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The Unwilling Wife

The Unwilling Wife

Gavin

5.0
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11
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The organ music swelled, painting my white wedding dress in shades of blood red. I was marrying Julian Thorne, a man who despised me, believing the lies that had ruined my reputation. This wasn't a marriage; it was a sentence, orchestrated perfectly by my stepsister, Sophia, who had always wanted Julian for herself. Everyone saw Eleanor Vance, the brilliant architect, as the luckiest woman alive, but my heart was a cold stone. As the word "I do" escaped my lips-a whispered surrender-a blinding white light engulfed me. I woke up in my old bedroom, the floral wallpaper still on the walls. My phone read October 12, 2014-ten years ago, the day of my first wedding, the one that never happened. Relief surged through me; I wasn't Julian Thorne's wife. But then dread set in as Sophia's text buzzed on my smaller, older phone: "Julian's family is coming for dinner tonight, you have to make a good impression!" It was all starting tonight, the very dinner where Sophia would introduce me to the Thornes, setting off the chain of events that would lead to my forced marriage. The contempt in Julian's eyes was already there, seeing me as a social climber, exactly the image Sophia had carefully crafted. I was trapped again, a ghost in my own life, burdened by a future I knew was coming: the Thorne family's imminent financial ruin, and my own career sacrificed to support them. But this time, I wasn't the naive girl to be manipulated. I knew all their secrets, and I would not spend another ten years as Eleanor Thorne. I would fight.

Introduction

The organ music swelled, painting my white wedding dress in shades of blood red.

I was marrying Julian Thorne, a man who despised me, believing the lies that had ruined my reputation.

This wasn't a marriage; it was a sentence, orchestrated perfectly by my stepsister, Sophia, who had always wanted Julian for herself.

Everyone saw Eleanor Vance, the brilliant architect, as the luckiest woman alive, but my heart was a cold stone.

As the word "I do" escaped my lips-a whispered surrender-a blinding white light engulfed me.

I woke up in my old bedroom, the floral wallpaper still on the walls.

My phone read October 12, 2014-ten years ago, the day of my first wedding, the one that never happened.

Relief surged through me; I wasn't Julian Thorne's wife.

But then dread set in as Sophia's text buzzed on my smaller, older phone: "Julian's family is coming for dinner tonight, you have to make a good impression!"

It was all starting tonight, the very dinner where Sophia would introduce me to the Thornes, setting off the chain of events that would lead to my forced marriage.

The contempt in Julian's eyes was already there, seeing me as a social climber, exactly the image Sophia had carefully crafted.

I was trapped again, a ghost in my own life, burdened by a future I knew was coming: the Thorne family's imminent financial ruin, and my own career sacrificed to support them.

But this time, I wasn't the naive girl to be manipulated.

I knew all their secrets, and I would not spend another ten years as Eleanor Thorne.

I would fight.

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5.0

For five years, Liam was my world. I thought we were building a future, heading for marriage, and I even used my connections to get us VIP tickets to a tech conference-a power move for his career. Then, on the giant live-stream screen, I watched him kiss his new assistant, Sarah, a deep, passionate embrace for thousands to see. Hours later, after a dazed walk and a screech of tires, I woke up in a hospital, bruised, concussed, and staring at Liam, who casually informed me he had hit me with his car. He then lied to my face, claiming Sarah was just his boss, and somehow convinced the hospital I had amnesia, painting me as an unstable woman who' d simply "forgotten" our relationship. The humiliation deepened when I discovered his hidden journal-a five-year chronicle of how I was merely a "placeholder," a temporary fix until his true love, Sarah, returned. He tried to reconcile, offering money and calls, but his desperate attempts felt hollow against the truth: he had never seen me as a person, only a convenient stand-in. Then came the final blow: Sarah announced as the new Head of Architecture, taking the promotion I' d worked years for, a public, corporate execution. But just as I thought I' d lost everything, a forgotten connection resurfaced. My Uncle David' s persistent offer of an arranged marriage, a path I' d once dismissed, suddenly glimmered with an unexpected promise. Little did I know, the man I was about to meet wasn't just a family friend, but a quiet, constant presence from my past, ready to offer a future I never dared to dream of.

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