All Chapters of Loving my Father’s Wife: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

16 Chapters

The unwanted daughter

The mansion was a tomb made of white marble.It stood on a hill overlooking the city, enormous and sterile, its windows tall and narrow like watchful eyes. People admired it from a distance. They called it elegant, timeless, powerful. Inside, it was silent in the way hospitals were silent, not peaceful, but watchful, as if the walls themselves were listening for mistakes.For Mary, every day was a lesson in how to disappear while still breathing.At twenty-two, she had mastered the art of moving without being noticed. She walked with her weight carefully distributed so the floorboards would not creak. She learned which doors needed to be closed slowly and which handles stuck if you turned them too fast. She knew how to sit straight for hours without shifting, how to keep her hands folded in her lap so no one could accuse her of fidgeting. She had learned to cry without sound, without tears, without evidence. Crying openly in this house had consequences.In the house of Silas Vance, em

The leverage

The nightmare began with a smell.It crept into her sleep quietly, slipping past her defenses before she could recognize it. Expensive leather. Heavy cologne. Thick, cloying, and unfamiliar. It was not her father’s scent. This one was older, sweeter, rotten beneath the polish. In the dream, she was standing in a room without windows, the air pressing against her lungs, the smell wrapping around her throat like a hand.She woke with a gasp, her heart hammering violently against her ribs.Mary lay still in her bed, staring at the pale ceiling as dawn crept weakly through the curtains. Her nightgown clung to her skin, damp with sweat. The smell lingered in her mind, so vivid it made her stomach churn. She pressed her palm against her chest, willing her breathing to slow.It meant nothing, she told herself. Dreams meant nothing.But the house felt different that morning. Heavier. Like it was holding its breath.Two days after the dinner, Elena appeared at her door earlier than usual. She

Merger

The two weeks leading up to the “merger,” as her father insisted on calling it, passed in a haze of white lace, whispered conversations, and doors that closed just a little too softly behind her. Mary felt like a prisoner on death row being measured for a silk noose. Everything was polite. Everything was elegant. And everything was irreversible.Silas Vance wasted no time.Within forty-eight hours of the meeting in the study, the news appeared in the high-society papers. It was framed as triumph, as destiny, as the joining of two powerful legacies. The headlines praised strategy and foresight. They celebrated numbers and futures. They did not mention the girl at the center of it all.“A Union of Dynasties: Vance and Sterling Join Forces through Marriage.”Mary read the words until they blurred.She sat at the vanity in her bedroom, her back straight, her hands folded in her lap. The newspaper clipping lay neatly on the silver tray Elena had placed beside her breakfast. The tea had gon

Run Away

That night, the reality of her situation did not arrive gently. It crashed into Mary with the force of a tidal wave, violent and unstoppable. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, her body rigid beneath the covers. The room felt too small, the walls closing in as if they had moved while she wasn’t looking. Every breath felt borrowed. Every second closer to something she could not endure. She could not do it. She could not let that man touch her. She could not let his hands claim her body the way they had already claimed her future. She could not survive a life spent swallowing screams in a house where she existed only as an object. Her father’s words echoed in her mind. The threat. The certainty. The calm cruelty of it. Mary turned onto her side and pressed her hand over her mouth to muffle the sob that threatened to escape. Her heart raced so violently she was sure someone would hear it. The house was quiet, but it was never asleep. It watched. It waited. She stayed still

Jailer

The next few days blurred together into an oppressive haze that Mary struggled to separate into individual moments. Time lost its shape. Morning and night felt the same, each bleeding into the other without relief. She existed in a state of suspended animation, moving when she was told to move, sitting when she was told to sit, breathing only because her body insisted on it.Her bedroom door remained locked from the outside.Elena opened it only when necessary. Meals were delivered with mechanical precision, the tray set down without comment. Sometimes Elena stayed long enough to watch Mary take a few bites, her gaze sharp and appraising, as though hunger itself could be interpreted as defiance. Mary ate just enough to avoid punishment. Anything more felt impossible. Her stomach stayed clenched in a constant knot of dread, rejecting food as if it understood what was coming.Dress rehearsals followed.Elena would unlock the door and instruct Mary to stand while seamstresses adjusted si

