who this was. Evelyn Garrison. Jonathan’s mother, and the iron-fisted matriarch who still pulled the strings of the Garrison empire behind the scenes. In my last life, she was the loudest voice opposing Jonathan bringing me home. Her reasoning was brutally pragmatic: Caroline Frost was a manipulative social climber from the gutter, and there was no guarantee the child was even Garrison blood. Later, after I died and the internet tore the family apart, she had sat in front of the news cameras and squeezed out two tears. Whether those tears were for me or for the plunging stock prices, only God knew. From downstairs came the sharp, rapid clicking of high heels against marble. It was the rhythm of a woman marching in to declare war. I peeked over the mahogany banister. A woman in her late fifties swept into the foyer, wearing a structured, deep emerald dress. Her hair was pulled back into a severe, flawless chignon, and her diamond earrings caught the cold morning light. She radiated an aura of terrifying authority. Trailing half a step behind her was a younger woman. Early twenties, wearing a soft, pastel-colored day dress. Her hair fell in loose waves over her shoulders, and she had a perfectly practiced, demure smile. My eyes lingered on the younger woman. She hadn’t been in my previous life. But my gut told me she wasn’t here to play nice. “Where is she?” Evelyn’s voice carried up the stairs, sharp and commanding. “Where is the child? Bring her down here so I can look at her.” Mr. Carson glanced up at me, panic in his eyes. I didn’t wait for him to fetch me. I put my hand on the banister and started walking down the sweeping staircase. I didn’t walk fast. Short legs require careful balance. But every step I took was deliberate and heavy. When Evelyn Garrison saw me, her eyes narrowed to slits. She was assessing me. I was assessing her right back. We locked eyes for three full seconds in absolute silence. “So. You are Mia.” “I am Mia Garrison.” I made sure to emphasize the last name. One of her perfectly arched eyebrows twitched upward. “You certainly have his features.” Coming from her, it wasn’t a grandmotherly compliment. It was a forensic observation. “However,” she continued, moving to sit on the central sofa and accepting a teacup from a trembling maid, “looking like him proves nothing. We will be doing a DNA test.” “Okay.” I agreed instantly, without missing a beat. Evelyn clearly didn’t expect that. She probably anticipated a five-year-old to burst into tears, run away, or stare blankly, not knowing what DNA was. But I had already died once. Did she think I was scared of a needle? “I’ll cooperate. You can draw blood, or you can pull my hair.” My voice was deadpan. Calm. Evelyn’s hand paused halfway to her mouth. The teacup hovered in the air as she gave me a second, much harder look. Standing behind her, the younger woman was watching me, too. The smile on her face was magazine-cover perfect. The look in her eyes was ice-cold. “Mrs. Garrison, I can handle the arrangements for the clinic,” the younger woman offered, her voice light and musical. “Go ahead, Camilla.” Camilla Dupont. I filed that name away in the back of my mind. 04 The DNA results came back in three days. Probability of Paternity: 99.99%. There was zero suspense. I was Jonathan Garrison’s biological daughter. Evelyn Garrison stared at the medical report in absolute silence for a long time. She sat in the armchair by the window, her thumb slowly rubbing the edge of the thick paper. The butler, the maids, the security detail—the entire room was holding its breath. Jonathan stood nearby. His face was blank, but I caught the subtle, rapid tapping of his ring finger against his thigh. He was anxious. This piece of paper was the only thing that gave him the absolute, legal right to keep me in this house. “Mother. You have the results,” he finally said. Evelyn lifted her eyes. She looked at him, and then she looked over at me, curled up in the corner of the velvet sofa, quietly eating a bowl of green grapes. “That child cannot go back to that woman.” Her tone was still sharp and unyielding, but the sentence itself was a massive shift. It was a decree of protection. Half of the heavy weight in my chest finally dissipated. The other half, however, stayed right where it was. Because Camilla Dupont was currently walking toward me, holding a glass of juice. “Mia, are you thirsty? I had the chef squeeze some fresh oranges for you.” She knelt down in front of me, her smile dripping with maternal warmth. I took the glass. I sniffed it subtly. It smelled like regular orange juice. No poison. I took a sip. “Thank you, Miss Camilla.” “Call her Auntie,” Evelyn suddenly corrected from across the room. I looked at Camilla, then over at Evelyn. The older woman’s intentions were glaringly obvious. Camilla Dupont wasn’t just a friendly guest. She was the woman Evelyn had handpicked to be Jonathan’s wife. “Auntie Camilla is perfectly fine,” Camilla laughed, trying to smooth over the tension. She reached out and placed a hand on my back. It wasn’t a heavy touch, but her manicured fingers pressed just slightly into my spine. It felt like a territorial claim. Like she was establishing ownership. I didn’t say a word. I just quietly finished my juice. When Camilla stood up and walked back to Evelyn’s side, I tugged on the butler’s sleeve. “Mr. Carson,” I whispered. “Who is that lady?” Mr. Carson leaned down, lowering his voice. “She is the heiress to the Dupont family. They are old family friends of the Garrisons. The Dowager Mrs. Garrison has been trying to arrange a match between her and your father for some time.” Ah. It all made sense now. No wonder she wasn’t in my past life. In my past life, I died in the slums. I never crossed the threshold of the Garrison estate, so I never became a factor in Jonathan’s personal life. But her presence here now was a massive red flag. In the cutthroat world of the ultra-rich, she had all the right cards: family pedigree, the matriarch’s approval, the gentle, accommodating persona. Any of those individually was fine. Put them together, and she was a direct threat to my survival. I didn’t care if she married Jonathan. I cared if she tried to mess with my safety. Jonathan came home for lunch that afternoon. The table was set for four: Jonathan, me, Evelyn, and Camilla. Camilla naturally took the seat directly to Jonathan’s right. She seamlessly anticipated his needs, sliding the salt shaker toward him, offering him a linen napkin before he asked. It was practiced. Routine. Intimate. I sat across from them, eating my food in silence. “Mia.” Camilla smiled across the table at me. “How about Auntie takes you shopping at the mall this afternoon? We can buy you some pretty new dresses.” “I would love that.” I gave her my brightest, most innocent smile. That afternoon, Camilla took me to the most exclusive luxury department store in the city. She picked out six dresses, three pairs of shoes, and two designer backpacks. When we were standing at the register, I noticed something. She positioned herself at a very specific angle. Just beyond the perfume counter, a man in a baseball cap was holding a camera with a telephoto lens, firing off rapid shots. I saw him. And Camilla knew that I saw him. She just smiled down at me. “Which color do you like best, sweetie?” She wasn’t buying me clothes because she cared. She was managing her PR. She was feeding the press a narrative: The graceful socialite stepping in to lovingly care for the billionaire’s newly discovered, traumatized daughter. It was a brilliant chess move. If her engagement to Jonathan went through, she would already be branded as the perfect, angelic stepmother. The media, the public, and Evelyn Garrison would all be entirely on her side. I took the pastel pink dress from her hands and looked up with wide eyes. “Thank you so much, Auntie Camilla.” On the ride back to the estate, I slumped against the leather seats and pretended to fall asleep. Camilla’s phone buzzed. She answered it. She kept her voice low, but the interior of the Maybach was only so big. “…Don’t worry, the kid is easy to manage. She’s five. A few designer dresses and she thinks I’m her best friend. Once I have the ring on my finger, I’ll be the one deciding which wing of the house she sleeps in.” She let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Ignore Caroline Frost. That trashy woman from the gutter isn’t going to make a dent. Honestly, I hope she keeps making a scene. The crazier she acts, the more Jonathan will realize he needs a stable woman like me.” She hung up. I kept my eyes shut tight, but the corners of my mouth curled up into a cold little smirk in the dark. Well played, Camilla. You really think because I’m in a five-year-old’s body, I have a five-year-old’s brain? Don’t worry. I took your dresses. And I just took note of exactly how to destroy you.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436741”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The air over the dining table felt suffocatingly thin, pulled taut like a wire about to snap. Sitting across from us were Warren and Daphne. Daphne was in her early thirties, with a distinct, striking beauty mark resting right at the outer corner of her left eye. The way she looked at my husband, Colin, carried a possessive weight that was impossible to misread. Her husband, Warren, spent the entire evening staring down at his plate, pushing his roasted vegetables around with his fork in utter silence. Colin swirled the cabernet in his glass, his tone casual, almost playful as he shattered the quiet. “Come on, honey. We swap with them for a month. Just a little lifestyle experiment.” When I didn’t immediately respond, he leaned in, adding, “Relax, Paige. It’s just a game. Warren and Daph have already agreed.” I set my fork down, a cold, sharp laugh echoing only in my head. Four people at this table, and three of them were holding their breath, waiting for me to nod. “I’ll think about it,” I said, keeping my voice as level as glass. It wasn’t that I was being open-minded. It was the quiet, gnawing intuition twisting in my gut. A few minutes ago, when Daphne was serving herself from the shared plates, her tongs had bypassed the cilantro with surgical precision. How does a “college buddy’s wife” know my husband’s obscure hatred for cilantro so intimately? The question circled in my mind, dark and heavy, but I kept my mouth shut. Instead, I looked at the three of them and offered a slow, deliberate smile. 01 Dinner dragged on for two excruciating hours. Daphne refilled Colin’s water glass three times. Each time, she filled it exactly to the three-quarter mark. No ice, just room temperature. That was Colin’s quirk. It had taken me a year of marriage to memorize his bizarre little preferences. She seemed to know them in her bones. Warren remained a ghost at the table, occasionally glancing up at his wife with eyes clouded by something complicated and defeated. After dinner, Colin walked them down to the lobby. I stood on our apartment balcony, looking down at the street. Right before getting into the passenger seat, Daphne turned back and murmured something to Colin. Colin laughed and nodded. His posture was entirely loose. It wasn’t the polite relaxation of a man chatting with his friend’s wife. It was the unspoken, gravity-free comfort that only exists between two people who know each other’s bodies. I closed the balcony door and loaded the wine glasses into the dishwasher. When Colin walked back in, he was practically glowing. “So? Daphne’s great, right?” “She’s lovely,” I echoed, keeping my back to him. “So, what do you think? Have you considered it?” “I told you. I’m thinking about it.” He stepped up behind me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders, pressing a kiss to my temple. I could feel him smiling against my skin. “Don’t overthink it, Paige. Everyone’s doing this kind of stuff now. It’s modern.” “What does Warren do for a living again?” I asked, slipping out of his embrace. “Construction materials. Runs a small firm.” “And he was the one who brought this up?” Colin hesitated. Just for a fraction of a second. “I brought it up first. Warren wasn’t super into it at the beginning, but Daph talked him into it.” I nodded, asking nothing more. Later, after a shower, I lay in the dark next to him. I picked up my phone and scrolled through Colin’s Instagram and Facebook. He had zero interaction with Daphne. Not a single tag, not a single like. I opened his contacts. There was no “Daphne” saved in his phone. It was clean. Too clean. Clinically sterile. You don’t meticulously erase the digital footprint of a completely platonic friend. I placed my phone face-down on the nightstand. Beside me, Colin was already asleep, his breathing a steady, even rhythm. I stared at the ceiling for a long time. In three years of marriage, he had never once mentioned a college friend named Daphne. Not once. The next morning, I took a half-day off work and drove to the County Clerk’s Office. I wasn’t there to file for divorce. I was there to pull our marriage records. I needed to know one thing: whether I was the only woman in Colin’s marital history. 