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For fifteen years, my husband Dustin and I were the fairytale. The high school sweethearts who made it, the tech CEO and his devoted wife. Our life was perfect. Then a text message arrived from an unknown number. It was a picture of his assistant's hand on his thigh in the suit pants I bought him. The texts from his mistress kept coming after that, a relentless barrage of poison. She sent photos of them in our bed and a video of him promising to leave me. She bragged that she was pregnant with his child. He'd come home and kiss me, call me his anchor, all while smelling of her perfume. He was buying her a condo and planning their future while I pretended to have morning sickness from bad scallops. The final straw came on my birthday. She sent a picture of him on one knee, giving her a diamond promise ring. So I didn't cry. I secretly changed my name to Hope, converted our entire fortune into untraceable bearer bonds, and told a charity to empty our house of everything. The next day, as he headed to the airport for a "business trip" to Paris with her, I flew to Portugal. When he came home, he found an empty mansion, divorce papers, and our wedding rings melted into a single, shapeless lump of gold.
Chapter 1
For fifteen years, my husband Dustin and I were the fairytale. The high school sweethearts who made it, the tech CEO and his devoted wife. Our life was perfect.
Then a text message arrived from an unknown number. It was a picture of his assistant's hand on his thigh in the suit pants I bought him.
The texts from his mistress kept coming after that, a relentless barrage of poison. She sent photos of them in our bed and a video of him promising to leave me. She bragged that she was pregnant with his child.
He'd come home and kiss me, call me his anchor, all while smelling of her perfume. He was buying her a condo and planning their future while I pretended to have morning sickness from bad scallops.
The final straw came on my birthday. She sent a picture of him on one knee, giving her a diamond promise ring.
So I didn't cry. I secretly changed my name to Hope, converted our entire fortune into untraceable bearer bonds, and told a charity to empty our house of everything.
The next day, as he headed to the airport for a "business trip" to Paris with her, I flew to Portugal. When he came home, he found an empty mansion, divorce papers, and our wedding rings melted into a single, shapeless lump of gold.
Chapter 1
I remembered the first time Dustin touched my chest. We were sixteen, crammed into the back of his dad' s old Ford, fogging up the windows.
He was all nervous hands and shaky breaths, fumbling with the clasp of my bra like he was trying to solve a puzzle in the dark.
I finally had to reach back and unhook it for him. He went beet red, even in the faint moonlight, and stammered an apology.
It was funny. It was sweet.
For fifteen years, he was the only one. The boy who couldn' t unhook a bra became the tech CEO who graced magazine covers.
To the world, we were the fairytale. The high school sweethearts who made it. Eliana and Dustin Powell. A brand. A testament to enduring love in a fast-paced world.
Our life was perfect.
Until it wasn' t.
The text message arrived on a Tuesday. An unknown number.
It was just a picture, no words.
A woman' s hand, nails painted a garish shade of pink, resting on a man' s thigh. The hand was slender, young. Too young.
The thigh was clad in dark gray suit pants I recognized instantly. I' d bought them for him. Tom Ford. For his thirty-second birthday.
On the woman' s wrist was a delicate gold bracelet with a single, tiny shark tooth.
I felt the air leave my lungs.
That bracelet. I' d seen it before.
On the wrist of Jami Salinas, his executive assistant. She' d flashed it at the company' s summer party, her smile a little too bright, her eyes lingering on me a little too long.
My heart started a frantic, painful rhythm against my ribs.
It couldn' t be.
But it was.
My first impulse was to scream. To throw my phone against the wall. To call him and demand an explanation for the image burning itself into my brain.
I didn' t.
I took a deep, shuddering breath and forced the rage down. I stared at the photo until the details blurred, until the sickness in my stomach became a cold, hard knot.
Was any of it real? Our fifteen years? The boy in the back of the Ford? The man who kissed me goodbye this morning?
The next day, I drove to the county courthouse. The building was old and smelled of dust and stale coffee.
I walked to the clerk' s office, my steps even and measured.
"I' d like to file a petition for a name change," I told the woman behind the counter.
She looked up, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. "For what reason?"
"Personal reasons," I said, my voice flat.
She raised an eyebrow, taking in my clothes, my bag. I was Eliana Powell, wife of a billionaire. Women like me didn' t just change their names.
