Echoes of His Ex

"My boyfriend hired a psychic to ask his dead ex if I could keep our baby." The pregnant girl on my live stream holds up a photo. My husband's face fills my monitor. ...

I kick the heavy oak door of his forbidden attic wide open. Boxes of her old polaroids sit untouched in the center.

Three years ago, he sprinted into a roaring fire and suffered severe burns. He didn't tear through those flames to save my life.

He risked everything to save his dead first love's memories. I leave my wedding ring on the dusty floorboards.

Chapter 1 During my live relationshipadvice stream, a young woman's voice filtered through my headset. "My boyfriend owns five penthouses in Manhattan. He's a billionaire.

A solid eight out of ten," she started, her tone breathless. "He went to Harvard, I'm at Yale. He's offering me a tenmilliondollar trust fund if I marry him.

But here's the catch—he only wants the ceremony. No legal paperwork. No marriage license. I know he probably has someone else on the side. But I really love him.

I want to be his legal wife. Audrey, how do I convince him?" The live chat exploded, a blur of comments screaming at her to secure the bag and run. My brow furrowed.

A billionaire in Manhattan. Harvard grad. Why did this sound exactly like my husband of five years? "DM me a picture of him," I said into the mic.

A notification pinged on my screen seconds later. My heart pounded. The room seemed to spin.

Xander's face stared back at me from the chat window. "Take the money and run," I forced the words out, swallowing the bitterness in my throat. "He won't sign the license because he's already married." "No, Audrey, you don't understand!" Peyton's voice spiked with desperation. "The woman he loves has been dead for ten years.

He only came after me because I look exactly like his first love. Is there any way to make him forget her? To get him over a ghost?" Xander… had a dead first love?

White noise flooded my ears. Five years of marriage. Half a decade in his bed, sharing his life, and I never knew. "Is it possible," I asked gently, "that there is no dead ex?

That he just made her up so you wouldn't dig into his actual marriage?" The girl—whose screen name read NoCilantro_Grad—instantly fired back. "He isn't lying to me!

Every Christmas, he flies me out to visit her family. We spend the holidays with her parents." "In New York?" I asked, the room spinning. "No.

Seattle." A phantom hand wrapped around my throat, squeezing hard.

Every single Christmas, Xander flew to Seattle on a "business trip." He always claimed he had a massive client on the West Coast.

Someone so important he could only secure their loyalty during the holidays. Last year—our fourth year married—the loneliness had finally cracked me.

I had begged him to just come home to my small town in Ohio for once. The gossips back home were relentless.

Four years of showing up to the holidays alone had sparked whispers that my rich husband had already dumped me.

I remembered how Xander had pulled me into his chest, his lips pressing a warm kiss into my hair. "Let them talk, baby," he had murmured, his voice smooth as glass. "They have no idea how obsessed I am with you.

I'm out there securing the bag for my wife." I had swallowed the lie. I had packed my bags and flown to Ohio alone, playing the supportive wife to the ruthless CEO.

There was no client. He was flying across the country to play the devoted soninlaw to a dead woman's parents—with her lookalike on his arm.

I forced down the impending breakdown, staring into my webcam. "He treats you like a literal standin," I said. "Why on earth would you fall for him?" Peyton's voice dropped, a genuine shyness in her tone. "Honestly?

I agreed to it. He laid it out the day we met. He told me I was just a replica, and in exchange, he wires me fifty grand a month.

He said if it was a red flag for me, I could walk away. No pressure." The live chat scrolled so fast it blurred: [Damn, I take back everything bad I said about this guy!

He might be using her, but at least he's upfront about it. No gaslighting!] [FR! Better than those toxic dudes who say 'I love you' while projecting someone else onto you.

Green flag for honesty.] [Girl, just treat it like a 9to5. He pays well and doesn't lie. He's just obsessed with his dead ex. It's actually kind of romantic.

Bro is deeply devoted.] [Yeah, being unable to move on doesn't make him a villain. Scammers are the real villains.] Chapter 2 I stared at the blurred stream of chat comments. Yeah.

I was the idiot getting scammed. Fifty grand a month. "Does he really wire you fifty grand every single month?" "He does, Audrey. I'll send you the bank statements.

Direct deposit, on the dot. Sometimes he throws in an extra ten grand just because." Xander's profile picture mocked me from the chat window.

I tried my best to keep my smile looking normal.