02 The records department was quiet. I pulled a ticket and sat in the waiting area, mindlessly swiping on my phone. There were three people ahead of me. The second person finished at the counter and turned to leave. It was a woman in a beige trench coat. She had just been whispering to the clerk, who slid a thick stack of manila folders across the glass. As she shoved the papers into her leather tote, her eyes swept over the waiting area. When she walked past me, she suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. She looked down at the numbered ticket crushed in my fist. Then, she looked at my face. “Are you Paige?” I froze. “Who are you?” She didn’t answer directly. Instead, she asked a question that made the blood drain from my face. “Is your husband’s name Colin?” A chill crawled up the base of my spine. “How do you know that?” She sat down in the empty plastic chair right next to me, her bag resting on her lap. “Because three years ago, I was his wife.” Her name was Jill. She was thirty-two, four years older than me. Colin’s ex-wife. “How did you recognize me?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. Jill pointed to my hand. “The ring on your left finger.” I looked down at the plain platinum band. Colin had slipped it onto my finger the night he proposed. The wedding date was engraved on the inside. “It’s the exact same one,” Jill said softly. “Same designer, same minimalist cut. He even had my date engraved in the exact same spot.” My throat tightened. It felt like I was swallowing glass. “Why are you here today?” Jill met my eyes. Her gaze was steady, heavy with a grief I was only just beginning to understand. “I came to pull the archived copies of our divorce settlement. I left in such a rush back then, I didn’t keep all my paperwork. And I need it now.” “Why?” “Because I’m filing an appeal,” she said, her voice dropping an octave. “I am going to overturn the settlement that left me with absolutely nothing three years ago.” The heavy glass doors of the courthouse opened, letting in a biting draft of city wind. I pulled my jacket tighter around myself. “Do you have time right now?” Jill asked. “I do.” “Let’s go somewhere and sit down. There are things you need to hear, and you need to hear them today.” 03 We ended up at a small, dimly lit café across the street from the courthouse. Jill ordered a black coffee. I asked for hot water. She unlocked her phone and slid it across the wooden table. On the screen was a screenshot of a text thread. The date was five years ago. It was a text from Colin: Jill, I had a crazy thought. What if we swapped with Warren and his wife for a month? Just a lifestyle experiment. It could really spice things up for us. Word for word. The exact same pitch he had fed me last night. My hand began to shake around the warm ceramic mug. “He said this to you, five years ago.” “The exact same words. The exact same playbook,” Jill said. She swiped to the next screenshot. Another text from Colin: Daphne is incredibly sweet. You two should get drinks first, just to vibe. Daphne. It was Daphne, even five years ago. “What about Warren? Was he there too?” Jill nodded. “Warren is Daphne’s ex-boyfriend from college. They weren’t even married yet. Colin practically orchestrated their courthouse wedding just so he could propose this ‘swap’ idea to me.” “Did Warren and Daphne ever divorce?” “No. They maintain the legal marriage.” “Why?” Jill offered a fractured, bitter smile. “Because she needs a legal husband as a shield. As long as Daphne’s status is ‘married,’ Colin’s proposition is just a ‘harmless game between two married couples.’ It’s not an affair.” A loud ringing started in my ears, drowning out the ambient jazz playing in the café. “And? Did you agree to it?” Jill looked down at her coffee. “I did. God, I loved him so much back then. I believed every word out of his mouth.” “He told me it would bring us closer, told me it was a sophisticated thing European couples did to keep the spark alive.” She stirred her black coffee, though there was nothing in it to mix. “The second that month was over, Colin flipped a switch.” “He started looking at me with absolute disgust. He told me that if I was capable of sleeping with another man, it meant I was inherently dirty. That I had no self-respect.” “Every single time we argued, he used it against me.” “‘You let another man touch you. You’re filthy, and you know it.’ That’s what he’d say.” “For an entire year.” Jill’s voice remained incredibly steady, but the spoon was clinking against the inside of her mug faster and faster. “A year later, he filed for divorce. He told me that if I didn’t sign an uncontested divorce walking away with zero assets, he would tell my deeply religious parents exactly what I had done that month.” “I signed.” “Our house, the cars, our joint savings—he took it all. I walked away with the clothes in my suitcase.” I stared unblinkingly at my mug of hot water. The steam rising from it was starting to blur my vision. “So, what you’re saying is—” “Yes. It’s not a game, Paige,” Jill said, leaning across the table to hold my gaze. “It is a script.” “He uses the ‘swap’ to manufacture a moral failing.” “Then he uses that ‘stain’ on your character to emotionally break you until you surrender everything.” “He used this exact playbook to take everything I owned five years ago.” “And now, he’s setting the stage to do it to you.” The café hummed with normalcy. People laughing over lattes, laptops clicking. It was so profoundly normal that the reality of what I was hearing felt absurd. “What is his actual relationship with Daphne?” Jill set her spoon down. “They’ve been together since college. They supposedly broke up after graduation, but they never actually cut ties.” “She is the ghost haunting every single one of his marriages.” “You’re just wife number two.” “If you hadn’t run into me today—” She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. If I hadn’t run into her today, I would have been the next Jill. 04 When we stepped out of the café, a light drizzle had started to fall over the city. Jill gave me her number and told me to call her the second I needed anything. I took an Uber back to our apartment. The entire ride, I scrolled frantically through the transaction history of my banking app. Colin and I shared a joint account. We each deposited four thousand dollars a month into it to cover the mortgage, utilities, and daily expenses. I had never scrutinized this account. I trusted him. Now, I was looking at every single line item. January. Outgoing: $4,500. Memo: Contractor balance. We hadn’t renovated a thing in the last two years. March. Outgoing: $2,800. Memo: Auto insurance. Our premium was barely twelve hundred a year. June. Outgoing: $5,200. Memo: Out-of-pocket medical. What kind of routine check-up costs five grand? Over the last six months alone, I found nearly twenty thousand dollars in unexplained hemorrhaging from our joint account. Every single transaction had a plausible-sounding memo. Not a single one held up to basic logic. When I unlocked the apartment, Colin wasn’t home from the office yet. I walked straight into his home office and went to the bottom drawer of his desk. He kept it locked. The passcode was his mother’s birthdate. Six digits. I had known it for years. Inside was a thick manila envelope. I pulled it out and slid out the stack of papers. It was a property deed and mortgage agreement. A newly built condo in the West Loop. 1,200 square feet. Total purchase price: $750,000. Buyer: Daphne. Payment method: Financed. Down payment: $150,000. Escrow transfer account— I stared at the routing and account numbers for a full ten seconds. It was an obscure secondary account linked directly to our joint checking. Colin had used our marital money to buy Daphne a house. A hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I meticulously slid the papers back into the envelope, placed it exactly where I found it in the drawer, closed it, and locked it. I left the room exactly as it was. Stepping out of the office, I paused in the hallway. Our framed wedding photo hung on the wall. In the picture, Colin had his arm wrapped tightly around my waist, flashing a brilliant, boyish smile. Now I knew exactly what was hiding underneath that smile. My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Colin: Hey beautiful, what are you craving for dinner? I’ll pick it up on my way home. My thumbs hovered over the keyboard. I typed: Whatever you’re in the mood for. Then I opened a new chat thread and texted Jill. Jill. He bought Daphne a condo. Put $150k down using an account linked to our joint. Jill replied instantly. Exact same thing he did to me. Back then, it was $100k. Paige, whatever you do, do not spook him right now. I know, I replied. I locked my phone and went into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water. When Colin walked through the door, I was casually wiping down the kitchen island. He walked in carrying two boxes of high-end sushi and a massive bouquet of stargaze lilies. “Early celebration. Our anniversary is next week,” he said, offering me the flowers with a charming grin. I took them, burying my nose in the petals. The scent of the lilies was overpowering. So strong it was almost suffocating. “Thank you.” Over dinner, he casually brought up the partner swap again. “Have you given it any more thought? Seriously, babe, it’s nothing crazy. It’s just like taking a little vacation.” “I’m still thinking about it.” “Don’t think too long, alright? Warren’s getting antsy on his end.” “Okay.” I picked up a piece of salmon sashimi and put it in my mouth. The raw, metallic taste of fish flooded my tongue, and my stomach violently lurched. I almost gagged. But I forced myself to swallow it. Starting today, there were going to be a lot of things I had to force myself to stomach. 05 Over the next week, I executed two tasks. First: The audit. I called my old college roommate, Brooke. She was a CPA at a major accounting firm, specializing in forensic audits. I exported the last three years of our joint account statements and emailed them to her. I didn’t give her the dramatic backstory; I just told her I needed to know exactly where my household money was bleeding out. Brooke called me the very next evening. “Paige, your husband is playing games.” “What kind of games?” “Over the last three years, a total of two hundred and forty thousand dollars has been siphoned from your joint account into an external account ending in 3379.” “Every transaction has a memo that looks innocent enough on the surface.” “But I cross-referenced the spending patterns. The actual costs don’t match his memos.” “For example, he claims $6,000 for ‘HOA fees.’ I pulled up your building’s records. Your annual HOA is only $2,400.” “Where did the other $3,600 go?” I gripped my phone, my nails biting into my palm. Two hundred and forty thousand dollars. Three years. “Can you find out who owns the 3379 account?” “Not without a subpoena. But if you can get me any breadcrumbs on the other side, I can draft a bulletproof forensic flow-of-funds report.” “Do it.” The second task: Meeting Jill. This time, we met at her apartment. Jill lived in a faded brick walk-up in Rogers Park. One bedroom, maybe five hundred square feet. There was a single pair of house slippers by the door. The walls were completely bare. On the small thrifted coffee table sat a neat stack of manila folders, clipped perfectly together. “This is everything I’ve managed to gather over the last three years,” Jill said, sliding the stack toward me. The top document was a copy of her divorce decree. “Look at this,” she said, pointing to a clause on page three. Party A waives all rights to marital property, including but not limited to the primary residence, vehicles, and joint savings. “The date of the signature is April 14th.” “Do you know where my head was at on that day?” Jill pulled out a second piece of paper. It was a psychiatric evaluation. “Severe clinical depression, accompanied by acute panic attacks. The attending physician recommended inpatient care.” “Date of diagnosis: April 12th.” “Two days before I signed.” “He deliberately waited until I was having a complete mental breakdown to put the pen in my hand.” I flipped to the next page. It was a transcribed log of an audio recording. Jill tapped her finger against a specific line. “This was him on the phone with his mother. She was on speaker, and I was lying in the next room.” The transcript read: Mom, relax. In the state she’s in right now, she’ll sign anything I put in front of her. If we push it, I can get the house transferred entirely to my name by Friday. I carefully set the paper down. “Jill… why did you sit on this evidence for so long?” Jill looked down at her hands. “Because it took me three years to remember how to breathe.” “For the first two years, I couldn’t even leave this apartment. I just locked myself in here and wasted away.” “It wasn’t until I started intensive trauma therapy last year that the fog started to lift.” “Once my head was clear, I started pulling the records. That’s when I saw the absolute precision of what he had done to me.” She looked up at me. Her eyes were rimmed red, but there were no tears. “Paige, I refuse to let him do to another woman what he did to me.” I carefully aligned the edges of her documents and slid them into my canvas tote bag. “He won’t.” “This time, his script ends here.”

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436740”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

It wasn’t until the very end of my life that the truth finally clicked: our world was nothing more than a cheap paperback, a “Golden Girl” trope designed to revolve around a single, blessed protagonist. My twin sister, with her porcelain skin and a demeanor as fragile as a crushed lily, was that girl. She was the one the universe was scripted to adore. In my first life, I nearly killed myself trying to be enough. I excelled in every field, hit every milestone, and clawed my way to the top—only to realize I was merely the scaffolding built to make her climb look more effortless. I was the foil, the “difficult” twin, the shadow that made her light seem blinding. But fate, in a rare moment of glitchy generosity, handed me a reset. I woke up back at the beginning. Literally. I opened my eyes in the dark, swaddled in the warm, rhythmic hum of my mother’s womb. And there she was. My sister. Even here, she was greedy, draining the nutrients that should have been shared, her silent malice echoing in the cramped space: “You’re just the disposable extra. You don’t deserve this. Everything beautiful in this world belongs to me.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t fight back—not yet. She took my silence for fear, a confirmation of her divine right to rule. The days bled into months until the pressure built and the light at the end of the tunnel beckoned. My sister, desperate to claim her title as the “First Born,” the elder, the leader, scrambled to get out first. That was when I summoned every ounce of strength in my underdeveloped limbs. I didn’t just move; I struck. I kicked her back with a force that sent a ripple through our mother’s body. The “Script” said she was the heroine. But the script never specified which of us had to be the big sister. She wanted the lead role? Fine. Let’s see who makes it to the stage first. 1. When I first opened my eyes, the world was a warm, viscous haze. A tiny, blurred silhouette floated in front of me, huddled over a cluster of placental nutrients like a scavenger. It took me exactly three seconds to process the impossible: I was back. Reincarnated. I was a fetus. Through the thick wall of our mother’s belly, a voice drifted in—soft, melodic, and achingly familiar. “Only three months until the due date,” my mother, Lydia, whispered. “The doctor says they both look perfectly healthy.” Three months. I stared at the tiny creature in front of me—my sister, Patricia. She must have felt my gaze because she shifted, her tiny, wrinkled face contorting into an expression of spite that no unborn child should be capable of. “What are you looking at, Jacqueline?” Her voice echoed in my mind, sharp and poisonous. “You actually thought dragging us both off that roof would end things? I’m going to make sure you suffer even more this time.” My heart—the tiny, thumping thing in my chest—constricted. So, she’d come back, too. It made sense. In our last life, the day my parents decided to commit me to a psychiatric ward because of Patricia’s whispered lies, I had grabbed her hand and stepped off the thirty-eighth-floor balcony. If I was going to hell, I wasn’t going alone. Only in those final seconds of freefall did the “System” reveal itself to me. I learned that we were characters in a “Sweetheart Narrative.” Patricia was the chosen one, the girl everyone was destined to love. And I, Jacqueline, was the “High-Achiever Foil.” I was written to be the cold, ambitious sister whose only purpose was to highlight Patricia’s kindness and effortless grace. In that life, I had burned myself out. I was a prodigy at ten, graduated from MIT at twenty, and built a billion-dollar tech firm by twenty-five. And for what? My parents called me “calculating” and “power-hungry,” lamenting that I lacked Patricia’s “innocent heart.” My friends claimed I was “too strong to need anyone,” while they flocked to protect “sweet, vulnerable Patricia.” Even the man I loved for three years left me for her, claiming she was the “little girl he needed to shield from the world.” In the end, Patricia framed me for leaking corporate secrets, and my own family stood in court to testify that I was a jealous sociopath. Why? Because she was the Protagonist. She was entitled to the fruits of my labor. I looked at Patricia’s smug, fetal face and bared my tiny, newly formed gums. Sorry, sister. I’ve been a “striver” my whole life. I don’t know how to lose. The world only cares about who comes out first. The “Elder Sister” gets the mantle of the heroine. It doesn’t have to be you. “What are you smiling at?” Patricia’s mental voice spiked with alarm. I didn’t answer. I let go of the umbilical cord I had been clutching. Before she could react, I planted my feet against the uterine wall and launched myself at her like a small, fleshy torpedo. “What are you—!” Her scream was cut off as my foot connected with her midsection. I used every bit of my strength to shove her aside. Before she could recover, I leaned in and bit down on her umbilical cord—the source of her stolen strength. “Ahhh!” The rush of nutrients was sweet—mine. I took it all. I felt my tiny frame grow stronger, more robust by the second. “You dare touch me?” Patricia lunged back, her “Fragile Girl” persona forgotten. Here, in the dark, the mask was off. We weren’t sisters; we were rivals in a zero-sum game. The womb was our first battlefield. She scratched at my face; I bit her hand. She kicked my stomach; I headbutted her. “Ow… it hurts… Charles, it hurts…” The muffled voice of our mother, Lydia, drifted in from the outside, sharp with pain. We both froze. “Call the doctor! Now!” Moments later, I heard the cold slide of a stethoscope against skin. The doctor’s voice was calm, almost amused. “Everything’s fine, Mrs. Webster. It looks like the little ones are just having a bit of a wrestling match. One of them is a bit rowdy, but they’re both fine.” I relaxed, but then I heard my mother’s voice—a sharp, unmistakable hiss of resentment. “It’s definitely the younger one causing trouble. She’s been a headache from the start.” 2. The younger one? I drifted in the amniotic fluid, my heart fluttering unevenly. How could she possibly tell? We were seven months along. We were barely more than lumps of clay with heartbeats. Even the most sophisticated imaging couldn’t assign a personality to us yet, but there she was, already labeling me as the “troublemaker.” Was the script already that deeply ingrained? When they returned from the hospital, I felt the warmth of a hand pressing against the skin outside. Lydia’s voice was a soft coo. “My sweet girl, you need to eat more. You’re the only one Mommy loves.” “The little one is just like before—stubborn, difficult, even in the womb.” Patricia, basking in that unearned affection, turned to me with a psychic sneer. “Hear that, Jacqueline? It doesn’t matter how hard you fight. It doesn’t matter how much you steal. I am the lead. The luck, the love, the destiny—it’s all mine by birthright.” “You worked yourself to death in the last life, and I still destroyed you. This time, I’m going to make sure you don’t even make it to the delivery room!” I looked at her blurred, arrogant face and grinned. Sister, you’re forgetting one thing. Right now, you’re just the “Protagonist-in-Waiting.” I turned away, ignoring her. It was time to start my training. If I was going to be a “striver,” I was going to be the most intense one this world had ever seen. My schedule was rigorous. Mornings: Fight Patricia. Build muscle, improve reflexes. If I won, I took the best position and the most nutrients. If I lost, I waited for her to sleep and then ambushed her. Afternoons: Position myself against the uterine wall to listen to the Mozart and audiobooks Lydia played for “the good twin.” Early cognitive development was key. Nights: Keep Patricia awake. Don’t let her rest. Stimulate my own growth while she withered. At first, Patricia fought back with fury. Then, it turned into passive resistance. Eventually, she just tried to hide. But there was nowhere to go in a space this small. Every time I caught her, I made sure she felt it. “Leave me alone!” Two months later, she was breaking. “Jacqueline, you psycho! You’ve taken everything! Look at me!” I smiled. I looked. Her umbilical cord was barely two-thirds the thickness of mine. I lunged again, biting down hard. “Help… help me…” I watched her with cold eyes. In the last life, she used that “pity me” look to steal my company, my projects, my parents’ love—my very life. This time, the debt was being paid in advance. “Ahhh—!” Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream echoed from the outside. “Doctor! Doctor, my stomach! Something’s wrong!” I let go immediately. The doctor arrived in a blur of motion. During the ultrasound, I hadn’t even moved off of Patricia yet. The cold gel hit the skin above us. The transducer slid slowly across. On the monitor, two fetuses appeared. One was large, active, pinning the other down. The one on the bottom was significantly smaller, her movements weak and lethargic. The doctor chuckled nervously. “Well, Mrs. Webster… it looks like your twins are having a real showdown in there.” Lydia stared at the screen. Her face didn’t soften with maternal concern. It twisted with a strange, venomous hatred. She blurted out, “How could she be so cruel to her sister?” The room went silent. The doctor blinked, adjusting his glasses. “Mrs. Webster, they haven’t been born yet. It’s impossible to know who is the ‘big sister’ and who is the ‘little sister’…” I stopped listening. Patricia was cackling in my head. “Hear that? It doesn’t matter how perfect you are. In Mom’s eyes, you’ll always be the villain. I’m the lead. You can’t win.” Then, she began her performance. She stopped struggling. She curled her body into a ball, shivering in the fluid. Then, she held her breath, forcing her heart rate on the monitor to drop… slow… slower… 3. Beep… Beep… Beep… The alarm on the heart rate monitor shrieked. “Oh no, the baby on the bottom! Her heart rate is crashing!” the nurse cried. “It’s her! The one on top is hurting her!” Lydia’s voice was thick with tears and rage. “Doctor, do something! You can’t let her kill her sister!” The doctor frowned. “Mrs. Webster, fetal interaction is normal. Please, try to stay calm—” “Normal? This is an assault!” Lydia was screaming now. I watched it all from the inside, detached. She was always like this. In the last life, I would stay up for three months straight to finish a project, only for Patricia to tear up in front of our father and say, “I feel like Jacqueline doesn’t want me to help,” and suddenly, she was the lead on the account. I spent five years building a company from scratch, and all it took was for her to “accidentally” leak core data and cry “I didn’t mean to” for our family to force me to forgive her. “Jacqueline, you have to be the bigger person.” “She’s fragile, you have to look out for her.” “How can you be so heartless? She’s your sister!” I looked at Patricia, still faking her distress. My tiny fists clenched. What is the creed of a striver? Never give up. Even if the whole world says you’re the villain, you prove them wrong. Even if the script says you’re the extra, you rip up the pages and write your own. “Jacqueline, I’m warning you,” Patricia hissed, sensing my resolve. “If you touch me again, I’ll make Mom kill you before you’re even born. The world doesn’t need an extra sister anyway. You should just be my stepping stone, like before. Maybe when I’m famous and loved, I’ll toss you a few scraps—” She didn’t finish. My fist slammed into her face. “Ugh!” She groaned in pain, but she didn’t retreat. Instead, she lunged forward, biting down on my umbilical cord with everything she had. I gasped, a surge of panic hitting me. “Didn’t expect that, did you? In the last life, I was too ‘pure’ to fight you. But this time… I want you dead, Jacqueline. I’m going to make sure you’re a stillborn!” Fury and hatred boiled over. I spun around, raising my leg to kick her— “Ahhh!” Outside, Lydia let out a scream so piercing it felt like it shattered the air. “It hurts! My stomach… Doctor, it’s happening! The babies are coming!” 4. Labor? Patricia and I both froze. We were two weeks early. “Quick! Get her to the delivery room!” the doctor shouted. “Breathe, Mrs. Webster. Don’t push yet, you aren’t fully dilated!” The chaos outside was a symphony of clattering wheels and frantic voices. I didn’t hesitate. While Patricia was still stunned, I turned and dove toward the birth canal with every ounce of strength I possessed. Flashbacks of my previous life burned through my mind. In a natural twin birth, the first one out is the “Elder.” The second is the “Younger.” In the last life, Patricia was the Elder. I was the after-thought. This time, whoever made it out first claimed the Narrative. “Jacqueline, what are you doing?” Patricia screamed. “Get back here! I’m the first-born! That’s my spot!” I ignored her, crawling forward. The amniotic fluid was draining, the pressure of the contractions squeezing me. I could see a faint light ahead—the outside world. Faster. Just a little faster. “I see a head!” the nurse shouted. “It’s the bigger one! Lots of hair!” The bigger one. Me. My two months of “womb-training” had paid off. I was significantly more developed than Patricia. “No—!” Lydia let out a primal, desperate roar. “The first one can’t be her! Patricia has to be the big sister!” I froze. Patricia heard it too. In that moment, she finally understood what I was doing. “You… you’re trying to steal my role…” “Jacqueline, you bitch! How dare you!” She lunged, grabbing my leg as I was halfway through the canal, and pulled with a terrifying strength born of desperation. “Come back! I’m the lead! I’m the one who’s supposed to be born first! You’re just a foil! You can’t take what’s mine!” I slipped back, losing ground. No… I gritted my teeth and kicked her hand with my free foot. Let go! “Never! I’d rather we both die in here!” “I am the protagonist of this world! You’re nothing! I killed you once, I’ll do it again!” “Mom! Mommy, help me!” she screamed in her heart. “Don’t let Jacqueline out first! Stop her! PLEASE!” Outside, Lydia seemed to hear the psychic plea. “Doctor… can we do a C-section?” her voice was weak but urgent. “I want… I want the smaller one out first… Yes, cut me open and take the little one out first…” The doctor sounded horrified. “Mrs. Webster, you’re already at eight centimeters. A C-section now is incredibly risky for you and the babies—” “I don’t care! The little one has to be the first-born!” “Ma’am, please, be reasonable—” “I am perfectly reasonable!” Lydia’s voice was a mix of tears and madness. “Doctor, I’m begging you… take the little one first. I’ll pay anything…” The depth of her favoritism was staggering. A mother’s bias so deep she would risk a major surgery just to ensure her “favorite” got the title. From the very beginning, I never had a fair chance. But so what? I turned my head and looked back at Patricia, who was still death-gripping my leg. She looked triumphant. See? her face seemed to say. Mom will always love me. The world will always bend for me. It doesn’t matter if you’re reborn. It doesn’t matter how hard you work. You can’t beat destiny. “Heh.” I looked at her and smiled. Before her eyes, I leaned down and bit her hand—hard. “Ahhh!” Her grip slackened for a millisecond. That was all I needed. I lunged toward the light. Head out. Shoulders out. “She’s here! She’s here!” the nurse cheered. But just as I was about to slide free— “I’m taking you with me, Jacqueline!” Patricia let out a final, desperate howl. She kicked upward, hard, against our mother’s uterus. The sudden pressure caused the birth canal to spasmingly contract, pinning me in place. And in that same second, using the recoil of her kick, Patricia shot forward like a cannonball, her head slamming into my hip as she tried to wedge herself past me. “They’re coming! They’re coming!” the doctor shouted. Then, his voice shifted into a tone of pure shock. “Wait—something’s wrong! They’re coming out together!” 5. We were both stuck, jammed side-by-side. “You won’t get away with this, Jacqueline! I’m the first!” “Try me.” I hissed through my teeth. Before the medical team could react, I used my last bit of leverage to kick Patricia square in the face. Her hand let go of my shoulder. With a final, agonizing surge, I threw my weight forward. “She’s out!” The nurse’s hands were warm and steady as she caught my wet, tiny body. The cold air hit my lungs, and I did the only thing I could. “WAAAAAAH!” My cry rang through the delivery room, loud and defiant. A split second later, the next contraction shoved Patricia out with a wet thud. “The second one is here! It’s twin girls!” The doctor sighed in relief, beginning the routine of clearing our airways. I lay in the nurse’s arms, forcing my blurry eyes to open. “Let me see them! Let me see my daughters!” The door to the delivery room burst open. A man in an expensive charcoal suit rushed in—my father, Charles Webster. Behind him was his father, Victor Webster. “Congratulations, Mr. Webster. Two beautiful girls.” The doctor placed us side-by-side in a bassinet next to Lydia. Charles and Victor gathered around. Then, they froze. Thanks to my “womb-training,” I was plump, healthy, with a thick head of hair. I was crying with the strength of a drill sergeant, my limbs flailing with vigor. Patricia, however, looked pitiful. She was tiny, her skin a sickly, wrinkled red. Her cry was a thin, wheezing sound, and she couldn’t even keep her eyes open. “This…” Charles looked from me to Patricia, his brow furrowing. “Why is there such a difference? Doctor, is the little one… okay?” “Don’t worry, Mr. Webster. The younger sister is just a bit underweight. She’ll need a few days in the NICU. But the elder sister is incredibly healthy. Her vitals are off the charts.” “The elder?” Victor, leaning on his mahogany cane, scanned us with sharp, calculating eyes. “This big one… she’s the first-born?” “By about three seconds, yes,” the nurse said cautiously. Victor stared at me for a long moment. Suddenly, he let out a booming laugh that shook the room. “Good! Now this is a Webster! Look at those lungs! Look at that grip! She’s got the fire in her!” He tapped my swaddle gently with his cane, his eyes gleaming with unhidden favor. “This little girl is going to be something special.” Then, he glanced at the shriveled Patricia. His smile vanished. “The other one… she looks weak. Since when do Websters look so fragile?” Charles nodded, his gaze shifting to me with newfound admiration. “You’re right, Dad. Look at her eyes—she’s not even afraid. But the little one…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but the disappointment was palpable. Everything had changed. I lay there, feeling Victor’s rough finger brush my cheek, hearing Charles’s praise. But I didn’t feel happy. Is this all “favor” was? Something so cheap it could be bought with a few extra pounds of baby fat and a louder cry? “Waaa… waaaaa!” In the next bassinet, Patricia finally seemed to realize what was happening. She began to wail, a desperate, heart-wrenching sound. “Why is she making that noise?” Charles’s frown deepened, his tone impatient. “Nurse, take her to the incubator. She’s giving me a headache.” “Yes, sir.” The nurse whisked Patricia away toward the NICU. Her cries grew more frantic as she left the room. I watched her go, then turned my eyes to Lydia. Her expression was a mess. Shock, confusion, struggle… and a tiny, flickering spark of affection I had never seen before. Her lips trembled. “My… my big girl…” She reached out, wanting to touch me. But halfway there, her hand began to shake violently. Her face contorted as if she were fighting an internal battle. The affection vanished, replaced by a deep, hollow look of resentment. “No… it wasn’t… Patricia was supposed to be…” she whispered, her voice trailing off into a broken mumble.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436739”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Eight years. That was how long Thomas and I had survived the agonizing, transatlantic bleed of a long-distance relationship. Just when I thought I was finally going to get the call—the one where he told me his Ph.D. was finished and he was coming home to Chicago—the phone rang, and it was his sixth request for an extension. “Baby, I’m so sorry. My advisor says the dissertation needs another year of revisions,” his voice crackled through the speaker, heavy with that familiar, practiced guilt. “Just give me one more year. Next year, I promise, I’m coming home to marry you.” After the call ended abruptly, a slow, hot anger boiled up in my chest. I opened my laptop and logged into his university’s digital library in London. I wanted to see exactly what kind of thesis required six extra years of his life. But the moment the page loaded, the name featured in the “Outstanding Alumni Dissertations” column hit me like a physical blow. There it was. Published six years ago. The author: Thomas. An absurd, dizzying question flooded my mind: If his thesis hadn’t passed, how the hell was it archived as outstanding? My hands were shaking so badly I could barely scroll. When I reached the Acknowledgments section, the words pierced my eyes like broken glass. “My deepest gratitude to my greatest love, Melody, for sharing a cramped flat with me, reading beside me, and getting me through the darkest days of my research.” “You crossed an ocean for me, and I vow to build our forever home on these shores.” Melody? The name drove an ice pick straight into my chest. My name wasn’t Melody. … 1 Thomas is having an affair. Those words looped in my brain like a skipping record. Trembling violently, I grabbed my phone and hit FaceTime. One call. Two. Ten. All unanswered. I couldn’t even pinpoint when a simple video call with him had become such a luxury. Gritting my teeth, I booked the next available