CEO'S GLAMOROUS EX-WIFE

AYSEL'S POV

I want a divorce.

Pain was an understatement—it felt like my heart was being ripped out and handed to me. Tears gathered at the brim of my eyes as they widened, threatening to pop from their sockets.

“Was this really happening”  I wondered, finding it hard to believe.

"I need a divorce, Aysel. I've found her, so I no longer need you."

My husband walked in with a strange woman, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. The words that had just left his mouth echoed in my mind like a death sentence.

"Need me?" I questioned, puzzled, struggling to push back the tears threatening to spill.

"I don't understand." I muttered, tears welled up my eyes.

He was looking down at her with such tenderness, love and warmth radiating from his dark eyes. Jealousy clawed through my chest like a wild animal. Despite our year and a half of marriage, he had never looked at me that way. He was always cold, expressionless. I hadn't known Raven was capable of such emotion.

His smile vanished at my words, his expression hardening with annoyance and frustration as he glared at me with undisguised fury.

"What's not to understand? I said I don't need you anymore. You were just a substitute—someone to replace her while she was busy building her career. Now that I've found her again, I have no use for you. Take it!" He yelled in frustration. 

I felt my small world crumble as the realization hit me like a rock. He had never married me because he loved me. I was nothing more than a placeholder. My shoulders slumped in defeat, my composure finally cracking. The tears I'd been holding back poured freely down my cheeks.

"Still crying—you really are an expert at that," he said with a cruel laugh.

"Raven, you should have handled this before I arrived. I don't like seeing people like this. Poor girl." The woman spoke with affected concern, rolling her eyes as if my pain was merely an inconvenience.

"You shouldn't have come here," I managed to say, my voice breaking. "If you truly cared, you'd know he's married. Why interfere now?"

"Watch your tongue!" Raven gripped my arm roughly and shoved me to the floor. "You're nothing compared to her."

"Sweetheart, why don't you go to study and let me handle this?" He stroked her hair gently and planted a soft kiss on her cheek—gestures of tenderness I'd never received.

All I could do was stand there and watch them, feeling like a knife was being twisted in my chest. I struggled to breathe, unable to form words, drowning in the realization that every word of love he'd ever spoken to me had been a lie.

Looking at the woman more closely, I noticed the striking resemblance between us. We both had long, flowing black hair, green eyes, full pink lips, and similar bone structure. It was almost like looking in a mirror, except for her nose, and she had more curves than I did. The truth hit me like a sledgehammer—I wasn't even chosen for myself. I was chosen because I looked like her.

"Is that the only reason you married me?" I asked, praying his answer wouldn't destroy what little hope I had left.

"For a business deal. Are you really that naive, Aysel? Remember when I took you to meet my grandparents to sign that contract? You were a means to an end, nothing more." His grin was cold, calculating. "The deal is finished."

My legs gave out beneath me. My hands trembled as sweat beaded on my forehead, and I collapsed with a loud thud, the physical pain nothing compared to the agony in my chest.

"I was having trouble securing a deal with my grandfather. The old man insisted I be married before he'd approve it. You made it easy by throwing yourself at me. I knew you had your own motives too—no one meets someone and marries them within a month without an agenda. But my real love is back now, and the charade is over. I need a divorce."

He threw the papers at me with such force they hit my face, the metal clip scratching my cheek. I didn't flinch from the sting—it was nothing compared to the devastation inside me.

I was still trying to process his words. A divorce. I had given up everything—my family, my career, my dreams—for what I thought was love. Now he wanted to discard me completely.

“Does he want to destroy me entirely?”

"Sign the papers," he commanded.

I looked up at him, searching his eyes for any trace of the man I'd fallen in love with. All I found was complete hatred, which only made me cry harder.

Where was the man who had looked at me with seeming adoration? Who had showered me with gifts and sweet words? Had it all been an illusion? We met in New York when he came to my company for a business deal. He had approached me first, wooed me with promises of forever until I'd fallen completely. I'd given him my heart, and now he was crushing it beneath his heel.

I had left behind my family, walked away from the promotion of a lifetime, abandoned my dream job—all because I thought he was worth every sacrifice. Now I realized I had traded everything for nothing.

I had been used as a placeholder for a lost love who happened to look like me. Now that she was back, I was being discarded like garbage.

"Aysel, I'm doing what's best for both of us. Setting you free is the kindest thing I can do. I can't watch you keep trying to make something work that was never real. Go, and never come back."

"No, please," I begged, my voice raw from crying. "I have nothing left. No one. I gave up everything for you. Don't abandon me like this."

I could feel the household staff watching from doorways, pity clear in their glances. But all my pleading earned me was his cold laughter.

"How pathetic! I never asked you to give up anything for me. Don't try to guilt me—those were your choices." He kicked my hands away from his leg, leaving bruises on my wrists. "What more do you want? I've paid for your... services. I even set aside a hundred thousand dollars to help you start over. That should be more than enough. If you'd shown your true colors from the beginning instead of pretending to be above money, you might have walked away with much more."

"I don't want your money," I whispered. "I want you. Even if you have to pretend to love me."

"Are you blind to the fact that I could never love you? If you truly loved me, you'd leave this house with nothing and never return. Then maybe I'd think you had some decency left. Get out of my life."

His words sliced through me like shattered glass, leaving wounds I knew would never fully heal. I crumpled to the ground, unable to believe that the man I'd sacrificed everything for now saw me as nothing more than a prostitute. My head spun, but I didn't care anymore.

"Guards, remove this nuisance from my sight. Her very presence disgusts me."

I found my voice one last time, summoning what little dignity I had left.

"Fine. I'll sign your papers and leave with nothing. But you'll regret this, Raven. Someday, you'll regret this."

With shaking hands, I signed the divorce papers that would erase our marriage as if it had never existed.

"Leave. Now. And take nothing that belongs to me, maybe I will regret that you ever loved me," he said in a cold voice that was devoid of emotions.