And to think, I believed he worshipped the ground I walked on when he dropped a twohundredthousanddollar wedding gift on my parents.

I wasn't ugly, but I wasn't anything special either. Next to Xander, I just felt a bit inadequate. My family was painfully middleclass. We had no business existing in his orbit.

When he actually proposed, Raymond and Cynthia—my parents—nearly went into shock. They begged me not to ask for a flashy ring or an extravagant wedding.

They were terrified of looking like gold diggers. So, I had meekly suggested a modest twentythousanddollar backyard ceremony.

He had just laughed. "People in your hometown spend at least eighty grand just to keep up appearances. You think I'd let my bride settle for twenty? Two hundred thousand.

For the wedding, and to pay off your parents' mortgage.

If it's not enough, tell me." That night, my parents literally prayed to our ancestors, weeping with sheer gratitude that a man of his status would stoop to claim a nobody like me.

I felt sickeningly indebted.The word made me sick to my stomach. All a girl had to do was look like a ghost. No marriage license. Just a fake ceremony to feed his delusion.

And for that, he'd throw down a tenmilliondollar trust fund. I took a deep breath. "Take the money, Peyton. Opportunities like this don't come twice.

Financial freedom for the rest of your life is a hell of a lot more solid than begging for a man's love." [Listen to Audrey, girl!

That ain't a boyfriend, that's an employer!] [A literal unicorn boss! Secure the bag!] Peyton's voice went soft, thick with naive hope. "But I really want to build a home with him.

I'm… I'm already pregnant." "What?" I froze. "He actually let you get pregnant?" "It wasn't supposed to happen," she whispered, sounding a bit guilty. "But we got so drunk that night… I know he was calling me by her name.

I know he thought I was her.

But I love him so much…" A cold sweat broke across my spine. "Does he know?" "Yes." "And he didn't make you get rid of it?" "He completely spiraled at first.

He locked himself in the room with her memorial shrine and knelt there for twentyfour hours straight. Then… he hired a medium to channel her spirit. He asked for her permission.

The psychic said her spirit wanted me to keep the baby." A wave of question marks flooded the live chat. I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle a raw, breathless laugh.

Phantom cramps coiled deep in my lower abdomen—a parting gift from my own miscarriage. I really wanted to tell her that Xander was already treating her incredibly well.

For five years of marriage, he had been meticulously strict about using protection. I had begged him, countless times, to just let it happen. Every single time, he deflected.

He weaponized his ambition, claiming he was in a critical growth phase for his empire and couldn't be distracted by a baby.

Even though a man with his wealth could afford a private army of nannies. He would cup my face, his dark eyes dead serious. "Pregnancy destroys a woman's career trajectory.

I can provide for you, Audrey, but your streaming channel is part of your identity. I won't let a baby steal your prime years.

We have plenty of time for kids later." I had no defense against that flawless, suffocating logic. And yet, his physical appetite for me was relentless.

The day I discovered I was accidentally pregnant, I was pleasantly surprised, thinking we could just go with it.

Chapter 3 But he dragged me straight to the clinic and scheduled the termination. No discussion. He iced me out of our bedroom for months after that.

He claimed the risk of another "accident" was an absolute dealbreaker. He refused to touch me again until a cold, metallic IUD was safely lodged inside me.

The live chat blurred into a frantic stream of warnings, begging Peyton to run. My hand drifted to my lower stomach. I sat in silence. He had been so ruthless about my body.

Why was I still so sickeningly devoted to Xander? Maybe it was the lingering ghost of young love. Or maybe it was the fact that he had literally risked his life for mine.

Jagged, raised burn scars still crawled up Xander's forearms—a brutal souvenir from the day he pulled me out of a raging fire three years ago.

The attic of our old house had gone up in flames. I was trapped at the top of the stairs and couldn't get down. The firefighters were all advising him not to force his way in.

But Xander violently shoved past the barricade, sprinting straight into the inferno. No protective gear. A flaming support beam crashed down, igniting his shirt.

Hunter eventually dragged us both out of the rubble.

But I could never erase the image of my husband, tearing through a wall of fire just to get to me. "Audrey, I have one more question," Peyton's voice crackled through my headset, snapping me back to reality. "He keeps a ton of his ex's old things locked up in his attic.

I managed to sneak a peek once. She really does look exactly like me, except her jawline is a little sharper.

