Chapter 1
"Three years ago you said I wasn't good enough for your world. Now I own your world." Ethan's voice cut through the silence of his office like a blade.
I stood before his desk, trembling—whether from fear or something else, I couldn't tell anymore. The boy I'd once known was gone, replaced by this predator in an impeccably tailored suit.
"Your father's little ballet studio is fucked," he said bluntly, sliding a folder across the desk. "Three months behind on rent, bills piling up, bank's ready to foreclose. But hey, I'm in a good mood today."
I knew what was coming. I'd known the moment his assistant called, requesting this meeting.
"Marry me, and all your family's debts disappear. Say no..." He shrugged with calculated indifference. "Well, there's always bankruptcy court. I hear it's real pretty this time of year."
"This isn't love, Ethan," I whispered, staring at the financial documents that spelled out my family's ruin.
His laugh was sharp, venomous. "Love?" He leaned forward, his dark eyes boring into mine. "You mean the love you threw back in my face when I was just a poor scholarship kid? When my secondhand clothes weren't designer enough for precious Lily Stewart?"
The words hit like physical blows. "Ethan, that's not—"
"Not what?" He stood up, towering over me. "Not true? You looked at me like I was garbage, Lily. Like I was some pathetic charity case who dared to think he deserved someone from your world." His voice dropped to a whisper that was somehow more terrifying than shouting. "You taught me that love is for the poor. Money—money is power. And now you're going to learn exactly what that means."
He walked around the desk, circling me like a predator. "You want to know what's really beautiful? Your family's little ballet studio is broke as shit because people like you—people with 'class'—don't actually have any money. It's all fake, isn't it? All those years looking down on me, and you were just as poor as I was."
"Please," I whispered, the word scraping my throat raw.
"Please?" His smile was cruel. "That's interesting. Three years ago, when I was on my knees offering you everything I had, 'please' wasn't in your vocabulary. Now that I have what you wanted—money, power, status—suddenly you remember how to beg."
The silence stretched between us, filled with years of buried pain and rage.
"You taught me that love is a weakness," he said finally. "So I decided to get rich instead. And now, my dear wife-to-be, you're going to watch me fuck every beautiful woman in Manhattan while you sit in my house like the pathetic little trophy you always wanted to be."
He leaned closer, his breath hot against my ear. "I'm going to make you watch me choose them over you, every single night. You're going to feel exactly what I felt when you threw me away like trash."
His words struck me with physical force, and I stumbled backward, my hand reaching for the desk to steady myself.
The room spun, and suddenly I was twenty-one again, standing in that golden-lit practice room.
Ethan had been there with his cheap roses and secondhand clothes, eyes burning with the kind of love that could move mountains.
"I know I'm not rich," he'd said, voice cracking, "but I love you more than anyone ever could."
God, how I'd wanted to say yes. How I'd wanted to forget Dr. Harrison's phone call three days earlier—the genetic test results that sentenced me to the same death that took my mother.
"Ethan, you're wonderful," I'd whispered instead, each word like swallowing glass, "but we come from different worlds. It would never work."
I watched hope die in his eyes. Raw pain, then rage, then something cold I'd never seen before.
"You'll regret this," he'd said, dropping the roses. "Someday you'll understand what you threw away."
"Tell him," my heart had screamed. "Tell him about the disease, about why your hands shake, about why you can't give him babies or a future."
But I'd been twenty-one and terrified, choosing a clean lie over watching him slowly realize he'd tied himself to a dying woman.
Now, three years later, that lie had come back to destroy us both.
The boy I'd tried to protect had become the man who would show me no mercy.
And this time, there was no escape.
"You have twenty-four hours to decide," Ethan said now, dismissing me like just another business meeting.
I walked out of his office in a daze, the folder of my family's financial ruin clutched in my trembling hands. Twenty-four hours to choose between my pride and my father's life's work.
That night, I sat in Dad's empty studio, surrounded by mirrors that had once reflected my dreams. The eviction notice was taped to the front door like a death certificate.
I called Ethan at 11:58 PM.
"I accept," I said into the phone, my voice barely a whisper.
"Smart choice," he replied, and hung up.
The courthouse wedding had been exactly what I'd expected—fluorescent lights and legal documents, no flowers or music. Just the cold efficiency of revenge disguised as marriage.
"Do you take this man to be your husband?" the judge had asked.
"I... I do," I'd managed, signing the prenup that made me an employee with "wife" in the job description.
"This is business, not romance," Ethan had said quietly. "Let's keep that clear."
That sentence became my reality. Three months of learning to be invisible in my own home, of pretending not to hear the parade of heels clicking across marble floors or the lingering scent of perfumes that weren't mine.
Models, actresses, socialites—a parade of everything I used to be.
"Mr. Cross, he usually gets tired of them after a week," Maria, the housekeeper, had whispered to me one morning, gathering discarded lingerie from the floor. "But this one... Miss Rodriguez, she's been here almost a month now."
Isabella Rodriguez. Twenty-three, fresh out of Columbia with a dance degree and the kind of radiant energy I'd lost years ago. Young, healthy, with steady hands that could still hold a perfect arabesque.
"Your room is on the third floor," Ethan said that first day she moved in, gesturing up the sweeping staircase. "Guest bedroom, of course."
"Of course," I echoed.
"Isabella will be staying in the master bedroom," he continued casually, watching my face for any crack in my composure.
Isabella appeared at the top of the stairs wearing one of my old competition dresses—the red one from my Lincoln Center debut. Bold little bitch.
"Don't worry, Lily," she said with fake sweetness. "I'll take good care of Ethan for you."
This was my punishment. Watching him replace me with a younger, healthier version of everything I'd lost.
"I understand the arrangement," I said, my voice steady despite the chaos in my chest.
My "guest room" was all neutral tones and perfect corners, expensive but empty. Through the walls, I could hear them downstairs, laughter, conversation, the fragments of a life that existed just beyond my reach.
I unpacked my small suitcase, pulling out the pill bottle hidden in my toiletry bag. The label read "Multivitamin Complex," but I knew better.
"Just vitamins," I whispered, the lie becoming easier each time.
Isabella's voice drifted up: "Ethan, you're so sweet. This feels like home."
Home. The word twisted in my stomach like a knife. This place would never be home—not for me, anyway. I was just another piece of furniture, something beautiful that would eventually break and need replacing.
I pulled out my journal, my handwriting shakier than it had been three months ago:
[Day 92: Six months, maybe less. Hope I have enough time to make this right.]