The Broken Ballerina's Secret Paris Escape
I traced the floral patterns on the silver candlestick, my fingertips numb from the cold of the penthouse. It was our fifth anniversary, and the Wellington steak I’d spent four hours preparing sat soggy and defeated under the dim chandelier.
Fielding finally walked in at 1:00 AM, smelling of scotch and tuberose—a scent I didn't own. When I tried to touch him, he recoiled as if my fingers were acid, then disappeared into the bathroom where I heard him moan his ex-girlfriend's name with a desperate, guttural longing.
The betrayal didn't end there. The next day, I found him at a luxury restaurant, watching him slide a massive pink diamond onto Corinna’s finger—the same ring he’d told me was a "business investment."
I stood hidden behind a frosted glass partition as his friends laughed, calling me a "lame duck" and a "depressed millstone" around his neck. Fielding didn't defend me; he calmly told them our marriage was just a "debt" he had to pay because I’d saved his life in the crash that ended my ballet career.
"She's a millstone, Fielding. How long are you going to play nursemaid?"
"I owe her. It's a debt. I pay my debts."
When I finally confronted him, he didn't show remorse. Instead, he threatened to use his power to declare me mentally unstable and freeze my grandmother’s trust fund so I’d be left "crippled and penniless" on the street.
I realized then that Fielding didn't want a wife; he wanted a martyr to ease his survivor's guilt, as long as I stayed broken and dependent. He thought he’d clipped my wings for good, but he didn't know I’d been secretly studying for the Sorbonne while he was out with his mistress.
As I put on my designer gown for the charity gala, I wasn't preparing for a party. I was liquidating my jewelry for untraceable cash and planning the ultimate exit.
He thinks I’m his prisoner, but the countdown to my final act has already begun.
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Chapter 3
Three days.
Fielding hadn't been home in seventy-two hours.
His texts were sporadic bursts of corporate jargon: Late meeting. Merger talks. Closing the deal.
Ariel sat on the beige velvet sofa in the living room, a French grammar textbook open on her lap. Le passé composé. The past tense. Fitting.
She wasn't reading.
In her hand, her phone was logged into an account named BlueOrigami88. It was a burner account she had created two years ago to follow fashion bloggers without cluttering her main feed.
She tapped the search bar. Corinna_M.
The profile was private. "Account is Private," the grey lock icon mocked her.
But BlueOrigami88 was already inside. Corinna, in her vanity, accepted almost anyone who looked like a fan. She had accepted the request eighteen months ago and forgotten about it.
Ariel refreshed the feed.
A new Story circle appeared around Corinna's profile picture-a heavily filtered selfie.
Ariel's thumb hovered. Then she tapped.
The screen filled with a shaky video. The lighting was low, amber-hued. Jazz music played softly in the background.
It was the interior of The Nines, a private club in NoHo. Ariel recognized the velvet curtains.
The camera panned across a table. A bottle of Macallan 1982 sat in the center, half-empty. Two crystal glasses.
Then, the camera settled on a hand resting on the back of the leather booth.
It was a man's hand. Large, with long, tapered fingers.
On the wrist sat a Patek Philippe Nautilus with a blue dial.
Ariel stopped breathing.
She leaned closer, her dancer's eye for detail sharpening. She had bought Fielding a Patek for his birthday last year-an Aquanaut, sporty and understated, because he claimed he hated flashiness. But the watch on the screen... that wasn't an Aquanaut. It was a Nautilus 5711/1P. Platinum. The 40th Anniversary edition.
She knew the market value. She knew the waiting list. It was a watch that screamed status, wealth, and ego. He had told her the Aquanaut was "too heavy" to wear often. Yet here he was, wearing a watch three times the weight and ten times the price, casually resting on the shoulder of another woman.
Fielding's low, rumble of a laugh echoed through the phone speaker. It was a sound Ariel hadn't heard directed at her in years. It was relaxed. Intimate.
Corinna's voice overlaid the video, syrupy and slurred. "Some people say they're working late... but really, they're just saving me from the dark."
The video ended. The next slide appeared.
A photo.
Two hands intertwined on the white tablecloth.
On Corinna's ring finger sat a massive, cushion-cut pink diamond.
Ariel felt a physical blow to her stomach.
She knew that ring. Fielding had bid on it at Sotheby's last month. When the invoice arrived, he had told her, It's an investment piece for a client in Dubai.
An investment.
The caption read: My savior. My soulmate.
Ariel's hands started to shake. Not with sorrow, but with a cold, vibrating rage.
He was wearing a watch that mocked her gift, while holding the hand of the woman wearing her stolen future.
