The $50,000 Stand-In: I Faked My Death and Forgot He Existed

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The year I was at my absolute brokest, I sold myself to Carter Sterling for $50,000 to act as a stand-in for the one that got away.

His friends egged me on to drink until my stomach bled.

They asked him: Does your heart ache for her?

He lowered his eyes, his tone indifferent: She's just a placeholder.

Later, to save his first love, Carter watched helplessly as I plunged off a cliff into the ocean.

Search and rescue teams never found my body.

He suddenly went mad, searching the entire world for me.

Five years later, I was invited back to the States and ran into him at an event.

He stared at me intensely, his eyes red: "I knew you didn't die. I've been looking everywhere for you"

I took a step back, smiling politely but distantly: "I'm sorry, who are you?"

In Carter Sterling's mind, I was his girlfriend in name only.

In reality, I was just a cheap replica of Serena Blair. A very low-budget one at that.

She was a glamorous Hollywood actress, surrounded by adoring fans.

And I was just a girl from the slums.

With $50,000, Carter had bought my entire sense of self-worth.

The day Serena returned to the States, her name dominated the trending topics on X.

Carter went to the airport to pick her up for a welcome party. Before he left, he dropped a single sentence on me.

"I'm not coming home for dinner tonight."

Yet, only an hour into my studying, he called.

"There's a vintage bottle of wine in the cellar. Find it and bring it to the restaurant."

My focus was broken. I sighed, hung up, found the bottle, and drove over.

The private dining room was heavily guarded, brightly lit, and reeked of luxury.

In the center of the room, like a king and queen, sat Carter and Serena.

She wore a shimmering silver gown, leaning intimately against him.

Everyone was cheering: "Serena is finally back! You have no idea how long Carter has waited for you."

I walked over and stopped in front of Carter. "The wine you asked for. I checked the label; it should be the right one."

The perfectly harmonious atmosphere froze for a second the moment I arrived.

Setting the bottle down, I turned to leave.

Serena's light voice rang out behind me: "Stop right there."

"Come over here, open the wine, and pour it for us."

I turned back and instinctively looked at Carter.

He was leaning back in his chair, his dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, looking at me with cool indifference. "Did you not understand her?"

"I understood," I lowered my eyes. "I'll go outside and ask a waiter for a corkscrew."

The moment I stepped toward the door, Serenas sharp question pierced my back. "This is the kind of trash you're into now?"

Carter remained silent.

A friend next to him chimed in: "Don't be mad, Serena. Carter only has you in his heart."

"Yeah, you can't blame Carter. Shes the one who clung to him like a leech. We couldn't chase her away."

After I poured the wine, Serena still refused to let me leave.

She was venting her frustration on me, making me serve her soup and peel her shrimp. Then, with a sweet smile, she asked: "What college did you graduate from?"

"MIT."

"Such a famous school, and they didn't teach you self-respect?"

Her face darkened. She suddenly raised her hand and splashed half a bowl of hot soup directly onto my chest.

"Clinging to Carter like a stray dog, don't you feel pathetic? Are you that desperate to climb the social ladder?"

The liquid soaked through my shirt, leaving a burning sting on my skin.

Carter gently held Serena's hand, soothing her softly without even glancing at me.

"I ordered that pink diamond necklace you liked. Don't be mad at me anymore, hm?"

A friend, looking for trouble, mixed vodka, red wine, and beer into a massive glass and shoved it in front of me. "Drink this, and we'll consider it your apology to Serena."

Another guy complained: "Giving her such expensive liquor is a total waste."

In Carter's social circle, Serena was everyone's golden girl.

Because of that, no one respected me. They went out of their way to humiliate and toy with me.

Carter never stopped them.

Especially not tonight, right in front of Serena.

I picked up the cloudy mixture of alcohol and downed it in one go.

An intense burning sensation ripped from my throat straight down to my stomach.

Tears instantly welled in my eyes.

I doubled over, leaning against the table, uncontrollably dry-heaving.

"Alright, you're ruining our appetite. Get out."

Carter casually picked up the heavy metal corkscrew and tossed it at me.

He misjudged the force. It hit my temple. After a sharp sting, warm blood gushed out, running down my cheek.

He froze, instinctively standing up and taking a step toward me.

I covered my forehead, bowed deeply, and hurried out the door.

