Ateez #illusion Novels & Stories

At twenty-eight, I held the dubious honor of being the last unmarried socialite on New York's Upper East Side. Everyone around me was growing increasingly anxious about my single status. In my previous life, my mother arranged a matchmaking cocktail party, where I was told to choose a husband from ten handpicked elite bachelors. I bribed the event planner to place Mark West's profile at the very top—and as I had hoped, I chose him. After we married, Mark treated me with what seemed like tender affection. He even bought me an oceanfront villa in the Hamptons, making me believe I had finally found true love. But that illusion shattered the day I was nine months pregnant, just hours away from giving birth. Mark drove a scalpel straight into my abdomen—then, right in front of me, hurled our newborn onto the floor. "If you hadn't forced me into this marriage with your family's power, Sofia wouldn't have been heartbroken enough to go drinking and get drugged and assaulted. This… this is what you owe her!" He tossed the scalpel aside, then calmly let his private doctor pin down my blood-soaked body. I fought through excruciating pain for six agonizing hours, until I finally bled to death. Afterward, Mark dumped my corpse into the Hudson River. But for Sofia, he hosted a grand funeral—funded with my money, under my name—and paraded himself to the world as a grieving, devoted widower. Given a second chance at life, I refused to step foot in that cursed matchmaking event. Instead, I went straight to my mother with a demand: marry me to Robert Black—the most ruthless, cold-blooded titan of Wall Street, whose scarred face was feared by all. In the end, stripped of my financial backing, Mark's hedge fund collapsed. He became a disgraced fraudster, spat on by everyone on Wall Street.

Beverly Sinclair and Evan Gray have loved each other for ten years, and they've been married for six. To everyone else, Evan seems madly in love with Beverly. He's devoted, gentle, and basically the perfect husband. But it's only when his mistress shows up at her door that Beverly realizes it was all a cruel joke. He's been cheating for five years, and he even has an illegitimate child. He keeps the other woman right under Beverly's nose, all while wearing the mask of a loving husband. He says he loves her—even more than life itself. But how is this love? Evan hides behind layers of fake affection, dragging everyone around him into the charade, all so he can build the illusion of a perfect marriage. Even Beverly's son has been lying to her. It's a double betrayal from father and son, especially when they act like the mistress is the one who completes the family. Utterly devastated, Beverly decides she's done with this. She returns to her classified team and leaves behind the absurd, hollow life that never truly belonged to her. When the one-month notice period ends, she disappears completely, vanishing from the world without a trace. From that moment on, Evan never sees Beverly again. ... Evan loves Beverly to his core. He was just too afraid to lose her, yet that fear turned their marriage into a tragedy. He thought he hid it well. He thought their marriage was still blissful and that the woman he loved so deeply would never discover the truth. But it's only after Beverly vanishes from his world that he realizes just how wrong he was. Evan breaks down, losing his sanity. He gives up everything. He jumps through hoops and kneels before every god he can find, begging for just one more glance from her. With red eyes and shaking hands, he pleads, "Can you please... love me once more?" However, the truth is that a late apology is worth less than nothing. Beverly already has someone new in her life. There's no place left for Evan or their son.