She took a screenshot. Click.
She took another. Click.
She saved the video.
Then she closed Instagram. The nausea was rising in her throat, sour and hot.
She opened her banking app.
The tuition deposit for Sorbonne was due in twenty-four hours. Five thousand dollars.
She had hesitated before. She had thought about using her own savings, keeping her grandmother's money as a last resort.
But looking at that pink diamond...
Ariel navigated to the joint account. The one Fielding used for "household expenses."
She typed in the amount: $5,000.
Transfer to: Sorbonne Université.
Confirm.
The screen loaded. Transaction Successful.
She didn't stop there. She opened a browser tab she kept hidden in an encrypted folder. A guide to USDT and cold wallets. If she was going to leave, she needed money that couldn't be frozen, couldn't be tracked, and couldn't be taken back. She began to read, her mind absorbing the mechanics of crypto with the same intensity she once applied to choreography.
Before she could even lock the screen, her phone buzzed.
Fielding Calling.
He had alerts set up. Of course he did. He didn't care if she spent five thousand on curtains or catering, but an international wire transfer triggered his control issues.
Ariel took a deep breath. She pressed the phone to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Ariel?" Fielding's voice was clipped, background noise muffled. "I just got a fraud alert. Did you just wire five grand to France?"
"Yes," Ariel said. She picked at a loose thread on the sofa cushion. "I did."
"What for? Did you get hacked?"
"No," she said, her voice eerily calm. "I ordered a bag. A vintage Kelly. The seller is in Paris. They required a deposit."
"A bag?" Fielding paused. "You're buying handbags at ten p.m.?"
"You said I should buy myself something nice," Ariel reminded him. "Because of the rough night."
There was a silence on the line. Ariel could hear the clinking of silverware in the background.
Then, a woman's voice, faint but distinct. "Fielding, come back. It's your turn to deal."
Ariel closed her eyes.
Fielding cleared his throat loudly. "Right. Well. Fine. Buy it. Buy two if you want. Don't worry about the cost."
Guilt money.
"Okay," Ariel said. "I won't."
"I have to go. The merger partners are waiting."
"Goodbye, Fielding."
The line went dead.
Ariel lowered the phone. She felt dirty.
She stood up and walked into the massive walk-in closet.
Rows of designer dresses she rarely wore. Shelves of shoes she couldn't walk in comfortably anymore.
And the jewelry safe.
She opened it. Inside were the anniversary gifts from years one through four. Diamond earrings. A sapphire necklace. A Cartier bracelet.
Cold, hard, shiny apologies.
She swept them all into a velvet pouch. Then she grabbed three Hermes Birkins from the top shelf-pristine, untouched.
She pulled out her phone and dialed a number she had found on a forum.
"Hello? Is this Second Life Luxury?"
"Yes, speaking."
"I have a collection to liquidate," Ariel said, staring at the empty spaces on the shelf. "Three Birkins, multiple carats of diamonds. No papers for the jewelry, full authentication for the bags."
"We can send an appraiser," the voice on the other end perked up. "When?"
"Tonight," Ariel said. "Come to the service entrance. Bring cash."
"Ma'am, for that amount, we usually do a wire..."
"Cash," Ariel cut in. "Or USDT. I don't care which, as long as it's untraceable."
A pause. "We'll be there in an hour."
Ariel hung up.
She sat on the floor of the closet, clutching the velvet bag.
He told her not to worry about the cost.
He had no idea. She was just calculating the exit fee.
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8.4
For three years, she was the gentle, obedient wife to a man whose heart never thawed.
Their marriage was a lopsided bargain, sealed by her brother's injury.
Millie clung to hope that her devotion would win him over, only to discover someone else already held his heart.
On their anniversary, she waited alone in the freezing mountains, while he celebrated with another woman.
Without complaint, she packed up and signed the divorce papers.
Everyone believed Darren never loved her, so divorce was certain.
But time passed, and instead, he pleaded, "Sweetheart, can we not get divorced?"
8.4
After her eleventh miscarriage, Clara Fulton became pregnant again. To protect the pregnancy, she lay in a hospital bed day after day, enduring injection after injection, waiting for the special drug meant to save her child.
Then she discovered the truth. Her husband of eight years, Ethan Grayson, had already given that one dose of the special drug to his newly pregnant mistress.
Clara wiped the tears from her face and made a ruthless decision, ending the pregnancy she had fought so desperately to keep.
She no longer wanted a man who wavered between women. But anyone who betrayed sincerity would have to pay a price.
