Left at the Altar of Lies

The first trip we took after officially declaring our feelings for each other ended in a mess of shattered glass and twisted metal.

When I finally blinked my eyes open, the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital room momentarily blinded me. And then, there was Spencer. He was sitting by my bedside, his handsome face etched with a textbook display of agonizing worry.

Seeing him like that, a sudden, mischievous spark ignited in my chest. I decided to play a little game. Feigning a perfectly blank, confused stare, I tilted my head and whispered, "Who are you?"

Spencer froze. The breath hitched in his throat.

Underneath the blanket, I was secretly smiling. I remembered the frantic, desperate way he had confessed his love to me just days ago. Now that I had conveniently "lost my memory," how would he play it? Would he immediately claim the title of boyfriend? Or would he skip the formalities and call himself my future husband?

I was biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.

But then, the air in the room seemed to turn to ice.

"I'm your fianc," Spencer said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "But, to be completely honest with you... there are no real feelings between us."

My heart stopped.

Before I could even process the words, he pulled out his phone and turned the screen toward me. Staring back at me was a photo of a girl. She looked timid, frail, drowning in an oversized sweater. I recognized her vaguelyshe was a charity case his familys philanthropic foundation had put through college.

"This is the woman I actually love," Spencer continued, his tone conversational, as if he were discussing the weather. "You know how it is with our families. This marriage is just a boardroom merger. We've always agreed to live our own separate lives."

Separate lives?

If that was the case, there was absolutely no reason for this wedding to happen.

Without a second of hesitation in my heart, I knew the engagement was over.

But as time went on, I would learn a bitter truth about Spencer Harrington: he was a man who wanted to play a game he couldn't afford to lose, and no matter how hard I tried to throw him away, he just wouldn't let go.

[1]

After pulling the doctor aside to confirm that retrograde amnesia was indeed a plausible side effect of my concussion, Spencer walked back to my bed.

"I brought you on this trip specifically to confess this to you," he said, his eyes darting away from mine, unable to hold my gaze. "But don't worry. I am still going to marry you."

A fiery, suffocating rage clawed at my throat.

"If your heart belongs to someone else, why the hell would you marry me?"

I reached blindly for my phone on the nightstand. "Tell me which one of these contacts is my father. I'm calling him right now. The wedding is off."

"Don't!"

Spencer lunged forward, his fingers clamping down hard around my wrist.

Our eyes locked. For a fraction of a second, I saw raw, unfiltered panic flash in his irises.

A tiny, pathetic ember of hope flared in my chest. Was it a joke? Was he just trying to get back at me for my amnesia prank?

But before that pathetic joy could even begin to warm me, Spencer shattered it.

"Can you stop being so damn impulsive?" he snapped. "Do you have any idea how many millions in capital our families will bleed if we call off this merger now?"

He leaned closer, his jaw tight. "You are the golden child of the Prescott family. Nobody will ever point a finger at you. But what about my love? What about Paige? Shes just a girl from a trailer park who relies on my foundation. If the press digs into our relationship, they'll tear her apart. What is she supposed to do?"

A wave of absolute bitterness flooded my mouth. I wanted to scream at him: And what about me? What am I supposed to do? Am I just the sacrificial lamb for your trust fund?

Suddenly, Spencer seemed to remember that I was the one who had just been pulled from a car wreck. His gaze dropped to my wrist, which was now turning a violent shade of red under his grip.

A flicker of remorse crossed his face. He let go.

"I know you're a perfectionist. I know you hate the idea of sharing," he said, his voice softening into something patronizing. "Just relax. I'm going to send her abroad soon. We'll never see each other again."

He left the room shortly after. I didn't say a single word. I couldn't.

For over a decade, we had been the perfect high-society clichchildhood sweethearts destined for the altar. I had honestly believed the feelings were mutual. It turned out I was just a fool living in an echo chamber of my own devotion. Spencer Harringtons heart had been given away a long time ago.

"What the hell is going on with you?"

Around midnight, hushed voices drifted through the crack in my hospital door.

"You literally just confessed your dying love to Caroline Prescott," one of his fraternity brothers was whispering fiercely. "And now you're telling us Paige is your girlfriend?"

