Page 1 of The Rejected Wife

1

Priscilla

The universe rises to meet your bravery.

-Cilla’s Post-it note

“Hold it!” I shout, sprinting down the platform of the train station like my life depends on it. The warning beeps blare—too close. The doors begin to slide shut. My ballet flats slam against concrete. I leap.

Almost make it.

Almost.

Something jerks me back mid-stride.

“What the—?” My voice catches as I twist around. No. No, no, no. My handbag is stuck. Wedged between the train’s closing doors, clamped in place like a bear trap.

I tug once. Twice. The strap slips from my shoulders. I grab at it; hold onto it. “Come on!” I whisper-shout, yanking at it with both hands.

The train is going to move. I can feel it, the low hum under my feet, the tightening tension in the air.

The sensors aremeantto stop this sort of thing, right? I mean you’re supposed to trust the system, trust the process, like the online productivity gurus would have you believe.

Yeah. No.

There’s no emergency release. No hidden button. No divine intervention.

There’s no way to pry the doors open unless my affirmations have magically turned into biceps. Spoiler alert:They haven’t.

If this train moves, my purse—along with my phone, my wallet, my ID, my entire existence—is gone. Vaporized into the dark, grimy void of the London Underground.

I give the strap another desperate pull.

Nothing.

Around me, no one seems to notice.

A man scrolls mindlessly on his phone. A woman’s nose is buried in a Kindle. A teenager bops her head to music, eyes shut, lost in a world far kinder than mine right now.

I’m invisible. A heartbeat passes. Panic bubbles up, hot and bitter.Come on. Come on.

“You are not stuck. You are being rerouted to something better.”A line from the last self-help book I read flashes through my brain. Cute. Not helpful.

I plant my feet. Grit my teeth. Try again.

Still nothing.

Then—

“Allow me.”

The voice comes from above and behind me. Husky. Commanding. Velvet wrapped around gravel. I freeze. The hair on the back of my neck lifts.

Then I turn.And Sweet. Holy Sweet Law of Attraction.

The man towering behind me is the kind I’ve never seen before in real life. He seems to have stepped off a movie screen. Like something out of a fever dream. Tall. Broad. Built like he bench presses Aston Martins for fun. His face? Sharp cheekbones, strong jaw, lips made for bad decisions.

But it’s the eyes that stop me cold—one an icy blue, the other a deep forest green. The look in them piercing. Confident. Like he was born with assurance coded into his DNA.

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