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 8
The walls of Room 304 were paper-thin.
To the left, a TV blared a reality show. To the right, a couple was arguing about money.
Ariel lay on the bed, staring at the water stain on the ceiling that looked vaguely like France.
It was 2:00 AM.
Her leg was on fire. The stress of the day-the standing, the walking, the confrontation-had triggered a flare-up of the nerve damage.
She reached for the bottle of ibuprofen in her purse. She dry-swallowed three.
She caught her reflection in the mirror opposite the bed.
She looked pale. Ghostly.
Her eyes drifted to the corner of the room, where a cheap metal coat rack stood.
An urge seized her. Irrational. Primal.
She stood up. She stripped off her jeans and shirt, standing in her underwear.
She walked to the chair by the desk. It was sturdy enough.
She placed her hand on the back of the chair.
Barre.
She positioned her feet. First position. Heels touching, toes out.
Her right foot dragged. It wouldn't turn out all the way. The scar tissue was too tight.
She closed her eyes.
She imagined the stage lights of the Lincoln Center. The heat. The rosin on her shoes. The orchestra tuning up.
She was the Swan Queen.
"Plié," she whispered.
She bent her knees. The pain was sharp, but manageable.
"Relevé."
She rose onto the balls of her feet.
Her left leg was strong, remembering the years of discipline. But as she shifted weight to her right leg, the nerve screamed.
It wasn't just pain. It was a structural failure.
Her knee buckled.
Ariel crashed to the floor.
Her hip hit the carpet hard. Her knee slammed into the leg of the desk.
"Ah!" A cry tore from her throat.
She lay crumpled on the dirty carpet, clutching her knee. Blood seeped from a scrape, staining her skin.
And then the dam broke.
She didn't just cry. She wailed.
She cried for the five years she had wasted. She cried for the baby she had wanted but Fielding had refused. She cried for the dance career that had burned in a Ferrari on the I-95.
She cried until her throat was raw and her eyes were swollen shut.
She curled into a ball, shaking, letting the grief wash over her like a tidal wave.
Ten minutes passed. Twenty.
The couple next door stopped arguing. Even the TV seemed to quiet down.
Ariel lay in the silence, her cheek pressed against the rough carpet.
"Are you done?" she asked herself aloud. Her voice was croaky.
She waited for an answer.
"Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?"
She sat up. She wiped the blood from her knee with a tissue.
She looked at her legs. One perfect. One ruined.
"You can't dance," she said to the empty room. "But you can think. You can speak. You can see."
She dragged herself up. She grabbed the study guide from the bed.
She turned on the desk lamp. The harsh yellow light flooded the small workspace.
She sat down.
She didn't sleep.
For the next four hours, she conjugated verbs. She wrote essays on French Impressionism. She memorized vocabulary about art restoration.
Every time her mind drifted to Fielding, to Corinna, to the pink diamond, she forced it back to the page.
La douleur est temporaire. Pain is temporary.
La gloire est éternelle. Glory is forever.
By the time the sun began to grey the window, Ariel felt lightheaded, but sharp.
She went to the tiny bathroom. She washed her face with cold water. She applied concealer to the dark circles under her eyes. She put on lipstick-a shade of red she hadn't worn since her premiere.
"Bonjour, Ariel," she told the mirror.
Back at the penthouse, Fielding woke up.
He reached for his phone.
No missed calls. No texts.
He frowned.
"Still?" he grumbled.
He got out of bed, annoyed. He decided not to send the car. If she wanted to come home, she could crawl.
He showered, scrubbing hard, trying to wash away the unease that was settling in his gut.
Ariel checked out of the hotel at 8:00 AM.
She walked out onto the street. The morning air was crisp.
She hailed a cab.
"Alliance Française, please. East 60th."
She sat back, clutching her folder. Her leg hurt, but she didn't care.
She wasn't a wife today. She wasn't a victim.
She was a candidate.
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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.