Chapter 1

The flash of the camera felt like a physical blow. The accusation, a gut punch.

"Plagiarist!"

The word echoed in the crowded festival hall, amplified by a hundred gasps. It stuck to me, a foul, sticky label I couldn't peel off. My film, my script, the one I' d poured my soul into, was suddenly not mine.

The online backlash was immediate and brutal. My name, Jocelyn Fuller, became a hashtag for fraud. Industry contacts who' d praised me days before now ghosted me. My working-class parents, who had remortgaged their small Texas home to help fund my dream, were horrified.

"How could you do this to us, Jocelyn?" my father' s voice had trembled with shame over the phone. "We're the laughingstock of the town."

That was the last time they spoke to me.

I was alone in my cheap festival hotel room, the world I had built crumbling around me. I stared at the script pages scattered on the floor, contemplating tearing them up, tearing everything up.

That's when Ethan Scott found me.

He was a producer, charismatic and respected. He'd seen my film. He didn't believe the lies.

"This is a hit job, Jocelyn," he said, his voice a steady anchor in my storm. "Someone is threatened by your talent. Don't let them win."

He stood up for me, issued statements, and fought back against the tide of hate. When it was all too much, he pulled me from the wreckage of my career and proposed.

"Let me build a safe place for you," he'd whispered, holding my hands. "A place where you can just create. For yourself. No pressure, no industry sharks. Just you and your art."

I said yes. It felt like being rescued from a sinking ship. He was my savior.