flight to Heathrow. Eight years of loving Thomas across an ocean, and this would be my first time visiting him. It wasn’t a lack of money. It was a lack of time. I hadn’t wanted him taking grueling, minimum-wage shifts to pay his tuition, so I willingly became the corporate workaholic, burning the midnight oil in Chicago to fund his life in London. My only request was that he spend his holidays back home with me. But when was the last time we actually saw each other? Six months ago? A year? Sitting in the stark, fluorescent glare of the departure lounge, I hunted down Melody’s Instagram. She was twenty-five. Radiant, effortlessly pretty, the kind of girl who curated her life in golden-hour aesthetics. A post from Thanksgiving: “Caught a chill last night. Tommy instantly skipped his seminar to hold my hand at the clinic. He treats me like glass. If his undergrads saw him playing nurse, they’d die laughing.” I remembered that week. I had been stuck at the office, curled under my desk, crying from the sharp, stabbing pain of appendicitis. Crushed by the stress of my job, I had called Thomas, begging him to fly back just for a few days to be with me. His response back then? “Sabrina, I’m not a doctor. My advisor would kill me if I left campus right now.” A post from Christmas: “Tommy was supposed to fly back to the States today and was already at the airport. But my period came early and the cramps were awful, so he turned right around and came back to the flat! What an idiot, wasting a plane ticket like that. Doesn’t know the value of a dollar.” I remembered that Christmas. I had been ecstatic. I’d booked spa days, taken PTO, and even gone on birth control just to manipulate my cycle so we could be intimate without interruption. I was in an Uber on the way to O’Hare to pick him up when he called to say his flight was canceled. Reading those captions, I felt two massive, invisible hands wrap around my throat, squeezing until the room spun. I bombarded Thomas with texts, desperate to force him out of hiding. “I’m on the next flight out. I’m coming to you.” “Are you hiding something from me? Answer me!” “You’re going to look me in the eye and explain this.” Fat, heavy tears dropped onto my phone screen, blurring the text into gray smears. … By the time I landed and reconnected to the grid eight hours later, I had no tears left. I scrambled to open my messages. The blistering rage inside me instantly evaporated into a cold, sickening dread the moment I read his replies. “Don’t come looking for me. There’s nothing to explain. Please don’t disrupt my life.” “She’s pure, Sabrina. She’s innocent. I won’t let you drag your drama to her doorstep.” “And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you.” No apologies. No elaborate lies. Just three short texts dismantling my entire existence. Stepping out of the terminal, the biting London wind slapped my face. I stumbled, barely keeping my balance. Suddenly, a blur of dark clothing rushed past me. A man in a black face mask violently yanked my left earlobe. Pain flared white-hot as he tore my gold hoop from my ear, sprinting away and flipping me the bird over his shoulder. I screamed, instinctively dropping my bags and bolting after him. That earring was the only thing I had left of my mother! But the street was a sea of strangers. I pointed, shrieking for help, but pedestrians merely glanced at me and hurried on, deaf to my panic. I chased him in my heels, bursting onto a busy commercial street. And there, amidst the chaos of the city, I saw him. Thomas. He was half-crouching, a DSLR camera pressed to his face, focused entirely on the woman posing in front of a fountain. Melody. She was vibrant, laughing, perfectly intact. Honk! A blaring car horn violently ripped me back to reality. Tires screeched. The hood of a sedan stopped inches from my knees. The driver rolled down his window, spitting curses at me in an accent I barely registered. My brain short-circuited. The world tilted, went black, and I collapsed against the pavement. 2 “I’m sorry, my friend is just causing a fuss. Don’t worry about the earring, officer. It’s not worth anything.” “Yes, I’m a friend of hers.” Thomas’s voice filtered through the haze of my unconsciousness. As he ushered the police officer out of the hospital room, I finally forced my eyes open, struggling up to grab his wrist. “What do you mean it’s not worth anything? It’s solid gold! It was my mother’s favorite piece of jewelry!” Thomas stood perfectly still, looking down at me with an unreadable expression. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses now. His hair was styled back, sleek and mature. The only thing that hadn’t changed were those deeply expressive eyes. “Petty theft is rampant here, Sabrina. Filing a report is useless.” His thin lips barely moved. “Look, I’ll just buy you a replacement.” My grip on his wrist loosened. I slumped back against the hospital bed, the delayed, agonizing ache of the accident finally seeping into my bones. Silent tears slipped down my cheeks. All the vicious, screaming questions I had rehearsed on the plane were lodged in my throat. I couldn’t utter a single one. “I actually wanted to tell you six years ago. But I was terrified you wouldn’t be able to handle it. I was afraid you’d hurt yourself. That’s why I…” Thomas took off his glasses, crouching beside my bed, and gently wiped a tear from my jaw. “Melody has been by my side in a foreign country for eight years. She spent the best years of her youth on me. We practically built a life here.” “Between that and how little we saw each other… it was impossible for me not to fall for her.” “Stop crying, Sab. Just be a good girl and go back to Chicago. Okay?” I stared at his face, and for a fleeting second, I saw the awkward, fiercely protective boy from ten years ago. After my parents’ messy divorce, I lived with my mother. She was a breathtakingly beautiful woman who couldn’t care less about me, often vanishing for months at a time. During a train ride back to college, I got my first period—years later than most girls—and accidentally stained the seat. The drunk, middle-aged man sitting across from me snapped. He grabbed a handful of my hair, demanding I apologize, calling me a filthy, classless slut who was trying to seduce him. I shrank into myself, crying and whispering apologies while the entire train car just watched in silence. He demanded money for his “distress.” I had no choice but to call my mother. She told me to call my father. My father didn’t even pick up. In the end, it was Thomas—who had just boarded at the last stop—who stepped in front of me. He punched the man in the jaw, his own face red with fury. “So your mom isn’t coming, huh!” he had yelled at me. “Girl, you have to learn how to protect yourself.” Over the years, I never really learned how to protect myself. But he protected me. Again and again. As the memory faded, a bitter taste flooded my mouth. I think I finally understood what he meant by, “It was impossible for me not to fall for her.” I tilted my head back, my voice ragged and broken. “You love her because she had the time to keep you company? You could have told me. I would have quit my job. I would have moved here—” “Sabrina!” Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose. I caught the briefest flicker of exhaustion—and disgust—in his eyes. “She’s not like you.” “I’m taking you to the airport. Whatever else you need to say, we can talk about it when I visit the States next month.” As he tried to pull me out of the room, his phone rang. The moment he saw the caller ID, his entire demeanor softened into something sweet and tender. “Mel, hey. Yeah, it’s all sorted. It was just a friend from back home. She got mugged and decided she wants to fly right back. Don’t worry about it.” “Do you even know you’re the other woman!?” Some dark, demonic impulse seized me. I lunged and snatched the phone from his hand. A decade of swallowed sacrifices erupted into pure, hysterical jealousy. I screamed into the receiver: “Did you know he’s been with me for ten years? What gave you the right to—” Smash. My vision exploded into stars. Thomas had shoved me, hard. I flew backward, crashing violently against the metal bedframe. He didn’t even check to see if I was bleeding. He just scrambled to pick up the phone, his voice pitching up in pure panic. “Melody, baby, listen to me. She’s mentally unstable. It’s an old condition of hers, I swear to God. Are you seriously going to believe a lunatic over me?” “Where are you? I’m coming to you right now.” A lunatic? Eight years. I waited for him for eight grueling years. I worked until I gave myself a bleeding ulcer, just so he could study in peace, just so we could get married when he returned. And my reward was being called a lunatic. As Thomas grabbed his coat and bolted for the door, I scraped together the last ounce of breath in my lungs and screamed: “Thomas! If you walk out that door today, we are dead to each other! We are done!” 3 I thought if I screamed loud enough, I might awaken some microscopic shred of guilt in his soul. I thought it might make him turn around, look at the woman he had shattered, and give me the embrace I was owed after crossing an ocean and waiting a decade. But no. His broad shoulders tensed. He paused for exactly three seconds. Then he walked out. He never looked back. I lay paralyzed on the cold hospital bed, numbly pulling out my phone to text my mother. Even though I knew, for the rest of my life, I would never get a reply. “Mom, the earring you left me got stolen today. I’m so sorry.” “How could he cheat on me? He almost died for me once. How do you just stop loving someone?” In the sterile quiet of the room, my mind drifted to the year my mother died. My father, who I hadn’t seen in years, suddenly kicked my door down. He claimed my mother had conned him out of half a million dollars before she died. I took dozens of backhands to the face that day, screaming that dead women couldn’t steal money. He saw red. He picked up a jagged piece of concrete from the driveway and swung it at my head. But Thomas threw his body over mine. The rock tore a gaping hole in his scalp. Blood soaked his shirt, dripping onto my face, but he just smiled and wiped my tears away. “Don’t cry,” he had whispered. “My Sabrina has to be strong.” My face was wet with tears now, but my spiraling memories were violently interrupted by a flicker on my phone screen. (Typing…) What? How could it say typing? A wave of absolute nausea hit me. I slapped a hand over my mouth and stumbled out into the hallway, sprinting for the public restrooms. But as I rushed past the elevator banks, the doors slid open, revealing two impossibly familiar faces. Mom? Thomas? How is my mother alive? Why is she with Thomas!? I froze, rooted to the linoleum floor. It felt like a million insects were crawling under my skin. The moment my mother’s eyes met mine, her pupils contracted in sheer terror. But her first instinct was to step in front of the young woman beside her, shielding the baby in the girl’s arms. “Mom! Thomas! Seriously, I just had an upset stomach from those pastries, you guys didn’t need to freak out. Let’s just take the baby to pediatrics.” As they brushed past me, I got a crystal-clear look at the girl. It was Melody. The great love from Thomas’s thesis. My skull throbbed so violently I thought it would crack open. I clutched my chest, dropping to a crouch, gasping for air. Before I could even process the reality fracturing around me, a pair of polished leather shoes stepped into my line of sight. Thomas’s shadow fell over me. He stared down at me with cold, terrifying authority. “Why are you still here?” “Sabrina, why couldn’t you just listen to me?” I looked up at him, my eyes bloodshot and feral. “Don’t you owe me an explanation? My mother has been dead for eight years. How is she standing right there? Why is that woman calling her Mom?” “You stole my boyfriend, and now you’re stealing my mother too!?” I lunged like a wild animal, grabbing Thomas by the collar, trying to push past him to demand why my mother had risen from the grave. Suddenly, a sharp voice cracked like a whip