Chloe's Lie, Ethan's Escape

“My life was a carefully constructed facade, built on obligation and unrequited promises. I was about to abandon it all for a new identity when I saw the photo: my fiancée, Chloe, beaming on a sun-drenched beach, wrapped in the arms of Leo Sterling, her childhood sweetheart. The date stamp was from the very afternoon she' d claimed a "spa day" with friends. Her engagement ring, the one I' d worked double shifts for a year to buy, was conspicuously absent in another photo of them clinking champagne glasses. Not pain, but a chilling clarity settled in. It wasn't just the cheating; it was the casual, smiling deception. I thought back to her father, Mr. Davis, who' d sponsored my medical school and, on his deathbed, made me promise to care for her. That promise had morphed into a relationship, then an engagement-a life bound by duty, not love. I' d paid off her six-figure debt, bought her apartment, and endured her every whim, while she kept old photos of Leo in a box under her bed and ignored my near-fatal allergy to asparagus. Now, he was back, openly claiming her, and she was betraying me with a smile. Disgusted, not angry, I made a decision. Africa was no longer an escape; it was a destination. I would give them each other, and I would take my freedom back.”