The contract

The contracts arrived the next day. They were not delivered with flowers or congratulations or any illusion of celebration. They came in thick binders, stacked neatly like tombstones, their dark leather covers stamped in gold. They were heavy, dense with legal jargon, terms, and conditions that felt less like the framework of a marriage and more like a meticulously planned hostile takeover. Each binder was a weapon disguised as formality. Elena carried them into Mary’s room without ceremony. She placed them on the desk as if they were just another task on a long list of obligations. Her face remained perfectly blank, her posture rigid, her eyes carefully averted. “Your father wants you to review these documents,” Elena said, her voice flat, stripped of any warmth. “Mr. Sterling’s lawyers will be here in two hours for your signature.” Two hours. Mary stared at the stack of papers as though they might move on their own. Her chest felt tight, as if something invisible had wrappe

The fitting

If the contracts were the chains, the dress was the shroud. Three days before the wedding, the Vance estate transformed once again—not into a home, but into a production stage. Everything became about preparation, presentation, and perfection. The most famous bridal designer in the country arrived just after noon, stepping out of a sleek black car with the confidence of someone accustomed to shaping fantasies for the wealthy. She was tall, severe, immaculately dressed, her expression sharp with professional detachment. Behind her came three assistants, all dressed in black, all silent, all moving with the synchronized precision of surgeons entering an operating room. They did not greet Mary. They did not ask how she felt. They did not ask what she wanted. They came to fit her, not to consult her. The main drawing room had been stripped of warmth and repurposed into a sterile fitting space. Furniture had been pushed aside. Tall mirrors lined the walls, positioned to reflect Mary

Wedding eve

The night before the wedding was the quietest night Mary had ever known. It was not the peaceful quiet people spoke of with longing, not the hush that came after laughter or prayer. It was the silence of a graveyard—thick, oppressive, alive with the knowledge that something had ended and something worse was waiting to begin. The house itself seemed to be holding its breath. Even the walls felt different, as though they were listening. The servants had been dismissed early, their footsteps fading one by one down the long corridors until there was no one left who might accidentally offer kindness. The chandeliers were dimmed. The carpets swallowed sound. Somewhere far away, a clock ticked with slow, deliberate cruelty. Her father had taken no chances. Her window was nailed shut, thick wooden boards crisscrossed like a warning sign. Not even moonlight could find its way in properly; it slipped through the cracks in thin, pale lines that cut across the floor like prison bars. A guard sa

The wedding

The cathedral was a cavern of white roses and cold stone. Its walls rose high and unforgiving, carved by centuries of wealth, power, and selective devotion. It was one of the oldest churches in the city, a place reserved for the kind of people whose names were etched into plaques and stained glass, whose donations ensured their sins were softened into footnotes. To Mary, it did not feel holy. It felt like a mausoleum beautiful, reverent, and designed to honor the dead.Every surface was covered in flowers. White roses climbed the pillars in thick, suffocating garlands. Lilies overflowed from marble urns, spilled across the altar steps, lined the pews in precise, symmetrical rows. The scent was overwhelming. It pressed in on her from all sides, sweet and heavy, cloying enough to make her stomach churn. It reminded her of funerals. Of closed caskets. Of rooms where grief had nowhere to go.Outside, just moments ago, the flashbulbs of the paparazzi had exploded around her like lightning

Mrs Sterling

The car was a long, black limousine that felt like a coffin on wheels.Its windows were tinted so dark they reflected her own pale face back at her, a ghost trapped behind glass. The engine hummed softly beneath them, smooth and relentless, carrying her forward without pause or mercy. The city lights slid past like distant stars unreachable, indifferent.The reception had been a blur of forced smiles and champagne she couldn't drink. Laughter had followed her everywhere, bright and hollow, while her stomach churned with dread. Arthur had kept his hand on her the entire time on her waist, on her shoulder, on her thigh. Each touch had been possessive, deliberate, meant to remind everyone watching that she belonged to him now. He had paraded her around like a trophy, laughing with his business associates while she stood there, a silent, beautiful statue, nodding when prompted, smiling when commanded.Now, finally, they were alone.The partition between the driver and the back seat was up

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