Unraveling A Twisted Marriage

The doctor's words didn't just break my heart; they erased my future. I could never have children. The cause? A fall my husband, Gregory, caused when he shoved me against our marble coffee table.

I had confronted him about stealing my game for his new star protégé. While I was reeling from the loss, he was on the cover of a tech magazine, beaming, with his arm wrapped around her. They were celebrating the massive success of my game.

When I went home, I found her there, wearing my silk robe, directing movers to pack up my life. Gregory didn't even deny the affair. He simply stepped in front of her, shielding her from my rage.

He wasn't content with just that. He issued a press release calling me an unstable plagiarist, destroying my career to ensure I couldn't leave.

His mother delivered the final, crushing blow. She told me my marriage was a transaction-my parents had traded their life's work, a revolutionary patent, just so I could marry him. I was bound by their sacrifice.

He had taken everything-my work, my body, my family's legacy. He thought he had me caged, a broken trophy to display.

He was wrong. That night, I doused our home in gasoline and walked away as the flames consumed my old life. Calista Gardner died in that fire. And I was finally free.

Chapter 1

The doctor' s words were flat and final.

"The damage is severe, Ms. Galloway. The fall caused significant internal trauma. I' m sorry, but you won' t be able to conceive a child."

The clinical white of the room seemed to press in on me. My ears filled with a high-pitched ringing, drowning out the rest of his sympathetic speech. A wave of nausea rolled through my stomach, and my hands, resting in my lap, started to tremble.

I squeezed my eyes shut, a strangled gasp catching in my throat. My body felt like a battlefield, hollowed out and defeated. A child. We had been trying for a child.

"Is there... anything? Any procedure?" I asked, my voice a broken whisper.

The doctor shook his head slowly, his expression grim. "The scarring is too extensive. Any attempt would be high-risk. I can' t, in good conscience, recommend it."

His words confirmed the loss, a final, irreversible sentence. And the source of this agony wasn't some random accident. It was the man I loved, my husband, Gregory Gardner.

A sharp, vivid memory cut through the fog of my grief. Two weeks ago, in our pristine, minimalist living room. The shouting, the cold fury in his eyes. I had confronted him about the striking similarities between his new star protégé' s game and my own passion project.

He had laughed it off, then his anger flared. He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my skin. "Don't be naive, Calista," he'd snarled. Then came the shove. It wasn't hard, but I was off-balance. My feet tangled, and I fell backward, my hip and back slamming hard against the corner of our marble coffee table. The pain was blinding.

Now, sitting alone in this sterile room, I felt the full weight of his betrayal. I pulled out my phone, my thumb shaking as I scrolled through the news. There he was, Gregory, on the cover of a tech magazine. He was standing on a stage, arm draped around his protégé, Brodie Potter. They were both beaming, bathed in the glow of flashing cameras. The headline read: "Gardner and Potter: A New Gaming Dynasty." Her game-my game-was a massive success.

My life was a wreck, and they were celebrating. The public humiliation, the financial ruin he' d orchestrated, it all crashed down on me at once.

That was it. I was done.

"I need to see a lawyer," I told myself, the words a silent vow.

The next day, the lawyer' s office was just as cold as the clinic.

"It' s complicated, Calista," my lawyer, a weary-looking man named Mr. Davies, said. He adjusted his glasses. "The assets are tied up in a trust. And the prenuptial agreement your mother-in-law, Joelle, had you sign is ironclad. It heavily favors Gregory."

Defeated but not broken, I drove back to the house we once shared, the one I had designed. I needed my personal things, my old design notebooks-the proof of my work.

When I pushed open the door, the scent of a different perfume hit me. Foreign. Wrong. In the living room, Brodie Potter was directing movers, pointing at my furniture, my art. She was wearing one of my silk robes.

She saw me and smiled, a sickeningly sweet expression. "Oh, Calista. I didn' t expect you."

The air crackled with tension. My eyes locked onto the robe. My home. My life. She was wearing my life.

Gregory walked in from the kitchen, a coffee mug in his hand. He stopped short when he saw me, his expression hardening. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here, Gregory," I said, my voice shaking with a rage I didn' t know I possessed. "Or did you forget that?"

Brodie stepped forward, placing a hand on Gregory' s arm. Her face was a mask of false concern. "Calista, I' m so sorry about everything. I never wanted to hurt you. If I had known..."

"Known what?" I snapped, cutting her off. "That you were sleeping with my husband? Or that you were stealing my game, my career, my future?"

The color drained from her face.

Gregory stepped in front of her, shielding her. "That' s enough, Calista." His voice was low, dangerous. The admission was right there, in his eyes, in the way he protected her. He didn' t even bother to deny it.

The final piece of my old life shattered.

"I want a divorce, Gregory," I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.