A love for the dead

My fiancé, tech CEO Cohen Burgess, took me to the city's most exclusive restaurant for our three-year anniversary.

Then his high school sweetheart, Kiera, reappeared, claiming amnesia. To help her "recover," Cohen started a viral "100 Dates Challenge" with her, turning their reunion into a national spectacle.

I became the villain in their love story. When I objected, Cohen locked me in a wine cellar, knowing my severe claustrophobia. He let Kiera wear my deceased mother's priceless dress, and when she deliberately tore it, he tossed his credit card at me and told me to buy a new one.

I finally decided to leave, only to overhear his true plan: he would marry me for my family's status, but keep Kiera as his mistress. I was never his love; I was a beautiful, high-class tool for his ambition.

The final act came when Kiera set my room on fire and framed me. Cohen screamed I was a psycho and left me to burn.

As the roof collapsed, a stranger kicked down the door. He carried me from the inferno and said, "I'm Case Browning. Your husband."

Chapter 1

The anniversary dinner was perfect, or so it seemed. Three years with Cohen Burgess, the tech world' s golden boy, and he had booked the most exclusive restaurant in the city, the kind with a three-month waitlist he' d bypassed with a single phone call. The crystal glasses sparkled, the city lights glittered below, and Cohen looked at me with that possessive smile I used to mistake for love.

Everything was perfect until a woman appeared at our table.

She was beautiful in a fragile, broken way, her eyes wide and lost.

"Cohen?" she whispered, her voice trembling.

Cohen froze. The wine glass in his hand stopped halfway to his lips. I' d seen that look on his face only in old photographs, a ghost of a man I never knew.

"Kiera?" he breathed out.

Kiera Hewitt. His high school sweetheart. The one who had shattered his heart and then vanished five years ago. He' d told me the story once, a tale of dramatic, youthful passion that ended with her leaving him for a richer man before disappearing entirely.

Now she was back, claiming she' d been in a terrible accident. She said she had amnesia, that seeing his face in a magazine had triggered a flicker of a memory, a desperate lifeline.

Her story was a chaotic mess of hospitals and confusion, but Cohen drank every word. His guilt was a raw, open wound. He' d become a tech CEO, a titan of industry, but in that moment, he was just a boy again, face-to-face with his first love and his first failure.

To help her "recover her memories," he came up with a plan that felt like a punch to my gut. They would complete the viral "100 Dates Challenge" on TikTok. It was meant to be a sweet trend for new couples, but for them, it became a national spectacle.

Overnight, "Cohen and Kiera" were a sensation. Their first date, a simple coffee shop visit, got millions of views. The comments poured in.

"This is a real-life fairytale! He' s helping his lost love remember him!"

"True love never dies. I' m crying."

"Forget his current girlfriend, this is destiny!"

I became a footnote in my own life, the cold, wealthy girlfriend who stood in the way of a great romance. The loneliness was a physical weight in my chest.

I finally cornered Cohen in his home office, the TikTok videos of him and Kiera laughing playing on a loop on his monitor.

"Cohen, this has to stop. It' s humiliating."

He turned to me, his expression not apologetic, but annoyed. It was a look I was becoming far too familiar with.

"Aurora, you need to be more understanding. Can' t you see how much she' s suffering? This is the least I can do."

"And what about my suffering?" My voice cracked. "She' s your ex-girlfriend, Cohen. We are supposed to be getting married."

He sighed, running a hand through his perfectly styled hair. The gesture was meant to look stressed, but it was just impatient.