Polly
1 Published Story
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Five Years, One Devastating Lie
Gavin My husband was in the shower, the sound of water a familiar rhythm to our mornings. I was just placing a cup of coffee on his desk, a small ritual in our five years of what I thought was a perfect marriage.
Then, an email notification flashed on his laptop: "You're invited to the Christening of Leo Thomas." Our last name. The sender: Hayden Cleveland, a social media influencer.
An icy dread settled in. It was an invitation for his son, a son I didn't know existed. I went to the church, hidden in the shadows, and saw him holding a baby, a little boy with his dark hair and eyes. Hayden Cleveland, the mother, leaned on his shoulder, a picture of domestic bliss.
They looked like a family. A perfect, happy family. My world crumbled. I remembered him refusing to have a baby with me, citing work pressure. All his business trips, the late nights-were they spent with them?
The lie was so easy for him. How could I have been so blind?
I called the Zurich Architectural Fellowship, a prestigious program I had deferred for him. "I' d like to accept the fellowship," I said, my voice eerily calm. "I can leave immediately." From Brokenness To Billionaire Bride
Gavin My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Damien Paul, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through.
That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Eve—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister.
But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Fellows talking in the library.
They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Damien.
Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Eve.
I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen.
This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Damien over.
"No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Hunter Beach." The Price of Unrequited Love
Gavin Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley.
Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him.
That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!"
He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law."
Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart. A Wife's Bitter Reckoning
Gavin My husband, Bennett, and I were New York's golden couple. But our perfect marriage was a lie, childless because of a rare genetic condition he claimed would kill any woman who carried his baby. When his dying father demanded an heir, Bennett proposed a solution: a surrogate.
The woman he chose, Aria, was a younger, more vibrant version of me. Suddenly, Bennett was always busy, supporting her through "difficult IVF cycles." He missed my birthday. He forgot our anniversary.
I tried to believe him, until I overheard him at a party. He confessed to his friends that his love for me was a "deep connection," but with Aria, it was "fire" and "exhilarating."
He was planning a secret wedding with her in Lake Como, at the same villa he'd promised me for our anniversary.
He was giving her a wedding, a family, a life—all the things he denied me, using a lie about a deadly genetic condition as his excuse. The betrayal was so complete it felt like a physical shock.
When he came home that night, lying about a business trip, I smiled and played the part of the loving wife.
He didn't know I'd heard everything.
He didn't know that while he was planning his new life, I was already planning my escape.
And he certainly didn't know I had just made a call to a service that specialized in one thing: making people disappear. His Secret Son, Her Public Shame
Gavin I was Aliana Donovan, a resident physician, finally reunited with the wealthy family I' d been lost from as a child. I had loving parents and a handsome, successful fiancé. I was safe. I was loved. It was a perfect, fragile lie.
The lie shattered on a Tuesday when I discovered my fiancé, Ivan, wasn't at a board meeting but at a sprawling mansion with Kiera Reese, the woman I was told had a mental breakdown five years ago after trying to frame me.
She wasn' t disgraced; she was radiant, holding a little boy, Leo, who giggled in Ivan' s arms.
I overheard their conversation: Leo was their son, and I was merely a "placeholder," a means to an end until Ivan no longer needed my family's connections. My parents, the Donovans, were in on it, funding Kiera' s lavish life and their secret family.
My entire reality-the loving parents, the devoted fiancé, the security I thought I' d found-was a carefully constructed stage, and I was the fool playing the lead role. The casual lie Ivan texted me, "Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you. See you at home," while he stood beside his real family, was the final blow.
They thought I was pathetic. They thought I was a fool. They were about to find out just how wrong they were. From Heiress to Hellbent
Gavin I was the fiancée of Bryant Barnes, the cold heir to a tech empire. Our engagement was a dynastic merger, a picture-perfect lie splashed across magazines. But behind closed doors, our life was a bizarre war fought with money and public humiliation.
The war turned brutal when his mistress, Kalia, broke into our home with her friends and had me beaten, stomping on my hand until it broke.
I pressed charges, but when Bryant arrived at the police station, he took one look at my bruised face and walked past me to comfort a sobbing Kalia.
"Don't make a scene, Charlotte," he said, his voice laced with annoyance. He had them released without a second thought.
The final betrayal came when Kalia pulled me into a lake. I can't swim. Bryant dove in, swam right past me to save her, and turned his back as I sank beneath the water, leaving me to die.
A stranger pulled me out. In that moment, I finally understood. It wasn't that he was incapable of love; he was just incapable of loving me. For the one he loved, he would destroy anyone. For the one he didn't, he would leave her for dead.
The last embers of my foolish love turned to ash. Lying in my hospital bed, I took out my phone and called the one man who had ever shown me kindness.
"Jaden," I said, my voice steady. "I'm ready to burn it all to the ground." Her Miscarriages, Their Dark Secret
Gavin For three years, I endured four miscarriages, each a crushing reminder of my failure, while my husband, Axel, played the part of the grieving spouse, whispering comforting words and promising a different outcome next time.
This time, it was different. Axel's concern morphed into control, isolating me in our gilded cage, claiming it was for my safety and the baby's, due to the stress of being married to the protégé of Senator Dennis Clarke-my biological father.