If I get some filler or a chin implant, do you think he'd finally sign the marriage license?" The attic? The word knocked the wind out of me.

I never set foot in the attic at our estate. The most I ever did was sweep the dust away from the heavy oak door.

Xander always claimed it housed highly classified corporate documents. He kept it padlocked yearround.

I had never questioned it. "Are you absolutely sure those are her photos up there?" I croaked out, my throat suddenly dry. "Yeah.

He had a massive house fire a few years ago," Peyton said nonchalantly. "He literally ran into a burning building to save her boxes.

He still has the burn scars on his arms to prove it." My stomach dropped. My chest felt tight. I remembered the thick, suffocating smoke from that day.

I remembered staring through the smoke, watching Xander rush through the flames. He was shouting.

But mapping the movement of his lips now, in the agonizing clarity of hindsight… He wasn't screaming my name. His bloodshot eyes hadn't been locked on me.

He had been looking right past my shoulder. At the locked door behind me. He didn't run into that inferno for me.

A hollow laugh slipped past my lips, quickly breaking into quiet sobs. My vision fractured. Hot moisture spilled over my lower lashes, burning lines down my cheeks.

I forced a light tone, pretending to joke. "Sounds like her place in his head is pretty untouchable. A scalpel isn't going to fix that." The chat flooded with rapid agreements.

Peyton's tone dropped into a pathetic, whiny register. "Can a living person really not beat a ghost?" I dug my nails into my palms until the sharp sting grounded me. "Look at the bright side.

He's funding your entire existence. You've banked more cash in a few years than most people see in a lifetime. My advice? Secure the bag.

Forget the romance." A sharp sob echoed through the audio feed. "I shouldn't have even called in!

You call yourself a relationship expert, but you're obsessed with money!" Peyton snapped, her voice pitching up hysterically. "I see that massive rock on your finger!

Well, guess what? I hope your husband doesn't love you either!" The screen abruptly went black. She disconnected. My neck snapped down. My gaze locked onto my left ring finger.

The diamond caught the harsh ring light. Xander had slid that exact band onto my finger, his dark eyes burning with absolute certainty.

The inner band bore a custom engraving—Undying Love. Chapter 4 Peyton was right. My husband didn't love me. I killed the stream, packed up my studio gear, and left.

The drive home was a blur of neon lights and static. I stood at the bottom of the attic stairs—the exact spot where the fire had trapped me three years ago.

Standing there, the memory crashed over me again—watching his silhouette tear through that very same inferno, a naive part of me fully believing I was witnessing true love.

He had supervised every second of the renovations after the fire. He never let me take a single step past the landing. A heavy brass padlock secured the solid oak door.

Xander held the only key. I grabbed a heavy wooden chair, my fingers whiteknuckling the backrest, and smashed it into the metal lock. Crack. Wood splintered. I swung again.

And again, letting out years of suffocating compliance with every hit. The chair legs shattered. The heavy padlock groaned, snapping free from the hasp.

The metal hit the floorboards with a dull thud. I slowly pushed the door open. I froze in my tracks. A lifesized portrait dominated the center of the room.

A girl with a radiant, sunlit smile stared back at me. I immediately covered my mouth. My heel caught the edge of the floorboard.

I stumbled backward, narrowly catching the doorframe before I plummeted down the stairs. It was her. Xander's untouchable dead love. Chelsea. My childhood best friend.

Dead for ten years. Her smile was forever frozen at twentyone. Sharp, aggressive handwriting slashed across the bottom corner of the canvas: Taken by Xander. June 13, 2019.

Day One with Chelsea. June. My legs gave out, and I collapsed onto the hardwood floor. I had fallen for Xander in May of 2019. It was my deepest, most agonizing secret.

I had only confessed it to one person. Chelsea. The girl who grew up directly across the street from me. We weren't blood, but we were closer than sisters.

I remembered sobbing into her shoulder when my pathetic attempts to get Xander's attention went unnoticed.

Her hand had rubbed slow, soothing circles into my back. "Xander is completely blind!" she had spat, her tone dripping with fierce loyalty. "You're amazing, Audrey. It's his loss.

Let him rot in regret." I thought my crush was a sacred secret locked in a vault between best friends.

But here, in this suffocating shrine, Xander had meticulously documented the very beginning of their collision.

A polaroid pinned to a corkboard showed the old covered bridge near our college campus. Chelsea had slipped on the wet cobblestone right into his chest.

