Before His Legs Were Broken

My husband and I were the ultimate joke in high society.

Rumor had it that to stop his first love from leaving the country, he sped his sports car down the highway, triggering a horrific crash that destroyed his legs.

As for me, I had harbored a secret crush on my childhood best friend for ten years, yet never found the nerve to confess. After our wedding, we played the flawless couple in public.

But behind closed doors, we were bitter enemies trapped in a vicious cycle. Every screaming match inevitably crashed into a fierce, outofcontrol tangle in our sheets.

I'd stare down at his wheelchair. "You can't even stand up, and you're trying to play the romantic hero?" He'd sneer right back. "At least I'm not some coward who can't even spit out a confession." Then I blinked, and I was back in high school.

This time, I scraped together the guts to finally confess to my childhood crush. But that same night, a fully ablebodied Hayes pinned me against the wall.

His chest heaved, and the whites of his eyes were laced with red. "You want to be with him?

Over my dead body." Chapter 1 Scrolling through TikTok, I stumbled on a video of a preppy high school golden boy confessing to his childhood sweetheart in front of the whole school.

I gripped my iPad, smashing the like button. "Childhood sweethearts for the win!

When I turn nineteen, I'm getting a romance exactly like this!" Across the room, Hayes snapped his file folder shut.

He sat in his wheelchair, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Gemma, keep it down." He paused, letting out a sharp scoff. "You didn't even have the guts to confess back then.

Like hell you're getting a romance." My thumb froze over the screen. A sharp sting hit the back of my throat.

I'd harbored a secret crush on my childhood best friend, Harrison, since we were kids. But the thought of his rejection made my chest tight.

I couldn't stomach the thought of losing him as a friend. Then, five years ago, Harrison vanished without a word to build a company overseas.

My family went bankrupt, and through a twist of fate, I ended up married to Hayes—a man who already had someone else carved into his heart.

My tenyear crush fizzled out into nothing. I shoved the iPad aside and pushed up from the couch to head to bed. Walking past Hayes, my chest tightened.

I kicked the tire of his wheelchair. "At least I'm not the one who tried to play the tragic hero chasing after a girl, only to end up permanently sidelined." "You—" The veins in Hayes's neck popped, his jaw clenching hard.

For the three years we'd been married, we despised everything about each other—except when we were in bed.

Watching his mouth open and close with no comeback sent a rush of satisfaction through me. I slept much better after that.

I didn't know how long I had been asleep when something nudged my arm.

I furrowed my brows. "Hayes, give it a rest tonight, will you?" Laughter erupted around me. "Haha, Gemma is losing her mind sleeping in class." "Guess that rumor on the school forum is true.

She's really obsessed with Hayes." "Yeah, crying her eyes out a few days ago, and now she's talking nonsense." Class? School forum? What the hell? I blinked my eyes open.

A boy in a high school uniform stood next to me. Hayes. A flush crept up his pale neck. It wasn't until the teacher kicked me out into the hallway for a timeout that it clicked.

I had actually traveled back in time. Back to high school, ten years ago. The sunset bled across the sky, and the sound of students reading echoed from the classroom.

Through the hallway window, I stared at the space under Hayes's desk. His legs. Perfectly intact. He wore a pair of clean, white sneakers with peeling soles.

No one would ever guess that this dirtpoor, quiet teenager would one day morph into a ruthless, untouchable titan in the business world.

Since I got a doover, I was going to lock down this future Wall Streetlevel financial tyrant early.

Even if I couldn't make him fall in love with me, I had to at least become an indispensable ally in his camp.

At lunch in the cafeteria, I marched straight over and dropped my tray directly across from Hayes.

He lifted his gaze, his dark eyes locking onto mine. "What?" I pulled out my phone, pulled up a thread on the school forum, and slid the screen across the table to him. [ Aubrey, the school's queen bee, blocks Hayes to confess her love.

Gemma suspected of being brokenhearted, found crying her eyes out on the lawn nearby. ] The comment section had blown up with hundreds of replies.

Throughout the morning, my high school memories had been sharpening in my brain. The very first thing that clicked into place was this ridiculous post.

I had no idea which jealous, gossiping bastard came up with that headline. These idiots got off on spreading rumors about other people's private lives.

Why didn't they just go to Hollywood and become tabloid scriptwriters? Chapter 2 The academic pressure of senior year was crushing.

To cope, I spent my time after school behind the gym, feeding a stray cat. Over time, it went from hissing at me to rubbing against my jeans. But then someone poisoned it.

When I dug a hole in the dirt to bury it, the tears just broke loose. I was sobbing so hard I missed the grand romantic confession happening ten feet away. The girl confessing?

