Broken Vows And Paris Lights: My New Beginning

For fifteen years, I buried my dream of motherhood because my husband, Bennett, swore he carried a tragic genetic defect.

"If we have children, they will suffer," he had cried on our bathroom floor.

I believed him. I made him my religion.

But at a charity gala, everything shattered. He introduced his twenty-two-year-old mistress as his "little sister," only to announce moments later that she was pregnant with his heir.

He never had a genetic defect. He just didn't want a child with me.

The humiliation didn't stop there. He moved her into our home. He took my grandmother's emerald necklace, reset the stone, and fastened it around her neck in front of our friends.

When I tried to leave quietly, he sneered that I was jealous and toxic. He was confident he could break me, planning to manipulate me into eventually helping raise his mistress's baby.

He didn't know two things.

First, his mistress was faking the pregnancy to trap him.

Second, I wasn't going to stay to watch the fallout.

While he rushed her to the hospital for a staged emergency, blaming me for her "pain," I quietly boarded a private jet to Paris.

I deleted my number. I destroyed my SIM card. I reclaimed my maiden name.

By the time Bennett realized his "heir" was a lie and his wife was gone, I was already starting a new life where he didn't exist.

Chapter 1

Ava Miller POV

My husband introduced me to his mistress as his "little sister" at the charity gala, moments before announcing they were expecting the child he swore he could never have due to a genetic defect.

I stood frozen near the champagne tower, the crystal stem of my glass threatening to shatter under the white-knuckled pressure of my grip.

Fifteen years.

That was how long Bennett and I had been a singular entity. We met in prep school, two scholarship kids drowning in a sea of trust funds. We built an empire out of nothing but grit and shared coffee orders. He was my mentor, my best friend, the only person who knew how I took my tea and how to calm my panic attacks.

He was the man who had held me on the floor of our first apartment, stroking my hair as we wept over the diagnosis.

"It's a genetic issue, Kels," he had whispered, his tears soaking my shoulder. "If we have children, they will suffer. I can't do that to a soul. We have each other. That has to be enough."

I believed him. I buried my desire to be a mother because loving Bennett was the only religion I practiced.

But three months ago, the narrative changed.

"The bloodline," his father, Mr. Randolph Sr., had boomed at dinner. "We need an heir, Bennett."

I expected Bennett to defend our choice. Instead, he brought home Aria.

She was twenty-two. A burst of chaotic color in our beige, curated life. She was the surrogate, Bennett said. A vessel. Just a business arrangement to satisfy his father.

I tried to be gracious. I tried to welcome her. But tonight, the veil was ripped away.

I watched them in the shadowed corner of the ballroom. Bennett was leaning in close, his posture relaxed in a way I hadn't seen in years. Aria whispered something, and he laughed. A genuine, belly-deep laugh.

I stepped closer, shielding myself behind a large floral arrangement.

"She keeps trying to give me advice on prenatal vitamins," Aria giggled, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "It's suffocating."

"Ignore her," Bennett said. His voice was low, intimate. "Kelsey means well, but she doesn't understand this. What I have with her is... history. A deep connection, sure. But you? You're the flame, Aria."

"She looks so sad watching us," Aria said, though she didn't sound sympathetic in the slightest.

Bennett glanced over his shoulder, scanning the room until his eyes glazed over the spot where I usually stood.

"She's like a little sister," he said, offering a dismissive shrug. "She needs looking after. But you... you carry the future."

My blood didn't just run cold; it felt as though it had reversed course in my veins.

*Little sister.*

The man who had sworn eternal fidelity, who had made me sacrifice my own motherhood for a lie about genetics, had just reduced our marriage to sibling-like pity.

He didn't have a genetic defect. He just didn't want children with me.

I stumbled toward the restroom, the room spinning. I locked myself in a stall and stared at the mirror. The woman staring back was pale, elegant, and utterly hollow. I had spent fifteen years building a foundation on quicksand.

I didn't cry. The pain was too sharp for tears. It was a physical blow, a rib cracking inward.

I washed my hands, the water scalding, scrubbing until my skin turned raw and red.

I had to leave. Not just the party. I had to leave this life.

I took a cab back to our apartment. The silence of the penthouse was deafening. I walked into the bedroom and opened the drawer where we kept our mementos.

Letters from college. Ticket stubs. The napkin where he sketched his first business plan.

I grabbed a box and started sweeping it all inside. I didn't look at the words. I couldn't bear to read the lies.

Then I saw it. The ring.

It wasn't my wedding band. It was a ring he had designed for our tenth anniversary. Two intertwining vines, symbolizing our roots growing together.

*Forever*, he had said when he put it on my finger.

I pulled it off. It felt heavy, like a shackle.

I opened the bottom drawer of the nightstand, the one we never used, and threw the ring into the darkness. It hit the wood with a dull thud.

I slammed the drawer shut.

The sound echoed like a gunshot in the hollow room.

I wasn't just clearing out a drawer. I was severing a limb. And for the first time in fifteen years, I was bleeding out alone.