Chapter 1: I Slept With My Ex-husband's Uncle 

Xena.

I gasped for breath, my legs still aching from the last round. Yet Dante stood over me like this was nothing but probably another of his one night stands.

The bed was wet beneath me, wet from my juices. 

I stared at the ceiling for a while, the memories of his cock inside of me played over and over again.

"Are you alright?” He asked, buttoning up his shirt.

"I can't believe," I said slowly, still not looking at him, "that I just slept with my ex-husband's uncle."

~A day ago~

"You have no choice but to attend."

Adrian said it the way he said most things. He cut into his meat and put a piece in his mouth without looking up.

I set my fork down.

"I don't like being forced into things," I remarked. "You know that."

He smirked, swirling the wine in his glass then finally looked at me. "Says the woman who was forced to marry me."

"I decided to."

He didn't argue. He just turned back to his plate and let the silence settle like he'd already won.

I picked my fork back up and stared at my food without eating it.

It was three years now and our dinners were still the same old boring conversations that went nowhere. 

I had made my peace with most of it. I had stopped expecting warmth from Adrian Yale around the same time I stopped expecting an apology from my stepmother — which was to say, very early and with very little drama.

What I hadn't made my peace with was being handled.

Three years ago I didn't even know I was getting married that day.

I remembered the morning clearly. My stepmother's voice through the door. “Get dressed. Something's happened. You're needed.” No explanation until I was already in the car and gotten to the court. 

Hannah had run away the morning before she was supposed to get married to the Yale family as agreed between both families. 

And my stepmother turned to me as the solution. 

“The scandal would destroy both families,” she had said. “You're the only option. You owe us this much.”

I had never owed them anything. But I had walked into that ceremony anyway and married him by force. 

Adrian had known, of course. He wasn't happy about it. But he was also twenty-three, aware that the Yale name required the alliance, and I was close enough to what had been promised that no one had to explain anything publicly.

Now here I was, three years in, married to a man who didn't give a fuck if I died while he slept with a different woman each week. 

"My point stands."

Adrian's voice pulled me back. He was watching me now with a flat expression.

"The gala is tonight," he said. "My promotion. You'll be there."

"And if I'm not?"

He set his glass down carefully. "Then I tell the story of how Hannah Cross disappeared the morning of her own wedding and a substitute showed up in her place." A pause. "The real one. With details."

I kept my face still.

He's bluffing. He had too much to lose. The Yale name would take damage too. Adrian liked his reputation more than anything and burning it to punish me didn't fit the man I'd spent three years watching.

But….

He was also sitting across from me at a dinner he'd cooked no part of, in a house he'd bought no part of and wearing a suit that cost more than some people's annual salary.

He also looked completely at ease making that threat.

I didn't want to risk it.

"Fine," I said.

He nodded like I'd confirmed something minor. Stood, buttoned his jacket.

"I'll be in the garage when you're ready." He left without pushing his chair in.

I sat at the table alone for a moment.

Then I breathed.

“Mia!!” I called and the girl came rushing in.

“Get my gown ready.” 

And just like that we went to the gala. 

I had attended enough of these in three years to move through them without effort. And right now I need a break. 

I turned and saw a way out. Jackpot.

I was walking towards it when I heard my name.

My father's voice.

I turned, and there they were — my father and stepmother, moving through the crowd toward me. 

My father's arms was already open meanwhile my stepmom kept that ugly frown she always had.

Happy to see you too.

Dad reached me first and pulled me into a hug that surprised me slightly.

“I can't believe it's been yee years," he said quietly. "Thank you for holding this together."

I didn't say anything. I just let him hold on for a moment.

My stepmother stopped just behind him, looked me over from top to bottom and scoffed, "Not bad. For an illegitimate child."

I smiled.

"That's practically a declaration of love coming from you," I said, just loud enough.

Her eyes sharpened. She opened her mouth —

"Where's your husband?" my father cut in, already scanning the room. "Adrian should be —" He stopped.

His face had gone pale. 

I turned to follow his gaze.

Adrian was crossing the room on the far side of the crowd and beside him, tucked close, her hand through his arm was a woman.

I was at loss for words. It wasn't just any woman. It was—

“Hannah.” I muttered to myself in disbelief 

I felt a relief in my chest 

She was alive. She was standing twenty feet away looking perfectly fine. 

It was like she hadn't aged at all. I smiled and rushed to hug her.

But two men in dark suits materialized from nowhere and stopped me.

I looked past them and Hannah's eyes met mine across the room.

She raised one hand, almost slowly, and pointed directly at me.

"Yes," she announced. "She's the one who kidnapped me.".