CHAPTER 1

Natalie's POV:

It was Saturday evening. I finished preparing dinner in my kitchen and stepped out to the dining table to serve it. However, I saw that my elder sister had visited us.

I watched my husband laughing so hard with my elder sister.

What pained me more was seeing how well he got along with her.

Franklin Howard had never laughed like this with me before, and here he was, laughing loudly with my elder sister in the living room.

Amelia Jackson was my elder sister. We had the same father but different mothers.

My mother was once a mistress to my father, and because I was the unwanted child, my family didn't like me.

I had three older brothers: James, Asher, and Felix. All doted on Amelia.

Amelia and I were the same age, but she was only a month older than me, which made her my elder sister.

We were both fair-skinned, but while she was tall, I was short and chubby.

Frank is a billionaire in this part of the city that we live in, and he never liked me, his wife.

It was all a mistake that led to Frank's and my marriage—a mistake that I shouldn't have accepted.

Taking you back three years, my father and Frank's father were best friends. My father had a business party at home and invited a lot of tycoons.

One thing led to another, and Frank and I were caught in my room.

I knew Amelia was the one who set us up, but no one believed me. Even Frank didn't believe me. He felt I was the one who drugged him and lured him to my room so that he would sleep with me.

We were forced to become a couple to hide the embarrassment, as Frank's family were also disappointed. Everyone knew I was the illegitimate daughter of my father, and they would be wondering why my father had kept me instead of kicking me out and allowing Amelia to marry Frank.

It was after my wedding with Frank that I discovered Amelia had a hidden crush on Frank. She regretted drugging my drink, as that was what I had served Frank when he came to speak to me on that eventful night.

A lot of invitees had also come with their children, who were already adults, but none of them came to speak to me.

I was already 22 years old then—naive, and with Frank and I caught in a compromising position on the bed. We got married while Amelia wept that Frank was supposed to be her husband.

Frank didn't like me. After that night, we didn't sleep with each other, and I didn't conceive either, even though it was my first time.

We were living like neighbors who hated each other, and now that Amelia had graduated, Frank wanted to divorce me to marry her.

How shameless of a sister to want to date her younger sister's husband!

Amelia is so shameless. Frank is five years older than me, and as I'm 25 years old now, he's 30 years old.

I watched as Frank, wearing a white singlet that revealed his masculine abs (he loved to gym). He was fair-skinned and more handsome than any other man I had seen.

His skin glittered like the sun, and I saw the way Amelia was drooling over him.

Frank is very tall. His arms are bigger, and likewise his thighs. I am not up to Frank's chest; to tell you, I'm a shorty, although I have an hourglass shape.

Frank doesn't, in any way, find me attractive.

"How were your studies, Amy?" I heard Frank asking Amelia. He had switched from calling her Amelia to Amy, her short abbreviated name.

Amelia blushed as she picked up the glass cup that Frank had refilled with wine as I sat at the dining table setting up our dinner.

We have no maid at home, simply because Frank mandated that I wouldn't be going to work when I don't have any meaningful certificate.

As the illegitimate child of my parents, I didn't further my education, and I was forced by my stepmother to learn tailoring, while Amelia went to the university and she was a certified accountant.

I wasn't even allowed to sew, as Frank felt it was a useless profession, as becoming a fashion designer.

He calls me ugly and says that I wasn't fashionable.

He doesn't like to take me out to hang out with his friends, neither does he give me money for upkeep.

I only managed to get money for my upkeep when he gives me money to restock the house with foodstuffs. Only then did I manage to see money to save for my personal use.

"It was fine, Frankie," Amelia said. I hated it as Amelia and my husband were calling each other pet names.

This was my matrimonial home, and Frank only calls me, "Natalie!"

In short, he shouts my name with so much rage, like he doesn't want to see me.

"Natalie! Is the dinner ready?" Frank asked me, just as he settled across from Amelia on the next black couch in our exquisite living room.

I was through preparing the delicious African delicacy of pounded yam and vegetable soup.

I looked at the food that I had prepared and at my husband and my half-sister.

"Natalie! I am talking to you!" Frank shouts at me again.

"Hmm, no food for you both," I replied and covered the food that I had already served.

Firstly, I didn't invite Amelia to my home, neither will I serve her any food. She should get out and return back to our father's house and look for her own husband to be calling pet names with him.

Frank immediately rose from the couch, and he dashed up to meet me.

"Where are you taking the tray of food to? Have you lost your mind?" Frank slapped me as he approached me and collected the tray from my hand.

I looked at him irritably and at Amelia, who smiled and rolled her eyes, as I knew her target. She wanted to collect my husband.

She sent me a text message the previous month, telling me that she was coming back to collect everything that I had stolen from her, including my husband.

"Frank, you slapped me because of what? I cooked this food, and you cannot eat it," I said.

"Why? Did I not give you the money you use to prepare the meal? Did you work for the money? Move away and get me a bowl of water to wash my hands, and do not think that I will apologize to you because of the slap. Come, Amy, do not mind your sister. That's how silly she behaves," Frank calls out for Amelia, and I watch as she seductively stood up from the black couch in her brown dress that made her look like a model, as the brown dress accentuated her hips and bosom.

Amelia walked up to the dining table, and I stood there watching as Frank served her the delicious plate of pounded yam and vegetable soup that I had suffered and cooked.

I know Amelia was my sister, and I wasn't supposed to be jealous, but Frank has never served me any food before, not to mention the one that I cooked by myself.

Frank also saw that I didn't serve any bowl of water, and he went to the kitchen by himself and brought a bowl of water for Amelia to wash her hands.

Frank sat across from Amelia, and Amelia was blushing, not caring to ask me to join them in eating.

"Frank!" I shouted and walked toward the plate of soup that I served out for myself, as that was the portion that Frank had served for Amelia as her own plate of soup to eat.

"What's wrong with you, Natalie? Should we leave this food for you to eat? Come, Amy, let's go out to get something more palatable to eat," Frank said, standing up from the dining table, and I hated it whenever I suffered to cook and my husband would have to go out of our matrimonial home to eat.

"Frank!" I tried to stop him, and he warned, "Stay away from me, Natalie. Just go and eat your food since you don't want your sister and I to eat it. Who knows if you have poisoned it."

"Frank," I frowned as Frank's words broke my heart. He quickly took the stairs in our living room and dashed upstairs to his bedroom.

Yes, Frank and I have different bedrooms. I looked back at Amelia and shouted at her, "You shameless slùt, aren't you ashamed to be dating your sister's husband? As beautiful as you are, you cannot use your beauty to look for your own husband!" I cursed at Amelia, and she hissed.

"Get out of my house!" I was enraged and remembering that Amelia and her brothers never liked me. They mostly maltreated me, and while I had thought that getting married, I would have my own happiness and family. Yet this very same family that doesn't want my happiness wouldn't let me be.

As I rushed to push Amelia out of our house, she fell down and pretended to be hurt.