After the Happy Three
“Sign the contract, Lena. One year of pretending to be my wife, and I’ll restore every part of the empire your family lost.”
Adrian Vale was once the man I thought I knew. At least, that’s what I believed. Now, he is a powerful billionaire with a brilliant legal mind, lethal charm, and secrets buried beneath everything he has built.
When my family’s empire is put up for auction, Adrian offers me a deal I can’t refuse: one year as his wife in exchange for the inheritance that rightfully belongs to me.
But I’m hiding a secret that could destroy our agreement before the year is over.
I’m pregnant, but the father isn’t the man I just married.
Keeping my pregnancy a secret should have been the hardest part of becoming Mrs. Adrian Vale.
Yet the more time I spend within the cold walls of his mansion, the more I discover that the man behind his charming smile isn’t who I thought he was. Then there’s Jeffrey, Adrian’s stepbrother, whose presence awakens an unsettling familiarity I can’t explain and a fear I can’t escape.
The golden mask of the Vale family begins to crack, revealing a hidden inheritance, a mind systematically destroyed, and a truth someone would kill to keep buried.
Now, with my unborn child’s life at stake, I must uncover the truth.
Because in this house, nothing is what it seems.
I signed the contract to save my past.
But I may have to reduce the Vale empire to ashes to save my future.
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Chapter: Chapter FourLENA “Nooooooo!” “Noooooooooo!!” That was the only word that escaped my mouth. Before I knew it, my knees gave way, and I collapsed to the ground, clutching my chest as if I could somehow stop the pain tearing through it. I didn't care who was watching. I didn't care that I was lying in the middle of the hospital hallway because nothing mattered anymore. “God, please! No!” I screamed at the ceiling, my voice cracked with exhaustion. “You can punish me any other way, but not like this. Not my mother!” I felt Aunt Vivian's hands on my shoulders, trying to help me to my feet, but my body refused to move. I just knelt there, drenched in my rain-soaked scrubs, my mind too numb to process what I'd just heard. Through the blur of tears and the strands of hair stuck to my face, I saw the ICU doors slowly swing open. Two hospital porters pushed a stretcher into the hallway, It was covered with a white sheet as they moved towards us. I found a surge of strength I didn't know I had. I s
Last Updated: 2026-08-14
Chapter: Chapter ThreeLENA I felt a splash of water on my face. I flinched, gasping as I staggered to my feet. I stared at him for a moment. Even through the darkness of the night, I could see that he belonged to a world very different from mine. I was still staring at him when his voice cut through my thoughts. "Wait, seriously?" He let out a mocking laugh, his eyes narrowing as they landed on the badge pinned to my chest. "A nurse? You've got to be kidding me.” "People trust you with their lives, yet you're sitting in the middle of the road waiting to become roadkill? If you can’t take care of yourself, how do you expect to take care of a patient?" I stared at him without uttering a single word. I couldn't find the strength to answer him. "Now get the hell out of my way," he barked, the pity in his voice replaced by pure arrogance. He didn't offer a hand. He didn't ask if I was okay. He simply climbed back into his sleek black car and sped off, the tires splashing a fresh wave of dirty puddle wat
Last Updated: 2026-08-14
Chapter: Chapter TwoLENA “Wife-to… to… be?” The words echoed in my head over and over again, mocking me with every repetition. I couldn't process them. I stood there, drenched from the London rain, my nursing scrubs clinging to my skin. I'd come straight from work after Aunt Vivian called to tell me my mum had been rushed to the hospital. Now my mind was a blur of the doctor's words—twenty-four hours—and the sight of this woman standing in my pale blue towel. I waited for the punchline. I waited for her to laugh and say it was a prank. But then I heard the voice. The anchor that had held me together for five years. “Darling? Did you find the wine? I think there’s a bottle of Chablis in the back of the fridge.” Killian walked into the hallway, bare-chested and damp from a shower. He looked relaxed. He looked happy. When his eyes met mine, he didn't run to me. He didn't ask about my day. He didn't even look guilty. “Lena?” His voice was flat. “You’re back so soon? I wasn't expecting you this
Last Updated: 2026-08-14
