Chapter 1
The red carpet to Adrian Thorne's side was never paved with flowers. It was a killing floor, meticulously designed.
Two years. Nineteen wedding attempts. And every single one ended in blood.
The fifth attempt: brake failure on the bridal car. I spent three months in the ER with a shattered left arm.
The twelfth: botulism at the menu tasting. I had my stomach pumped and nearly asphyxiated on the table.
The eighteenth... that remains my waking nightmare. I fell down a marble staircase polished to a lethal shine, losing the child I never even got to hold.
Everyone called me the "Thorne Curse." For a long time, even I believed it—that bad luck was just etched into my bones.
Time and again, I crawled out of pools of my own blood. I did it for a decade-old promise of repayment. I did it for the man I had loved for ten years.
Then came the nineteenth attempt. A floral arch weighing hundreds of pounds collapsed during our vows, crushing me into the ICU.
Ribs snapped, organs bleeding, I fought for three days just to claw my way back to the living.
But the moment I woke, through the crack in the door, I heard Adrian's voice.
"Mr. Thorne, that was too close. If Elinor had actually died..."
"I didn't have a choice." Adrian's tone was so cold it felt foreign. "Her father died saving me. I'm shackled by that debt. But I love Serena. She is the only one I want to marry."
His voice dropped, lethal and precise. "To clear the path for Serena, I don't care if I have to stage nineteen accidents or ruin Elinor beyond repair. I will do whatever it takes."
Lying there, staring at the map of scars on my body, something inside me finally shattered.
I realized my suffering wasn't a twisted joke of fate. It was a love letter to another woman—his devotion to her, carved into my very skin.
Since his "debt of honor" kept him from kicking me out, I decided to play the villain and cut the cord myself.
Inside the manor study, Harold Thorne, Adrian's grandfather, sat frozen. His fountain pen skidded across the paper, tearing a jagged line through the document.
For ten years, no one knew better than him just how desperate my obsession with Adrian was. I was the woman who would die for him.
After a brief stun, he recovered, his eyes softening with patronizing certainty. He thought I was just acting out.
"Elinor, I know you're upset. But the twentieth wedding is already in the works. The security clearance will be top-tier. I promise you, I won't let you be humiliated again. It will be a perfect ceremony..."
I didn't argue. I simply pressed play on the voice recorder.
Adrian's callous voice sliced through the silence of the study.
“I didn't have a choice... To clear the path for Serena... ruin Elinor beyond repair...”
Harold's comforting words died in his throat.
"Two years. Nineteen accidents. Every single one was an assassination attempt."
I calmly placed a dusty abortion report and the forensic analysis from the eighteenth incident on his mahogany desk.
"That 'accident' three months ago? He had the stairs oiled. He murdered your great-grandson for that woman."
The truth was a serrated blade. Harold stared at the report, his hand trembling so violently that his cane clattered to the floor.
When his gaze traveled to the ugly, winding scar creeping out from my sleeve, and then back to the gruesome injury report, the light in the old man's eyes extinguished. All that remained was gray defeat.
He stopped trying to persuade me. With a shaking hand, he signed the annulment agreement.
"It was your father... your father traded his life for Adrian's, and this is the sin the Thorne family repays him with." Harold's voice was old and broken. He tried to shove a check with an astronomical figure into my hand.
I looked at the string of zeros. It felt like a punchline.
Money couldn't buy back that child. It couldn't buy back the two years of torture I had survived.
I slid the check back across the desk and picked up only the signed agreement.
"We're square, Grandpa."
That was the last thing I said in that house.
The moment I stepped out of the manor gates, Adrian's silver Maybach screeched to a halt at the curb, tires biting the gravel, blocking my path.
The window rolled down. He didn't even glance at my luggage. His expression was indifferent, strictly business. "Get in. The judge is waiting at the courthouse. Let's go make it official."
My gaze drifted to the passenger seat.
Serena was huddled there, eyes rimmed red, looking like a startled doe. When she heard "make it official," she flinched, but I caught the flicker of triumph in her eyes.
Adrian got out, positioning himself to block my view of her.
His brow furrowed, tone rigid. "I admit, I have feelings for Serena. But rest assured, I will honor the engagement. The title of Mrs. Thorne will belong only to you."
Honor.
The word hit my chest like a hammer, suffocating me.
I lowered my head, my voice as light as the wind. "Some other time, Adrian."
I glanced at the hypocrite cowering behind him, feeling nothing but exhaustion. "We've dragged this out for years. Another hour won't matter."
A flash of surprise crossed Adrian's face.
For two years, I had been the desperate one. Unless I was dying in the ICU, my priority had always been getting that ring on my finger.
I ignored his reaction and stepped around him, heading toward a waiting taxi.
Suddenly, Serena scrambled out of the car.
"Elinor!" She grabbed my injured arm. "Adrian is a good man, I don't want to ruin things between you... please don't blame him..."
Her fingers dug into the freshly healed tissue. The pain spiked, and instinctively, I jerked my arm away.
Serena acted as if she'd been struck by a wrecking ball. She threw herself backward, collapsing hard into Adrian's arms, tears instantly flooding her face.
From Adrian's angle, it looked like I had shoved her.
"Are you insane?!"
Adrian roared, shoving me away with brutal force.
The impact sent me sprawling onto the rough gravel. A sharp, blinding pain shot through my ribs.
He anxiously checked Serena for imaginary wounds, then looked up at me with unmasked disgust.
"You realize you can't force this marriage, so you take it out on her? Elinor, you're bitter and vicious. It makes me sick."
He ushered Serena back into the car, delivering his final judgment before slamming the door.
"Your father knew the meaning of 'dignity.' Too bad you're just trash wrapped in a fancy dress. You'll never have class. You shame your dead parents."
The Maybach roared away, leaving me in a cloud of choking exhaust.
The defense stuck in my throat, swallowed back down with the bile.
I sat on the gravel, numb, until the phone in my pocket buzzed.
I glanced at the screen. No missed calls. Just a new email notification from the hospital.
[Ms. Elinor: Biopsy results confirm Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer with multiple bone metastases. Estimated survival: 3-6 months.]