My trust shattered when I overheard Axel and my adopted sister, Adeline, in the garden. She was holding a baby, and Axel's soft smile, a smile I hadn't seen in months, was directed at them. Adeline's feigned sadness about my "miscarriages" revealed a horrifying truth: my losses were part of their plan to secure Axel's political future and ensure their son, not mine, inherited the Clarke dynasty.
The betrayal deepened when my parents, Senator Clarke and Barbara, joined them, embracing Adeline and the baby, confirming their complicity. My entire life, my marriage, my grief-it was all a monstrous, carefully constructed lie. Every comforting touch from Axel, every worried look, was a performance.
I was just a vessel, a placeholder. Adeline, the cuckoo in my nest, had stolen everything: my parents, my husband, my future, and now, my children. The realization hit me like a physical blow: my four lost babies weren't accidents; they were sacrifices on the altar of Axel and Adeline's ambition.
My mind reeled. How could they? How could my own family, the people who were supposed to protect me, conspire against me so cruelly? The injustice burned, leaving a hollow, aching void.
There were no more tears to cry. Only action. I called the hospital and scheduled an abortion. Then, I called my old dance academy, applying for the international choreography program in Paris. I was leaving. Dying for His True Happiness
Gavin In New York, everyone knew Grady Allen lived for me, Emely Harrison. He was my shadow, my protector, my world, and our future seemed inevitable.
But as I lay dying from ALS, I overheard him whisper, "Emely, my duty to you is done. If there is a next life, I pray I can be with Kandy." My world shattered. His lifelong devotion wasn't love, but guilt for Kandy Paul, a woman who had taken her own life after he' d left her.
Reborn, I found Grady with amnesia, deeply in love with Kandy. To give him the happiness he truly desired, I concealed my own early-onset ALS diagnosis and broke off our engagement, telling his parents, "I won't chain him to a dying woman out of a sense of duty he doesn't even remember."
Despite my efforts, Kandy' s insecurity led her to frame me, accusing me of throwing her engagement ring and setting fire to the mansion. Grady, believing her, threw me into a muddy pit and later choked me, snarling, "You're not even as good as a dog. At least a dog is loyal."
During a kidnapping, I saved Kandy, nearly dying myself, only to wake in a hospital to learn Grady had spared no expense for her, while I lay abandoned.
Why did he choose her, even when his body instinctively reached for me? Why did he believe her lies? I had given him everything, even my life, to set him free.
Now, I would truly be free. I married my brother, Jeremiah, who had always loved me, and left Grady behind, whispering, "Be happy, Grady. We're even now. I'll never see you again." His Cruel Game, Her Broken Heart
Gavin I was about to marry Holden Dalton, the heir to a real estate empire. For three years, the world watched our fairy-tale romance: the poor art student who won the heart of a prince.
But on the eve of our wedding, I discovered the truth. Our entire relationship was a lie—a cruel, three-year-long "social experiment" he orchestrated to humiliate me for the amusement of his childhood sweetheart, Estella.
The truth came out after a car accident revealed I was three months pregnant. Heartbroken, I walked into a clinic alone and left our baby behind on a cold operating table.
But my pain was just part of their entertainment. They staged a fake kidnapping, and Holden chose to "save" Estella without hesitation, leaving me to be pushed off a cliff onto an airbag as his friends laughed.
At a charity gala for an arts center I had poured my soul into, he publicly gave all the credit to Estella, branding me a fraud. The resulting scandal caused my mentor to die from a heart attack.
Then, they sent a "condolence" cake to his funeral. In cheerful icing, it read: "Sorry for your loss! Another victim of the prank!" It was signed by both of them.
That was when the last piece of my heart turned to stone. I walked away from the grave, pulled out my phone, and made a call.
"Gael," I choked out, "I lost the bet. I'm ready to leave." When Love Turns to Ash
Gavin My world revolved around Jax Harding, my older brother's captivating rockstar friend.
From sixteen, I adored him; at eighteen, I clung to his casual promise: "When you're 22, maybe I'll settle down."
That offhand comment became my life's beacon, guiding every choice, meticulously planning my twenty-second birthday as our destiny.
But on that pivotal day in a Lower East Side bar, clutching my gift, my dream exploded.
I overheard Jax' s cold voice: "Can't believe Savvy's showing up. She' s still hung up on that stupid thing I said."
Then the crushing plot: "We' re gonna tell Savvy I' m engaged to Chloe, maybe even hint she' s pregnant. That should scare her off."
My gift, my future, slipped from my numb fingers.
I fled into the cold New York rain, devastated by betrayal.
Later, Jax introduced Chloe as his "fiancée" while his bandmates mocked my "adorable crush"-he did nothing.
As an art installation fell, he saved Chloe, abandoning me to severe injury.
In the hospital, he came for "damage control," then shockingly shoved me into a fountain, leaving me to bleed, calling me a "jealous psycho."
How could the man I loved, who once saved me, become this cruel and publicly humiliate me?
Why was my devotion seen as an annoyance to be brutally extinguished with lies and assault?
Was I just a problem, my loyalty met with hatred?
I would not be his victim.
Injured and betrayed, I made an unshakeable vow: I was done.
I blocked his number and everyone connected to him, severing ties.
This was not an escape; this was my rebirth.
Florence awaited, a new life on my terms, unburdened by broken promises.