behind me: “Enough!” It was my mother. “Melody is sweeter than you. She’s obedient. I prefer being by her side. Is that a crime?” “Why do you have to come here and ruin our lives?” my mother hissed. “You’re in America, she’s in Europe. I split my time. Nobody was getting hurt. What was the problem with that?” Thomas sighed. He wrapped his arms around my thrashing body, pinning me against his chest in a suffocating hug. His warm breath hit my neck. “I know it’s a lot to process. Let me explain everything to you slowly, later. Okay?” “Just go—” “Thomas!” The rapid clicking of heels echoed down the hall. Melody marched over, her face twisted in a scowl. She yanked Thomas away from me and delivered a stinging, open-handed slap across my cheek. “So you’re the ‘friend’ from back home, huh? If you’re a psycho, go check yourself into a ward. You fly all the way here to seduce my husband?” “Did you think I was just going to roll over?” My cheek burned. I raised my hand, fully intending to strike her back, but Thomas’s fingers clamped around my wrist like a vice. 4 “Apologize.” He stared me down, his jaw tight, eyes flashing with warning. The air in the hallway turned to ice. Melody patted Thomas’s back, her tone shifting into a sickening, theatrical sweetness. “Oh, whatever. Let it go, Tommy. I won’t stoop to her level.” “Hey. Look at this. We’re having our wedding ceremony soon.” She thrust her left hand in my face, flashing a diamond the size of a crushed ice cube. She looked me up and down with blatant pity. “You’re actually pretty. Why are you so desperate to be a homewrecker?” “Thomas and I have been together for eight years. We haven’t had a single fight.” “Just because I told him I loved the weather here, he left his whole life behind. He’s taken care of me and my mom for eight years.” “Do you really think a man like that would ever look at you?” “And look at our baby. Isn’t he perfect? Tommy said he hated the idea of me going through labor, so he made us wait until last year to have him. Otherwise, he’d be old enough to call you Auntie by now.” … The blood in my veins turned to slush. I stood there, a hollow shell, letting her words wash over me. My mother never died. She had stolen my father’s money, faked her death, and fled to Europe with her secret, illegitimate daughter, Melody. In my ten years with Thomas, I had gotten pregnant five times. Five quiet, sterile clinic visits. Five abortions. The last time I got pregnant, I was thirty. I begged him to let us keep it. Thomas had sighed, looking deeply conflicted, and shook his head. “I don’t like kids, Sab. And I’m just not ready to be a father.” It wasn’t that he didn’t like kids. He just didn’t want my kids. It wasn’t that he had no vacation days. It wasn’t that his thesis was delayed for six years. He simply had a family here. Something inside me finally snapped, cleanly and quietly. I gave a slow nod, my voice raspy but impossibly calm. “I’m sorry. I know I was wrong.” I was wrong to wait like a loyal, pathetic dog for eight years. I was wrong to spend every night of my twenties grieving a mother who had chosen to vanish. I turned on my heel and started walking. But Melody called out to me. She trotted up, pulling a heavy gold bracelet off her wrist and pressing it into my palm. “You didn’t know better. I forgive you.” “Tommy said you got mugged. Take this. Sell it for your cab fare to the airport. I can’t give you my gold earrings, though—those are a gift from my mom!” She gave me a playful wink, then spun around and tucked herself under Thomas’s arm. I looked down at the earrings dangling from her lobes. They were the exact same design as the one I had lost. No wonder Thomas told the police they weren’t worth anything. He knew. He always knew mine were fake. The gold was fake. The love was fake. The blood in my veins felt like a lie. The dark, starved beast that had been hibernating in my chest for ten years violently ripped its way out. It took total control of my limbs, turning me toward the emergency stairwell, forcing me to run toward the roof. … Outside the hospital. The tension from the hallway had vanished, replaced by an uneasy silence between the three of them. Melody dropped the sweet-girl act. She shoved Thomas’s shoulder, her brow furrowed. “Why did you hug her back there? I saw it with my own eyes. You initiated that hug.” “And Mom. Why didn’t you defend me when she tried to hit me? Why did you keep giving me that look to shut up?” “Well?” “Are you guys hiding something from me?” Thomas was staring blankly at the pavement. He had thought that telling me the truth would finally lift the crushing weight off his chest. It hadn’t. Right now, a cold, creeping panic was clawing up his throat. “You two go ahead. I think I dropped my phone inside. I’m going to go look for it.” Thomas felt it in his bones—he had to go back and check on me. He needed to look me in the eyes and say the words I’m sorry. Ignoring Melody’s shrill protests, he turned and sprinted toward the sliding glass doors of the entrance. Just as his foot crossed the threshold. A body fell from the sky. It smashed into the concrete, mere feet in front of him. A horrific explosion of crimson and bone.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436738”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My online girlfriend was a total fraud. Just the day before we were supposed to meet, she’d asked me with this fragile, nervous hitch in her voice, “Logan, my family… we don’t have much. Are you going to think less of me because of that?” I looked at the balance in my savings account—a string of numbers that felt like a fortune to me—and told her with all the confidence of a man who thought he was a king, “Don’t even worry about it, baby. Money isn’t an issue for me. I’ve got us covered.” Fast forward to the big day. I was standing there, leaning against my blue Citibike, when she pulled up in a custom Maserati Levante. My entire body went rigid. I couldn’t have squeezed out a single word if my life depended on it. She climbed out of the car, saw me and my rental bike, and froze. The silence between us was deafening. After three seconds of pure, unadulterated shock, we both spoke at the same time. “This is what you call being ‘poor’?” I choked out. “This is what you call being ‘rich’?” she demanded. 1. We ended up calling the cops on each other. The officer looked back and forth between us, rubbing his temples. “Okay, let’s start over. Who defrauded whom?” “She faked being poor to manipulate my emotions!” I shouted. “He faked being a millionaire to toy with my heart!” she shot back. The duty officer stared at our bank statements for a long beat. He looked at me first. “You think you’re rich because you have thirty-eight thousand dollars in savings?” I bristled. “Yeah! Is there a problem with that?” Then he turned to her. “And you… you think you’re poor with eight hundred million in your trust?” She answered with total, unshakeable sincerity. “Yeah. I mean… look at the economy?” The officer let out a bark of laughter, slapping his thigh as he turned to his partner. “Man, you hearing this? These two have the most unique definitions of poverty and wealth I’ve ever seen.” We both flushed deep red, glaring at each other across the station. I was wearing my best slim-fit blazer, a mid-range designer watch, and polished loafers—I looked like I was here to sign a tech merger. She was in an oversized pink hoodie, cargo pants, and beat-up sneakers—looking like she was headed to a skate park. The cops eventually told us to settle it like adults. She crossed her arms, her face a mask of ice. “Settle what? He lied about his net worth. I thought we were at least in the same social circle, but he showed up on a rental bike.” My temper flared. “You have the nerve to say that? You told me you were struggling! To protect your ego, I didn’t even put gel in my hair today so I wouldn’t look too ‘unattainable.’ And then you roll up in a Maserati!” “You gave me hope for something real!” she argued. “You’re the one who needs to take responsibility for this mess!” “Oh, please. You’re so rich it’s blinding, and you want to play the victim? Maybe I should sue you for emotional distress!” The officer tried to pull us back to reality. He looked at her. “Why did you pretend to be poor?” She stayed defiant. “I am poor!” We both rolled our eyes at her. She finally shrunk back a little. “Fine. My mom always said never to flaunt it. She said people would only ever want me for the money.” The officer turned to me. “And you? Why the big-shot act?” I straightened my blazer. “I am doing well!” They both rolled their eyes at me this time. “Okay, fine,” I muttered. “I didn’t want people to think I was a loser.” The room went quiet. The officer sighed, a hollow sound. “I get it. You were both so terrified of being used for what you had that you both ended up with nothing.” His partner whispered under his breath, “No wonder they met online. Two weirdos, one wavelength. They’re actually perfect for each other.” 2. The “settlement” was a forced truce. By the time we walked out of that station, the resentment was thick enough to choke on. We broke up right there on the sidewalk. When I got home, I did what any sane, heartbroken man does: I Googled her. Michelle Samantha: Second heiress to the Samantha Empire, venture capitalist, CEO of X-Tech. The list of her achievements was staggering, ending with a very pointed: Status: Single. Fury and humiliation washed over me. In a fit of rage, I blocked her. Phone, Instagram, LinkedIn—everything. I spent the night tossing and turning, my mind a chaotic loop of “Eight hundred million. Eight hundred million.” I had spent three months genuinely worrying about her. I usually never spend more than twenty bucks on DoorDash, but for her, I’d once splurged on a twenty-one-dollar artisan pasta and left a note for the kitchen: “No cilantro, please—just put some extra love in there.” The chef had actually called me at midnight to ask what “love” tasted like. Michelle had told me she’d never had such “wonderful, homey food” before. I thought she was so broke she was living on ramen. Turns out, to someone like her, a twenty-one-dollar pasta is “homey.” She’d probably never even seen a grocery store from the inside. I tried to tell myself she was just a ghost, a glitch in the matrix. But every time the sun went down, my brain would whisper: Eight-hundred-million-dollar girlfriend. You had an eight-hundred-million-dollar girlfriend. It drove me insane. Not because of the girl, but because of the number. Why couldn’t I be the one with the trust fund? 3. I decided to bury myself in work. Three months later, I was promoted to Project Lead. Not because the company realized I was a genius, but because our department had shrunk to three people, and the other two quit. With a mountain of work on my desk, my boss practically begged me into his office. “Logan, my boy, I’ve always seen that spark in you… a true visionary…” Translation: The title changed, but the paycheck didn’t. On Monday, the Creative Director slammed his hand on the conference table. “The project we’ve been chasing for six months? We finally got a foot in the door. This is our chance to show the Samantha Group what we’re made of!” The office erupted in cheers. I was the only one still stuck in my “eight hundred million” fever dream. “Logan,” the Director said, snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Your previous project has a lot of overlap with this one. Come to the meeting this afternoon. Just sit by me and take notes.” “Sure, whatever,” I muttered, half-awake. It wasn’t until I sat down in the boardroom that reality hit me like a freight train. The woman sitting across from us was sharp, dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, her hair perfectly coiffed. She was stunning. Exactly my type. Wait. Oh, god. No. My internal monologue turned into a chorus of screaming banshees. It was her. My eight-hundred-million-dollar ex. My scalp went numb; my limbs turned to stone. I ducked my head immediately, pretending to be fascinated by a stack of blank A4 paper. “Logan?” The Director nudged me with his elbow, causing