Introduction

I' d just told my best friend I was divorcing Ava. My voice was flat, even to my own ears. I, Ethan Miller, a quiet architect, had secretly loved the dazzling heiress Ava Chen since college. When her fiancé Julian abandoned her at the altar, I stepped in, marrying her in a desperate hope for a love that was only real on my side.

For three years, our marriage was a sham, a constant competition against Julian Vance, her manipulative college flame. Every crisis, every whim, every late-night call – Julian always came first. My patience, my silent devotion, slowly eroded. The breaking point came when I finally snapped and struck Julian in his hospital room, after hearing his smug taunts about Ava always belonging to him.

Ava rushed to his side. She didn't ask what happened. She didn't hesitate. Her eyes, filled with a burning hatred I' d never seen directed at me, met mine. "You monster!" she spat, cradling him as he groaned dramatically, abandoning me completely in that sterile hospital room.

In that single, shattering moment, I understood. My quiet love, my patient endurance, my entire place in her life, was nothing. I was a placeholder, easily discarded. The "wife" I loved saw me as a villain for daring to challenge her golden boy. A bitter, cold resignation settled over me; my dream, my stolen happiness, was truly over.

So I packed my life into a single suitcase. I finalized the divorce papers I' d given her a month ago, the ones she' d signed without reading. I quit my job, bought a one-way ticket, and left New York for San Francisco, abandoning everything that tied me to her. But I never expected the woman who' d always ignored me to suddenly fight to get me back.