His Cruel Joke, My Broken Heart
I did everything for Damian, my childhood best friend. His promise-"Get in shape, Lena, and I'll take you to prom"-was the only thing that mattered. I starved myself and ran until I collapsed, all for the future he dangled in front of me.
But on his birthday, clutching the cake I' d baked, I overheard the truth. The promise was a cruel joke. To him and his real girlfriend, Gigi, I was just a "fat pig" whose desperate attempts to impress him were "hilarious to watch."
They didn't stop there. They framed me for bullying, and Damian publicly denied ever caring for me. He then got my Stanford scholarship revoked with a malicious report and stood by as Gigi plastered my most private love letters all over school.
I became a pariah, a "delusional, conniving bitch." The boy I had loved my whole life, the one who was supposed to be my protector, had orchestrated my complete and utter destruction for a laugh.
Yet he still expected me to follow him to college. So when he called on move-in day, buzzing with excitement for our shared future, I let him ramble on about our plans. Then, I calmly cut through his fantasy.
"I'm not here, Damian."
Chapters
Share
Chapter 3
The moment I stepped through the front door, the hospital gown still clinging to me, I found my parents waiting, their faces a mix of relief and concern. "Mom, Dad," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. "I want to break off the engagement with Damian."
They looked at me as if I' d grown a second head. "What are you talking about, Elena?" my mother asked, her voice sharp with disbelief. "You two are practically inseparable. We've always assumed…"
They had every reason to assume. My childhood had been a constellation with Damian at its center. Every shared secret, every stolen glance, every whispered dream. I was the girl who meticulously cataloged his football stats, who knew his favorite coffee order, who kept a small, worn photo of us from kindergarten tucked inside her diary. I was the girl who cherished the chipped pottery mug he'd made me in art class when we were ten, even though it was hideously crooked. I was utterly, hopelessly, irreversibly in love with Damian Cameron.
And now, I was letting it all go.
That night, I went to my room, pulled out the pottery mug, and with trembling hands, dropped it into the trash can. It shattered with a small, desolate sound. Tears streamed down my face, but they were different now. Not tears of pain from his betrayal, but tears of mourning for the girl I used to be, the girl who believed in fairy tales. "I'm done trying to fit into something that was never meant for me," I whispered, the words a silent eulogy.
The next morning, the air in the exam hall was thick with tension. This was the final round for the Stanford early admission scholarship. As I settled into my seat, my eyes scanned the room. And then I saw her. Gigi Wall, looking impossibly pristine, already flipping through her exam booklet. My heart gave a painful lurch.
Midway through the test, I noticed it. Gigi, her eyes darting nervously, was pulling out a small cheat sheet from her sleeve. She glanced up, her eyes meeting mine for a split second, wide with panic. I held her gaze, a cold certainty settling in my gut. She quickly tucked it away, her face flushed.
When the bell rang, signaling the end, Gigi was waiting for me outside the hall. Her usual confident swagger was gone. She clutched her test papers to her chest. "Elena, please," she pleaded, her voice barely above a whisper. "You won't say anything, will you? My parents… they'll kill me if I don't get this scholarship." Tears welled in her eyes, but I saw no genuine remorse there. Only fear.
I just looked at her, my face devoid of emotion. I walked past her without a word. She bit her lip, then let out a theatrical sob, drawing the attention of several students still milling around. "I'm so sorry, Elena!" she cried, her voice rising. "I didn't mean to bully you! Please, don't tell anyone I tried to cheat!"
My blood ran cold. Bully me? All eyes turned to me, accusatory and disbelieving. Whispers erupted, sharp and cruel. "Look at her, the fat pig. Always causing trouble." "I heard she's obsessed with Damian. Probably jealous Gigi is finally with him." "She's always been a freak."
My face flushed crimson. "That's not what happened!" I stammered, but my words were swallowed by the rising tide of their contempt. The room seemed to shrink, closing in on me. I felt their judgment, their disgust. The familiar sting of being the outsider, the target.
