Married By Chance, Loved By Choice

My godmother Eleanor, ever the matchmaker, sat across from me with a stack of glossy portfolios, ready to choose my future wife.

But a cold dread washed over me, sharper than any D.C. winter.

I remembered it all: Veronica, "Ronnie" Sterling, my ex-wife, handing me divorce papers with a chilling smile.

"I never loved you," she'd said, after ten years of marriage, revealing her secret second family in Napa.

Then came the blinding headlights, the deliberate act that ended my life, leaving me betrayed and alone in a dark alley.