"Ive been engaged to Caroline since we were kids. She looks at me like I hung the moon. I figured it was just time I said the words..." Spencers voice drifted through the gap, sounding utterly detached.

"But then yesterday, Paige texted me. She said she wanted to die." Spencer's tone suddenly shifted, filling with an anxious, vibrating energy. "I didn't realize how much she depended on me."

"Paige is so fragile. Shes constantly terrified of losing me. I need to give her a love that is entirely, exclusively hers."

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The moment my bare toes touched the freezing linoleum floor, a physical ache shot through my heart.

"So what about Caroline?" the friend asked.

"I'm not going to string them both along," Spencer reasoned, sounding disgustingly righteous. "I just want to spend this last stretch of time with Paige. I need to teach her how to stand on her own two feet. Then Ill set up a trust for her, give her enough money to be comfortable, and send her far away. I'll never see her again."

"And Caroline?"

"Caroline and I are a done deal. Our marriage is set in stone. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to her."

My heart flatlined. It was completely, utterly dead.

I tilted my head back, staring at the sterile ceiling tiles, refusing to let a single tear fall for a man who wasn't worth the salt.

Spencer, if you knew I was a perfectionist, if you knew I wouldn't accept a tarnished love... why did you ever think you could test my limits?

I picked up my phone and opened the text thread with my dad.

[Cancel the engagement with the Harringtons.]

[2]

I sat frozen on the edge of the bed until dawn broke. When my phone finally buzzed, my father's anxious voice filled my ear.

"Sweetheart? Aren't you and Spencer on vacation? I thought you two were practically walking down the aisle. Why the sudden cancellation?"

I stayed silent for a long moment.

I had spent the entire night tearing my heart apart and stitching it back together. The conclusion was simple: over ten years of unrequited longing had amounted to absolutely nothing. I refused to force a lock that didn't fit my key.

I forced a casual, breezy tone. "I hate the voice he uses on his car's GPS. Were just not compatible, Dad."

My father, Richard Prescott, loved me more than anything in this world. Hearing my flippant excuse, he just let out a low, knowing chuckle.

"Honestly, it's fine. I've been looking to expand our European portfolio anyway. If you're done with this wedding nonsense, I'll have the staff open up the estate in Lake Geneva tomorrow."

I didn't mention Paige's name. The girl had clawed her way out of crushing poverty; maybe she wasn't inherently malicious.

A second after I hung up, my phone vibrated. A new friend request on social media.

It was Paige.

The moment I accepted, without a single word of greeting, she bombarded me with photos.

The first image was of Spencer and Paige crammed into a tiny, claustrophobic studio apartment. The rickety table was covered in foodall of it bland, steamed, and entirely devoid of spice.

But Spencer loved heat. He loved rich, complex, scorching flavors.

[He cooked every single dish,] Paige's message pinged right after. [I can't handle spicy food, so he compromises for me. Even though hes eating bland food, as long as he looks up and sees me smiling, hes happy.]

My breath caught in my throat.

I didn't like spicy food either. But whenever my eyes watered from the heat of a dish at a Michelin-starred restaurant, Spencer would just prop his chin on his hand and laugh at me.

"If you can't even handle a little chili, how are you going to survive being the Harrington matriarch?" he used to tease.

I had always thought it was just playful banter. Now I realized the truth: he had been conditioning me to accept a life where I would never be prioritized.

My fingers trembled as I tapped on the second photo.

It was a pair of matching vintage Cartier watches. The kind where if you wound one, the other would sync, even across the world.

[This was the gift you begged him for when you turned eighteen. It's a shame. I told him I thought they were pretty, so he gave them to me instead.]

A memory hit me like a physical blow. When I had asked Spencer for those watches, he had tapped my nose affectionately and laughed.

"In such a rush to mark your territory? I thought you were going to cancel the engagement the second you became an adult."

I had been so sure he was going to buy them for me that I had pretended to be annoyed and never brought it up again.

But at my eighteenth birthday gala, he had gifted me a custom diamond necklace featuring stones sourced from four different continents.

"Those watches are so clich," he had told me back then. "This necklace actually means something."

I had been so swept up in the romance of him traveling the world for my diamonds. I only just realized he had meticulously redirected my interest so I wouldn't find out he had already given the watches to Paige.

As I scrolled through the photos, the last remaining warmth in my blood turned to ice.

