MasukShe was supposed to be a business arrangement, nothing more. A wife on paper. A sacrifice to save a dying empire. But on her 25th birthday, Millicent Whitmore learns the truth: her husband never loved her… and neither did her family. Humiliated, betrayed, and replaced by the one person she trusted most, her own sister. Milly walks away from the life she was forced to survive. Only to collide with Declan Laurent, a dangerously powerful man with his own secrets… and an unexpected proposal. A contract marriage. A mutual revenge. No love involved. At least, not at first. But when power, obsession, and buried truths begin to surface, Milly realizes escape was never the real danger… It was choosing the wrong man to help her burn everything down.
Lihat lebih banyakMILLYThe timer hit zero, and I stared down at the test in my hand, my heart pounding so loud I could hear it over the silence of the bathroom.Two lines. Except the second one was barely there, faint enough that I had to tilt it toward the light three separate times to convince myself I wasn’t imagining it.Inconclusive. That was the word the box used somewhere in its careful printed instructions, and it sat heavier in my chest than a clear answer either way would have.I sat back down on the edge of the tub, the test balanced carefully on my knee, and let myself feel everything at once. Fear first, sharp and immediate, my mind racing straight toward every reason this was the worst possible timing imaginable. Federal investigators combing through Laurent Global. My biological father is facing conspiracy charges. My sister was sedated in a psychiatric ward two floors above where I’d sat that morning. A house that had exploded into flames less than two weeks earlier while I was still
MILLYI couldn’t stop thinking about it, someone reaching into my medical records the way they’d reached into every other private corner of my life these past months.“What could they possibly find,” I asked Declan, pacing the study while Adrian worked through his security logs. “It’s a routine clinic visit from months ago. Blood work. Nothing connected to any of this.”“I don’t know yet.” He watched me pace, worry etched deep into his expression. “That’s what scares me. They’re not looking for something random, Milly. They’re looking for something specific enough to be worth the risk of leaving a trace.”I didn’t have an answer for that, and neither did he, and the not-knowing sat heavy in my chest for days afterward.The follow-up appointment had been scheduled before any of this, routine bloodwork after the shooting, but by the time I actually sat in that exam room, exhaustion had settled so deep into my bones that even standing felt like an effort.“Your cortisol levels are signif
DECLANRichard’s statement never made it to air. Someone leaked it early, a draft copy circulating through three separate outlets before he’d even finished delivering it to the network he’d chosen to break the story, and by morning the entire narrative had shifted into something far messier than a single powerful man naming a single rival.Both of them were bleeding now. Cross and Richard, each one scrambling to shift blame before investigators finished building their own timeline, and Washington had turned into exactly the kind of chaos I’d expected once the dam finally broke completely.“Three more executives resigned overnight,” Adrian told me, sliding a list across my desk. “Two more are cooperating with federal subpoenas without waiting for our legal team to advise them first.”“Let them.”“Declan, this is going to gut the company.”“I know.”I meant it. I’d stopped caring about protecting Laurent Global’s reputation somewhere around the moment I’d watched that lake house explode
ADRIAN CROSSThe campaign had been dying for days, but tonight the coverage turned from speculation to certainty, my face on every screen beneath headlines that used words like “linked” and “connected” and, increasingly, “ordered.”I hadn’t ordered anything.I sat alone in my study, the television murmuring reports of the lakeside attack, my hands wrapped around a glass I hadn’t touched in an hour, and I said it out loud to the empty room, the way a man says something he needs to believe himself before anyone else will.“I didn’t order that.”Nobody was there to hear it, which was somehow worse than if someone had been, because I couldn’t tell anymore whether I actually believed my own denial or whether decades of careful self-deception had simply become instinct.My chief of staff found me there past midnight, his face tight with the particular exhaustion of a man managing a collapsing empire.“The dying man told Isaac Brooke your name,” he said, no preamble. “That’s what’s circulati
MILLY.“What if you married me instead?”For a second, I genuinely thought I had heard him wrong.The music from inside the club still pulsed faintly through the walls behind us while cold night air wrapped around my bare skin. My chest rose sharply as I stared at the man standing in front of me l
MILLY.The music was loud enough to drown thoughts. The reason why I kept drinking. Flashing lights spilled across the crowded club, painting bodies in shades of blue and red while laughter echoed through the massive space. The air smelled like alcohol, expensive perfume, and bad decisions. Exact
MILLY.The bruise had already started forming. I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, fingers hovering just above the purple mark staining the side of my cheek. Even under layers of concealer, it still showed faintly.Like my marriage. No matter how hard I tried to cover it, the damage
DECLAN. “I said no.” My grandfather’s jaw tightened across the video call screen. “You’re twenty-nine years old, Declan.” “And?” “And acting like a damn teenager.” I leaned back against the leather chair inside my penthouse office, loosening the tie around my neck slowly. The city lights outs
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