In Jonah Roman’s family home, two women - Julia, his sister, and Mia, his mother and Xavier’s sister, were getting ready for the occasion. “Your deadbeat uncle has finally found another gold digger to marry. I just hope this one will be worse than the last,” Mia said, as the makeup artist went to work on her face. “I thought he vowed never to get married after the last one humbled him,” Julia snorted. “Let’s see how long this one will last. He thinks having money will suddenly make him less of a loser.” “Once men get money that they didn’t work for, they begin to fall in love at every corner,” Mia said with obvious irritation in her voice. “I wish this one will actually suck him dry until he is left with nothing.” “He just had to set his engagement right after Jonah’s own. What a cheap copycat,” Julia scoffed. While they spoke back and forth berating Xavier, the makeup artist rolled her eyes. “If you hate him so much, why did you agree to go to the party?” She asked. Mia’s face

The rest of the party went by smoothly and the few people who were allowed to speak to her only congratulated her. No one mentioned what happened the day before with Jonah and she was thankful for that. Unfortunately though, everyone was interested in hearing the story of how they met, who she was, and what family she was from. Charlotte assumed they wanted to know how affluent her family was before she met Xavier. In response to their prodding questions, she just smiled each time and scooted closer to Xavier who faced anyone that questioned her too much. He didn’t have to say anything. Just a stare from him and they were gone immediately. When she wasn’t meeting new people, she was sipping a glass of champagne. Without knowing, she had downed more than five glasses of potent champagne or even more. She didn’t mind. It made her feel freer and soon, she was dancing and not having to attach herself to Xavier like a second skin anymore. At this point, everybody was mixing together an

“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked him, finally settling on confusion. “I asked you to marry me because you have just as much as I have to lose if the truth behind this arrangement gets out. We’ve both been at the receiving end of being betrayed so right now, you, like me, will want to do this right so we can get what we want without hurting anyone,” he said, “or soiling your name in the process.”She turned away. His words did not relieve her. He chose her particularly because of who she was and what she would stand to lose if she tried to turn against him. He chose her because he believed she wasn’t a trouble-maker, one who would end up becoming greedy and suing him for everything he had. He knew she was afraid of what everyone else thought of her and was willing to use it to his advantage. He hadn’t said those words precisely, but it was easy to deduce the hidden meaning behind them. Charlotte hated how disappointed she felt. She knew what she was getting into when she agreed to

When Charlotte saw her ex-husband, she was filled with so much hate. He had the guts to show up here, to her engagement party after what he had done to her. And to make it worse, he brought Valerie. She flipped her intricately styled hair and turned away, focusing instead on walking back to her seat with Xavier. Jonah was still there, staring at them but so were the rest of the guests. She felt so irritated, unable to do anything while he watched her. “Why did you invite him?” She asked Xavier. “Invite who?” “Jonah,” she hissed. Even saying his name made her sick. “He’s my nephew,” he answered like that was supposed to make everything make sense at once. “And my ex-husband. If he’s here, people will talk.” “Do you still like him?” Xavier asked drily. “What? Of course not,” she snapped. Why would he ask her that? “Then why do you care if he’s here or not? Just ignore him and he’ll leave with the others.” How could she ignore him when he was glaring at her? When she could fee

If Charlotte thought her side of the house was big before, then coming to the main house made her rethink her opinion. It wasn’t the first time she had ever been in the main house, yet it looked way bigger than she remembered. It was truly a mansion in every sense of the word. There were so many rooms she saw while they passed that at some point, she could not longer keep counting. “How many people live here?” She asked the maid when a few minutes later, they still hadn’t reached the appointment room, wherever that was. “Just Mr Roman most of the time,” she answered. “Then what does he need all this rooms for?” She asked a little too loudly. The maid gave her a look. Ugh, she hoped the woman did not think she was complaining because she didn’t live with her husband but somewhere else. She wondered what the woman thought about their relationship. She was almost tempted to ask her if Xavier had ever had such a relationship before, but thought better of it. Whenever she got a phone,