When I got home, I took a shower and clumsily bandaged the wound.

Only then did I realize Carter had come back too.

He looked furious.

I figured it out quickly: "Did you and Serena get into a fight?"

"Hazel!"

He snapped coldly, striding over to me. He grabbed my wrists and shoved me hard against the edge of the bed.

I struggled to push him away, but the difference in our strength was absolute.

The chandelier swayed above us, the light stabbing my eyes until I squeezed them shut, but the tears kept leaking out.

He paused for a second, pinching my chin to force me to look at him. "Why are you crying? Feeling wronged?"

"Hazel, didn't you say you liked me? That as long as you could stay by my side, you didn't care what your title was?"

His kiss was bruising, savage.

I quickly tasted the metallic tang of blood in my mouth.

Carter commanded: "Did you forget what I taught you? Close your eyes."

"Your eyes are the one part of you that look nothing like hers."

Under his rough hands, the pain intensified.

When I opened my eyes in a panic, I met his dark, turbulent gaze. He was venting his rage on me.

I suddenly understood.

I had made Serena unhappy, so Carter was punishing me.

A massive wave of humiliation swallowed me, and my mind drifted back to the past.

When we first met, I was a dirt-poor college student.

He was the high-and-mighty CEO.

I worked at a bar. He got drunk, looked at my face, and lashed out:

"Don't wear a face that looks like hers while doing such cheap work here!"

Later, my grandma, my only family, fell deathly ill. I maxed out every credit card and loan app, but I was still $50,000 short for her surgery.

For that $50,000, I sold myself to Carter Sterling.

I threw myself at him.

The price was that he forbade me from continuing my master's degree.

"A stand-in needs to act like a stand-in."

His tone was flat, deciding my entire life in just a few words.

"Didn't you say you liked me? Then for the next three years, you stay right by my side. You go nowhere."

Back then, Serena had left him to study acting in Europe.

Carter wouldn't allow history to repeat itself.

From that day on, my dream of pursuing academic research truly became an unattainable fantasy.

My grandma didn't survive the post-surgery complications. She held on for six months before passing away.

I was in a daze, sitting in the cemetery for an entire night.

At midnight, a freezing rain started to fall.

Suddenly, an umbrella appeared over my head.

It was Carter.

He looked down at me from his towering height, his tone unusually gentle: "How much longer are you going to stay here? I'll wait with you."

We were together for three years.

I took care of his every need perfectly.

In the quiet moments between us, there was occasional, fleeting warmth.

But I knew Carter secretly despised me.

Once, I went to pick him up from a gathering with his rich buddies. They blocked my way, hooting and hollering.

They looked me up and down, laughing: "She really does look a bit like SerenaI heard she's a top student at MIT? Even worked on some patent projects?"

"No way. Hey, top student, how exactly do you do your little science projects? Why don't you perform one for us right here?"

I dug my nails into my palms and looked at them: "Scientific research is a serious matter. It's not a parlor trick for your entertainment."

The ringleader sneered: "Stop acting so high and mighty. You talk about science, but aren't you just trying to slap a higher price tag on yourself?"

A bottle of liquor was shoved in front of me. "Not willing to perform? Then drink. Finish this bottle, and we'll let Carter leave with you."

Through it all, Carter just leaned back on the leather sofa, flipping his silver lighter, watching me.

Probably because he was drunk, the usually stoic man looked at me with a lazy smirk.

"Drink it. Show everyone how well you can hold your liquor."

I stayed silent for two seconds before asking him: "If it were Serena standing here today, would you make her drink it?"

That day, Carter completely lost his temper.

He snatched the glass and shattered it against my chest. "What the hell are you? Do you think you deserve to be compared to her?"

"She's not as cheap as you. She wouldn't sell her body for fifty grand."

I blinked hard, picking up a shot glass that had rolled onto the floor. "Okay. I'll drink it."

A poor person's life is worthless, let alone their dignity.

I did take his $50,000.

I brought this on myself.

Before Serena left for Europe, she was already an A-list actress.

Now that she was back with an international aura, she was drowning in movie offers.

She called Carter and told him she lacked a reliable personal assistant.

"I think that Hazel girl you keep around isn't bad. She seems like she knows how to serve people."

Carter went silent for two seconds.

She chuckled: "What? Can't bear to part with her?"

