The Lie That Erased My Life

I thought I had my fairytale ending when I married Dayton Reed, the charming heir to a tech empire. But a car crash on our wedding day gave him amnesia, and his family used it as an excuse to erase me. For five years, I watched another woman, Cassidy, take my place, enduring their cruelty while clinging to the hope that my husband was still in there somewhere.

Then I overheard him talking to his father.

He laughed, calling his amnesia the "best performance of my life." He admitted our whole relationship was a lie-a way to atone for his family's role in my parents' deaths.

In the same breath, his new fiancée announced she was pregnant.

My love wasn't just forgotten; it was a joke. He had orchestrated five years of my torment, from the murder of my dog to the loss of our unborn child.

He thought he broke me. He was wrong.

Years later, I've rebuilt my life. And tonight, on a live news broadcast with the whole world watching, I'm going to expose every last one of his sins and burn his empire to the ground.

Chapter 1

Brynn Miles POV:

They say love is blind.

Mine wasn't just blind; it was a self-inflicted wound, a gaping chasm I willingly fell into, only to find myself at the bottom, starved and forgotten.

The day I married Dayton Reed, I thought I'd finally found my fairytale. Instead, I found a nightmare.

One I lived for five years, watching him forget me, watching his family erase me, and watching another woman take my place.

All while the man I loved orchestrated my torment from the shadows.

Our love story was a whirlwind, the kind they write about in books to make other women jealous.

Dayton, the charming heir to Reed Tech, pursued me with a relentless fervor that swept me off my feet. He showered me with gifts, whispered promises of forever, and made me believe I was the only woman in the world.

He moved mountains for me, or so it seemed, proving his devotion with a fierce, almost desperate intensity that thrilled me.

He said he couldn't live without me, that I was his oxygen, his reason for being.

I knew the Reed family opposed our union, their disdain a constant, icy undercurrent.

But Dayton vowed to protect me, to stand against them all. He promised to break free from their gilded cage, to build a life where their influence couldn't touch us.

I listened, I believed.

And I endured the quiet scorn, the snide remarks, the blatant snubs from his parents, Craig and Henrietta. For him, I swallowed my pride, day after day, year after year.

He pulled me into his world, a universe of private jets, sprawling estates, and whispered deals.

I, Brynn Miles, from the wrong side of the tracks, found myself dazzling under his spotlight.

He presented me to his elite circle, daring them to judge, his hand always firm on my lower back, a possessive claim. He convinced me that their disapproval didn't matter, that our love was a force strong enough to conquer all.

His insistence grew into a fever pitch.

He proposed not once, not twice, but a dozen times, each proposal grander and more public than the last. He filled Times Square with my pictures, bought a full-page ad in The New York Times declaring his love, and even chartered a blimp with "Marry Me, Brynn?" blazoned across the sky.

I resisted, wary of the intensity, but his persistence was a tidal wave.

Eventually, I said yes, my heart overflowing with a hope I hadn't known was possible.

The wedding day arrived, a blur of white lace, excited whispers, and the scent of a thousand roses. It was everything I had ever dreamed of, and more.

But as I walked down the aisle, a radiant smile on my face, a sharp, metallic screech tore through the air.

A deafening crash.

The world tilted, then plunged into chaos.

I woke in a sterile white room, the air thick with the smell of antiseptic. My head throbbed, my body ached, but my first thought was Dayton.

The nurses, their faces grim, told me about the car crash. A drunk driver had veered into our motorcade just moments before we reached the church.

Dayton was alive, but barely. He had a traumatic brain injury.

Days later, when I finally saw him, his eyes were blank.He looked at me, then through me.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice flat, devoid of recognition.

The amnesia had stolen him from me. It had stolen me from him.

Every shared memory, every whispered secret, every grand gesture-gone.

Erased.

The Reed family descended like vultures, their faces tight with a mixture of grief and barely concealed triumph.

"This is all your fault, Brynn," Henrietta hissed, her voice a venomous whisper. "You were always a disaster. A gold-digger. Now look what you've done."

They blamed me for everything, for the accident, for Dayton's condition, for daring to exist in their world.

They barred me from his hospital room, then from the family estate.

"He needs stability, not your drama," Craig declared, his words a death sentence. "He needs to heal."

And healing, in their eyes, meant erasing every trace of me.

I was an outcast, a ghost haunting the edges of a life that was once mine.

Then Cassidy Mclean appeared.

Blonde, beautiful, impeccably dressed, and from a pharmaceutical dynasty rivaling the Reeds. She was their chosen one, the "socially-approved fiancée."

She became Dayton's shadow, his caregiver, his new life.

I watched from afar, a silent scream trapped in my throat, as she gently tutored him on his "past," painting a picture of a life where I never existed.

It was a slow, agonizing death. I saw them in magazines, on society pages, holding hands, smiling. He looked at her with a gentle affection that once belonged to me.