[Miss Prescott, is it really that fun guarding a man who doesn't even love you?]

When I didn't reply fast enough, her impatience bled through the screen.

I let out a dry, hollow laugh. My fingers moved steadily over the keyboard.

[I'm so sorry, but I suffered a head injury in a car crash and have retrograde amnesia. I have no idea who you are, and my memories of Spencer are pretty blurry.]

[All I know is that when I woke up, he insisted we were getting married, and promised me he was shipping you off to another country very soon.]

Paige went dead silent for several agonizing minutes. Finally, a single message popped up.

[You are out of your league. You can't beat me.]

I frowned at the screen. Beat her? Who the hell was trying to compete?

A split second later, the hospital room door slammed open. Spencer stormed in, his eyes blazing with fury.

"Didn't I tell you I was going to marry you? Why the hell are you still torturing Paige?!"

Before I could even open my mouth, Spencer lunged at me and violently ripped the IV needle out of the back of my hand.

"Paige tried to kill herself! She's in hypovolemic shock right now. I know your blood type matches hers. You are coming with me right now to give her a transfusion!"

I recoiled, clutching my bleeding hand. "What does her suicide attempt have to do with me?"

Spencer stared at me, his expression a twisted mess of anger and disgust.

"Caroline, you knew exactly how fragile her mental state is. Yet you purposely texted her, bragging that I was going to send her away."

"I already promised you I wouldn't see her after the wedding. Why did you have to push her over the edge right now?"

"This is your fault. You are going to take responsibility for it."

I swallowed the heavy, suffocating lump of betrayal in my throat. I looked him dead in the eye and enunciated every word.

"The doctor explicitly said I need bed rest after the concussion"

A cruel, mocking smirk twisted Spencer's lips. His chest was heaving.

"Cut the crap. At the end of the day, you just want her dead, don't you? Why couldn't you just give her a few more months?"

His voice dropped into a terrifyingly low register. "Does a human life mean absolutely nothing to you?"

I sat completely frozen.

Over a decade of history. A childhood spent side by side. And it wasn't enough to buy me even a singular ounce of his trust.

Ignoring my desperate screams, Spencer dragged me out of the bed, hauled me up to the hospital roof, and shoved me into his family's private helicopter.

My concussion was still raging. The violent vibrations of the chopper blades made the world spin until I thought my skull would crack open.

The moment we landed at his private medical facility, he yanked me out and practically dragged me down the sterile hallways.

He pinned me down into the phlebotomy chair. It was only when the freezing wipe of the alcohol swab hit my arm that I finally found my voice.

"Spencer, are you out of your goddamn mind?"

The attending doctor noticed my pale, trembling state. After drawing only a fraction of a bag, he immediately stopped the line.

"Mr. Harrington, this young woman's current physical trauma makes her an unsuitable donor for a full extraction."

The doctor pointed to two full bags of blood already sitting on the counter. "Besides, we already have enough for Paige's immediate needs, and the blood bank courier is ten minutes away."

Spencer's eyes finally dragged themselves to my ghostly white face. A flicker of hesitation crossed his features, and his brow furrowed.

[3]

Suddenly, a pathetic, trembling whimper echoed from the observation room next door. It was Paige.

Spencer's demeanor shifted instantly. All hesitation vanished.

"Keep drawing," he ordered coldly. "Paige is the one actively dying."

"Caroline, you made this mess. You pay the price."

As he watched my lips slowly turn a bruised shade of purple, Spencer seemed to waver. He reached out and gently rested his hand over mine.

"Just hold on a little longer. It's almost over," he murmured, his tone dripping with a sudden, sickening gentleness. "I just needed you to learn a lesson. You shouldn't have bullied her."

Revolted, I violently ripped my hand out from under his. I squeezed my eyes shut, refusing to look at him for a second longer.

Spencer let out a heavy sigh. He pulled out his phone and made a call.

"That hyper-exclusive restorative stem-cell infusion they were auctioning off tonight? Call the concierge doctor. Tell him I'm buying it. Whatever the price."

I slowly faded into unconsciousness.

When I woke up, the private suite was empty. The only thing in the room was a steaming cup of an artisanal herbal restorative tea resting on my bedside table.

