Unbreakable Love

My husband of five years, Mark, told me he was taking me on a romantic clifftop picnic. He poured me a glass of champagne, his smile as warm as the sun. He said it was to celebrate our life together.

But as I admired the view, his hands slammed into my back. The world dissolved into a blur of sky and rock as I plunged toward the ravine below.

I woke up broken and bleeding, just in time to hear his voice above. He wasn't alone. It was his mistress, Chloe.

"Is she... gone?" she asked.

"She fell a long way," Mark's voice was flat, devoid of emotion. "No one could survive that. By the time they find the body, it'll look like a tragic accident. Poor, unstable Clara, wandering too close to the edge."

The casual cruelty of his words was worse than the impact. He had already written my obituary, crafting the narrative of my demise while leaving me to die in the storm.

A wave of despair washed over me, but then something else ignited: a white-hot, furious anger.

Just as my vision started to fade, headlights sliced through the rain. A man stepped out of a luxury car. It wasn't Mark. It was Julian Thorne, my husband's most hated rival, and the one man who might want Mark destroyed as much as I did.

Chapter 1

The first thing I registered was the pain, a blinding, razor-sharp agony that shot up my leg and exploded behind my eyes. The second was the smell of wet earth and crushed pine needles, a scent so thick it felt like I was breathing mud. My cheek was pressed against something cold and slick with rain.

I blinked, trying to clear the fog from my vision. Rain plastered my hair to my face, each drop a tiny, icy shock against my skin. Above me, through a tangle of dark branches, the sky was a bruised purple, churning with storm clouds. The world was a symphony of misery: the relentless drumming of the rain, the distant growl of thunder, and the ragged, desperate sound of my own breathing.

Then, I heard voices. His voice.

"Is she... gone?" The other voice was female, laced with a cloying sweetness that turned my stomach. Chloe.

"She fell a long way. No one could survive that." Mark's voice was flat, devoid of the warmth he had faked for five years. It was the voice of a man discussing a business transaction, not the wife he had just tried to murder.

My mind reeled, struggling to connect the dots. The clifftop picnic. The thermos of "special" tea that made my head swim. The sudden, brutal shove from behind. The sickening sensation of falling, the world spinning away from me as the rocks rushed up to meet me. It wasn't an accident.

*He did this. He pushed me.*

I tried to scream, to call out, but only a choked gasp escaped my lips. My throat felt raw, and a coppery taste filled my mouth. Blood.

"We should go," Chloe whined. "Someone might see the car."

"No one comes up here in this weather," Mark said, his tone dismissive. "She's as good as dead. By the time they find the body, it'll look like a tragic accident. Poor, unstable Clara, wandering too close to the edge."

The casual cruelty of his words was a physical blow, worse than the impact with the ground. He had already written my obituary, crafted the narrative of my demise. The loving husband, grieving for his troubled wife. Bile rose in my throat.