My heart shattered into a million pieces every time, each shard carving a fresh wound, yet I couldn't look away.

He was mine, I screamed internally, he just didn't remember.

I tried to reach him, slipping past security, leaving notes, reminding him of our secret picnic spots, our favorite songs. He would look confused, sometimes angry.

"Who are you?" he'd repeat, a chilling echo of our first encounter.

My heart ached, believing he was trapped, that the real Dayton was still in there somewhere, yearning for me.

One day, I snuck into the Reed estate, desperate to trigger a memory. I carried our first anniversary gift, a small, intricate music box that played "our song."

I found Dayton in the garden, sketching.

"Dayton," I whispered, holding out the box. "Remember this? Our song."

He looked up, his eyes hardening. He snatched the box, his fingers closing around it until wood splintered and music died.

"Get out," he spat, his voice cold, hateful.

He smashed the broken box against a stone fountain, the pieces scattering like fallen dreams.

He grabbed my arm, his grip bruising, and dragged me towards the gates.

"You are nothing to me," he snarled, shoving me to the ground. My elbow scraped against the gravel, pain shooting up my arm, but it was nothing compared to the agony in my chest. He stood over me, his shadow falling across my face, menacing and unfamiliar.

"If you ever come near me again, I'll make sure you regret it," he threatened, his voice low and dangerous. "I don't know who you are, but you're obsessed. Stay away from my family."

His words were like a physical blow, worse than any scrape or bruise.

His parents, Craig and Henrietta, watched from the balcony, their faces impassive. Cassidy stood beside them, a smirk playing on her lips, her arm linked through Dayton's. She looked like the perfect Stepford wife, serene and victorious.

"Look at her, Dayton," Cassidy purred, her voice dripping with fake concern. "She's pathetic. She thinks she's worthy of you."

Dayton' s gaze swept over me, as if I were a speck of dirt, then he turned back to Cassidy, offering her a comforting squeeze.

My past, our shared moments, the grand gestures he had made to win my heart-they were not just forgotten, but ridiculed.

I was a stain on his perfect new life. The man who once declared me his reason for being now treated me like a repulsive stranger.

One evening, I couldn't help but linger outside the estate gates, watching a lavish party through the wrought iron. Dayton and Cassidy were dancing, bathed in the soft glow of fairy lights. He held her close, his head bent to hers, a tender intimacy I remembered all too well.

My heart twisted, a cold, hard knot of jealousy and despair.

I found myself hiding behind a thick hedge, listening to Dayton's voice carry through the night air. He was talking to his father, their voices low, but the wind carried snippets of their conversation.

"The chronic pain is unbearable, Dad," Dayton complained, his voice laced with a bitterness I hadn't heard before. "And all for that... gold-digger. My body is a wreck because of her."

My blood ran cold. Gold-digger?

Then, his father's response, "It's a debt, son. Your atonement for the Miles family. Their parents died in our plant. We had an obligation. She just tried to cash in."

I pressed myself further into the shadows, a dizzying wave of nausea washing over me.

Obligation? Atonement? My parents, who died in a factory accident at a Reed-owned plant, a tragedy I had always believed was a terrible, isolated incident. Was this why he had pursued me? Not love, but guilt?

"But the amnesia," Dayton chuckled, a cruel, mirthless sound that curdled my stomach.

"Best performance of my life. Got rid of her, got Cassidy, and solidified my position. Who knew a little head trauma could be so convenient?"

The air left my lungs. My world, already fractured, imploded.

He faked it.

The amnesia, the blank stares, the cold rejections-all a lie. A calculated, cruel deception.

He had orchestrated my humiliation, my pain, my slow destruction. My parents' deaths, a mere liability for him to atone for.

Just then, Cassidy, radiant in a shimmering gown, glided over to them, placing a hand on Dayton's arm.

"Darling," she purred, "I have wonderful news! We're pregnant!"

Dayton's face softened, a genuine smile spreading across his lips. "That's incredible, my love!" he exclaimed, pulling her into a celebratory embrace.

The news hit me like a physical blow, knocking the remaining air from my lungs. A baby. Their baby. The final nail in the coffin of my shattered dreams.

The fake amnesia, the real baby. The ultimate betrayal. My heart didn't just break; it completely disintegrated.

The next day, the news of Cassidy's pregnancy and Dayton's unwavering devotion to her dominated every gossip column and social media feed. My name was dragged through the mud once more, painted as the desperate, delusional ex-lover.

Strangers pointed and whispered, their eyes filled with pity or disgust. I walked through the city, my head held high, but inside, I was a hollow shell.

No more.

No more humiliation, no more tears, no more clinging to a ghost.

The Brynn Miles he knew, the one who loved him, died last night.

And from her ashes, something new, something hard and unyielding, was about to rise.

This was it.My breaking point.

I would leave. I would disappear.

And Dayton Reed would face the crushing reality of what he lost.