"No."

Carter replied flatly, "If you need her, I'll send her over."

I followed Serena onto the movie set as her assistant.

During a break, the supporting actress, Chloe Vance, came over to gossip. "Serena, your assistant actually looks a lot like you."

"Except her eyes are different. She has a teardrop mole. Honestly, she looks a bit more charming than you."

Chloe was originally cast as the female lead for this movie, but when Serena returned, she used her connections to snatch the role.

Chloe was pissed.

She said that purely to get under Serena's skin.

Sure enough, Serena's face dropped. The disgust in her eyes when she looked at me was barely concealed.

After wrap-up that afternoon, she announced she had lost her ring.

"I still had it when we were shooting by the lake. It must have fallen in."

Her eyes shifted, finally landing on me. "Hazel, go into the lake and find it for me."

The artificial lake wasn't deep; the water barely reached my waist.

I waded in, bending over, feeling through the freezing mud at the bottom inch by inch.

The setting sun painted the sky a bloody red.

As night fell, the light slipped away inch by inch.

Everyone on set knew Serena was doing this on purpose. They stood on the shore, watching in silence.

No one was going to stick their neck out for a nobody assistant.

My fingers grew pale and pruned from the freezing water. Whenever I pulled my hands up, freezing mud dripped from them.

It suddenly made me think of college.

I used to spend hours in the lab working on my thesis.

My hands had to be dry and impeccably clean to handle test tubes, petri dishes, and glass slides, observing results and logging data.

My mentors all said I was an incredibly gifted student who would go far in this field.

But a normal person's life can't withstand even the slightest storm.

Just one bad break can destroy everything.

It had only been three years, but that life felt like a previous incarnation.

Finally, when the sky was pitch black, a stylist spoke up: "Serena, I found your ring! It was on the table in the makeup trailer."

"Oh, I must have accidentally left it there."

Serena took the ring and casually tossed it into her Birkin bag.

"Come on up, Hazel. Clean yourself up. Don't act like I was bullying you or something."

After work, Carter came to pick her up.

I was sitting under a pear tree outside the set, soaked to the bone.

I don't know how much time passed before that black Rolls Royce doubled back.

Carter got out and walked over to me. "Go home and change."

I didn't look up.

His tone softened slightly. "Don't be mad at Serena. She was just in a bad mood. Once she vented, it was fine."

When I still didn't respond, Carter lost his patience. "Enough is enough, Hazel. Who are you throwing a tantrum for?"

I sniffled, holding back my tears, and looked up at him.

"Carter, it's been three years. And now Serena is back."

"Let me go."

His face shifted slightly. "Where are you going to go?"

I reached into my canvas tote bag and pulled out a stack of papers.

"I applied to the bioscience graduate program at Stanford. They already sent my acceptance letter..."

Before I could finish, Carter violently snatched the papers from my hand and ripped them to shreds.

He grabbed my freezing, wet wrist and shoved me into the car.

His burning palm pressed against my icy skin, the heat slowly transferring over.

Under the dim dome light, Carter stared at me with terrifying, dark eyes.

"Don't even think about it. You're not going anywhere."

"Hazel, you are my girlfriend."

After that day, I didn't return to the movie set.

Carter found Serena a new assistant and moved me into his corporate office as his executive assistant.

"You'll follow me from now on."

He spun a fountain pen in his hand, looking up at me, his tone softening.

"That day on set, Chloe Vance intentionally provoked you and Serena. I've already made some calls. No one in Hollywood will ever hire her again."

Seeing that I had no reaction and remained silent, Carter's face darkened.

He warned me: "Hazel, don't push your luck."

Was I the one pushing my luck?

Chloe was just bitter about losing her role and threw a few verbal jabs at Serena.

Carter and I both knew perfectly well who the real culprit was.

But because I made him angry that day, he ignored the fact that I was freezing and soaking wet, and deliberately tormented me in the back of his car for hours.

I had been running a low-grade fever for days.

Dizzy from the meds, I had no energy to argue with him.

I just lowered my head. "Understood."

That evening, after Serena wrapped up filming, I drove Carter to meet her for dinner.

The moment she saw me, her voice turned icy: "Carter, I don't want to fight with you, but stop bringing this eyesore around to ruin my mood."

Carter glanced at me. "Wait in the car."

