Left To Die: Now The CEO Begs

On our third anniversary, my husband Marcus walked out on our dinner because his "best friend" Izzy had a crisis.

That was the ninth time he chose her call over my presence. According to the sick bet I made with her years ago, it was game over.

But the true end didn't come in a restaurant. It happened inside a plummeting elevator.

When the cable snapped and the emergency brakes slammed us to a halt, I lay trapped under debris, my leg fractured and head bleeding. Izzy, terrified but scratched-free, screamed for help.

Marcus didn't even look at me.

He stepped over my broken body to scoop her up.

"I've got you, Iz," he whispered, carrying her out to safety while I lay alone in the dust, gasping his name.

He left me to die in that metal box.

Later, when I confronted him, he called me "unstable" and "jealous." He claimed I was a burden, a placeholder he married just to pass the time until Izzy was ready for him.

He even shoved me into a freezing lake to protect her from a confrontation she started.

He thought I would always be there, the pathetic wife waiting in the shadows. He thought his love was a prize I would endure any torture to keep.

He was wrong.

I signed the divorce papers, threw my ring into the ocean, and vanished without a trace.

Three years later, I returned to New York as a celebrated artist, with a man who treated me like a masterpiece, not a prop.

Marcus, now ruined by Izzy’s lies and stripped of his fortune, found me. He knelt in the rain on the city street, weeping, begging for one more chance to fix us.

I looked down at the husband who had let me drown.

"There is no 'us', Marcus," I said calmly.

Then I turned my back on him and walked into my future.

Chapter 1

Ellie POV

The ninth time Marcus left me, the champagne was still bubbling in my glass.

It was our third anniversary. The waiter had just finished pouring the vintage Dom Pérignon, the golden bubbles racing to the surface to mimic the frantic rhythm of my heartbeat.

Marcus checked his phone. His face, usually a mask of composed indifference, cracked.

"Izzy needs me," he said. Statement. Not a question. And certainly not an apology.

He just stood up, his napkin fluttering onto the untouched risotto like a surrender flag.

I sat frozen. The restaurant was dim, romantic, and suffocatingly filled with couples whispering promises they intended to keep. I stared at the empty chair opposite me.

"Sit down, Marcus," I whispered, my voice trembling. "Please. Just for tonight."

He didn't even look at me. He was already buttoning his jacket, his mind already halfway across the city.

"She's having a crisis, Ellie. You know how fragile she is."

I knew. I knew exactly the brand of fragility Isabella 'Izzy' Vance peddled. She was as fragile as a diamond and