Chapter 1Wearing My Rival's Ring

The seventh time Blake asked me to marry him, he told me to wear the dress. The white one. And the ring.

I waited from sunrise to sunset at City Hall, a bride with no groom, only to find my humiliation broadcast across the city by a swarm of drones.

I saw him then, his arm slung around Chloe, his childhood friend. He gestured back at me, a smirk playing on his lips as he addressed their friends.

“See? Told you she’d do whatever I say. Pay up. A hundred bucks each.”

Then his eyes, full of a familiar, malicious glint, found mine.

“Ava, it’s just a joke. You’re not mad, are you?” he called out, his voice dripping with false concern. “Chloe needed an idea for a story, a little social experiment. We just wanted to see what would happen.”

He let out a low chuckle. “I didn’t realize you were this desperate to get married. But then again, with your family bankrupt, who else is going to take you?”

The group erupted in laughter and began to drift away.

I managed a small, tight smile and raised my phone, dialing the number of his sworn enemy.

“City Hall closes in an hour. Feel like getting married?”

* * *

The breath on the other end of the line hitched. A moment later, a low, masculine voice, laced with amusement, rumbled through the speaker.

“You sure you have the right number? Little Ava, this is Ethan Grant. Not your precious Blake.”

I glanced over at Blake, who was now laughing, utterly delighted with himself as Chloe clung to his arm. The pain in my chest was so sharp it had become a dull, constant ache. Ever since Chloe had moved back from her overseas assignment three years ago, the Blake I knew—the one whose world once revolved around me—had vanished, replaced by this cruel stranger. He used her career as an excuse, a shield for his increasingly twisted games.

This was the seventh time. It would be the last.

This time, I was the one leaving.

“I know who you are. Are you in, or not?”

“Fine,” he said, a note of finality in his tone. “Stay put.”

The moment I hung up, a drone zipped down, its camera lens hovering inches from my face. The sound of Blake and his friends’ jeering laughter washed over me like a tidal wave.

“Oh, look, she’s still keeping up the act!”

“Get the camera right on her. Let’s see how good her performance is.”

“Wow, she’s a natural.”

Blake sauntered over, feigning annoyance as he stepped between me and the camera. “Alright guys, that’s enough.” He turned to me, his voice a stage whisper. “I mean, she’s wearing the dress and everything. It’d be a shame not to let her finish the scene, right?”

The group roared.

I stared at him, my body trembling with a rage so profound it left me speechless. He had insisted I wear this dress, and now he was using it as the punchline to his joke.

His gaze dropped to my hand, and he snorted. “No way, Ava. You actually bought a ring? God, you’re desperate.” He grinned. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. We can make you famous today. We’ll call you the ‘Desperate Bride.’ You should thank Chloe. Without her story, you’d never get this kind of exposure.”

Chloe linked her arm through mine, her expression a mask of gentle reprimand. “Oh, Blake, stop it. Don’t tease her. There’s nothing wrong with Ava wanting to marry the man she loves.” She gave my arm a squeeze. “Ava, don’t mind them. They’re just boys being boys.”

“This was all for my story, you see,” she continued, her voice soft and earnest. “Just a social experiment. I told him it might be hard on you, but he insisted my work was more important. There was nothing I could do.”

With a few placid words, she absolved herself, framing my public humiliation as a necessary sacrifice for her career. Blake hadn’t just played me for a fool at City Hall; he’d turned it into a city-wide spectacle, complete with a live drone feed.

The old Blake—the boy who once tore through the city in the dead of winter to find me a specific kind of candy from our childhood that they didn’t make anymore—was gone. He’d been gone for three years.

I pulled my arm from Chloe’s grasp.

“I just never said I was here to marry him.”

“Oh, Ava, stop trying to save face,” Blake sneered. “Your father’s in jail. You’re not a princess anymore.”