One Night, His Unseen Legacy

“After ninety-nine failed attempts to win the heart of the brilliant but cold Dr. Julian Burke, I drugged him for one night of passion. It didn't make him love me. I fled to London in shame. Three years later, a photo surfaced. It was Julian, smiling tenderly at a younger woman-a dead ringer for his deceased first love. I flew back to New York to end our sham engagement, but he destroyed me first. He publicly accused me of leaking his research, and his testimony sent me to prison. While I was inside, I was brutally attacked and lost a kidney. My father, crushed by the scandal, died of a stroke, and I wasn't there to say goodbye. I was just collateral damage in his twisted atonement for a ghost, a convenient villain to protect her manipulative sister. He let me rot, believing I was a monster. But he didn't know the secret I carried from that one night. After my release, I took our son and vanished. I would build a new life, and he would never know the son he abandoned or the woman he truly broke.”