I nodded and walked away.

On my phone, there was an email from my prospective advisor at Stanford.

"Hazel, the acceptance letter has been mailed. When can you arrive on campus? After reviewing your portfolio, Ive applied for a full-ride fellowship for you. I am very much looking forward to mentoring a student as gifted and hardworking as you."

I squeezed my hand in the empty air.

As if that would somehow let me grasp the torn pieces of the acceptance letter Carter had ripped apart and thrown away.

That night, Carter didn't come home.

He sent me a text: "I'm taking Serena home. Don't wait up."

"Are you staying the night there?"

His reply was ruthless: "Hazel, you have no right to ask that."

I drove the car to the cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

My grandma had been buried there for over two years.

The photo embedded in the tombstone was taken during her final days.

Back then, she was gravely ill.

I combined the money she saved her entire life with everything I shamelessly begged from my professors and classmates.

It still wasn't enough. I was short fifty grand.

To Carter, that was just the cost of a night out drinking with his friends.

Or a handbag for his flavor of the week.

But to me, it was an insurmountable chasm.

After her surgery, my grandma clutched my hand and repeatedly warned me.

She said we couldn't treat this money lightly just because it meant nothing to Carter.

So for three years, I obeyed Carter's every command, agreeing to even his most unreasonable demands.

"But... do I have to waste the rest of my life, my ideals, and my ambition, trapped here?"

The cemetery was completely empty, save for the wind and the crickets.

My grandma on the tombstone just looked at me in silence.

She would never answer me again.

That afternoon, a familiar face suddenly sought me out.

It was Chloe Vance.

She was no longer the arrogant starlet who traded barbs with Serena on set; she looked utterly disheveled.

Sitting in the corner of the coffee shop, she asked me: "You must be furious about how Serena treats you, right?"

"I know how hard you worked to climb Carter's social ladder, only for her to return and ruin everything. I hired someone to take pictures of her and Carter spending the night together. Once they leak, all you have to do is step forward and say you're the official girlfriend. Serena will be ruined."

"America's sweet little darling is actually a homewrecker. Hilarious."

I finished my glass of lemon water, shook my head, and rejected her.

But I underestimated Chloe's madness.

Her proud acting career had been effortlessly crushed by Carter; she had lost her mind.

That night, intimate photos of Serena and Carter hit #1 on X.

A so-called "insider" spilled: "Carter Sterling has a girlfriend. They've been together for years. I've seen them having dinner, and it definitely wasn't Serena Blair."

To prove they weren't lying, they posted a photo.

It was a blurry paparazzi shot, but you could still see the woman in the photo had short hair, a slender frame, and a teardrop mole by her eye.

She was looking up at the man across the table, her eyes shining brightly.

I stared at the photo, slightly dazed.

This was from two years ago, right after my grandma passed away.

I was severely depressed.

Carter took me to a niche, newly opened restaurant.

They served the regional cuisine from my hometown.

The seasoning tasted exactly like the food my grandma cooked for decades.

I took one bite, knew he had brought me here on purpose, and looked up to earnestly thank him.

"Thank you, Mr. Sterling."

He smirked: "Hazel, is that what you call your boyfriend?"

He wanted me to call him Carter.

I couldn't get used to that kind of intimacy, so I just called him by his full name.

Only later did I learn that was how Serena had called him since they were kids.

"Hazel!"

I snapped back to reality to see Carter storming through the door. He took massive strides toward me.

He raised his hand and slapped me across the face, then grabbed my collar and slammed me against the edge of the table.

A photo was violently thrown in my face.

It was a picture of Chloe and me sitting in the dimly lit corner of the coffee shop.

His voice was like ice: "What more do you want? If you didn't have a face that looked somewhat like Serena's, you wouldn't even have had the right to sell yourself to me to save your grandma! And now you're teaming up with outsiders to frame Serena? How can you be so vicious!"

My cheek burned. My tightly gripped collar choked me, waves of suffocation washing over me.

I opened my mouth, struggling to speak: "It wasn't me."

"I rejected her."

Carter didn't believe me.

He violently pinched my chin, scrutinizing my face as if he wished he could carve the flesh right off my bones.

After a long moment, he sneered: "Cheap trash. You sicken me."

He let go, watching me collapse weakly onto the floor, and slammed the door as he left