It was pouring rain that day. Xander was holding a black umbrella. She hadn't just crashed into his arms—she had irrevocably crashed into his life. Chelsea was breathtaking.

She possessed the kind of effortless, magnetic beauty that forced a ruthless, untouchable billionaire like Xander to carry a vintage camera everywhere just to capture her.

The date on the polaroid read May 27, 2019. The very next day after I had confessed my secret crush on Xander to Chelsea.

During those long, agonizing weeks when I was completely shattered over Xander ignoring me, the girl wiping away my tears was already sleeping in his bed.

She had secretly stolen the only thing I ever wanted. The attic was split down the middle. The left side was an obsessive archive of their romance.

Xander—a man so arrogant he practically owned Manhattan—had actually kept a handwritten journal detailing every date they ever went on. The right side was a mausoleum.

A shrine to a dead wife. There was a more recent photo of that same covered bridge, taken on another rainy day. On the back was vigorous handwriting: Another year. Another rain.

Still just me, suffocating in the ghost of you. Chapter 5 Xander had quietly moved Chelsea's parents to Seattle for their retirement.

On Christmas Eve, he lit candles before her memorial portrait. The back of the photograph bore another handwritten inscription.

We swore to grow old together, yet you left me entirely alone. On her birthday, he stood before her gravestone. The ink on the back of this polaroid was severely smudged.

Water stains. Teardrops. This world is a merciless hell. Please let me find you in my sleep.

Over the last five years, he had amassed over three thousand photos of his solitary pilgrimages to their old spots.

My hand trembled as my fingers brushed against our wedding portrait. Xander had physically placed his hand over his own face in the shot. He had only photographed me.

The inscription on the back made my blood run cold. "By day, her face is a familiar echo. By night, in the dark, I can pretend it's her.

She doesn't possess a fraction of your light, Chelsea. She merely wears your eyes." I collapsed onto the floorboards, surrounded by thousands of scattered photos.

Chelsea's bright, sunlit smile burned into my retinas. It felt like an absolute mockery of my pathetic existence. Chelsea had been dead for ten years.

I had mourned her for ten goddamn years. I had even dragged the drunk driver who killed her through a grueling twoyear legal battle.

I had fought tooth and nail to secure a milliondollar wrongful death settlement for Donald and Dorothy. What an absolute joke.

I broke down completely, sobbing uncontrollably on the floor. My phone vibrated against the wood. It was Xander. "Something came up at the firm. I won't be home this weekend.

Don't wait up." This weekend. The exact weekend he was throwing a multimilliondollar wedding for Peyton. I stared blindly at the wall, my vocal cords paralyzed. "Audrey?

You there?" he prompted, his tone shifting into that smooth, practiced lie. "It's that massive client in Seattle. I can't afford to blow them off.

I just wired you five thousand dollars. Buy yourself something nice." I gave a faint smile. "It's fine. I don't need it.

Just take care of yourself." "Yeah." The line went dead instantly. Seconds later, another call flashed across my screen. It was Donald. Chelsea's dad. "Hey, Audrey, kiddo!

Listen, we have to cancel that trip to Ohio to see your folks. We've been invited to a wedding this weekend. We'll reschedule, alright?" I wasn't even shocked.

Donald and Dorothy were the "massive client" in Seattle. I forced out a quiet agreement and disconnected the call. Xander's secret wedding was strictly inviteonly.

The guest list was restricted to his absolute inner circle—the people who fully knew he was hopelessly obsessed with a dead girl. Peyton walked down the aisle in a custom gown.

The center diamond alone cost eight figures. Hundreds of crushed diamonds were sewn into the tulle, mimicking a starry night sky. Xander had designed it himself.

He had originally sketched it for Chelsea. Watching Peyton glide toward the altar was like watching a ghost step out of his darkest regrets.

Xander's eyes burned red with unshed tears. "Sir, one more wedding gift just arrived," Carter murmured, stepping up to the altar and handing him a sealed envelope. "It looks like it was overnighted from your estate." Xander froze.

He tore open the wax seal. He instantly recognized my handwriting on the heavy cardstock. "Congratulations to Xander and his beautiful new bride.

Please accept this small token of my blessing." Chapter 6 Beneath the envelope lay a heavy manila folder. Xander ripped it open.

The words DIVORCE SETTLEMENT screamed across the top of the crisp white parchment. His jaw clenched, a harsh line forming between his brows