My body felt like lead, but I forced myself up. I didn't even glance at the cup. I shoved my feet into my shoes and staggered toward the door, desperate to leave.

As I passed the room next to mine, a weak, raspy voice called out.

It was Paige.

I paused for a fraction of a second, but I didn't turn around. I had no interest in her games.

But as I took my next step, a blood-curdling scream ripped through the air behind me.

"Ah! It's burning!"

I instinctively whipped around. Paige was sitting up in bed, having just deliberately upended a scalding cup of boiling herbal broth entirely over her own forearm.

"Caroline!"

Spencer's roar echoed from the end of the hallway.

He sprinted into the room, grabbing my shoulder and violently shoving me inside with him.

"When the hell are you going to stop?!" Spencer's eyes were practically alight with fury. "You can't even leave a dying patient alone?"

I watched as he frantically grabbed sterile gauze, his hands trembling as he delicately tended to her burns. Suddenly, I just felt bone-deep exhaustion.

I looked right past him, fixing my gaze on Paige's eyes. My voice was eerily calm.

"I am not marrying Spencer. You can drop the act."

Spencer's hands froze.

After a few agonizing seconds, he slowly stood up. A patronizing, mocking smile touched the corners of his mouth.

"The doctor said your amnesia was temporary."

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a worn, leather-bound notebook. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed it onto the bed in front of me.

"When you finally remember how desperately you used to love me, you'll regret saying something so incredibly stupid."

My heart violently spasmed.

It was my diary. The one I had shyly pressed into his hands the night he confessed to me. Its pages were filled with a decade's worth of agonizing, embarrassing, heartfelt declarations of love that I had been too terrified to say out loud.

And now, he was using my own vulnerable, teenage heart as a weapon to humiliate me.

I bit down on my lower lip so hard I tasted copper, but the tears spilled over anyway, hot and unstoppable.

Spencer kept going.

"If you ever go back to being the kind, graceful Caroline Prescott I knew, I will respect you, love you, and protect you just like I used to."

"But look at you now. You're so consumed by jealousy you don't even care if someone dies."

"Selfish. Vicious... When did you turn into such a monster?"

I was choking on my own sobs, completely unable to form a word in my defense.

"She has always been exactly who she is."

A deep, commanding voice suddenly cut through the heavy air from the doorway. "She has always been a proud princess. And princesses never bow their heads. You are the one who failed her."

[4]

The man who walked into the room was dressed in the tailored black suit of the Prescott family security detail, but he moved with an unmistakable, overwhelming aura of aristocratic authority.

He stepped between us, shielding me completely from Spencer's view, and pulled me into a protective embrace.

"I apologize for the delay, Ms. Prescott."

I quickly wiped my face, swallowed my tears, and looked over the bodyguard's broad shoulder at Spencer.

"I'm sorry," I said, my voice finally steady. "How desperately did I love you? I guess I just can't remember."

Without another word, I turned on my heel. In my peripheral vision, I caught a rare flash of genuine panic on Spencer's face. He took a step forward, as if to chase after me.

"Spencer... my arm... it hurts so much..." Paiges fragile, trembling voice echoed from the bed.

Spencer stopped. He didn't follow me.

As I crossed the threshold out of the ward, I grabbed the leather diary off the edge of the bed and dropped it straight into the biohazard trash bin.

After that day, I severed all contact with Spencer Harrington. I was busy packing my life into boxes; he was busy giving Paige his "exclusive" love.

A few days later, the high-end bridal atelier on Fifth Avenue sent me a text. The bespoke wedding dress I had spent months personally designing was finally finished.

It hit me thenour grand society wedding was supposed to be exactly one week away.

Even though I knew I would never walk down the aisle in it, I had poured my soul into that design. I just wanted to see it one last time.

Inside the hushed, velvet-lined boutique, the gown shimmered under the spotlights, an absolute masterpiece of silk and hand-sewn pearls. My fingers were trembling as I gently grazed the tulle.

"I thought you said you weren't marrying him? Clearly, you're still obsessing."

I turned around. It was Paige. Again.

"I came to say goodbye to my art," I said coolly. "I have zero interest in keeping a man whose loyalty comes with an asterisk."

"It's just a shame this dress is going to waste."

I let out a sharp, dismissive laugh. "If you want it so badly, it's yours. Take it."

