The Detour

de·flected: When an object changes direction after hitting something, or the cause to deviate from an intended purpose. See examples Tiffany and Rowen Flanigan: After surviving the biggest sex scandal to rock major league soccer, the Flanigan’s are finally living the dream. They’re newlyweds, have great friends, and are both making names for themselves in their respective careers. They have goals for their future and big plans on how to make it all happen. But when a new and unexpected development suddenly arises, Tiffany and Rowen realize all those carefully made plans are about to become irrelevant. Things will never be the same when their lives are deflected. Contains explicit content and is recommended for ages 18+. Deflected is created by M.E. Carter, an eGlobal Creative Publishing Signed Author.

By the seventh year of my engagement to Tristan, he postponed our wedding for the third time. The reason was simple. His childhood sweetheart, Gabriella, had returned to the country. She had just gone through a divorce and was emotionally unstable. Tristan personally retrieved every invitation we had sent out, his tone calm and steady. "Gabby has no one by her side right now. I can't upset her at a time like this." I held the ring that had already been resized twice and asked, "What about me?" Tristan glanced at me. "You're different. You're sensible." I had been hearing that word for seven years. Sensible. When his startup failed, I sold the old house my grandmother had left me to help him pay off his debts. When he suffered a gastric hemorrhage, I stayed at the hospital for three days straight and missed my own promotion defense. When his mother said my background was too ordinary for him, he only rubbed his temples and said, "Tori, don't make this difficult for me." Every time, I nodded. He once told me that no matter how thick the fog became, he would always leave a light on for me. Until the day Gabriella stood in front of the mirror wearing my wedding dress and smiled as she asked, "Victoria, you don't mind, do you? Tristan said your wedding's being postponed anyway." Tristan stood behind her. He did not deny it. He even reached out and adjusted her veil for her. The fog lamp he had given me with his own hands sat by the display window of the bridal shop. It was still lit, illuminating someone else in the white dress I had waited seven years to wear. Only then did I realize that some roads were not lost because the fog was too thick. It was because he had never planned to come for me at all.

It was just another morning commute—until he happened. Across the train aisle sat a man who looked like he’d stepped out of a high-end magazine and straight into a power struggle. His voice sliced through the air, sharp and commanding, as he chewed someone out over the phone like he ran the damn universe. Arrogant. Entitled. Dressed like a Wall Street god. Correction: he looked like a god. That’s where the charm ended—or so I thought. When the train screeched to a stop, he stood up in a hurry, stormed off… and left his phone behind. Did I pick it up? Yep. Did I snoop? Absolutely. Photos, contacts, a few mysterious texts—I couldn’t help myself. Did I keep it longer than I should’ve, building stories in my head about the man behind the voice? Yeah… I did that too. When I finally gathered enough nerve to return it, I marched into the glass-and-steel fortress he called an office. He wouldn’t even come out to meet me. So I dropped his phone on the desk outside his office door. And maybe—I left a photo on it first. Not exactly the professional kind. What I didn’t expect? A message. From him. What followed were late-night texts that burned hotter than anything I’d ever known. Words became whispers. Whispers turned into fantasies. I was falling—for someone I hadn’t even really met. He and I? Total opposites. Fire and ice. Chaos and control. But when we finally came face to face, it wasn’t just sparks. It was an inferno. What happened next? Let’s just say… falling for him was the easy part. Surviving what came after? That’s where the real story began.

Gia Rowan was diagnosed with a terminal illness in the second year after the death of her husband. She prepared to donate everything she had built to charity, but the will of her late husband shattered her world. Her late husband had left everything he owned to his twenty-eight-year-old illegitimate son, including half of her company. She and her husband remained childless for thirty years. The mother mentioned in his will was not her, but it was Cecelia Warren instead. Betrayal struck her, and in the haze of despair, she lost consciousness. She opened her eyes again to find herself back in the third year of her marriage. With the truth in hand, she had a new chance to choose differently.

The doors of elite research institutions aren't open to the unknown. But Rick Allen pulled Beth out of nowhere. He poured everything into nurturing her talent and promised her the world. The Allen family's compromise was simple: the Chief Young Scientist had to be Summer Belden—someone from their own social circle. From that day on, the words Rick said to Beth most often were, "Just wait a little longer." He told her to wait when her groundbreaking paper was published under Summer's name in exchange for research funding. He told her to wait again when the research she'd perfected over three years was packaged as Summer's signature work, paving the way to major awards. "The bigger picture comes first," he said. "The next Nobel Prize—I'll make sure it's yours." But when the paper credited to Summer—though written by Beth—was exposed for fabricated data, everyone reached the same conclusion: Beth, as a core member of the project, had tampered with the data to steal the credit. Locked in a glass-walled archive room, Beth looked at Rick standing outside the door. His gaze was ice-cold, full of disappointment. "Why did you touch the data?" he said. "You've ruined everything I've built." She remembered how he once told her, "In this world, yours is the only talent I truly recognize." He had promised, "I'll make sure achievements with your name hang among the stars." Now he stood with the others, judging her. He looked at her the way people look at a ruthless, ambitious fraud. When she was finally released, Beth dug her nails into her palm until blood ran down. This time, she wouldn't wait any longer.

Nova Jane found love at a young age, but as those things sometimes go, they took different directions in life. Nova married Rob and has been living a life she can't seem to escape. One where every decision feels like a minefield of Robs' moods, and anything can set him off. She fantasizes about her first love to get through the abuse until she can save enough money to get out. It was then that she was happy and carefree. It helps to daydream about it, but it also hurts that it's forever beyond her reach.