LOGINClara thought marrying billionaire Victor Draven would save her family and give her peace. But peace doesn't exist inside the Draven mansion— In fact, it has never existed. Only secrets, temptations, and danger wrapped in luxury. And when his son returned home, things took a dark turn. His gaze burned, his words without filters, and his touch felt like sin wrapped in a handsome face. She shouldn't want him. But in a house built on lies, desire might be the deadliest secret of all.
View MoreClara's POV
Dear Diary,
“I don't know why I'm writing this but maybe it's because if I don't, I'll explode. You think you've heard scandal? No, not like mine I was a wife… and this is how I got tangled in a sinful web with my husband's son.”
It started the night after our wedding our first family dinner. My hands wouldn't stop shaking as I sat my fork down. I told myself it was just nerves from being the new wife. But when he walked in… tall, a little older than I expected, the air shifted like I wasn't supposed to breathe it.
The table stretched endlessly, my own reflection clear in the polished wood. I sat, fingers trembling in my lap as I rehearsed smiles and little jokes slipping from my mind.
Tonight was the night tonight, I met Nikolai. My new husband's only son.
Victor squeezed my hand under the table, his voice soft. “Relax, sweetheart. He'll love you.”
“You're sure?” My heart pounded.
“Yeah… and you'll love him too. Although he's just a bit… Protective.”
Protective? Was this like his own way of saying difficult? Still, I smiled. I badly wanted his son's acceptance.
The door opened, followed by footsteps.
I looked up.
Nikolai. Tall, broad shoulders. His face carried the same strong jawline as his father, but sharper, younger and cold. His suit jacket draped carelessly over his arm. He didn't look like who just came from the airport, he looked like he owned the whole place already.
He didn't smile when Victor stood proudly. “Son,” Victor said, lifting his arms. “Welcome home.”
They hugged briefly, Nikolai's eyes already drifting past him… to me.
“This is Clara,” Victor introduced, his voice laced with pride. “My wife.”
Nikolai's gaze traveled over me slowly he stopped at my face. Silence followed for a moment, then:
“Wife?” his mouth curled, but it wasn't a smile. “She looks closer to my age than yours, Dad.”
The air was tense and my chest tightened.
Victor chuckled nervously. “You've always had a sharp tongue.”
I forced a smile, my voice softer than I wanted. “It's nice to finally meet you, Nikolai.”
He sat across from me, pulling his chair back with a drag. “Sure.”
The butler poured wine, steaming plates were placed before us and I reached for my glass to steady my hand.
Victor tried to lighten the air. “Clara's been looking forward to meeting you. She's been asking about you since even before the wedding.”
Nikolai cut his steak, the knife grinding harshly. “Oh, I'm sure she has. Every gold digger wants to know what kind of stepson she's inheriting.”
The words hit me like a slap.
My throat closed. “That's not—”
“Nikolai,” Victor warned lightly, “enough.”
But he kept going, stabbing a piece of meat with his fork. “Tell me, Clara. What was it? His company shares? The penthouse? Or maybe the yatch?”
My fork clattered against the plate. I bent my head, heat burning my cheeks. “I married him because I love him.”
He scoffed. “Right. You fell head over heels for the man who could be your father. That's the kind of fairytale they don't publish.”
Victor sighed, sipping his wine. “Ignore him, Clara. He'll come around.”
But Nikolai's eyes didn't stop, they locked on me, sharp and unyielding. “You'll forgive me if I don't toast to the happy couple. Some of us actually loved my mother.”
The words hit deeper than I expected with my chest squeezing and guilt clawing at my ribs.
Silence fell, forks clicked. Although my appetite was gone, I forced myself to eat each bite turning to ash in my mouth.
Victor changed the subject to business, stocks, politics things I barely understood. Nikolai answered curtly, but every so often, his gaze slid back to me. Watching. Measuring. Judging.
When the plates were cleared, Victor leaned back, satisfied. “See? That wasn't so bad, was it?”
I shook my head but felt Nikolai's stare burning into me, cold and merciless, and I knew this wasn't the end. It was the beginning of a war.
✷✷✷✷✷✷
Hours later, the house had gone quiet and Victor was fast asleep, snoring peacefully. But somehow, I just couldn't fall asleep I felt suffocated. So I decided to go outside, maybe to the pool… I want fresh air.
As I stepped closer, I found him by the pool. Nikolai. Shirt half buttoned, laptop opened, and a glass of whiskey sweating beside him. He didn't look up but from the sudden change of air, I could tell he noticed me.
I shouldn't have said anything. I should've just stayed quiet but I wanted to speak to him I knew he had something against me and I only wanted him to know I meant no harm. Not to him. Not to his father.
I cleared my throat softly. “Nikolai… Can we talk?”
His eyes flicked up, cold and unreadable. “About what? How I hurt your feelings at dinner?”
“I just…” My voice faltered. “I wanted to clear the air. I'm not here for your father's money.”
He gave a wicked laugh as he leaned back in his chair. “Of course you're not. Women like you always marry old men for love.”
“That's not true,” I said firmly. “I care about him.”
He shut his laptop almost immediately, the sound snapping through the night made me flinch. When he stood, the shift in his body felt like a storm rolling in. His height swallowed the space between us as he walked forward.
I stepped back, my spine brushing the old wall of the patio. “Nikolai, I know you don't like me, but—”
“Don't like you?” His laugh was sharp, butter. He leaned closer, his breath warm against my cheek. “You've got some nerve.”
