Ninety-Nine Engagements, One Betrayal

After ninety-nine failed engagements, I finally married Brooks Preston, a stoic tech mogul who seemed to be the only man on earth who found my motormouth personality "charming."

But his quiet acceptance was a lie. I was just a convenient prop, a wife he needed to hide his obsessive, incestuous love for his adopted sister, Everleigh.

When I discovered their secret and demanded a divorce, he locked me in a dark, windowless room, weaponizing my childhood claustrophobia to break me. He needed me to take the fall for Everleigh's crimes, to protect her at all costs.

He watched me scream and claw at the walls for three days, my terror a spectacle for his cold, calculating eyes. He wasn't just indifferent; he was a monster.

I didn't break. Instead, I waited. On the night of a live-streamed gala, I looked into the camera and smiled. "Everleigh, darling, congratulations. I've already divorced him. He's all yours."

Chapter 1

My ninety-ninth engagement ended the way all the others did: with a polite, albeit awkward, conversation about our "irreconcilable differences." In reality, the difference was always the same. My mouth. It moved too fast, too often, too much. I was a motormouth, a chatterbox, a walking, talking, human-shaped podcast no one asked for. That' s what they called me, in hushed tones, in New York' s elite circles.

"Dayna, darling, you're so vibrant," my mother would sigh, smoothing my hair. "But sometimes, less is more."

Less was never more for me. More words, more stories, more laughter, more life. That was my mantra. But it scared men away, apparently. All ninety-nine of them.

After the ninety-ninth ring was slipped off my finger, I vowed. No more. No more chasing a fairytale that clearly wasn' t meant for me. Marriage was a trap, a gilded cage for my vibrant personality. I was done.

Then I met Brooks Preston.

He was everything the New York crowd fawned over in hushed, reverent tones. Tall, dark, and impossibly handsome, with eyes that held the quiet intensity of a winter storm. A tech mogul from Seattle, old money, precise, stoic. Every word he uttered was measured, every movement controlled. He was the antithesis of me. And for some inexplicable reason, I was drawn to him.

Our first encounter was at a charity auction. I was a whirlwind of nervous energy, my words tumbling out like marbles down a flight of stairs. I was bidding on a ridiculously overpriced sculpture that I didn't even like, just for the thrill of the interaction.

"And going once, going twice..." the auctioneer boomed.

"One hundred thousand!" I yelled, my voice cracking slightly.

A quiet murmur rippled through the room. Brooks Preston, seated mere feet away, turned his head slowly. His gaze, usually so impassive, held a flicker of something I couldn't quite decipher.

"Dayna," my friend whispered, tugging at my sleeve. "Are you sure? You said you hated modern art."

"Oh, I do," I responded, perhaps a little too loudly. "But it's