"Are you in danger? Is this related to domestic abuse?"
"No," I said. The lie tasted like ash, but it was a necessary one. This wasn' t about danger. It was about erasure. "I just want a new name."
"What name did you have in mind?"
"Hope," I said, the word feeling foreign on my tongue. "Hope Tillman." Tillman was my mother' s maiden name. A name that belonged to me, and me alone.
The clerk typed for a moment. "And you are currently Eliana David Powell?"
"Eliana David," I corrected her. I had never taken his name. It was a point of pride once. Now, it was a convenience. "My legal name is Eliana David."
"The process will take a few weeks. You' ll have to post a notice, attend a hearing."
"I understand," I said. "Please begin the process."
She stamped the papers with a loud thud. Each stamp felt like a nail in the coffin of my old life.
Hope. A name for a future I couldn' t yet see, but one I would build for myself, brick by painful brick.
The plan formed in my mind with chilling clarity. A new name. A new passport. A new life. Far away from here. Portugal. The Algarve coast. I' d always wanted to photograph the sea caves there.
I got the new social security card first. It came in a plain white envelope. Hope Tillman. It looked like a stranger' s name.
I kept my old driver' s license. A reminder of the ghost I was preparing to leave behind.
That night, I saw him on TV. He was at a charity gala, looking impossibly handsome in his tuxedo.
The reporter asked him about his success. He smiled that charming, public smile.
He held up his left hand, flashing the simple gold band I' d placed on his finger a decade ago. "My biggest success is my wife, Eliana. She' s my anchor."
The crowd applauded. The reporter swooned.
"She' s the best thing that ever happened to me."
I watched the screen, my face a blank mask. The words meant nothing. They were just sounds, empty air. The man on the screen was a stranger performing a role.
My anchor. He was the storm, and I was the ship he was sinking.
The next morning, I took our wedding rings to a jeweler in a town an hour away. Not a fancy place, just a small, dusty shop run by an old man with a jeweler' s loupe permanently attached to his eye.
I placed my ring and Dustin' s matching band on the velvet tray. "I want them melted."
A sharp pain shot through my hand, as if the ring was still there, burning my skin. I clenched my fist.
"Melted?" the old man asked, peering at the rings. "These are fine pieces. 18-karat gold."
"I know what they are," I said. "Melt them. Together. Into a single, shapeless lump."
He looked from the rings to my face, his expression unreadable. "Are you sure, miss? This is... permanent."
"Yes," I said, my voice unwavering. "I' m sure."
He shrugged and took the rings to the back. I waited, listening to the hum of the polishing wheel and the frantic ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner.
An hour later, he returned with a small, gray velvet box.
Inside, resting on the white satin, was a lump of gold. It was ugly. Deformed. All the perfect circles and polished shine were gone, fused into an unrecognizable mass.
It was perfect.
He came home late that night, long after I' d hidden the small box in my closet. He brought me a bouquet of white lilies, my favorite.
"For my beautiful wife," he said, kissing my cheek.
He smelled of her. That same cloying, fruity perfume Jami always wore.
I didn' t pull away. I just stood there, a statue in his arms.
As he moved past me into the kitchen, I saw it. A faint red mark on his neck, just above his collar. A love bite. Sloppy. Careless.
Did you have fun at your "late meeting," Dustin? I wanted to ask. Did you enjoy her young, eager body in your office?
But I said nothing. The time for questions was over.
He wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, pulling me against him. "I missed you today."
I felt a wave of nausea. The touch of his hands on my skin felt like a violation.
I gently pushed him away. "I' m tired, Dustin."
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Chapter 1
15/08/2025
Chapter 2
15/08/2025
Chapter 3
15/08/2025
Chapter 4
15/08/2025
Chapter 5
15/08/2025
Chapter 6
15/08/2025
Chapter 7
15/08/2025
Chapter 8
15/08/2025
Chapter 9
15/08/2025
Chapter 10
15/08/2025
Chapter 11
15/08/2025
Chapter 12
15/08/2025
Chapter 13
15/08/2025
Chapter 14
15/08/2025
Chapter 15
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Chapter 16
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Chapter 17
15/08/2025
Chapter 18
15/08/2025
Chapter 19
15/08/2025
Chapter 20
15/08/2025
Chapter 21
15/08/2025
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