Chapter 1

The pounding in my head came first, a dull throb behind my eyes. Then came the voices. Not real voices, but text. Floating, golden text, shimmering in the air right in front of my face.

[LOL, here we go! Divorce Day! The classic starting point for the wife-chasing crematorium!]

[Can' t wait to see the male lead, Liam Stone, act like a total jerk and then spend the next 200 chapters groveling.]

[Hurry up and sign the papers, Olivia! Make him suffer!]

I blinked. The words didn't disappear. I was Ethan Miller, a tech entrepreneur who had just coded for 36 hours straight. I should have been passed out on the couch in my minimalist San Francisco apartment. I was not Liam Stone, some character from a novel.

But the room I was in wasn't mine. It was a sterile, opulent office, all glass and chrome. A woman sat across a massive mahogany desk from me. She was beautiful in a fragile, pale way, her eyes red-rimmed but her back ramrod straight. Olivia Hayes. My... wife.

On the desk between us lay a document. The header was stark and clear: DIVORCE AGREEMENT.

My head throbbed again, and a flood of information poured in. Not my memories, but his. Liam Stone' s. A cold, detached CEO. A man who had systematically emotionally abused his wife, Olivia, driven by his obsession with a manipulative ex-girlfriend, a "white moonlight" named Sarah Jenkins. A man whose own father despised him. A man destined for a miserable, pathetic end, chasing a woman who would never truly forgive him.

The story was a joke. A toxic, horribly written tragedy sold as romance. And I was its star player.

[Look at his face. So cold. He' s definitely thinking about his precious Sarah right now.]

[He's going to regret this so much. He deserves it.]

[Sign it, Olivia! Get away from this trash man!]

The comments multiplied, a swarm of angry, buzzing gnats. They were an audience, unseen but felt, and they were all expecting a show. They wanted the drama, the pain, the regret. They wanted the crematorium.

I looked at Olivia. She stared at the papers, her knuckles white where she gripped the pen. Her chin trembled slightly. She was waiting for me to say something cruel, to deliver the final blow as the script demanded.

I felt a surge of something hot and sharp. Not Liam's cold indifference, but my own. Ethan Miller's. It was pure, unadulterated refusal.

To hell with the script. To hell with Liam Stone's miserable fate. I wasn't him. I wouldn't live his life. I wanted out.

My hand shot out, grabbing the sleek, expensive fountain pen next to the document. The weight of it felt alien.

Olivia flinched, her eyes finally lifting to meet mine. They were full of a weary, bruised sort of expectation. She thought I was going to rip the papers up, or mock her one last time.

[Here it comes! The classic abusive line before he refuses to sign!]

["You think you can leave me? Don't even dream of it!" Classic.]

I ignored the floating text. I ignored the memories of the man whose body I now occupied. I looked at Olivia, then down at the signature line under the name 'Liam Stone.'

With a decisive flick of my wrist, I signed it. The ink was black and final.

I pushed the document across the polished desk toward her. It slid to a stop right in front of her trembling hands.

"It's done," I said. My voice was deeper than I was used to, colder. It was Liam's voice, but the words were mine. "You're free."

The floating comments in the air flickered and then stopped. A digital silence fell over the room.

Olivia stared at the signature, then at my face. Her expression was one of complete, utter shock. This wasn't in the script. The audience was silent. For the first time, no one knew what was going to happen next.

I felt a sliver of something that tasted like freedom. I knew the original story. I knew the plot against Olivia, the miscarriage she suffered because of Sarah Jenkins and her supposed childhood friend, Mark Davies. I knew how Liam' s father, Richard Stone, would blame Liam for everything and champion Olivia. I knew the pathetic, groveling end that awaited the man I was supposed to be.

No. Not me.

I stood up, the chair scraping softly against the marble floor.

"I wish you well, Ms. Hayes," I said, the formality a clean, sharp blade severing the final tie. "From now on, we have nothing to do with each other."

[Wait... what?]

[Did he just... sign it? Willingly?]

[The plot! What about the plot?! This isn't how it's supposed to go!]

The comments were back, no longer mocking, but confused. Disoriented.

Good. Let them be confused.

I was Ethan Miller. And I was getting the hell out of this story.