The Billionaire's Substitute Lover's Escape

I was the secret lover of billionaire Brooks Fields, a living substitute for the woman he truly loved, Candice. My rare heart condition, the very thing that made me fragile, was the only miracle that could save her.

But one night, her jealousy turned deadly. She shoved me into the icy Hudson River, then staged her own fall, screaming for help.

When the rescue crew yelled they could only save one of us from the churning water, Brooks didn't hesitate.

"Her," he roared, pointing a shaking finger at Candice. "Get Candice first."

He watched me go under, choosing to save the woman he adored while leaving me to die. The man who had once saved me from the streets had just condemned me to a watery grave without a second glance.

But I survived. And as I recovered alone in a hospital, I finalized my plan. I would donate the unique tissue from my heart to save his precious Candice. In return, I would fake my own death and finally buy my freedom.

Chapter 1

Elara POV:

The decision to donate my heart tissue and fake my own death was the easiest I' d ever made, because it was the only one that was truly mine.

"You're sure about this, Ms. Vance?" the surgeon, Dr. Albright, asked, his eyes filled with a mixture of clinical curiosity and pity. He adjusted his glasses, looking from the consent form to my face, as if searching for a flicker of doubt.

I nodded, the movement small but firm. "I'm sure." My voice was a dry rasp in the sterile quiet of his office.

"This is a highly experimental procedure. We'll be harvesting a significant portion of your unique cardiac tissue. The regenerative properties are astounding, but the process itself… it carries extreme risks."

"I understand," I said. It was more than a risk; it was my escape plan.

"And all of this," he gestured vaguely towards the file on his desk, the one with Candice Robinson's name stamped in bold letters, "For her?"

I didn't need to see the file. I knew her name. It was etched onto every surface of my life, a ghost haunting every room of the penthouse I was supposed to call home. Candice Robinson. The woman Brooks Fields truly loved.

"She's very important to him," I said, the words tasting like ash.

Outside the window, a nurse was laughing with a patient in a wheelchair. They looked happy. A pang of something I couldn't name, something sharp and cold, went through me. For a moment, I imagined what it would be like to be one of them. Normal. Cared for.

A bitter laugh escaped my lips before I could stop it. A substitute. That' s what I was. A placeholder for a ghost, and now, the living sacrifice for her return.

"The anomaly in my heart," I said, my voice flat, "The thing that's supposed to make me 'fragile' and 'broken'… it can save her, right? It can