To my surprise, Paige didn't look insulted. Her eyes lit up with a terrifying, greedy hunger. She actually stepped forward, reaching out to touch the fabric.

I sighed, shaking my head. In a way, her delusion was pathetic. At the end of the day, Spencer was the architect of this entire disaster.

But I vastly underestimated the depths of Paige's malice.

The moment she leaned over the bodice, her breathing hitched. She began gasping violently, her knees buckling as she collapsed onto the plush carpet.

Panicking, I dropped to my knees beside her. "What's wrong with you?"

"Paige!"

Before I could even touch her, I was violently shoved backward. Spencer had arrived.

Paige's lips were turning blue, but as she looked up at me, I caught a fleeting, unmistakable gleam of absolute triumph in her eyes.

"Ms. Prescott... she said..." Paige gasped, clutching her chest. "She said since you were shipping me away... I should at least get to see the wedding dress..."

"I was so jealous... I just wanted to touch it... but suddenly... my asthma..."

Spencer's hands flew over the dress. He noticed a faint dusting of fine powder on the silk neckline. He brought his fingers to his nose, and then his eyes snapped to mine, sharp and lethal.

"Hazelnut dust. Paige has a severe tree nut allergy. You did this on purpose!"

He screamed for his driver to get the car ready to rush her to the ER.

I shook my head, utterly bewildered. "I literally already told you I am not marrying you! Why on earth would I go out of my way to hurt her?"

Spencer, his face darkened with absolute rage, ignored my words completely. He raised his hand and slapped me hard across the cheek.

"Liar! You're literally standing here hovering over your wedding dress, and you're still lying to my face!"

"I gave you my word that I would send her away! Why couldn't you just let her live?!"

He grabbed me by the arm, dragging me toward the back of the boutique, and shoved me into the windowless, soundproof VIP fitting room.

Then, he hit the light switch.

"Spencer, you bastard, you know I'm claustrophobic!" I screamed, slamming my fists against the heavy oak door.

The room was pitch black, sealed tighter than a vault.

Spencer didn't say a word.

Through the suffocating darkness, the tiny red light of the smoke detector blinked rhythmically. My heart began to pound against my ribs like a trapped bird.

When I was ten years old, I had been kidnapped and locked in a shipping container. The trauma had left me with paralyzing claustrophobia.

Back then, my parents had been too busy dealing with the fallout and the police. It was Spencer who had snuck into my bedroom every single night, holding my hand until the night terrors passed.

Don't be afraid, he used to whisper in the dark. I'm right here. You never have to be scared again.

But now, separated by a heavy wooden door, his voice was ice-cold.

"Sit in the dark and think about what you did today. Maybe it will teach you to stop torturing Paige."

My lungs seized. The panic attack hit me like a freight train. I collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably, gasping for air that wasn't there.

"I never touched her! I swear I didn't! I'll leave! I'll never look at you again! Please, just let me out!"

My begged screams were cut off by the muffled voice of Spencer's driver in the hallway.

"Sir, she's fading fast. She keeps crying, saying she just wants to see you one last time before she dies."

The footsteps rapidly faded away. I was left entirely alone, shivering violently in the pitch black.

I don't know how many hours passed. My nails were bloody from scratching at the door. Finally, light flooded the room.

It wasn't Spencer.

It was the bodyguard from the hospital. And standing right behind him was my father.

Seeing me curled up on the floor, covered in sweat and shivering, a flash of pure, agonizing heartbreak crossed the bodyguard's stoic face.

My father was shaking with a wrath I had never seen before.

"My daughter has been treated like absolute garbage, and I am only finding out about this now?!"

Right before I blacked out from the exhaustion, I heard my father issue a quiet, terrifying order to his right-hand man.

"That zoning intel from the governor's office? Don't warn the Harringtons. Let them sink their entire fortune into bidding on that plot of land."

My father knelt down, his warm hand gently brushing the matted hair from my forehead.

"Oh, my sweet girl. I thought you were just throwing a tantrum about the wedding. I haven't even officially broken the news to the Harrington board yet. But since Spencer is so desperately in love with that little viper..."

His voice dropped into a lethal whisper. "This wedding is going to be my grand gift to the happy couple. I hope they're ready to choke on it."