My ultimate rival and the untouchable center of Hayes's universe: Aubrey. After I married Hayes, his personal assistant, Miles, let it slip.

When Hayes found out Aubrey was leaving the country to get married, he lost his damn mind.

He took his sports car and sped down the highway to stop her, triggering the horrific crash that permanently paralyzed his legs.

Even in a coma, bleeding out on the dashboard, his cracked lips kept forming one name. Aubrey. But I knew exactly what kind of person Aubrey was.

She had this innocent, sweetgirl face, but she got a sick thrill out of watching the scholarship kids tear each other apart over her.

Behind closed doors, she'd laugh with her inner circle, saying, "Watching these desperate poor boys ruin themselves for me… it's the ultimate power trip." After spitting out my frantic explanation of the forum rumor, my throat felt like sandpaper.

I grabbed the plastic water bottle off the cafeteria table and took a quick sip. Hayes's face was an impenetrable mask. He stared at me for a long time, his dark eyes unreadable.

Finally, his jaw shifted. "Oh." He paused. "You just drank from my water." I choked. Hayes was dirt poor. And money was the one thing I had in excess.

So, I threw an absurd hourly rate at him to tutor me after school. Every day, I made sure we took the long way around campus just to dodge Aubrey.

This time around, I wasn't going to let Hayes destroy his legs for her.

Because during our marriage, even if he didn't love me, even if we were constantly at each other's throats, he never actually mistreated me.

When my father's company was on the brink of bankruptcy, he knew I was only marrying him for the bailout—and he signed the papers without blinking.

When we got to the library, Hayes looked like hell. His dark eyelashes drooped heavily, and his long fingers rubbed at his temples.

I flipped open my textbook and leaned in, probing. "Do you like the girl who confessed to you the other day?" Hayes lowered his gaze. "Why do you care?" I shook my head, unzipping my pencil case. "Just saying.

No matter how crazy you are about her, you need to put your own safety first." Consider it my one piece of lifesaving advice. Hayes's dark eyes stayed deadly still.

He stared at me like I was speaking a foreign language. A sudden wave of nausea hit my stomach. I was being a manipulative hypocrite. Sure, Aubrey was a toxic nightmare in my eyes.

But to him? What if, in his twisted reality, she was the only thing worth dying for? The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.

I pointed blindly at a physics equation on the page. "Whatever. I can't figure this one out. Show me how to do it." Hayes grabbed his pen.

He barely glanced at the problem before his hand started moving across the scratch paper, breaking down the formulas step by step. Outside, the freezing wind battered the glass.

The knuckles of his hand gripping the pen had turned white from the cold.

Those beautiful hands, which in the future would sign countless billiondollar crossborder mergers and acquisitions, were currently covered in rough frostbite scars. "Okay, okay, I get it." I snatched the pen out of his grip and shoved a warm heat pack directly into his hands.

He flinched, his body stiffening. When he finally realized what it was, he didn't even hold it directly—he just hovered his rough palms over the outer fabric to catch the warmth.

Was teenage Hayes seriously this docile? The sharptongued, relentless bastard I married had to be an absolute fake.

Chapter 3 After he finished, I tapped randomly at another problem in the textbook. "I have no clue how to do this one either. Hayes, show me." Hayes picked up his pen.

As he broke down the steps, he asked casually, "Didn't you say you hated physics?" He paused, his jaw tightening slightly as if realizing he'd slipped up. "I hear you complaining to your friends every day," he added, covering his tracks.

I lowered my gaze, staring at the textbook. "I want to get into a college overseas. There's someone I need to find." The pen in his hand slammed to a halt.

His knuckles instantly turned a stark white. Hayes's brows pulled together, the temperature in his dark eyes dropping below freezing.

He dropped the pen onto the desk. "I don't know how to do the rest." What? Bullshit. I literally just watched him solve a harder version of this three minutes ago.

And he was the top student in the entire school. Was he kidding me? Just like ten years in the future, Hayes's temper was a live wire. I could never read him.

The air between us turned suffocatingly cold. Suddenly, my phone buzzed twice against the wooden table.

A text from Harrison. [ Gemma, I'm flying back the day after tomorrow. ] [ Come pick me up, okay? ] Harrison was back to give the keynote speech as the school's most distinguished alumni.

Half the student body packed into the auditorium. I sat in the front row, staring up at the magnetic figure commanding the stage.

The girls sitting next to me were buzzing. "Harrison is insanely hot. Do you think he has a girlfriend?" "Don't even dream about it.

The line of girls he's rejected could stretch all the way to Paris." "With a face like that, who wouldn't fall for him?" I liked Harrison too.

