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Chapter 3

Author: Bright Lights
"If Serena is set on this, then let's call off the engagement. I hope the two of you are very happy."

Gerald's face drained.

Diane broke a teacup.

Neither of them could believe that I, of all people, the man who'd carried their daughter in the palm of his hand since the day she was born, would say a thing like that.

They'd always assumed I'd take whatever she gave me and come back for more.

Even Serena needed a moment.

"Adrian. You're... serious?"

It was the softest she'd spoken to me in years, and I knew why. She wasn't afraid of losing me. She was afraid I'd change my mind.

She wanted to run off into the sunset with him, and once I was out of the way, nobody could stop her.

What she didn't know was that I wasn't a man short of options.

I ran the Shaw family. If I so much as nodded, there'd be no end of women willing to become whatever I wanted and throw themselves at me.

I'd never looked at a single one of them, because I'd been full of her.

But she'd cut the thread between us herself. It was time I found someone else and started a family.

"I don't say things I don't mean. I'm serious."

Then I turned and walked out of the house.

Serena actually cheered.

Her parents came running after me.

They got their hands on my car door, half pleading, half warning. "Adrian, Serena doesn't know what she's saying. Don't hold it against her.

"Whatever you just said, take it back."

I didn't move an inch. I put the Panamera in gear and left.

That evening I was at a club talking business when my phone buzzed.

Serena had posted in our group chat: [Everyone! I'm getting married! Congratulate me!]

Within seconds the group was tagging me.

[Congratulations, Adrian. You finally got what you wanted. Buy us all a drink so we can celebrate too.]

Inside a minute there were dozens of messages telling me to put something in the pot.

Every one of them assumed she meant me.

I frowned and was about to correct them when Serena added Evan to the chat.

[Everybody, THIS is the man I'm marrying. Would you please stop tagging people who have nothing to do with me?]

That group was all people we'd grown up alongside. Same schools, same houses, same summers. We joked about anything with each other.

And now she'd dropped a nobody into the middle of it.

The chat went dead.

One of them messaged me on the side: what's going on? Is Serena being dramatic again?

I thought about it and wrote back: [Nothing. We're done.]

He didn't believe me. He lectured me for a while, and then he went back into the group and started in on Evan.

[So you're Serena's new boyfriend?]

[Do you mind me asking what you do?]

[What's it pay?]

[Would a lifetime of it come to what Adrian makes in an hour?]

Evan had nothing to say.

Serena was more than willing to go over the top for him. [Liam, don't you think you're getting a little involved?]

[Evan is smart and he works hard. One day he'll be worth more than a pack of trust-fund kids waiting around to die.]

Liam Mercer wasn't going to trade insults with a woman, so he tagged Evan again.

[Man, are you really going to hide behind her and say nothing?]

This time Evan answered.

He offered to cover the round, and sent the chat five dollars. [Good to meet everybody. Hope we can be friends.]

There were more than a dozen people in that group. Five dollars, total.

Liam split it out and sent me the screenshot.

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  • Her Bodyguard, My Empire   Chapter 10

    Maybe he knew his mother didn't want him. Noah hardly ever cried, and he almost never needed soothing.I loved him so much that within a month of his birth I'd written a will leaving everything I owned to him.And I never once imagined that Serena would kill our son with her own hands.In that way. That cruelly.What right did she have to be called his mother?Now she was bleeding on the floor, cramping so hard she couldn't hold still.Evelyn hesitated a couple of seconds, then looked up at me. "Adrian, should we call her an ambulance?"She was your fiancee once, after all."I closed my eyes and shook my head."Her husband's standing right there. She doesn't need us."The second Serena went down, Evan lost his head. He turned in circles, explaining to nobody."It wasn't me. I didn't push her."I wasn't trying to kill anyone."But there was blood all over his hands, and wherever he went the guests screamed and got out of his way.So after a moment, he turned those bloodsho

