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The acrid smell of smoke still clung to Evelyn in the ambulance, her lungs raw from the penthouse fire. She was alive, but the world around her felt utterly destroyed, a feeling deepened by the small TV flickering to life. On it, her husband, Julian Vance, thousands of miles away, publicly comforted his mistress, Serena Holloway, shielding her from paparazzi after *her* "panic attack." Julian's phone went straight to voicemail. Alone in the hospital with second-degree burns, Evelyn watched news replays, her heart rate spiking. He protected Serena from camera flashes while Evelyn burned. When he finally called, he demanded she handle insurance, dismissing the fire; Serena's voice faintly heard. The shallow family ties and pretense of marriage evaporated. A searing injustice and cold anger replaced pain; Evelyn knew Julian had chosen to let her burn. "Evelyn Vance died in that fire," she declared, ripping out her IV. Armed with a secret fortune as "The Architect," Hollywood's top ghostwriter, she walked out. She would divorce Julian, reclaim her name, and finally step into the spotlight as an actress.
Chapter 1 No.1
The first thing I registered was the smell. Acrid, chemical, choking. It was the scent of my own life burning down.
I gasped, my lungs seizing against the intrusion of oxygen. A plastic mask was pressed tight against my face, the rubber seal digging into my cheekbones. My eyes flew open, but the world was a blur of flashing red lights and the sterile, metallic ceiling of an ambulance.
"Ma'am? Can you hear me?"
The voice was loud, too close. A face swam into view-an EMT, young, with sweat beading on his forehead. He was checking my pupils with a penlight that felt like a needle stabbing into my brain.
"Ma'am, try to stay calm. You've inhaled a lot of smoke. We're taking you to Mount Sinai."
I tried to speak, to ask the question that was screaming in my chest, but my throat was raw, stripped of its lining. All that came out was a dry, hacking cough that tasted like ash.
"Name?" the EMT asked, his pen hovering over a clipboard. "We need a name and an emergency contact."
I lifted a trembling hand. My skin looked gray under the harsh lights, smeared with soot. I pointed to the side table where my phone lay. Ideally, it should have been melted, destroyed like everything else in the penthouse. But there it was, the screen spiderwebbed with cracks, yet still glowing with a faint, mocking light.
The EMT picked it up. "Is this your husband? Julian?"
I nodded once. The movement sent a spike of pain down my neck.
He hit the call button. I watched his face. I counted the seconds in the rhythm of my own erratic heartbeat. One. Two. Three.
The EMT pulled the phone away from his ear, frowning. "Voicemail."
He tried again. "This is Emergency Services calling for Evelyn Vance," he said into the recorder, his voice urgent. "Please call back immediately."
I closed my eyes. I knew he wouldn't answer unknown numbers, and he rarely checked voicemails unless they were flagged by his assistant.
"Look at the TV," the driver shouted from the front.
I turned my head. Mounted on the wall of the ambulance was a small monitor, tuned to the local news. The banner at the bottom was bright red: BREAKING NEWS: FIRE AT VANCE TOWER PENTHOUSE.
The camera panned over the smoke billowing from the top of the building-my home, my prison-before cutting to a live feed from Hollywood Boulevard.
My heart stopped. The monitor beeped erratically, a high-pitched warning that made the EMT look at me with concern.
On the screen, thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, was Julian.
He wasn't frantic. He wasn't checking his phone. He was shielding a woman from the paparazzi, his arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders, his face twisted in a snarl at a cameraman who got too close.
Serena Holloway.
She looked fragile, her eyes wide and teary, clutching the lapels of Julian's jacket. The headline changed: Julian Vance Comforts Serena Holloway After Panic Attack at Premiere.
I stared at his hand. That large, capable hand that I had held during our wedding vows, the hand that had signed our prenup with a flourish, was now stroking Serena's hair, tucking her face into his chest to hide her from the flashbulbs.
He was protecting her from lights.
While I was burning in his house.
A tear leaked from the corner of my eye, cutting a clean track through the soot on my cheek. It was hot, acidic.
"We need to sedate her," the EMT said urgently. "Heart rate is one-eighty. She's going into shock."
I felt the prick of a needle in my unburned arm. The cold rush of the sedative moved up my veins, freezing the fire in my lungs. As the darkness crept in from the edges of my vision, the image of Julian holding Serena burned itself onto the back of my eyelids.
Three years, I thought, the words floating in the black void. I gave you three years of silence. Three years of being the perfect, invisible wife. And you let me burn.
When I woke up, the silence was louder than the sirens.
I was in a private room. The walls were a pale, offensive beige. Outside the window, the New York skyline was bleeding into a gray dawn. I was alone.
No flowers. No husband pacing the floor. Just the rhythmic drip-drip-drip of the IV bag.
