From Discarded Wife To Billionaire's Queen
It only took a moment to burn everything down.
For five years, Isla Merrick played the part—soft-spoken wife, graceful hostess, quiet shadow to Callum Braxton’s powerful presence. She became what the world expected: dutiful, polished, harmless.
Then came his cold declaration: “Let’s get divorced.”
No emotion. No explanation. Just a clean cut—like a business deal.
But Callum never knew she had been waiting for that moment. Planning for it. Beneath the composed surface, Isla had been sharpening the edges he once dulled. Because Isla Merrick had a past—and it wasn’t the scandal the tabloids spun. It was deeper. Sharper.
Before she was Mrs. Braxton, she trained at Summerdell—an elite, off-the-record martial arts academy. Whispers of crime and prison blurred the truth, but Isla stayed silent. She had bigger plans.
Three years later, she returns—not to reconcile, but to reintroduce herself. Isla Merrick now runs a luxury fashion empire, famous for turning scandal into power. And when she steps into the country’s most elite gala, draped in elegance and authority, Callum barely recognizes her.
But she recognizes him.
Before he can speak, a figure joins her—Dorian Kane. Ruthless investor. Public obsession. His hand rests on Isla’s waist like it belongs there.
“Just so we’re clear, Braxton,” Dorian says coolly. “She’s not yours. Not anymore.”
For Callum, it’s the beginning of a reckoning.
For Isla, it’s the first breath of freedom.
She isn’t the woman who once begged to be loved.
She’s the woman who knows she never needed to be.
And this time, she’s not just rewriting the story—she’s owning the ending.
Basahin
Chapter: Chapter Thirteen: The Smoke Between ThreadsThe morning after the Queen’s warning, Isla Merrick arrived at ASHLINE headquarters thirty minutes earlier than usual. The sky still wore the faint violet of dawn, and the city outside was only beginning to stir. But inside her studio, the silence was already loaded with tension. She walked slowly through the workspace, her heels echoing with crisp precision across the polished floor. Twenty designs lined the far wall—her entire private collection, ready to be revealed at the gala in just days. The fabrics shimmered in soft light. They looked perfect. But Isla had learned that perfection could be the most beautiful disguise of all. Her gaze drifted to the crimson gown in the center of the collection—her personal favorite. It had taken twenty-one revisions to get it right. It was structured to evoke power, sensuality, and control all in one cut. Now she looked at it like it might vanish before her eyes. “Everything okay?” Lydia asked, entering with her usual iced coffee and a tabl
Huling Na-update: 2025-07-12
Chapter: Chapter Twelve: The Game Board MovesThe black calla lilies remained untouched the next morning.They sat like a warning in the center of Isla Merrick’s office—elegant, dramatic, and sharp. She hadn’t moved them. Hadn’t thrown them away. She just stared at them in intervals, as if they might shift and rearrange themselves into answers.The business card was still tucked neatly between the stems.DK: We should talk. Before he does.Lydia entered with two coffees and a raised brow. “Please tell me you didn’t let that man send you flowers like it’s a chess match.”“Dorian Kane doesn’t send flowers for romance,” Isla replied flatly. “That was a warning. The game is about to change.”“He’s not the one I’m worried about,” Lydia muttered. “What does he mean by ‘before he does’? You think he’s talking about Callum?”“I don’t think,” Isla said, eyes fixed on the bouquet. “I know.”At the same moment, on the opposite side of Valmere, Callum Braxton adjusted the cuffs of his jacket as he stepped into the velvet-lined interior of th
Huling Na-update: 2025-07-11
Chapter: Chapter Eleven: RebirthThe scent of lavender and cold steel filled Isla Merrick’s new studio.Morning light filtered through floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing bolts of fabric in golden hues and brushing across sketches pinned along the wall like battle strategies. The quiet hum of a playlist played low in the background, a rhythm she barely registered. Her fingers moved with instinct now—elegant, precise, relentless.It was barely past dawn, but she was already at work—a tablet in one hand, coffee in the other. Her gaze darted between the illuminated screen and the mannequin in front of her, dressed in half-draped silk like a statue waiting to come alive.Around her, the studio pulsed with possibility.Rolls of rich fabric lay unspooled like banners before war. Needles glinted in their cases. Thread spools gleamed like trophies. This wasn’t just preparation.It was her reclamation.Her fashion house—ASHLINE—was on the edge of something seismic. In less than a week, it would debut its first private collectio
Huling Na-update: 2025-07-11
Chapter: Chapter Ten: Her TermsThe email was brief. Clinical. Strategically cold. To: Callum BraxtonSubject: Final Appearance – Merrick v. BraxtonDate: Monday, 10:30 AMLocation: Family Court, Valmere Kindly arrive on time. I will not reschedule.– Isla MerrickThere was no anger in the message.No emotion at all.That’s what rattled him most.Monday came too quickly.Callum sat in the backseat of his town car, watching the courthouse grow larger with every turn. His driver said something, but Callum didn’t register the words. He was already somewhere else.In his head.In the hallway where Isla had handed over her ring like it weighed nothing.In Leah’s study, her words echoing:"She doesn’t hate you. She survived you."The courtroom was quiet when he entered.Sunlight streamed through the high arched windows, slicing across rows of pews and polished floors. It was a place built for endings.And Isla was already there.She sat at the far end of the bench, her posture perfect, her chin lifted. Dressed in a deep
Huling Na-update: 2025-07-11
Chapter: Chapter Nine: The StudyThe door to Leah Braxton’s study clicked shut behind them, muffling the faint sounds of conversation and crystal from the lounge.Inside, the room smelled of old paper, cedarwood, and history. Books lined the walls like witnesses. A low fire cracked in the hearth. No cameras. No audience.Only truth.Callum stood stiffly near the door.Leah moved slowly to her chair, each step deliberate, her cane tapping like a metronome of judgment.“Sit,” she said.He did.Not because she asked.But because, for once, he didn’t know how to stand tall.Leah studied him.Not as a grandmother.Not as family.But as a woman who had survived men like him.“You saw her tonight,” she said. “Not the girl you married. The woman she became.”Callum said nothing.“You always liked the quiet ones,” she continued. “The ones who smiled and stepped aside. You called it grace. I call it erasure.”His jaw tensed.“You married Isla because she was safe,” Leah said. “But you never bothered to find out what she was ma
Huling Na-update: 2025-07-08
Chapter: Chapter Eight: Final DinnerSilence lingered long after Isla left the room, like a ghost no one wanted to acknowledge.The chandelier above the dining table flickered slightly—soft, golden light reflecting off cutlery and tension.Callum stared at the ring she had left behind.A simple platinum band.Elegant. Unadorned.And suddenly, more impossible to look at than anything else in the room.Across from him, Eliana folded her napkin delicately. “That was… uncomfortable.”Amanda scoffed. “It was long overdue. This family needs clean lines again. Not... fractured reputations.”Leah sipped her soup without a word, her eyes heavy and unreadable.Callum hadn’t moved.Seinna leaned in. “Honestly, I don’t know what Grandma sees in Isla. She’s reckless, arrogant, violent—”“She protected you,” Leah said sharply, not bothering to lift her gaze. “The tower incident? When Bryson Mitchell locked you up like a prize to be broken? Isla risked everything to get you out.”Seinna flinched.“I never asked her to—”“No,” Leah inte
Huling Na-update: 2025-07-08
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