Just like every other girl waking up to their first crush. For as long as I could remember, Harrison was the blinding center of my universe.

Grades, looks, family money, charm—he dominated every category. Practically every girl I knew had thrown themselves at him. One memory burned clearer than the rest.

One of the girls in our inner circle had confessed to Harrison in front of everyone.

Harrison had just leaned back against the leather sofa, looking bored, and slung his arm lazily around my neck. "You girls swarm around me like bees.

Can you honestly say it's not for my trust fund and my frat president title?" He had smirked. "Looks like only my good little sister, Gemma, is the only one who isn't after my power." I had gripped my juice box, dropping my chin to my chest as a heavy lump formed in my throat.

The truth was… I had the dirtiest motives of them all. I was just too much of a coward to say it out loud. Watching the crushed look on that girl's face made my stomach churn.

Failing a confession meant losing the right to even stand beside him as a friend. A thunderous roar of applause ripped me out of the flashback. The speech was over.

Harrison strode down the stage steps directly toward me. "Talking that long is brutal. I'm starving." We hit the cafeteria together.

As we ate, half the room kept throwing glances at our table. I despised being stared at like this. Even as we cleared our trays, eyes tracked our every move.

Pushing through the cafeteria doors, I muttered under my breath. "Too many people are obsessed with you.

Walking next to you feels like being a gorilla on display at the zoo." Even though it was a whisper, Harrison caught it.

He stopped and looked down at me. "And what about you, Gemma? Are you obsessed too?" My head snapped up. I met his eyes, bright and teasing.

That direct, pinning stare sent a jolt straight through my chest, planting a dangerous delusion in my brain. Could he… actually have feelings for me too?

That single second of distraction cost me. I lost my footing on the concrete stairs beneath my feet. My sneaker slipped off the edge. Gravity yanked me down.

I tipped forward, plunging violently toward the hard pavement. Chapter 4 The staircase was brutal.

If Harrison hadn't been fast enough to grab my arm, I would have tumbled straight down those concrete steps and ended up flat on my back in an ER bed for months.

Luckily, I just rolled my ankle and scraped off a nasty chunk of skin. The school nurse swabbed stinging antiseptic ointment onto the raw wound, making hot tears prick my eyes.

After wrapping it tightly, she told us to stay put on the cot for observation.

Harrison lounged in the plastic chair next to me, casually flipping through my recent test papers. "Your grades are shooting up.

Got a dream college in mind yet?" He paused, his gaze lifting. "I also heard you've got a crush on someone?" He definitely stalked the school forum.

I shook my head, my face burning. "No, those are just stupid rumors. And for college… I haven't really figured it out yet." Harrison snapped my papers shut.

A slow, lazy smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Then you should come to my university." He leaned in a fraction closer. "I can wait for you, Gemma." Those words slammed into my brain, sending the room spinning.

It wasn't until he stepped out into the hallway to take a call that I could finally suck in a breath. What the hell did he mean by that?

If I was hallucinating right before I tripped, I definitely wasn't imagining this, right?

While my mind was still twisting itself into knots, a frantic female voice shattered the quiet of the nurse's office. "Nurse!

Hayes looks absolutely terrible, you need to check on him right now!" It was Aubrey. Immediately after, Hayes's low, tight voice followed. "I don't need help.

I just need to lie down for a while." Aubrey's voice spiked, sharp and trembling. "You can't just do that!" Fabric rustled on the other side of the privacy curtain as the nurse presumably checked him out.

Taking advantage of the moment the nurse stepped away to grab some supplies, Aubrey's voice leaked through the thin fabric, suddenly dropping into this sickeningly coy whisper. "Hayes.

Did you… did you reject my confession because you have feelings for Gemma?" The air froze.

I dug my fingernails into the crinkly paper covering my cot, desperately trying to blend into the wall.

After a suffocating stretch of silence, Hayes's rough, gravelly voice cut through the quiet. "No." I couldn't see Aubrey, but I could practically hear the triumphant smirk stretching across her face. "I feel so much better now." A harsh, ashy bitterness flooded the back of my throat.

I couldn't even pinpoint exactly why. The scrape got infected, and by the next morning, I woke up with a blazing fever. Harrison took me to the front office to get a sick pass.

I leaned heavily against the wall by the stairwell, my brain swimming in a delirious fog as I waited for him to walk me home. The bell rang.

Hayes stepped out of a classroom at the far end of the hallway, a crumpled math competition signup sheet gripped in his fist.

I dropped my gaze, staring blankly at the thick white gauze wrapped around my ankle. Suddenly, a tall, heavy shadow eclipsed the overhead lights.

Hayes's crisp, cool voice sounded from directly above me. "Finals are coming up. Do you need me to come to your house after school to tutor you?" I dragged my eyes up to his face.

