Thirty Days To Marry: The Doctor's Escape

“I was Ethan Dejesus's "glorified roommate" for eight long years. Even though I was a successful doctor, I lived in the guest room of his luxury penthouse and spent my mornings making his coffee like a servant while waiting for a ring that was never coming. The breaking point came when Ethan forced me to give his mistress, Delisa, a medical exam in the VIP wing of my own hospital. He didn't just want to break my heart; he wanted to destroy my professional dignity in front of the woman he was cheating with. During a paparazzi swarm at his estate, a heavy camera lens hit me in the temple, leaving me bleeding on the floor. Ethan didn't even flinch. He stepped over my body to protect Delisa, making sure he looked like a hero for the cameras while I struggled to stand. That night, I overheard him laughing at a bar, telling his friends I was like a "stray dog" that would always crawl back for scraps no matter how much he starved me. When I finally stood up to him, he shoved me out of his SUV onto a dark highway in the middle of a rainstorm and threw my purse into the mud. I walked for miles in the freezing rain, only to get home and find Delisa already moved into the penthouse, sitting at my vanity and wearing my clothes. "You'll be back in a week when the money runs out," he laughed as I packed my only suitcase. "You're a nobody from Queens. You have nothing without me." I looked at the man I had loved for nearly a decade and realized the woman who worshipped him was dead. He had murdered her on that highway, and he didn't even care. I blocked his number, dropped my key card on the floor, and walked out into the night without looking back. I wasn't going to be his "stray dog" anymore. I was heading to a small house in the suburbs to meet Carleton Schmitt-a total stranger I had agreed to marry in a moment of drunken desperation who was now my only way out.”