my pen to clatter to the floor. As I bent down to grab it, my line of sight hit Michelle’s heels. Designer. Polished. They looked expensive. They looked like they cost more than my car. I straightened up and locked eyes with her. Her expression shifted from shock to amusement in a heartbeat. Crap. She saw me. I looked back down, flipping through papers so fast they sounded like a deck of cards. “Do you have Parkinson’s?” the Director whispered, leaning in. I lost my filter. My voice came out way louder than intended. “I’m just… a little overwhelmed by how beautiful our client is.” The silence that followed was absolute. Michelle’s face froze, a visible flush creeping up her neck. She took a sip of her tea, set it down, and then took another sip. Her hand went to the silk scarf at her throat, adjusting it nervously. The Director looked like he wanted to murder me, but he forced a smile to save the meeting. “Ms. Samantha, please excuse Logan. He’s our Project Lead, but he’s young. If he’s overstepped, I apologize on his behalf.” I offered a weak, “I’m a professional” smile. Michelle set her cup down, her eyes scanning me with a predatory sort of playfulness. She tilted her head. “It’s fine,” she said softly. “I understand.” You don’t understand anything! I screamed internally. “Young people,” she added, twisting the knife, “often have… unpredictable thought processes.” My smile felt like it was carved out of wood. She was definitely mocking me. The Director wiped sweat from his brow. “Exactly! Some young people… certain ones… are very… unconventional thinkers.” Seeing Michelle didn’t object, he decided to double down on throwing me under the bus. “Logan is usually so diligent. It’s just that he’s… reactive to beauty.” He paused, then added, “Actually, it’s rare for him. We had a gorgeous intern last month, and he didn’t even blink. I thought he’d gone monk on us, but he just said, ‘Is she pretty? I think she’s mid.’” I never said that! Michelle’s expression remained calm, but her eyes sharpened. “Is that so? I wonder how many women have actually managed to meet Mr. Wilder’s standards.” A cold draft seemed to blow through the room. I shivered. The Director went quiet, and I didn’t dare speak. Michelle continued as if she were analyzing a spreadsheet. “I imagine he’s the type to call a woman ‘baby’ constantly, right? Someone who chats about things he’d be too embarrassed to admit in public?” My face went from red to purple. I suddenly remembered the three months of messages I’d sent her—the kind of stuff that makes you want to fake your own death. “Baby, I miss you. Don’t you want to be in my arms right now?” “Baby, did you wear those matching pajamas I bought you? Send a picture so I can drool over you.” I couldn’t breathe. The shame was physical. 4. The Director looked at her, then at me, his eyes lighting up with a sudden, terrifying realization. “Logan… have you and Ms. Samantha met before?” “What makes you think that?” I snapped at Michelle, my face still burning. Michelle glared back. “No misunderstanding. I was just curious. Does Mr. Wilder usually call his business partners ‘baby’?” She wasn’t stopping. “Or does he buy pajamas for his contractors? Does he ask them if they’re free for a late-night ‘private viewing’?” I felt like I was being boiled alive. I couldn’t say a word. I just gripped my pen until my knuckles turned white. The Director’s eyes darted between us. He let out a nervous, knowing chuckle. “Well, you know… kids these days…” Michelle picked up her tea, her gaze darkening. “And then there’s the reliability issue. Some men promise to show you ‘something special’ at midnight, and then they fall asleep while you’re sitting there waiting.” The Director nearly dropped his cup. He looked at me with newfound respect—and horror. “And when they want to apologize,” she continued, her eyes locked on mine, “they offer ‘private photos.’ I’m still not quite sure what that entails.” The Director choked on his water, coughing into a napkin. He looked at me as if to say, What exactly did you do to this billionaire? “Then, to make up for it, they send an eight-dollar Venmo for coffee and ask to see your abs. Apparently, his rate is one dollar per muscle?” The Director was speechless now. I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Michelle stared at me, her voice dropping to a cool, detached tone. “Tell me, what kind of man does that? And then, instead of apologizing like a man, he just… cuts all ties. Cowardly, don’t you think?” I couldn’t look at her. She let out a short, self-deprecating laugh. “Pathetic, really.” The Director, sensing the meeting was about to go up in flames, tried to pivot back to the pitch. Michelle flipped through our proposal carelessly and pushed it back across the table. “I’m not impressed. If your firm can’t produce something better than this, the Samantha Group won’t be moving forward.” With that, she stood up and walked out. 5. The door clicked shut. The silence in the boardroom was absolute for exactly three seconds. The Director slowly turned to me. “Logan,” he said, his voice trembling with a mix of awe and terror. “Be honest with me. Did you dump Michelle Samantha?” My hand shook. “I… it wasn’t…” I thought back to the police station. I remembered the feeling of my ego shattering as that Maserati sped away. “Yeah,” I whispered. “I guess I did.” I had broken up with her right after the cops let us go. I shouted, “We’re done, you liar!” and she had just stood there, her face turning pale before she slammed the car door and left me in a cloud of expensive exhaust. I gave the Director a truncated version of the story. His mouth formed a perfect ‘O.’ “So, let me get this straight,” he said. “You thought you were the rich guy taking care of a ‘poor’ girl. Then you found out she’s a billionaire while you’re on a rental bike, your pride couldn’t take the hit, so you threw a tantrum and dumped her?” “Can you… not summarize it so accurately?” “Holy shit,” the Director whispered. “You actually did it.” I hid my face in my hands. He looked at me with a strange, manic glint in his eyes. “Logan, my boy… you have balls of steel. To try and ‘sponsor’ a girl on a thirty-eight-thousand-dollar salary? If I had half your confidence, I’d be on my eighth marriage by now.” “She wasn’t a ‘job’…” “You called her ‘baby’! You bought her pajamas! You tried to buy a look at her abs for eight bucks!” I had no defense. Suddenly, he gripped my shoulders. “Logan, the future of this company is in your hands.” “What is that supposed to mean?” “Think about it! She’s clearly still pissed, which means she still cares. If you can just… get back in her good graces…” “No. Absolutely not.” “I’m not saying you have to marry her. Just… temporarily…” “No way.” Seeing I wasn’t budging, he shifted into ‘corrupt businessman’ mode. “Logan, if you land this contract, I’ll give you a three-thousand-dollar monthly raise. Effective immediately.” My eyes widened. “Fine. I’ll do it.” 6. I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to “fix” a relationship with a woman who had more money than some small countries. The Director kept hovering. “Don’t just sit there. You have her number, right? Unblock her and ask for her ‘input’ on the proposal.” I figured he had a point. I pulled her out of my blocked list, but instead of using my personal cell, I used the company’s official business account to send a friend request on the messaging app. The Director face-palmed. He opened his mouth to say something, but just sighed and walked away. I sent the request. Nothing. I sent it again. And again. By the eighth time, my phone started buzzing. Unknown number. I declined. It rang again. I declined. It rang a third time. I snapped. “Hello? Who is this?” The voice on the other end was much angrier than mine. “Logan Wilder, what the hell is wrong with you?” That voice. I’d know it anywhere. “Michelle?” “Why are you adding me from a business account?” she hissed. “I… I wanted to keep it professional,” I stammered. “Church and state, you know?” Silence for three seconds. Then, a cold, sharp laugh. “Professional? What company sends eight consecutive friend requests to a CEO? You think this is a game?” I rubbed the bridge of my nose. I’d forgotten I wasn’t her boyfriend anymore. “Logan, do you think I’m just some pushover?” “No! Look… I’ll add you on my personal account, okay?” “Don’t bother!” she snapped. “I don’t take back exes. I have standards.” “I’m being serious here, Michelle.” “Your ‘seriousness’ has a very short shelf life,” she retorted. “But fine. Since you want to be ‘professional,’ let’s do this by the book.” I felt a spark of hope. “Okay. I’m listening.” “First,” she said, her voice dropping into a business-like monotone, “I waited until midnight to see that ‘special something’ you promised months ago. I want an explanation. In writing.” “…” “Second, about those ‘private photos.’ I want a full disclosure of your intent.” “…” “Third, the abs. We need to establish a formal inspection standard if you’re going to be making valuations.” “…” “Once those three points are addressed and implemented, we can discuss the contract. Clear?” I swallowed hard. “Michelle, is this really ‘professional’?” “Absolutely,” she said firmly. “I’m just clearing up outstanding liabilities from a previous engagement.” The line went dead.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436737”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Standing on that familiar street corner for the third time, the fog finally lifted. The marriage contract—that piece of paper I’d treated like a holy relic—was worthless. Ewan was right about that. But what he never understood was that those four words of his, tossed out like spare change, had cost me two separate lifetimes of youth. The same “chance” encounters. The same blurred lines and late-night invitations. I was foolish enough to say yes twice. He used to praise me for being “sensible,” for my “grace,” and my “boundless patience.” Then he’d turn around and use those very virtues as a blade to gut every promise he ever made. “A title is just a piece of paper,” he told me—twice. And both times, I walked away with nothing, not even a fake identity to cling to. I realized too late that some forms of tenderness aren’t a sanctuary; they’re just the knife you sharpen for your own throat. 1 By the third time I “accidentally” ran into Ewan, I was nearly thirty. In the eyes of the world, that’s the age where you’re supposed to stop being reckless. You’re supposed to have figured out that fire burns. And yet, there I was, thirty years old, standing on the edge of the Pacific, watching the tide come in. It wasn’t raining. The sun was mild, filtered through a haze of gray clouds, but I still held my umbrella up like a shield. Ewan stood beside me, draped in a cashmere overcoat that cost more than most people’s cars. “So, you actually came,” he said. I didn’t answer. I just watched the water. The setting sun hit the waves, turning the ocean into a sheet of hammered gold, shimmering and restless. A breeze kicked up, and I caught his scent. Spring Embers. It was the fragrance I had custom-blended for him years ago. I hadn’t expected him to still be wearing it. I felt a ghost of a tremor in my hands as he continued, “Does this mean what I think it means?” Does it? I didn’t know. I just remembered two years ago, when I’d burned our world down in a fit of rage and left him for the second time. Ewan had just caught my wrist, his expression maddeningly calm, and tucked a stray hair behind my ear with a smile. “When the regret hits you, go back to where we first met,” he’d whispered. “I’ll be there to pick you up.” Back then, I thought that was love. I thought it was his way of saying he’d always wait for me. Now, I saw the truth. He didn’t care why I screamed, and he didn’t care why I left. He just wanted to witness my eventual surrender. He was addicted to the sight of me regretting my independence because he was certain I couldn’t survive without him. When I didn’t offer an answer, he didn’t push. He never did. He just said, “Walk with me.” He didn’t wait for a reply. He just started walking. I watched his silhouette