My voice scraped out of my throat, raw and broken. "No, thanks." Right on cue, Harrison walked out of the administrator's office, waving the pink exit slip.

He wrapped his arm around my waist, supporting my weight as we walked toward the exit. Moving in the exact opposite direction of the boy standing still behind us.

I figured, with this second chance, our paths would permanently sever. I just hoped to God he actually listened to my warning about keeping himself safe.

When the new semester kicked off, the homeroom teacher blew up the seating chart. We picked our desks based on our final exam rankings. Hayes had the very first pick.

He walked into the classroom and stalked straight to his old desk. Middle row, right side, flush against the window.

Chapter 5 When it was my turn to pick a desk, I went for the third row, flush against the window. Looking out, the courtyard was lined with magnolia trees.

Once they bloomed in late spring, the view would be absolutely stunning. After that day, I barely spoke a word to Hayes.

The only updates I got were during school assemblies, hearing he'd taken first place in another state math decathlon.

The school's only Ivy League fullride recommendation was basically guaranteed to be his.

But after cashing the competition prize money, he still sat for the regular college admissions exams, casually throwing that guaranteed spot away to another student.

He probably just wanted to follow Aubrey to whatever college she chose. Not that it mattered to me anymore.

The day we finished our final exams was the first time it truly hit me that I was living a second life. The final bell rang, and the sweet rush of freedom slammed into my face.

Walking out of the testing center, I watched girls sprinting across the lawn to jump into their boyfriends' arms, their faces glowing. It struck me in a dizzying wave.

I had literally never dated anyone before I ended up married to Hayes. "Gemma, over here!" Harrison stood a few yards away, shouting my name next to my parents.

A memory flashed through my mind. During the study week before finals, my desk mate Quinn had gotten totally obsessed with reading tarot cards.

She had flipped a card and gasped. "Gemma. Your romance sector is blowing up this month.

You've got an eighty percent chance of a successful confession!" Was the universe giving me a sign? Begging me to fix the biggest regret of my future?

If so, I was going to shoot my shot, regardless of the fallout.

The reality was, Quinn and I spent the first few days postgraduation partying so hard the confession slipped my mind entirely.

Harrison had to be the one to text me first. [ Taking you out tonight? ] [ Can't. I've got my high school graduation party tonight. ] [ Text me when it's over.

I'll come pick you up. ] [ Deal. ] The night air was thick and heavy.

I spent an hour doing my makeup and slipped into the tight black dress Quinn and I bought at the mall yesterday. It was a risky, skinbaring style I had never touched before.

By the time I walked into the rented VIP lounge, the party was already raging. I slid into an empty booth in the corner.

Quinn pushed through the crowd and bumped her shoulder against mine, a wicked grin on her face. "God, I knew you'd look absolutely smoking in this tight black dress!

You always hide yourself in those baggy school uniforms acting like a good little girl, who would've thought you were hiding such a killer body under there?" She winked. "Forget the guy you're about to confess to, I think I'm falling in love with you.

You still haven't told me, is he in our grade?" Her voice kept climbing higher, drawing curious stares from the people at the next table. "Keep it down." I slapped a hand over her mouth and pressed a finger to my lips.

My gaze darted frantically around the room—and crashed straight into Hayes, sitting in a dim corner just a few feet away. Since when did he ever show up to these parties?

Unwanted, the memory of our final screaming match during our marriage clawed its way into my brain.

Hayes's mocking sneer rang in my ears: At least I'm not some coward who can't even spit out a confession. I had never breathed a word about my crush on Harrison to a single soul.

Not even Harrison knew. So, how the hell did Hayes find out about him? Before my brain could untangle that mess, Quinn was poking my ribs again, begging for a name.

I grabbed a fruity cocktail off the table and took a long sip. "He doesn't go to our school." By the time the party hit its peak, I had downed three whole cocktails.

Just enough liquid courage to numb my nerves, but not enough to get sloppy. Chapter 6 When the crowd started shouting about moving the party to a diner, I checked my phone.

It was getting late. I threw a quick wave to the host and slipped out of the chaotic VIP lounge.

I was just debating whether to shoot Harrison a text when a large hand clamped around my wrist and yanked me into the shadowed stairwell. It was Hayes.

My spiking heart rate leveled out, and the tension drained from my shoulders. The heavy, sharp scent of hard liquor rolled off him.

His jaw was locked tight, a muscle ticking near his ear. "Hayes, are you pissed off?" I asked, blinking at him in the dim light. Who the hell stepped on his toes tonight?

Hayes crowded into my space, boxing me in. A dark scoff vibrated in his chest