Erased By His Lies And Love

“For ten years, I gave my husband, Desmond, everything. I worked three jobs so he could get his MBA and sold my grandmother' s locket to fund his startup. Now, on the verge of his company's IPO, he was forcing me to sign divorce papers for the seventeenth time, calling it a "temporary business move." Then I saw him on TV, his arm wrapped around another woman-his lead investor, Aurora Quinn. He called her the love of his life, thanking her for "believing in him when no one else did," erasing my entire existence with a single sentence. His cruelty didn't stop there. He denied knowing me after his bodyguards beat me unconscious at a mall. He locked me in a dark basement, fully aware of my crippling claustrophobia, leaving me to have a panic attack alone. But the final blow came during a kidnapping. When the attacker told him he could only save one of us-me or Aurora-Desmond didn't hesitate. He chose her. He left me tied to a chair to be tortured while he saved his precious deal. Lying in a hospital bed for the second time, broken and abandoned, I finally made a call I hadn't made in five years. "Aunt Evelena," I choked out, "can I come stay with you?" The reply from the most feared lawyer in New York was instant. "Of course, darling. My private jet is on standby. And Ariel? Whatever it is, we'll handle it."”