A nurse bustled in, checking a chart. She paused when she saw my eyes were open. There was a flicker of pity in her gaze-that specific, condescending pity reserved for women whose husbands are publicly humiliating them.
"Mrs. Vance," she said softly. "You're awake. We treated the burns on your neck, arm, and leg. They're second-degree, but they should heal with minimal scarring if you're careful."
"My husband?" My voice was a whisper, sounding like dragging sandpaper over concrete.
The nurse hesitated. She looked at the TV mounted on the wall, which was currently off, then back at me. "We... we haven't been able to reach him directly yet. It seems he's still dealing with the press in Los Angeles. The news said..." She trailed off, not wanting to say it.
The news said he's with her.
I looked at my reflection in the darkened window. My hair was matted with soot. There was a bandage on my neck. I looked like a ghost. Or maybe a corpse that had forgotten to die.
"I see," I said.
The nurse adjusted my blanket. "You need rest. The doctor said you should stay for observation for at least twenty-four hours."
I looked at the IV in my hand. It was a tether. A leash. Just like the ring on my finger.
"No," I said.
I reached over and ripped the tape off my hand.
"Mrs. Vance! What are you doing?" The nurse rushed forward, her hands fluttering.
I pulled the needle out. A droplet of bright red blood welled up, sliding down my skin. I didn't feel it. I didn't feel anything physical anymore. The fire had cauterized the nerve endings of my heart.
"I'm checking out," I said. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My hospital gown was thin, and the floor was freezing against my bare feet.
"You can't," the nurse protested. "You have smoke inhalation. You need-"
"I need a lot of things," I interrupted, standing up. The room spun for a second, then steadied. "But none of them are in this hospital."
I walked to the small closet where they had stored my belongings-the few things that had survived on my person. My ruined clothes, my cracked phone.
I dressed in the smoky, stiff jeans and the t-shirt that had a hole burned near the collar. I didn't care.
I picked up my phone. A notification flashed across the screen.
Daily Mail: "My Guardian Angel," says Serena Holloway of Julian Vance. "He's the only one who can calm my storms."
I laughed. It was a dry, broken sound.
I opened a secure app on my phone, one hidden deep within a folder labeled 'Recipes.' It required a fingerprint and a twenty-character password.
The screen loaded. Bank of the Cayman Islands.
Account Holder: The Architect.
Balance: $24,500,000.00.
I stared at the number. For three years, I had let the Vance family treat me like a pauper, a gold-digger who should be grateful for the crumbs from their table. I had let Julian pay for my clothes, my food, holding it over my head like a debt I could never repay.
But I was The Architect. Hollywood's most sought-after ghostwriter. The woman who had penned three Oscar-winning screenplays under a pseudonym because the Vance family didn't allow their wives to "work."
I locked the phone.
"Mrs. Vance, please, let me call your driver," the nurse pleaded, following me into the hallway. "Or Mr. Vance's assistant?"
I stopped at the elevator. I turned to her, my eyes dry and hard.
"Don't call anyone," I said. "Evelyn Vance died in that fire."
I walked out of the hospital doors into the biting cold of the morning. I didn't look for the black town car that usually ferried me around like a prisoner transport.
I raised my hand and hailed a yellow cab.
The driver, a heavyset man with a kind face, looked at me in the rearview mirror. I must have looked like a maniac-soot-stained, smelling of smoke, bleeding slightly from the hand.
"Where to, lady?"
I looked down at the diamond ring on my left hand. Five carats. Flawless clarity. Cold as ice. I double-tapped the side button of my phone to bring up my wallet. It still worked.
"Midtown," I said, my voice gaining strength. "Sterling & Hale Law Firm."
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Chapter 1 No.1
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Chapter 2 No.2
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Chapter 3 No.3
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Chapter 4 No.4
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Chapter 5 No.5
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Chapter 6 No.6
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Chapter 7 No.7
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Chapter 8 No.8
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Chapter 9 No.9
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Chapter 10 No.10
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Chapter 11 No.11
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Chapter 12 No.12
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Chapter 13 No.13
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Chapter 14 No.14
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Chapter 15 No.15
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Chapter 16 No.16
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Chapter 17 No.17
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Chapter 18 No.18
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Chapter 19 No.19
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Chapter 20 No.20
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Chapter 21 No.21
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Chapter 22 No.22
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Chapter 23 No.23
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Chapter 24 No.24
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Chapter 25 No.25
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Chapter 26 No.26
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Chapter 27 No.27
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Chapter 28 No.28
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Chapter 29 No.29
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Chapter 30 No.30
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Chapter 31 No.31
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Chapter 32 No.32
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Chapter 33 No.33
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Chapter 34 No.34
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Chapter 35 No.35
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Chapter 36 No.36
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Chapter 37 No.37
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Chapter 38 No.38
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Chapter 39 No.39
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Chapter 40 No.40
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