Just then, the crowd parted. Damian strode in, his eyes scanning the scene. He looked effortlessly handsome, even now. He went straight to Gigi, who was now openly sobbing, burying her face in her hands. He gently put his letterman jacket around her shivering shoulders.
"What's going on here?" Damian asked, his voice calm, but with an underlying edge of authority.
Gigi looked up at him, her eyes wide and innocent, leaking tears. "Elena… she saw me… she was going to tell everyone I cheated… and then she started saying all these mean things about me…"
Damian turned to me, his eyes cold, distant. "Elena, is this true?" he asked, not a trace of the old familiarity in his voice. "Are you really going around bullying Gigi?"
The question, the blatant disbelief in his tone, was a fresh wound. "No, Damian!" I cried, my voice cracking. "She's lying! She cheated, I saw her! And then she started crying and accusing me!"
Damian's lips thinned. "Elena, you know Gigi. She's delicate. And you… you're just upset about last night, aren't you? It's not fair to take it out on her." He paused, then delivered the final blow. "And for the record, Elena, there's nothing between us. There never has been. We are not together."
A gasp rippled through the crowd. More whispers, louder now. "See? I knew it. She's delusional." "Poor Gigi. Elena is truly crazy."
My explanation, the words I' d rehearsed in my head, died on my tongue. He wouldn't believe me. He had already chosen. His eyes, usually so warm and familiar, were now filled with a chilling disgust as they landed on me.
"Just apologize, Elena," he ordered, his voice flat. "Apologize to Gigi, and let's put this behind us."
I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms. I would not cry. Not here. Not for them. "Apologize?" I asked, my voice trembling but firm. "I didn't do anything wrong. You can check the surveillance footage. It will show everything."
Gigi' s sobs intensified at the mention of the cameras. "No, please! Don't do that!" she wailed, clutching Damian's arm.
Damian looked from Gigi' s tear-streaked face to my defiant stance. "There's no need for that," he said, his voice cold. "Gigi is clearly distressed. And frankly, Elena, you're making a scene. I told you, there's nothing between us. I could never… I could never be with someone like you." He paused, his gaze sweeping over my still-healing body. "Just… be better, Elena. For your own sake."
Then he turned, pulling Gigi close, and steered her through the crowd. My tears, which I' d fought so hard to hold back, finally broke free. They streamed down my face, hot and humiliating.
You may also like
7.4
My five-year-old daughter was dying in the ICU, her heartbeat replaced by the continuous, electronic scream of a flatline. I gripped her cold hand, my throat sealed shut by a terror so absolute I couldn't even cry out.
I dialed my husband Grayson's private number, the one reserved only for me and his assistants. He declined the call instantly. A second later, a text buzzed against my palm:
"In a meeting. Do not disturb. Stop calling."
Five miles away, Grayson was at a luxury gala, adjusting his silk tie and laughing with Belle Escobar. He told her I was just being "dramatic" and using our daughter's "fever" as an excuse to avoid the event. He had no idea Effie's heart had already stopped.
When I finally reached our penthouse, soaked from the rain and carrying Effie's small socks in a plastic bag, Grayson didn't even look at me. He snapped at me for ruining the hardwood floors and asked if I'd left Effie with the nanny just to "feel sorry for myself."
Three days later, while I buried our daughter in a small, lonely ceremony, Grayson was at the Hamptons. Belle posted a photo of him golfing with the caption: "A mental health day with the boys." He didn't even attend the funeral, but he returned home demanding I clear out Effie's room to make a study for Belle's son.
The injustice burned through me until there was nothing left. I swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, desperate to join my daughter. But instead of the darkness, I woke up to blinding lights and the scent of Grayson's expensive cologne.
I was standing in a ballroom, wearing a blue silk dress I had already burned. Above me, a banner read: "Happy 5th Birthday Kaiden & Effie."
