Fiancé's Betrayal: My Fatal Wedding Gift

I was given three months to live. My fiancé, however, decided that was far too long.

I overheard him with my stepsister, Krista, calling our three-year relationship a "charade" he was tired of.

The bone marrow I donated to him after a car crash-the very act that triggered my fatal illness-wasn't a sacrifice. It was a transaction. He had manipulated my guilt to use me as a placeholder while he waited for his true love, Krista.

He abandoned me bleeding at our engagement party to tend to her fake injury, then gave her power of attorney over my critically ill brother, forcing me to agree to her cruel demands.

My love was a lie. My sacrifice was a punchline. The man I thought was my savior had orchestrated my death sentence and then buried me with his betrayal.

So on my wedding day, as he waited at the altar for Krista, I faked my own death. I left him with one final wedding gift: my terminal diagnosis and the truth of his deception. It was time for my revenge.

Chapter 1

Hazel POV:

I was given three months to live. My fiancé, however, decided that was far too long.

The diagnosis felt like a punch to the gut, the words knocking the air from my lungs. Severe autoimmune disease. Aplastic Anemia. My own body was waging a war against itself, systematically destroying the bone marrow that produced life.

I stared at the crisp white report in my hands, the black letters swimming before my eyes. A death sentence.

"Hazel," Dr. Evans said, his voice a gentle intrusion into the roaring silence in my head. He pushed a box of tissues across his mahogany desk. "We have options. Treatments. We can fight this."

His words were meant to be a life raft, but I was already too far out at sea, the shore a distant, fading memory. The treatments were brutally expensive and offered no guarantees. All they promised was a prolonged, painful goodbye. A goodbye I wasn't ready to say, especially not to my younger brother, Jakobe, whose own fragile heart depended on the very medical care I could no longer afford.

And Harden.

My fiancé. The charismatic, ruthless tech mogul who had swept into my life and promised me a universe of stars. How could I tell him our future had an expiration date?

My hand trembled as I clutched the report. I had to tell him. He deserved to know. He was my rock, the man who had taught me how to love again after so much loss.

My feet moved on autopilot, carrying me out of the sterile clinic and into the bustling streets of Seattle. The sleek, formidable tower of Diaz Technologies loomed ahead, a monument to the man I was about to break.

The elevator ascended in a smooth, silent glide. I stepped out onto the executive floor, the plush carpet muffling my footsteps. Harden' s office door was slightly ajar. I could hear his voice, a low, familiar rumble that always made my heart flutter.

But then, another voice joined his. A voice that was sharp, saccharine, and laced with a cruelty I knew all too well.

Krista. My stepsister.

I froze, my hand hovering near the doorknob.

"Harden, darling, you can' t be serious," Krista' s voice dripped with disdain. "You' re actually going to wait until after the IPO to dump her? My God, this charade has gone on for three years. I' m tired of waiting."

A cold dread, colder than any medical diagnosis, began to creep up my spine. Charade?

"Patience, Krista," Harden' s voice was smooth, a placating murmur. "Frank Schmitt is watching the stocks like a hawk. Any scandal before we go public could be disastrous. Hazel has served her purpose. Just a little longer."

Purpose? My mind reeled. The paper in my hand crinkled as my grip tightened.

"Her purpose?" Krista laughed, a high, piercing sound. "You mean being my placeholder? God, I still can' t believe she was naive enough to donate her bone marrow to you. She literally paid to be your fiancée."

The world tilted on its axis. The conversation continued, but the words became a distorted, monstrous echo. They were talking about the car accident. The accident three years ago that had nearly killed Harden. The one where I, consumed by a misplaced guilt, had stepped forward without a second thought.

"Don' t be so harsh," Harden said, a hint of something unreadable in his tone. "The accident... it messed with my memory. I needed someone. Guilt is a powerful motivator. All I had to do was whisper that the crash was her fault, and she was putty in my hands. 'I have to save you, Harden.' She' s always been a self-sacrificing fool."

A fool.

The word slammed into me. The bone marrow donation. My sacrifice, the act that had slowly but surely compromised my own immune system, leading me to this very death sentence, had been nothing more than a manipulated, calculated transaction. He had lied. From the very beginning.

His amnesia was real, but the love that blossomed afterward... it was a lie. He had used me. A warm body to keep his bed full while he waited for Krista, his one true love, to return from her stint abroad.

"Well, she' s a fool who' s about to be very, very rich," Krista purred. "Or, at least, her family is. That sick little brother of hers is quite the money pit."

The mention of Jakobe was a physical blow. A wave of nausea washed over me, and a sharp, searing pain tore through my abdomen, a brutal reminder of the traitorous cells multiplying within me. I gasped, stumbling back, my shoulder hitting the wall with a dull thud.

The voices inside the office stopped.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. The carefully constructed world I had built with Harden, the love I thought was my salvation, shattered into a million irreparable pieces.

The diagnosis in my hand felt like a joke. A cruel, cosmic punchline.

My body was killing me, but his words had already buried me.

I turned and ran. I ran past the confused receptionist, ran into the sterile elevator, ran out into the cold, indifferent city. The memories Harden had so carefully curated for me now played back in my mind, each one twisted and poisoned by the truth.

It was three years ago. I was working three jobs, struggling to pay for Jakobe' s art school tuition and his mounting medical bills. One of my gigs was as a designated driver, a late-night hustle for extra cash. That night, the call came from a high-end downtown bar. The client was Harden Diaz, a name I only knew from the business pages.

He was drunk, belligerent, and demanding I drive faster through the slick, rain-soaked streets. He kept yelling a name, a name I now recognized with chilling clarity.

"Krista! Why did you leave me, Krista!"

He had grabbed the wheel, trying to wrench control from me. The car skidded, a symphony of screeching tires and shattering glass. The world went black.

When I awoke, it was to the frantic pleas of his family. He needed a bone marrow transplant. A rare blood type. The same as mine. They offered me money, a fortune that could secure Jakobe' s future forever.

I refused. Not out of nobility, but out of a crushing, suffocating guilt. I believed the accident was my fault. I was the driver.

So I gave him my marrow. My life force.

And in return, he gave me a three-year lie.

When he woke up with partial amnesia, his memory of the moments before the crash gone, he saw me by his bedside and his eyes, the color of warm whiskey, filled with a devotion I had mistaken for love.

"You saved me," he had whispered, his hand finding mine. "I feel like… I' ve known you forever."

He pursued me with a relentless passion. He learned to cook my favorite meals, even though he was a disaster in the kitchen. He covered all of Jakobe' s medical expenses, sending him to the best cardiac specialists in the country. He even bought a star through an online registry and named it "Hazel' s Heart," presenting the certificate to me on our one-year anniversary.

"A bit cheesy, I know," he had said, a sheepish grin on his handsome face. Frank Schmitt, his best friend and business partner, had been there, laughing along.

"Only a man ridiculously in love would do something so cheesy," Frank had quipped, raising his glass. Frank, who knew the truth all along.

"I just wanted to give you something as permanent as my love for you," Harden had explained, his gaze sincere and unwavering. "Something that will burn brightly forever."

The memory, once a source of warmth, now burned like acid in my gut.

It was all a performance. Every kiss, every whispered promise, every grand romantic gesture. It was a meticulously crafted illusion, and I was its most devoted audience.

Now, the show was over. The curtains had fallen. And I was left alone in the dark, with nothing but a terminal diagnosis and the chilling echo of his laughter.