  • Her Bodyguard, My Empire   Chapter 9

    "This is my fault?"She asked it the way you'd ask a stranger. "Evan. How can you say that to me?"She'd barely finished when one of the men laughed."Miss Sutton, don't rush. The car, or your man's fingers. Either way."We'll let you watch something first, and then you can decide."He nodded, and the big screen at the end of the ballroom came alive with Evan's soft white face.In the video, Evan was on a hotel bed with his arm around a woman who must have weighed two hundred pounds."You come out with me like this, Evan. Aren't you afraid your wife will find out?"Evan was out of breath. "It isn't as though it's our first time, Cassandra. What are you worried about?"Besides, you're the only one I've ever had in my heart."If it weren't for the Sutton company, why on earth would I have anything to do with that girl?"The two of them looked like mother and son, and they were lovers.When the video ended there wasn't a drop of color left in Serena's face.She swung her arm

  • Her Bodyguard, My Empire   Chapter 8

    I watched, cold, and nothing showed on my face.Serena's eyes flicked to Evelyn beside me and her mouth twisted. "Although, Adrian, you may not be Evan's equal, but did you really have to settle for a woman like that?"She looks like trouble. Are you sure you can handle her?"Evelyn was trouble in a bedroom and a lady everywhere else.But being needled like that still soured the evening for me.I moved a finger and dialed a number. "Now. Call in every dollar he's borrowed."I hung up, and it wasn't long.A group of men in dark coats came in through the hotel doors with baseball bats in their hands."Which one of you is Evan Brooks?"You owe our boss money. Don't you think it's about time you paid him?"Because the truth was that Evan's investments had never made a cent.He'd been able to produce that report because he'd taken company money and gambled it, and won a few times on luck.Luck runs out.Lately he'd been losing more and more, and rather than let Serena find out,

  • Her Bodyguard, My Empire   Chapter 7

    He spent one half of his time charming Serena.The other half he spent cutting out anyone who wasn't loyal.It didn't take long before Sutton Group was a company with exactly one opinion in it.At the quarterly review, every project Evan had put money behind came back with its profits doubled.Serena was vindicated at last. She posted a photo of a luxury home and tagged me on purpose.The caption read, thank you to my husband for our new house.But when I opened the picture, that wasn't Evan's house. That was the penthouse I'd kept for myself at Riverview Tower.The moment she posted it, Liam messaged me."Adrian, isn't that your place? Why is Serena saying Evan bought it for her?"I offered you forty million for that unit and you wouldn't sell. What did he pay you?"I laughed and sent him a photograph of the deed.That finished Liam off entirely.The man had scraped together five dollars for a group chat when he was introduced.Now he'd taken over his girlfriend's family

  • Her Bodyguard, My Empire   Chapter 6

    I laughed out loud.Whatever appetite I'd had for talking to her was gone for good.I told my driver to bring the car around to the door, and stood up, ending the conversation."If the two of you already have solutions, you shouldn't have come to me in the first place."Whatever happens to the Sutton family, I'm not putting a hand in it again."Serena had never once had me be cold to her, and being brushed off like that sat badly.But she'd never lacked confidence, and to her my calm was just an act.So she called after me, as though she were doing me a favor. "Adrian, I'll admit it. You're a good man."But I don't love you. What am I supposed to do about that?"Can't we just be friends from here on?"Friends.My face went to ice. I lifted my eyes and looked straight at her."Serena. Twenty years ago, from your first second in this world, I looked after you as the woman I'd marry."You got sick and I sat up all night with you."Your stomach hurt and I stood in a kitchen a

  • Her Bodyguard, My Empire   Chapter 5

    She heard the word love with a don't in front of it, and her face changed on the spot.She bit down on her lower lip, anxious, and made herself look straight at me anyway."Is that right? Then you'd better mean it."And she got up and walked out in a temper.For years, under my care, she'd had a themed party for every single birthday.Tonight she'd come to a restaurant on her own, and she left on her own.I watched her go, and thought about it for a moment, and in the end I said nothing.In my first life I'd given her every chance at a good life, and she'd thrown all of them away.This time she could do as she liked. It wasn't mine to carry.I'd assumed that after watching me treat Serena that coldly, Evelyn would decide I wasn't worth her time.Instead she turned out to understand business, and to follow soccer, and we spent the whole evening raising our glasses and talking.We'd barely gotten into the car before we were kissing like a match dropped in dry grass."Evelyn.

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