Chapter: Chapter One LENA “Her condition is very critical,” he said, and the words felt like a physical blows to my stomach. “Her organs are failing. The years of alcohol abuse and chronic stress have finally caught up with her. The sheer stress on her cardiovascular system have finally caught up. We’ll keep her under observation for the next twenty-four hours, but I have to be blunt.” “She has a very slim chance of making it through this time, Lena. If you have things to say, say them now. The doctor's words settled over the room like a heavy blanket. For a moment, I thought I'd heard him wrong. Twenty-four hours? No. No, he couldn't mean that. I stared at the file in his hands instead of looking at his face. The words on the pages blurred until they became meaningless black lines. If I looked into his eyes and saw pity, I knew I would break. There had to be another treatment. Another surgery. Another specialist. Something. Just something. "Doctor..." My voice barely came out. "Are you sa
Last Updated: 2026-08-14
Chapter: Chapter FourRina's POVI stared from face to face, unable to understand what was going on."Mom." That was the only word I could mutter as I stared into space."Honey, have a seat," she said. I shook my head."I can't sit. Tell me, Mom, what's going on?""We're getting married, Ri, and your things are already being moved to the mansion," my mother said, and I didn't know what to do."Says who?" Kai spoke in that quiet demeanor of his. He hardly spoke and was always buried in books or hockey. This too was shocking for him."You get to choose who I marry?" His father asked, and there was a dangerous hint in his voice.I stared at the scene as it unfolded before me. I was unable to grasp anything. What did he mean by stepsister, and what did she mean by getting married? Wait, this wasn't what I was expecting. I knew I had been expecting some form of explanation… but this…"Dad, Mom only just passed," Kanye said."And it's been two years. I came to inform you guys, not ask for permission.""This isn'
Last Updated: 2026-08-14
Chapter: Chapter ThreeRina's POVIt took a whole hour for everything to be settled and for me to sit directly in front of my mother. As for the image and very impending trauma it was going to cause? That was inevitable.Mom… a hardworking caregiver at the state hospital didn't just have sex normally, but with a BDSM-ish kink? And with THE Benson Bennett.What was I to take from this? I should probably hear their story, but what exactly was I to take from this? Was she by chance hooking up with a famous billionaire for money? Was she a gold digger? Not that I thought any of that was wrong, but my mom wasn't like me. She was calm and coordinated, and I thought sex for her would just be a chore.I couldn't stare at her, so I bowed my head, staring at the tablecloth, bleached by too much washing."Honey," my mom started, and if anything, I couldn't understand why Benson was still here and not gone."You just ruined my life," I said, and she rolled her eyes."Don't be dramatic.""Dramatic? I'm not the one who w
Last Updated: 2026-08-14
Chapter: Chapter TwoRina's POV"What are you doing here? This is the ladies' bathroom." I breathed out because my brain had officially gone numb. I blinked.There's no way this could be happening. There's no way my cover was about to get blown. It couldn't be."Well, this is about to be your grave if you don't start talking," he said and tore his gaze to the door where some girls stood staring at us. They hurriedly left and he turned back to me.He took a step closer and I took another backwards. He did so until I was pressed flat against the door of the stall. He towered over me, eyes running through my face in pure contempt."I didn't say anything," I said, and his fist pounded the door next to my head. I flinched, my heart caught in my throat.I had to play this right. If Kanye decided I was fucked for the rest of college and even in life, I would undoubtedly be. His father was a top ten billionaire who had lunch dates with the president himself!"I just…" I made my voice break intentionally. "The gir
Last Updated: 2026-08-14
Chapter: Chapter OneRina's POV"Don't tell me you're shy now, Rina. You like to run your mouth, don't you?" Kelvin said as he stared at me, his cold eyes glinting with pure mischief and a mask of lust behind them.Three men—my stepbrothers to be—stood in front of me in the small cramped room they'd forced me to stay in and stared down at me like hungry wolves."We have to make this wedding stop, don't we?" Kai said."A little gift for our parents on their wedding day. A video of all three of us fucking our precious little stepsister would really blow up."I swallowed as I stared up at them. This had been my idea. Why? Because I just couldn't stop running my silly mouth. I didn't know the Bennett brothers would even take me seriously. Now they did, and it felt like I was about to pay for it.Rewind, one day ago.The Bennett brothers are the gods of Ice Hockey at Waterside College, which is also an elite college. I had no idea how my mom was able to afford my tuition, but then, I would soon find out.Natur
Last Updated: 2026-08-14
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