The Vance Redemption

I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn. Beside me lay Ezra Gardner—my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers. He didn’t offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement. "Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins." He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend’s apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I’d spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes. I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe. "Showtime, Mrs. Gardner." Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend’s face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down.

For four years, I sponsored an artist from Queens, Demetrius Rogers. I paid his mother's medical bills, sent his sister to prep school, and funded his entire career, turning him from a nobody into a star. I did it all because he was the spitting image of my dead fiancé. Tomorrow was our wedding. But tonight, standing outside his family's home, I overheard the truth. He was plotting with his high school girlfriend, Cayla, to leave me at the altar. He never loved me; it was all for the money. His mother, whose life I saved, called me arrogant and said I looked down on them. His sister, whose future I paid for, said she only ever wanted Cayla as her sister-in-law. Cayla demanded that he not only leave me, but publicly humiliate me in front of everyone. And Demetrius, the man whose world I had built from nothing, agreed. I had tried to buy a substitute for a dead man, and this was the price. They thought I was a fool to be used and discarded. But they were wrong. The next morning, I recorded a video. "Demetrius," I said to the camera, "I know your plan to leave me at the altar. I'm saving you the trouble. I'm leaving you first." I sent the video to be played at the church just as the ceremony was to begin, then boarded a one-way flight to London.

For three years, my estranged husband, Dayton Cole, paraded his childhood sweetheart around while I upheld our billion-dollar family merger. His latest hotel scandal splashed across the news, and I was once again called to clean up his mess, playing the part of the devoted wife. But this time was different. My best friend handed me divorce papers, urging me to finally choose myself. Yet, Dayton cornered me, using my family's ambitions as leverage. He demanded I maintain our charade for three more months-a performance that included sharing his bed. He'd humiliate me, calling me a tool for his family's image, then turn around and whisper that I was a beautiful woman he couldn't let go of. His jealousy flared when another man showed me kindness, yet he spent his nights rushing to his lover's side. The ultimate degradation came when he forced me to sleep on the floor of our shared room at his family's estate, declaring he had no desire for a wife who didn't want him. But in the dead of night, as I shivered on the cold floor, I felt his arms wrap around me, his lips brush my temple in a secret, tender gesture. I woke up alone, the warmth gone. A quick check of social media showed a new post from his sweetheart, thanking her "quiet strength" for being there at sunrise. That was the moment everything snapped. The game was over. He could have his fragile flower. I was taking back my life.

My fated mate, Alpha Liam, called our love a fairytale blessed by the Moon Goddess. But fairytales are lies. I discovered his was a pregnant mistress he publicly called "my queen." She sent me selfies wearing the sacred Mating necklace he gave me, while our pack whispered I was just the "bloodline problem" to be handled once his true heir was born. So on our anniversary, I handed him a gift. Inside were divorce papers and my official rejection. Then, I disappeared.

I was reborn, back to the day my daughter and my husband's old flame were kidnapped. Over the phone, the kidnappers demanded I choose one. In the background, my daughter Anne and another girl sobbed. My husband Jed Bennett snatched the phone, his eyes bloodshot, and roared at me, "Katrina has claustrophobia! Save her first!" In my past life, he chose Katrina Watson, and it cost my daughter's life. I laughed, tears streaming down my face. "Mommy... I'm scared..." came Anne's faint cry through the receiver. Jed bellowed again, "Amelia! Choose! Save Katrina!" I looked at him, nodded slowly, and took the phone. Then, calmly, I said into it, "Do it."

The smell of gasoline and the horrifying image of my own son, Leo, smirking as he flicked a lighter, consumed me in my last moments. My wife, Olivia, stood beside him, her face a mask of cold satisfaction. In that agonizing instant, I learned the bitter truth: Leo wasn't my son, but the product of IVF with Alex, Olivia's childhood love, a man supposedly long dead. I had spent three decades building an empire for Olivia's family, the Millers, out of gratitude for them taking in an orphan. All for a love that was a lie. Olivia confessed her secret, revealing how she had always loved Alex and despised me, the obstacle to her true happiness. The flames roared, my silent scream lost in the inferno. I died burning, betrayed by the woman I cherished and the son I raised, a fool who had wasted his entire existence. But then, I opened my eyes. The smell of gasoline was gone, replaced by roses and champagne. I was standing in a lavish suite, wearing a tuxedo. My body felt young, strong, unblemished. It was my wedding night, thirty years ago. Olivia, panicked, snatched her buzzing phone. "It's Alex," she whispered, "He says he's going to jump." She looked at me, not with love, but with raw, desperate fear for another man. Her father burst in, forbidding her to leave. She froze, then reluctantly agreed, blaming me with her eyes for the life she was forced into. My throat burned with the memory of the fire. I remembered every sacrifice-my ambitions, my eighteen-hour days, raising Leo. A son who wasn' t mine. A life built on deceit. A death born of her twisted obsession. She slapped me, her words meant to humiliate. "Say something, you pathetic social climber!" This time, things would be different. I caught her wrist. "No." I would not be the devoted husband or sacrificial lamb. My past was a brutal lesson. This time, I would save myself. I released her wrist. "The wedding is off."