Left for Dead, Found by Love

My fiancé, tech CEO Cohen Burgess, took me to the city's most exclusive restaurant for our three-year anniversary.

Then his high school sweetheart, Kiera, reappeared, claiming amnesia. To help her "recover," Cohen started a viral "100 Dates Challenge" with her, turning their reunion into a national spectacle.

I became the villain in their love story. When I objected, Cohen locked me in a wine cellar, knowing my severe claustrophobia. He let Kiera wear my deceased mother's priceless dress, and when she deliberately tore it, he tossed his credit card at me and told me to buy a new one.

I finally decided to leave, only to overhear his true plan: he would marry me for my family's status, but keep Kiera as his mistress. I was never his love; I was a beautiful, high-class tool for his ambition.

The final act came when Kiera set my room on fire and framed me. Cohen screamed I was a psycho and left me to burn.

As the roof collapsed, a stranger kicked down the door. He carried me from the inferno and said, "I'm Case Browning. Your husband."

Chapter 1

The anniversary dinner was perfect, or so it seemed. Three years with Cohen Burgess, the tech world' s golden boy, and he had booked the most exclusive restaurant in the city, the kind with a three-month waitlist he' d bypassed with a single phone call. The crystal glasses sparkled, the city lights glittered below, and Cohen looked at me with that possessive smile I used to mistake for love.

Everything was perfect until a woman appeared at our table.

She was beautiful in a fragile, broken way, her eyes wide and lost.

"Cohen?" she whispered, her voice trembling.

Cohen froze. The wine glass in his hand stopped halfway to his lips. I' d seen that look on his face only in old photographs, a ghost of a man I never knew.

"Kiera?" he breathed out.

Kiera Hewitt. His high school sweetheart. The one who had shattered his heart and then vanished five years ago. He' d told me the story once, a tale of dramatic, youthful passion that ended with her leaving him for a richer man before disappearing entirely.

Now she was back, claiming she' d been in a terrible accident. She said she had amnesia, that seeing his face in a magazine had triggered a flicker of a memory, a desperate lifeline.

Her story was a chaotic mess of hospitals and confusion, but Cohen drank every word. His guilt was a raw, open wound. He' d become a tech CEO, a titan of industry, but in that moment, he was just a boy again, face-to-face with his first love and his first failure.

To help her "recover her memories," he came up with a plan that felt like a punch to my gut. They would complete the viral "100 Dates Challenge" on TikTok. It was meant to be a sweet trend for new couples, but for them, it became a national spectacle.

Overnight, "Cohen and Kiera" were a sensation. Their first date, a simple coffee shop visit, got millions of views. The comments poured in.

"This is a real-life fairytale! He' s helping his lost love remember him!"

"True love never dies. I' m crying."

"Forget his current girlfriend, this is destiny!"

I became a footnote in my own life, the cold, wealthy girlfriend who stood in the way of a great romance. The loneliness was a physical weight in my chest.

I finally cornered Cohen in his home office, the TikTok videos of him and Kiera laughing playing on a loop on his monitor.

"Cohen, this has to stop. It' s humiliating."

He turned to me, his expression not apologetic, but annoyed. It was a look I was becoming far too familiar with.

"Aurora, you need to be more understanding. Can' t you see how much she' s suffering? This is the least I can do."

"And what about my suffering?" My voice cracked. "She' s your ex-girlfriend, Cohen. We are supposed to be getting married."

He sighed, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair. The gesture was meant to look stressed, but it was just impatient.

"We' ll still get married. This is just... a detour. Once Kiera' s memories are back, everything will go back to normal. Just be patient."

But as I waited, I saw them on the news, on gossip sites, on my own social media feed. I saw him hold her hand, wipe a tear from her eye, and look at her with an intensity he hadn' t shown me in years. The hope I was clinging to began to fray.

My life was unraveling on another front, too. A phone call from my adoptive mother, Eleanor Wright, shattered the last illusion of my stable world.

"Aurora, it' s time."

Her voice was cold, transactional. It always was.

I knew what she meant.

"Claire is turning eighteen next month," she continued, not waiting for my response. "The Browning pact must be honored."

I wasn't a Wright by blood. I was adopted, a fact the Wrights had made sure I never forgot. I was their beautiful, poised, well-educated placeholder. A social asset. But now their biological daughter, Claire, was of age, and I had become a burden.

The pact was an antiquated arrangement made by my biological parents before they died, a promise that their daughter would marry the heir of the Browning family to solidify some old family alliance. For years, the Wrights had held onto it, and by extension, me, for the status it afforded them. Now, it was my exit strategy. My arranged marriage to a man I' d never met, a small-town contractor named Case Browning, was their way of washing their hands of me.

I had accepted my fate. What choice did I have? My relationship with Cohen was a wreck, and my family saw me as a commodity. Marrying a stranger in a small town felt like an escape, a quiet end to a loud, painful life.

I had once foolishly believed Cohen was my real escape. I' d hesitated to tell him about the pact, clinging to the hope that our love was real, that he would fight for me. What a fool I' d been.

Now, with my heart in pieces, the arranged marriage felt like the only path left. I decided to tell Cohen, to officially end things, to get it over with.

I went to his penthouse, my key still working. I was about to call his name when I heard voices from the living room. It was Cohen and his best friend, Liam.

I froze behind the wall, my hand still on the doorknob.

"Are you seriously going to keep this up?" Liam asked. His voice was laced with disbelief. "The 100 Dates thing is one thing, but you' re destroying Aurora."

"Kiera needs me," Cohen said, his voice firm. "It' s my fault she' s like this. I have to fix it."

"By stringing along the woman you' re supposed to marry?" Liam shot back. "Aurora is a Wright. You know what her family means in this city. Are you really going to throw that away for a ghost?"

Then came the words that stopped my heart.

"Who said I' m throwing it away?" Cohen' s voice was casual, cold, and utterly terrifying. "Aurora is perfect. Beautiful, high-class, from the right family. She' s the perfect wife. Once Kiera is stable, I' ll marry Aurora. She' ll be Mrs. Burgess, hostess of my parties, the face of my success."

Liam was silent for a moment. "And Kiera?"

A soft, cruel chuckle. "Kiera is my heart. She' ll be my mistress. I' ll have both. The perfect wife and the woman I actually love. It' s the perfect plan."

The air left my lungs. My world tilted, the glittering penthouse turning into a cage. He didn' t love me. He had never loved me. I was a possession, a name, a tool for his ambition.

I backed away from the door, my movements silent. I didn' t need a final conversation. I didn' t need to say goodbye. He had already said it all.

My new life, whatever it was, would begin now.

As I slipped out of the building, my phone buzzed with an alert. It was a new TikTok from Kiera' s account. She was standing in a field of wildflowers, Cohen behind her, a protective hand on her shoulder.

The caption read: "Date #27: He remembered I was allergic to roses and found me these instead. He always knows how to take care of me. ❤️"

Her smile was sweet and innocent. A perfect performance.

I laughed, a bitter, broken sound in the empty street. I clicked the "block" button, my thumb pressing down with finality.

Let them have their fairytale. I was done being a character in it.