When Love Turns To Toxic Abuse

I was a talented designer married to Christian, the boy who swore he'd always protect me from my cruel sister, Gidget. He was my childhood sweetheart, my entire world.

Then I found him in our bed, tangled up with her.

He swore she drugged him, but then she turned up pregnant with his child. He chose her, letting her move into our home and believing every one of her lies.

When Gidget deliberately slammed a piano lid on my hand, shattering the bones and ending my career, he didn't see her malice. He saw me as the villain.

He slapped me, locked me away while my hand festered, and sided with the woman he knew had tormented me my entire life. The man who was my protector became my abuser.

Five years later, they walked into my new boutique, a celebrated power couple ready to offer me charity. They thought I was broken and alone.

They had no idea I was remarried to a man who was about to expose every last one of their secrets to the world.

Chapter 1

Elia POV:

My blood ran cold the moment I saw her. Gidget. Standing right there, in my store. Her eyes, wide and almost too innocent, fixed on me across the polished display of a vintage Chanel suit. She looked like she' d seen a ghost, but I knew the truth. She was the one who had always haunted my life.

I gripped the measuring tape in my hand tighter. It was a familiar weight, a reminder of the new routine I had meticulously built.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" I asked, my voice steady, professional. It was a shield, thick and impenetrable.

Her eyes narrowed. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor ran through her perfectly manicured hand. "Elia?" she whispered, as if my name itself was a delicate secret.

"This is my boutique," I stated, letting the words hang in the air. "Are you here to sell, or to consign?"

Gidget's pout was instant, practiced. "Oh, Elia. Still so cold, so bitter." Her voice took on that soft, wounded quality she perfected years ago. "Are you still angry? After all this time?"

I didn't dignify that with a response. I just raised an eyebrow, waiting. She always played the victim, always twisted the narrative. I wouldn't fall for it again.

My gaze flickered past her, towards the entrance. I knew. I always knew.

The bell above the door chimed, just as I expected. He walked in. Christian. Head turning, eyes searching, until they landed on me. His face, once so familiar, was now a stranger's mask of shock and disbelief.

"Elia," he breathed, the sound like a punch to my gut. It was a name he hadn't spoken in five years, a name he had replaced with Gidget' s.

I met his gaze, unflinching. "Mr. Prince," I said, a formal nod, nothing more. The man who had been my childhood sweetheart, my husband, was now just a client, a stranger.