POV: Isabelle
I drop the coffee mug.
It shatters across the kitchen floor, brown liquid spreading like a stain on my already ruined morning. My hands shake as I stare at the mess, and I know—I just know—Adrian is going to be angry.
"Seriously, Isabelle?" His voice cuts through the apartment, sharp and cold. "Can you do anything right?"
I grab the paper towels, my leg braces clicking with each movement. The sound echoes in the silence between us. Click. Click. Click. Three years of that sound, and I still hate it. But I hate disappointing him more.
"I'm sorry," I whisper, getting on my knees to clean up the mess. The braces make it awkward. Everything makes it awkward. "I'll make you another cup—"
"Forget it. I'll grab something on the way to work." He doesn't even look up from his phone. His thumb scrolls and scrolls, and I wonder what's more interesting than his wife on the floor, covered in coffee.
I used to be Isabelle Ashford. Daughter of billionaires. Heiress to a technology empire. Smart enough to code programs that could change the world. Beautiful enough that men stopped talking when I walked into rooms.
Now I'm Isabelle Brown. Poor. Disabled. Invisible.
And I chose this. All of this.
"Adrian?" I stand up slowly, my fake limp perfect after three years of practice. "I was thinking we could have dinner tonight. Just us. I could make your favorite pasta, and we could talk—"
"I have a late meeting." He finally looks at me, and there's something in his eyes I can't read. Something that makes my stomach twist. "Don't wait up."
He's lying. I know he's lying because I checked his calendar this morning while he was in the shower. He has no meetings after four o'clock.
But I smile anyway. "Okay. I love you."
He's already at the door. He doesn't say it back. He hasn't said it back in six months.
The door slams, and I'm alone with the coffee stain and the clicking braces and the crushing weight of a love that's slowly suffocating me.
I should take off the braces now. I should stretch my perfectly healthy legs and remember what it feels like to walk normally. But what if he comes back? What if he forgets something and catches me?
Three years ago, I saw Adrian Kane at a college charity event. He was standing alone, staring at the rich people like he wanted to belong but knew he never would. His clothes were cheap but clean. His shoes were old but polished. And when he smiled at me—really smiled, not the cold thing he does now—I felt something in my chest crack open.
My family said he was using me. My mother cried. My brother Marcus threatened to destroy him. They said Adrian saw dollar signs, not me.
So I proved them wrong.
I staged a car accident. I told Adrian my family disowned me for refusing an arranged marriage. I put on these braces and became nobody. If he loved me through that—through poverty and disability and struggle—it would be real.
He married me anyway.
I thought that meant I won.
Now, three years later, I'm not so sure what I won.
I finish cleaning the coffee and open my laptop. My "freelance coding work" is actually me secretly running half of Ashford Technologies from this tiny apartment. The money I make "mysteriously" pays our rent, our food, Adrian's car payment. He thinks it's from small website projects.
He has no idea his wife is a billionaire.
Today, I'm doing something special for him. I pull up the email I drafted last night:
"Dear Mr. Kane, Ashford Technologies would like to invite you to present your architectural designs for our new headquarters. Meeting scheduled for Friday. This contract is worth $2 million. Looking forward to your innovative work."
I hit send.
This will change everything. This contract will make Adrian's career. He'll be successful, happy. Maybe then he'll look at me the way he used to. Maybe then he'll love me again.
My phone buzzes. A text from Vanessa, my best friend.
"Coffee today? I need advice about something. Can I come over?"
I smile. At least someone still wants to spend time with me.
"Sure! Come at 2?"
"Perfect. You're the best, Izzy. What would I do without you?"
What would any of us do without each other? Vanessa has been my rock through this marriage. She listens to me cry. She tells me Adrian is just stressed. She promises things will get better.
I trust her completely.
I spend the morning working, my fingers flying across the keyboard. I'm designing a new security system that will revolutionize data protection. In another life, I'd present this at a conference. In this life, I submit it anonymously and watch other people take credit.
At 1:45, I hear footsteps in the hallway. Vanessa's early. I start to get up when I hear something that makes me freeze.
A key turning in my lock.
But Vanessa doesn't have a key.
Only Adrian has a key.
Adrian, who said he had meetings all day. Adrian, who's supposed to be at work.
The door opens. I hear his laugh—that real laugh I haven't heard in months. And then I hear something that stops my heart completely.
Vanessa's voice. Giggling. Whispering something I can't make out.
They're both here. Together. In the middle of the day.
I sit frozen at my laptop, my hands hovering over the keyboard. The bedroom door closes down the hall. More laughing. Then silence.
Then sounds that make my blood turn to ice.
My best friend. My husband. In my bedroom. Right now.
I should move. I should scream. I should burst in there and demand answers.
But I can't move. I'm trapped in this chair with these fake braces on my perfectly healthy legs, listening to my entire world crumble through a closed door.
And the worst part? A tiny, horrible voice in my head whispers: You knew. Deep down, you always knew.
My phone buzzes with another text from Vanessa: "Running a few minutes late! Be there soon!"
The phone slips from my shaking fingers.
She's not running late.
She's already here.