I was back, exactly one year before the tragedy. This time, I wasn't going to be the grieving wife. I was going to be their worst nightmare.
8.9
Isabella Romano is the neglected princess of her family, casted away unknowingly by her father, she has lived with her mother all her life, seeking some fatherly love but she learnt to stop caring. Now after a reckless night she finds herself tangled in the sheets of a man she was told to always hate. Vladimir Volkov. A man far more scary that what she has been told, he is not just the boogeyman he is the one you send to kill the boogeyman. Imagine her shock when she finds out she hasn't just gotten the attention of The Russian Don but is also carrying his child
Follow the hate to love relationship of isabella and Vladimir and watch how they navigate their life in his dark world that he dragged her to, making her and his unborn child a target to the new arising enemy that aims to destroy both the Italians and the Russians.
9.1
It all started with a divorce, then chaos...
Elodie Beaumont's life is a mess. Her little beach resort is on the verge of going under, thanks to a new competitor - her ex-husband, Valerian Blackwood. Desperate, Elodie makes a deal with the devil himself: an alliance with Valerian. He agrees, but little does she know, he has an ulterior motive - to win her back.
Can love find its way back to shore after years at sea, especially when the past is a ghost and the future is uncharted?
8.6
Since returning to her family, Evelyn had never truly been accepted or treated as their own daughter.
On her wedding day, her parents chose her adopted sister over her, and the man she was supposed to marry abandoned her on the highway for his true love without even looking back once.
Heartbroken but resolute, she tore off her veil and stood before his rival. "I dare you to steal the bride."
Shane met her gaze. "Why wouldn't I?"
Their impulsive marriage shocked everyone. Her ex later begged, "Give me another chance."
Shane pulled her close, his voice cold. "Too late. She's my wife now."
8.2
My father was the King of Wall Street until he was branded a fraud, turning the Maxwell name into a lead weight dragging me to the bottom of the Hudson. I walked into the Brennan Media Tower with blood-red lipstick and a desperate proposal, offering myself as a "paper wife" to Garland Brennan, the coldest billionaire in Manhattan.
Garland didn’t even look at me as a human being; he tore my term sheet in half and called me "radioactive" before having security toss me out like trash. I returned to my rotting apartment in Bushwick only to find my roommate’s cousin, a debt collector named Jax, waiting to break my bones.
He pinned me against the wall, his hand heavy on my throat as he sneered about selling me to a club to pay off my father's debts. With my ribs aching and my back against the radiator, I had to leak corporate secrets on Twitter just to summon Garland’s private mercenaries to stop a predator.
The humiliation didn't stop there. At the Met Gala, the elite mocked my dress made of construction tarp, and my father’s creditors began harassing my senile grandmother in her nursing home. I was a cornered animal, and Garland Brennan was the only hunter offering a cage instead of a grave.
I realized then that in this zip code, you are either the predator or the prey, and I was tired of being hunted.
Garland offered me a marriage contract that demanded total submission—no equity, no voting rights, just an employee with a wedding ring. I signed the four-hundred-page document with a steady hand, but not before hiding a legal poison pill in the fine print. He thinks he bought a silent asset, but I just secured a front-row seat to his downfall.
8.4
Amara Cole never dreamed of marrying a billionaire. But when her mother's hospital bills grew unbearable, she signed a contract that bound her to the cold, ruthless Lucian Hale.
One year as his wife.
No love. No expectations. No freedom.
Lucian is everything she should fear-arrogant, powerful, and heartless. To him, Amara is nothing but a pawn in his world of business and betrayal. Yet the more she endures his cruel words and icy indifference, the more sparks begin to burn between them.
But their marriage is far from simple.
His jealous ex will do anything to destroy her.
His father calls her unworthy.
And another man's kindness makes her question if love is possible outside the contract.
Caught between duty and desire, Amara must find her strength before the year ends. Because when a ruthless billionaire starts to fall... the contract is the last thing he'll obey.