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 6
The wind on 51st Street was biting, whipping strands of hair across Ariel's face.
She made it ten yards before the pain in her leg forced her to stop. She leaned against a cold lamppost, gasping for air. Her knee felt like it was filled with ground glass.
The heavy door of the restaurant swung open again.
"Ariel! Stop!"
It was Fielding. He was striding toward her, his face a mask of indignation. Corinna trotted behind him, clutching her shawl, looking like a worried puppy.
He grabbed Ariel's wrist. His grip was tight, bruising.
"Let go of me," Ariel said. Her voice was low, dangerous.
"You don't get to walk away from me when I'm speaking to you," Fielding snarled. "You embarrassed me in there. Archer is one of my biggest investors."
"I embarrassed you?" Ariel yanked her arm back. "You embarrassed yourself, Fielding. You and your... mistress."
"We are friends!" Fielding shouted. "Why is your mind so twisted? Corinna has been nothing but supportive of you."
"Supportive?" Ariel laughed. It was a jagged sound. "She calls me a cripple to my face, Fielding. She wears the ring you bought with our money."
Fielding froze. "The ring... that was..."
"Don't lie," Ariel cut him off. She pointed a shaking finger at Corinna. "Show him the ring, Corinna. Show him the inscription inside. Does it say 'For the Client'?"
Corinna hid her hand behind her back. "Ariel, you're being paranoid. Fielding gave this to me because... because I've been going through a divorce and he wanted to cheer me up."
Fielding's expression softened instantly as he looked at Corinna. In his mind, she was the fragile victim of a cruel world-her husband had been a brute, or so she said, and her divorce was a tragedy that required his strength to fix. He saw himself as the knight protecting the damsel, conveniently forgetting that the damsel was wearing his wife's diamonds.
"Cheer you up with a fifty-thousand-dollar pink diamond?" Ariel looked at Fielding. "Do you think I'm stupid? Or do you just not care?"
"I care about you!" Fielding insisted, though his eyes kept darting to the people watching on the sidewalk. "I have taken care of you for five years! I paid for the surgeries! I paid for the therapy!"
"You paid for your guilt!" Ariel screamed.
The sound echoed off the stone buildings.
"You kept me in a golden cage because every time you looked at my leg, you remembered that you were the one driving that car! You were the one speeding!"
Fielding recoiled as if she had slapped him. "That was an accident."
"And keeping me small? Keeping me dependent? Was that an accident too?" Ariel stepped closer to Corinna. "And you. You 'Pick-me' girl."
Corinna gasped. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me. You hover around him, playing the victim, stroking his ego, pretending you're so fragile so he can feel like a big strong man. You're pathetic."
Corinna's face crumbled. She let out a sob and buried her face in Fielding's chest. "Fielding, make her stop! She's so cruel!"
Fielding's eyes went black. He raised his hand.
It was a reflex. A flash of dominance.
Ariel didn't flinch. She didn't cower. She stared straight at the raised palm.
"Do it," she whispered. "Hit me. Finish the job the car started."
Fielding's hand trembled in the air.
Time seemed to stretch. A passerby stopped. A taxi slowed down.
Fielding looked at his hand, then at Ariel's face. He saw no fear. Only a terrifying, blank resolve.
He lowered his hand slowly, defeated by his own cowardice.
"You're crazy," he muttered. "You need help."
"I don't need help," Ariel said. "I need a divorce."
The word hung in the air between them, heavy and absolute.
Fielding blinked. "You... you can't survive without me. You have nothing."
"Watch me."
A yellow taxi pulled up to the curb, sensing the drama.
Ariel opened the door.
"If you get in that car," Fielding warned, "don't bother coming home."
"Home?" Ariel looked at the penthouse towering in the distance, then at the man she had dragged out of a burning wreck. "Fielding, I haven't had a home in five years."
She slid into the backseat and slammed the door.
"Drive," she told the driver.
As the taxi pulled away, she looked in the rearview mirror.
Fielding was standing on the curb, Corinna clinging to his arm. He looked smaller than she remembered.
She pulled out her phone.
Contact: Fielding.
Block Caller.
The screen went dark.
The silence in the cab was the loudest thing she had ever heard.
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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.