After Losing My Legs I Learned My Fiancé Had a Fake Heart Chapter 03

After Losing My Legs I Learned My Fiancé Had a Fake Heart Chapter 03

In that quiet, a memory hit me. I was ten. My father staged a car wreck to kill Derek, and I shoved him out of the way.

I was the one lying on the asphalt. The teenage boy went wild, ignoring his own shattered arm, trying again and again to scoop me up. When he failed, he sobbed so hard he couldn’t breathe.

He dropped to his knees, pounding his head against the ground, begging the crowd, “Please, somebody get my sister to a hospital. She can’t die—she’s all I have.”

The incident exploded across the local news. My father went to prison, and we finally escaped those years of terror. Now Derek isn’t that fragile boy anymore. He has a real sister and a massive company. A fake like me should just disappear.

A sharp ringtone cut through the silence. I grabbed my phone. Simon.

“Chloe wants the chicken soup you make. Remember, no salt. I’m sending a driver in half an hour. Have it ready.”

He hung up before I could speak.

I stared at the phone for a moment, and suddenly my eyes were wet. I wiped them hard and turned it off. Then I crawled, inch by inch, back to my bedroom. Truth was, there wasn’t much to pack.

The day Chloe came home, she saw my bedroom, her eyes went red, and she had an episode. After that, I was moved to the basement.

Chloe had handed me a tiny box, tears streaming down her face. “Back home, I slept in a shed with the animals. Everything I owned fit in this one box.”

I’d understood perfectly. I took her little box, and I only packed the gifts Simon had ever given me.

At the time, Simon had raged on my behalf. “She shows up and you get banished to the basement? This place has a dozen empty rooms. She’s a snake, I’m telling you.”

“Don’t worry, baby—once you marry me, the Rhodes family has properties all over the country. You’ll live wherever the hell you want. Stop crying.”

But one look at Chloe, and Simon switched sides. “Vera, Chloe’s been through hell. You owe her this. Our wedding… we need to put it on hold.”

Now, I tossed that box of gifts into the trash. I found paper and a pen, and wrote to Simon in a steady hand: [We’re done.]