She took out a phone she had never once used and dialed the only number saved on it.
"You wanted me to acknowledge you as my father, didn't you? Come pick me up in a week. I'll take your seat."
She had no idea that after she left, Ethan would kneel before every god he could think of, praying for nothing but her return.
8.4
I was drugged and sent to a hotel room to be compromised, but I ended up in the presidential suite with a stranger.
I didn't know the man I clung to in my hallucinogenic haze was my own husband, Devaughn Winters, a man I hadn't spoken to in a year.
When I woke up the next morning, the terror of what I’d done hit me like a physical blow. I fled, leaving behind nothing but a shredded dress and a lingering sense of dread.
I thought I’d finally escaped the cold, suffocating contract of our marriage when I signed the divorce papers, but I was wrong.
My mother-in-law arrived at my apartment, freezing my sick mother’s medical funds and threatening to ruin me for the "infidelity" she claimed I’d committed.
She dragged my secrets into the light, leaving me with no choice but to fight back with a knife in my hand and a 911 call on speaker.
But just as I thought I was free, the man I’d spent the night with—the man who was supposed to be my stranger—tore up our divorce papers and declared that I was his to keep.
I was a pawn in a game I didn't understand, trapped between a ruthless father who wanted to sell me for corporate secrets and a husband who demanded I belong to him in life and in death.
How did he not know who I was that night, and why is he suddenly claiming me as his own?
I’m done being a victim, and if he thinks he can own me, he’s about to find out exactly what happens when a cornered woman decides to burn it all down.
7.9
I woke up in a burning warehouse, twelve years after my supposed death. My body had been reset to its physical prime, the deep burn scar on my wrist completely gone.
Through the smoke, my eldest son, Kennard, rushed blindly into the flames. He was screaming the name of the very woman who had orchestrated this trap—Brittnie.
When I tackled him out of the way of a falling steel beam, he didn't recognize my youthful face. Instead, he pinned me to the concrete and nearly crushed my windpipe.
"How much did she pay you to carve up your face to look like a dead woman?"
He hissed the words at me, treating me like a sick corporate spy. For a decade, a bizarre narrative "script" had brainwashed my son, forcing him into pathetic devotion to Brittnie. She had drained his wealth, turned my daughter against him, and hollowed out our family empire.
Whenever Kennard tried to resist her, the mind control punished him with agonizing migraines, driving him to smash his own hands against the wall just to cope with the pain.
Hearing him quietly sobbing outside my locked door, my heart shattered. How could this invisible force torture my brilliant son and turn my family into puppets for a D-list actress?
I dragged him to the hospital for a DNA test.
When the results confirmed my maternity at 99.999%, the cold billionaire collapsed to the floor, weeping in my arms like a lost child.
I wiped his tears and smiled ruthlessly. It was time to take back my empire and burn Brittnie's life to the ground.
7.7
Remi Puth had been married to Lacy Web for seven years, and raising their five-years son, Ian, with all her heart.
But despite everything, Ian choses another woman as his new mother, and Lacy was also having an affair with the same woman behind her back.
Remi had never imagined both Lacy and Ian would chose another woman over her one day. She asked for a divorce and even gave up custody of Ian before walking away with grace.
Years later, she has transformed into a confident woman. Now, both Lacy and Ian are drowning in regret, desperately chasing after her-but by that time, it's already too late.
7.9
Emily Parker has a simple life plan: write her steamy romance novels, collect her royalties, sleep whenever she wants, and avoid anything that sounds like responsibility.
Marriage? Absolutely not.
But when her aunt threatens to drag her back to the countryside and marry her off the traditional way, Emily makes a desperate promise-she'll find a husband in three months.
There's just one problem.
She's single. She hates dating. And she's far too lazy to fall in love.
So she does what any rational, comfort-loving woman would do-she signs up for a contract marriage. Temporary husband. Minimal effort. Clean divorce. Peace restored.
Except the man who accepts her proposal isn't just some convenient stranger.
He's Adrian Vale. Thirty-one. Devastatingly calm. CEO of a global empire.
And he remembers her.
Emily may have lost her childhood memories in the accident that killed their parents-but Adrian never forgot a single detail. Not the night that changed everything. Not the little girl who once held his hand. Not the name she would one day unknowingly choose as her pen name: Vale.
To her, it was just a contract.
To him, it was fate.
As secrets from the past begin to surface and the truth behind their shared tragedy threatens to tear them apart, Emily must decide whether to keep running from responsibility... or finally choose the man who has loved her long before she could remember him.
She wanted a temporary husband.
He's been waiting for her his entire life.