Confusion knotted in my chest. “What do you mean?”
His eyes burned, darker than the pool water glimmering behind him. “Two years. That's how long I wasted on you. Two fucking years. And one day you just disappeared like I never mattered.”
My breath caught this wasn't something I was prepared to talk about. “Nikolai…”
“You left me broken,” he said through clenched teeth. “I searched all over for you and then I came home and found you here in my father's house. Wearing his ring.” His jaw flexed. “Tell me, Clara. Was this your plan all along?”
Tears stung my eyes. “No. It wasn't like that. I swear—”
“Save it,” he hissed. “You ran from me straight into his arms. And now you want my approval? You want me to believe you love him?”
He stepped even closer, pinning me against the wall with nothing but the weight of his presence. My heart pounded, my hands shook at my sides.
“Nikolai, I didn't mean to hurt you…”
His smirk cut me like a blade. “Then prove it.”
“What?”
And just like that, I became my ex-boyfriend’s stepmother and no, this shit didn't end, there's more.
POV: ClaraVictor was already at the table when I came down for breakfast.That was unusual. He was a late riser at home, always taking his coffee in the study before appearing for anything social. But this morning he was seated at the head of the table with his jacket already on, a half-eaten plate of eggs in front of him, and the particular energy of a man who had already won something and was enjoying the feeling."There she is," he said, when I came in.Mr. Quinn and his wife were at the table too, along with Camille, who was picking at a bowl of fruit. Nikolai wasn't there yet.I sat down and poured coffee and told myself it was going to be a straightforward morning."The Quinn partnership is finalized," Victor said, as though he was making a toast without a glass. "Everything signed, everything settled. I thought we'd celebrate properly when we're back home. A dinner, nothing too large. A hundred guests perhaps."Mr. Quinn looked pleased. His wife looked like she'd heard this ki
POV: Nikolai The beach at six in the morning was grey and flat, the tide pulling back from the sand in long, slow sheets.Victor walked ahead, hands behind his back, talking. Quinn kept pace beside him, nodding at the right intervals. I walked a half step behind them both, which was where Victor preferred me during these conversations—close enough to hear, far enough not to contribute unless invited."The Wilson portfolio is nearly sorted," Victor said. "A few remaining assets. The lake property, some personal holdings they'd been sitting on for years. Sentimental attachments to things that stopped being worth anything a long time ago."Quinn made a sound of agreement. "Old families have that problem.""They do." Victor stepped over a line of seaweed the tide had left behind. "It's almost a kindness, helping them let go. They wouldn't know how to do it themselves."I kept my eyes on the waterline.Kindness. That was the word he used. I'd watched him use it before—with the Hendersons,
POV: Clara The Draven beach house looked like something that was built to intimidate people rather than welcome them.It had floor-to-ceiling glass walls which reflected the setting sun. Apparently Victor loved it here, so of course I hated it on sight.He parked with a satisfied sigh and turned to Mr. Quinn in the backseat. “Wait till you see the infinity pool. It looks like it drops straight into the ocean.”Mr. Quinn chuckled. “You always did have taste, Victor.”I got out first, my sandals sinking into the white gravel. The salt wind whipped my hair across my face as I heard the waves crashing below the cliff, loud and endless. The sound pressed against my chest, reminding me how isolated we were. We had no neighbors or roads close enough. It was just water stretching forever in every direction.I busied myself with the caterers while Victor gave the tour. Trays of shrimp, chilled oysters, tiny crab cakes—everything expensive and perfect already arranged out. I pointed at wher
POV: NikolaiThe mansion looked worse in daylight.I stood in the doorway of the breakfast room with my coffee, watching the staff move through the ground floor like a cleanup crew after a natural disaster. Someone was on their hands and knees picking sequins out of the carpet. Another was collecting champagne flutes from the windowsills and the mantelpiece and one particularly concerning location behind the grandfather clock.Victor sat at the head of the breakfast table, still in last night's shirt, snapping at the housekeeper about the flower arrangements being moved without his permission."They were wilting," she said carefully. "I thought—""You're not paid to think about flowers. You're paid to move them when I tell you to move them." He pressed two fingers against his temple and reached for his water glass.I took the seat across from him and poured myself more coffee from the carafe. I looked around the table. "Where's Clara?""Migraine." Victor didn't look up. "She's restin
Clara's POVThe black SUV pulled up the circular driveway, and my stomach performed a slow, agonizing flip. My parents stepped out, looking so small against the backdrop of the Draven estate.My mother looked even more slender than the last time I had seen her, her kind face was etched with that pe
POV: ClaraThe pantry floor felt like it was still burned into my skin. Every step I took that morning was heavy, like my legs were made of lead. I was a hollow shell, just a set of lungs moving air in and out while the rest of me was rotting from the inside.I was sitting at the breakfast table, t
POV: ClaraThe morning light felt like a physical weight pressing against my eyelids. My head throbbed with the kind of hangover that had nothing to do with champagne and everything to do with the lies I had swallowed the night before. Victor had left before dawn for some mysterious business meetin
POV: ClaraThe dress was a scream. That was the only way to describe the shade of red Victor had picked out for the Quinn-Novarion gala. It wasn't elegant; it was the color of an open wound. As the stylist tucked the silk around my waist, I felt less like a guest of honor and more like a target pai










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