for a moment, then looked at the sun dipping below the horizon. Then, I followed. I did regret leaving. But not for the reasons he thought. I regretted leaving because, when I walked away, I hadn’t taken a single cent of what he owed me. 2 I went back to him. Still no ring, no title, no “Mrs.” At first, the novelty of the reunion gave him a high. He took me everywhere. He introduced me to his inner circle as “the one he was going to spend his life with.” Everyone laughed. I laughed, too. Later that night, I stepped out to use the restroom, and as I walked back toward the private lounge, I heard the muffled voices of his friends through the heavy oak door. “So, is the king finally retiring his jersey? I don’t buy it,” someone joked. Ewan let out a sharp, dismissive laugh. “Give me a break. I’ve cycled through enough of them to know that Jo is just… easier. She’s intuitive. She’s smart. She knows what I need before I even have to say it.” There was a pause, the sound of a lighter clicking. “If I actually have to get married one day, she’s the logical choice. Even if her little tantrums are getting a bit exhausting.” See? There’s no such thing as a reformed playboy. There’s just a tired runner looking for a place to sit down. The room went quiet for a beat before another friend spoke up. “I’ll put money on it. Ewan won’t last a month this time.” Suddenly, the room turned into a sportsbook. One month. One week. Six months. Ewan told them all to go to hell, but he didn’t stop them. He even threw a stack of bills on the table himself. “One year,” he declared. I felt a laugh bubbling up in my chest. I couldn’t help it. The door opened, and a server nearly bumped into me. “Oh! Ma’am, are you going in?” The room went dead silent. I pushed the door open and scanned the faces of the men sitting there. They were looking at me with that pathetic kind of pity, waiting for the explosion, waiting for me to scream at Ewan and make a scene. Instead, I walked straight to the table. I took the black card Ewan had given me as a “welcome home” gift and tossed it onto the pile of cash. “I’ll bet two weeks,” I said. A playboy might never change his spots, but a dog will always return to his vomit. It’s the law of nature. The shock in the room was palpable. Ewan sat there, his face darkening into a mask of cold confusion. I leaned down and pressed a light kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Don’t look so serious, darling,” I whispered. “We’re all just having a bit of fun, aren’t we?” His brow furrowed. I knew exactly why he was unsettled. I was using his own lines on him. Whenever I used to get upset about the rotating cast of women in his life, he’d kiss me just like that and tell me not to be so sensitive—that it was all just a joke. Now, I had learned the script. It’s hard work making a living off a man like him, and it’s even harder to swallow the pride that comes with it. But as long as the lights are off and the checks clear, you can learn to tolerate almost anything. Ewan wasn’t happy, though. That night, he wrapped his arms around me from behind in the dark. “You don’t believe a word I say anymore, do you? Jo, this time… it’s real.” I didn’t tell him if I believed him or not. I just turned in his arms and kissed him again. “I know.” There are a lot of ways to “spend a life” with someone. Being a quiet ghost in his bed was just one of them. 3 I lost the bet. Ewan lasted two weeks. He actually lasted six months. For half a year, he was a saint. No late nights, no mysterious “business dinners,” no perfume on his collar that wasn’t mine. People started whispering that the lion had finally been tamed. They told me I was lucky, that I’d hit the jackpot by catching him at the right time. Lucky? I didn’t think so. Sure enough, in the seventh month, Ewan came back from a business trip with a girl in tow. A recent college grad. “This is Penny. She’s a new intern. Find a place for her,” he said, avoiding my eyes as he spoke. I looked at her. She was young, vibrant, and had that specific look in her eyes—the look of someone who thinks she’s the first person to ever discover fire. I saw my own ghost in her. “Which department, Ewan?” I asked. He finally looked at me. We stared at each other for a long, heavy moment. The silence grew so awkward that even Penny started to fidget. “Wherever you think is best,” Ewan snapped, then turned and walked away. Wherever I think? Right. I turned to Penny. She was beaming at me with that dangerous kind of innocence. “He told me he wanted me to work directly under him,” she said. I nodded. Her fate was already decided. Why he felt the need to go through the charade of asking me was almost funny. 4 I gave the King what he wanted. I placed the intern right in his shadow. That evening, when he got home, he pulled me into a hug. “Are you jealous?” I looked down at the pot of soup I was stirring, shaking my head slowly. “No.” And I meant it. I’d seen this movie before. I knew the ending. But Ewan didn’t like my composure. He wanted the fire. He wanted the fight. “Don’t be jealous,” he murmured, trying to soothe me. “There’s nothing going on. I just saw potential in her at the branch office and brought her back. You know I have a weakness for talent. Don’t make things difficult for her just to spite me, okay?” I listened to him, and the irony was almost too much to bear. This wasn’t a comfort; it was a warning. But I couldn’t blame him for being cautious. I had a history, after all. I’d once made life a living hell for an assistant I thought was crossing the line. I understood his fear. I turned around, draped my arms around his neck, and kissed the tip of his nose. “I won’t. I promise.” Ewan didn’t say anything. He just stared at me, a flicker of something—uncertainty, maybe—crossing his eyes. I ignored it and smoothed his lapels. “Dinner’s almost ready. Go wash up.” He didn’t move immediately. He stood in the kitchen doorway for a minute or two, watching me with a look of deep suspicion. It was as if he was searching for the “old” me, the one who would have shattered the soup tureen over his head. When he finally left, I caught my reflection in the dark kitchen window. I was smiling perfectly. Ewan didn’t realize that the bet—the one about when he’d get bored of me—had never actually ended. But this time, I wasn’t betting on him failing. I was betting on him staying. When you can’t get love, you might as well get equity. He kept telling me there was nothing with Penny, but soon he was leaving me behind to take her on trips and to gala dinners. He gave her the best team, personally coached her on her first deals. Anything she wanted, Ewan handed to her on a silver platter. Including a major contract I had spent two weeks of overtime securing. In his office, Ewan stood with his back to me. “The Henderson account is ready for signing, right?” “Yes,” I said. “Package the files. Give them to Penny to handle the closing.” “Penny is an assistant,” I said, glancing at her. She was standing by his desk, giving me that wide-eyed, “innocent” smile. “Since when do assistants close six-figure deals?” Ewan still wouldn’t look at me. “That’s not your concern. Just get the files to her. Now.” He paused, finally turning around. “Jo, you’re a senior lead. Mentoring new talent is part of your—” I cut him off with a soft nod. “Fine. The files are ready. She can come to my office and pick them up.” Now it was Ewan’s turn to be stunned. He looked at me, searching for the crack in the armor. “Is that it?” I smiled. “What else would there be?” He looked away, muttering, “Nothing.” As I left the office, Penny scurried after me. Once we were out of his earshot, she skipped up to walk beside me. “I’m so sorry, Jo. Truly. Ewan says I need the ‘experience,’ and he insisted I take this client. I really didn’t have a choice.” She was practically glowing. I kept my voice polite. “It’s fine.” She leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a sugary whisper. “You’re actually dying inside, aren’t you?” I stopped walking and looked at her. The innocence was gone. Her face was twisted into a smirk. “Why do you keep up the act, Jo? Everyone knows how you got to where you are. We’re the same, you and I. But you should probably face facts: you can’t compete with me. I’m young. You’re… well, you’re past your expiration date.” If thirty was expired, Ewan belonged in a museum. I laughed softly. “You’re right. I can’t compete with a girl who has to steal her wins because she doesn’t have the talent to earn them. Good luck, you useless little brat.” The color drained from her face. When she snatched the files from my hand, the smugness was gone. I wasn’t angry. Stealing a contract is easy. Managing a client like Henderson? That takes actual skill. Sure enough, forty-eight hours later, the explosion happened. Henderson pulled the account and issued a formal statement: they would never work with Ewan’s firm again. Penny was hysterical in Ewan’s office. “I… I didn’t know he was so sensitive about the materials! I was just trying to save the company money! I didn’t think he’d care about a minor substitution… Jo’s files didn’t say anything about it!” She had tried to swap out high-grade raw materials for cheap alternatives to pad the margins. In the world of luxury manufacturing, that’s the ultimate sin. And she had the nerve to call it “saving money.” I watched her cry and had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. “The notes were in the file, Penny,” I said calmly. “Page ten, point six. ‘Never substitute grade.’ Should I have used a highlighter? Or maybe a larger font?” Penny wailed harder. Youth is a weapon, and tears are its ammunition. Ewan immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her from me. “That’s enough!” he barked. “Snide remarks aren’t helping anyone right now!” He looked at me with a coldness that would have frozen my blood a year ago. “I don’t care how you do it, Jo. Fix this. Get Henderson back.” In the old days, I would have thrown my badge at him. Now, I just nodded. “Understood.” 5 Ewan didn’t get home until 9:00 PM that night. He handed me a small velvet box. Inside was a pair of diamond studs. It was his version of an olive branch—and a warning. It was him telling me to take the bribe and shut up. I took them, glanced at them, and set the box on the entryway table. “You don’t like them?” he asked, his voice tight. I gave him a bored smile. “They’re fine.” Ewan frowned. “Then why aren’t you wearing them?” “Oh, I don’t really wear ‘bonus’ gifts.” “They aren’t a bonus—” I pulled out my phone and pulled up a text thread from Penny. I held it out so he could see. “Penny told me they were a ‘gift with purchase,’” I said. “She said I was so ‘affordable’ that I only deserved the freebies.” The screen showed a photo Penny had sent me of a high-end necklace Ewan had bought her. The caption read: Ewan bought me this, and he got something for you too, Jo! But it’s just the free gift they give to big spenders. He told me you’re so cheap, you wouldn’t know the difference anyway. Ewan’s face went pale, then a mottled red. He opened his mouth to defend himself, then closed it. He looked at me, his voice a low rasp. “And you’re not angry?” I looked up at him, tilting my head. “Why would I be? You’re both right. I am cheap. I mean, look at me. I came back to you for absolutely nothing. I’d say that’s a pretty low price tag.” “Stop smiling!” Ewan suddenly roared, his composure snapping. “How can you sit there and smile while people call you cheap?” My smile didn’t waver. “Why shouldn’t I? You’re the one who started saying it first.” Ewan had no comeback for that. He stared at me for a long beat, then turned around and slammed the door as he walked out. Really, I don’t know what he was so worked up about. I wasn’t even mad. 6 Ewan didn’t come home for days. His phone stayed silent. No texts, no “where are you” calls. In the past, if he vanished for twenty-four hours, I would have blown up his phone. This time, I didn’t send a single message. I went about my life as if he didn’t exist.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “436736”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel