From Fairy Tale To Broken Dream

My husband, Caden, was a real estate mogul who built his empire on our love story. The world swooned when he named his latest skyscraper the "Allisson Tower," calling it a modern-day Taj Mahal. But it was my design, and his grand gestures were just a cover for a grander theft. I discovered he wasn't just cheating with his pregnant mistress. He had stolen my architectural blueprints-the very foundation of his celebrated career. He' d bring me to the same restaurant where he' d just entertained her, recycling his romantic gestures. I watched him smile genuinely at her livestream while holding my hand, sending her virtual gifts with the message, "My princess deserves all this and more. You' re the only one for me." The man who swore "absolute honesty" on our wedding day had built our entire life on a mountain of lies. He didn't just break his vows; he pulverized them, turning our love into a public spectacle. So I planned my escape. I signed the divorce papers, packaged them with irrefutable proof of his plagiarism inside a model of the first building he stole, and handed it to him as an "anniversary gift." "You can't open it for two weeks," I told him. He had no idea that in two weeks, his wife would be a ghost and his empire would be ashes.

For one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days, I honored a deathbed promise to the man I loved. I stayed by his brother's side, acting as Grafton Mcleod's loyal assistant, his shadow, and the keeper of his secrets. When my five-year sentence was finally up, he announced his engagement to Cherrelle, the woman who took cruel pleasure in tormenting me. His celebratory gift to me? The task of planning their perfect engagement party. At the party, he publicly dismissed me as an "old obligation." Later, drunk and angry, he cornered me in a back office. He slammed me against the door, his mouth crashing down on mine in a brutal, clumsy kiss. He pinned me there, his body pressing into mine, and whispered a name against my lips. It wasn't my name. "Cherrelle." The violation wasn't the assault; it was the complete and utter erasure. I wasn't a person he hated or desired. I was just a stand-in, a warm body, a substitute for the woman he actually wanted. The last flicker of loyalty to his brother's memory died, leaving only ice in my veins. The next morning, Cherrelle screamed that I'd tried to seduce him, and he stood by and let her. My own mother called to shame me. That was it. I drove to a cliff overlooking the ocean, pulled the SIM card from my phone, and snapped it in two. It was time for Cayla Bass to die.

My mother was dying, her laughter stolen by a rare disease. A cosmic system offered me a deal: travel to another world, make a man named Ethan Stone love me, and she would be cured. It seemed easy; Ethan was sweet, attentive, and kind at first. But then, everything changed. Ethan became a monster, breaking up with me repeatedly, each time devising public, humiliating "tests" to win him back. From public apologies to standing in the pouring rain with a sign, I endured it all for my mother. The "tests" escalated - a high-stakes, uninsured motorcycle jump over a canyon that left my leg shattered, a forced tequila chugging contest that ended with me violently retching, and being forced to slap myself senseless on my knees in front of him and his new "protégé," Brittany. The ultimate humiliation came when he forced me to donate a kidney to Brittany without anesthesia, dangling the promise of marriage as incentive. I became numb, a puppet going through the motions. The love I once felt for him died, replaced by a profound emptiness. But the mission parameters were clear: get him to say he loved me, to commit, and my mother would be saved. After enduring unimaginable physical and emotional torment, I finally secured his verbal confirmation. The system announced my mission was complete, and I returned to my own world, my mother miraculously healed. I started a new life, finally free. But my hard-won peace was shattered when Ethan, having traded everything, suddenly appeared, desperate to win me back.

For three years, every ache in my artist' s hands, every mile on my delivery bike, every humiliating monster costume in a haunted escape room, had a purpose: Sophia. "Her mother is sick," she' d told me, her eyes wet, "crushed by a mountain of medical debt." So, I worked, pouring every dollar and ounce of my being into a future where her worry would finally vanish. But on a Saturday night, lurking in the stale, fog-filled hall of that escape room, an emergency exit burst open, flooding the space with laughter. And out stumbled Sophia, tangled up with a man, Liam, in an expensive suit, his hand possessively on her waist. "My boyfriend is one of these poor, struggling types," she sneered, oblivious to my presence behind the flimsy foam mask. "An artist. It's almost cute, in a sad way. He thinks my mom's sick. The fool." The world tilted. My vision blurred. She wasn' t just with another man; she was mocking my every sacrifice. Then, a check for fifty thousand dollars, signed by Liam Davis, fluttered from her dropped purse. I, the "starving artist," the "toy," the "fool," had been systematically fleeced, my love twisted into a sick joke. The real Sophia – vibrant, passionate, and deeply in love with Liam – appeared on a security monitor, kissing him, shielding him from the camera, as employees whispered about their engagement. "She' s been playing him this whole time," one said, a chilling confirmation of my shattered reality. Her "mom," Evelyn Davis, Liam' s mother, appeared in a photograph on my nightstand - stark evidence of Sophia' s audacious lies. "It' s over, Sophia," I whispered, broken, walking away from the screams and lies, embracing the cold, hard choice of letting go. Now, stripped of everything, lost and collapsing on a wet street, I knew one thing: I was done waiting for her.

The last thing I saw in my first life was my sister Chloe' s enraged face, her hands squeezing the life out of me. "This is your fault," she hissed, as my parents, Sarah and Richard, watched-my mother holding me down, my father glaring at me from beside the wrecked car. They blamed me for everything: the cross-country road trip that was Chloe' s selfish whim, her high-risk pregnancy, and ultimately the fender bender that led to her premature labor and the loss of her baby. Despite my warnings, they only saw my supposed jealousy and the money Chloe's rich husband, Ethan, offered. "She was always a burden," my father' s cold voice was the last sound I heard before darkness consumed me. Then, I gasped, my eyes flying open, the smell of turpentine filling my nose. I was back in my art studio, unharmed, just as my phone began to ring. It was Mom. My blood ran cold; I knew this was the day they' d propose the trip. Every memory of their betrayal, their hatred, and my agonizing death flooded back. This time, things would be different. "Hello?" I answered, my voice steady. "Ava? Finally," my mother' s impatient voice said. "Listen, dear, we have the most wonderful news." A cold, quiet resolve settled over me. They wanted a pawn, a servant, a scapegoat, and they had gotten me killed for it once. Now, I would give them what they wanted, and watch them choke on it.

The fluorescent hum of the county clerk's office was the soundtrack to my defiance. I clutched the pen, ready to marry Liam Thorne, a man I' d run seven days and suppressed a blood-bound token for, all to rewrite a past that still haunted my reborn soul. Before the ink could touch the paper, Liam snatched the license. Rip. My heart stopped. "I have to marry Chloe first," he said, his words echoing the betrayal I remembered from a lifetime ago. He spoke of a week, of saving Chloe' s reputation, but I remembered years in a damp root cellar, the loss of our children. My blood-bound token throbbed as his guards abducted me, dragging me to his coastal estate. There, Chloe, the cousin whose manipulations haunted my first life, paraded in my wedding gown, her triumph chilling. With a staged cry and a splash of fake blood, she framed me. Liam, blinded by her fake tears, roared, "Take her to the old root cellar!" My nightmare was real again. The sting of his slap echoed the cruelty of a past he seemed to have forgotten, but I hadn't. Had he learned nothing? Did he truly believe a week could erase my agony, our lost children, the years in that dark cellar? The blood-bound token, suppressed for so long, now pulsed with a furious, undeniable call. As the heavy door of that dreaded root cellar slammed shut, I finally let go. No more running. No more pretending. My forced apology was a lie, a means to an end. It was time for my people to find me. It was time to go home. And this time, I wouldn't be marrying him. I was going home to Elijah.