Introduction

My lake trip with Ethan, my fiancé and a rising finance star, was supposed to be our last pre-wedding hurrah.

I' d meticulously packed for two, my suitcase sitting beside his, ready for our perfect getaway.

Then Chloe, the estate manager's daughter my family oddly favored, pulled up with her child, claiming Ethan had invited them.

Without a glance, Ethan shooed me out of the car, promising to return after dropping them off at the resort an hour away.

The humiliation burned as I watched him drive away, Chloe smugly waving from the passenger seat.

Hours later, my phone buzzed with Chloe' s Instagram stories: Ethan laughing, steering a speedboat, his arm casually around her shoulder in a sunset photo.

They were celebrating lake life while I was abandoned.

When I confronted him, my own mother and brother, Liam, sided with Chloe, accusing me of just being "jealous" and "dramatic."

The final blow came on my birthday.

Ethan gifted me a beautiful diamond necklace, only for Chloe to reveal she had an identical one, saying Ethan got it for her as a "thank you" for helping him choose mine.

It wasn't just betrayal; it was a brazen insult, confirming I was nothing but an afterthought, discarded by my fiancé and dismissed by my family.

But in that moment, pain sharpened into an unyielding clarity.

I wouldn't wait anymore, not for anyone.

I blocked Ethan, then secretly packed a single bag, leaving my engagement ring and the mocking necklace behind.

My gilded cage was about to open as I boarded a bus, bound for a new life, far from the Hawthornes and their suffocating expectations.