Betrayed by My Ex, Claimed by His Boss のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 1 - チャプター 10

I was about to surprise my husband… when I heard another woman’s voice in our bedroom. I stopped mid-step, the air in the hallway suddenly feeling like ice against my skin. At first, I tried to lie to myself. I thought it was the TV. Maybe Julian had left a movie playing while he waited for me to come home. But then came a laugh. It was low, breathy, and intimately familiar. A sound that didn’t belong to a screen, but to someone who felt very much at home in my sanctuary. My fingers tightened around the small velvet box in my hand. The sharp edges pressed into my palm, the physical sting the only thing keeping me grounded. Inside was the anniversary gift I had spent three months saving for—a silver Patek Philippe, engraved with his initials: J.C. Forever Yours. I had planned the perfect evening. A five-course dinner cooling on the table downstairs. Scented candles. A bottle of the vintage wine we had saved since our honeymoon. A perfect surprise. A perfect joke. Another sound sl

The interior of the Rolls-Royce was a vault of soundproofed silence. Outside, the city moved like a muted film—blurred lights and rushing shadows that felt like a life I no longer belonged to. Lucian Blackwood didn't answer my question immediately. He reached for a crystal decanter in the side panel and poured a finger of amber liquid into a heavy-bottomed glass. The sharp, rhythmic clink of ice against crystal was the only sound in the pressurized cabin. He didn't offer me a drink. He just leaned back, his large hand loosely circling the glass, and watched me with the steady, unnerving focus of a man who dealt in certainties. “The deal is simple, Evelyn,” he said, his voice a low vibration that seemed to hum in the very leather of the seats. “I need a fiancée. A temporary, public-facing arrangement for exactly twelve months.” I didn't blink. I kept my back straight, refusing to let the luxury of the car soften the jagged edges of my resolve. “You’re Lucian Blackwood. You could hav

The Metropolitan Museum’s grand hall was a cathedral of curated power. Under the vaulted ceilings, the air was thick with the scent of expensive lilies and the sharper, metallic tang of ambition. I stood at the top of the marble staircase, looking down at the gala. For three years, I had walked these halls two steps behind Julian, the one steadying his course long before anyone else believed in it. I had been the invisible hand on the wheel, steering him through the room while he stood at the bow, taking the credit for the wind. Tonight, I was a ghost at my own feast. I descended the stairs alone. My new, razor-sharp bob caught the light, and the dark, liquid mercury of my gown felt like a suit of armor. I didn't look like a grieving wife; I looked like a hostile takeover. I spotted Julian near the champagne fountain. He was surrounded by a circle of investors, his face flushed with the performative excitement he used when he was selling a dream. At his side, Chloe was draped

Lucian’s hand rose—a slow, deliberate movement. With a touch so light it was almost a ghost of a gesture, he brushed a stray strand of hair away from my temple. In this silence, the act was a brand. He wasn't just standing with me, he was marking the territory. "You're late," I said, my voice barely a whisper. Lucian’s eyes darkened, a flash of something sharp and appreciative dancing in the shadows of his iris. "A brief call with the London board," he replied, his voice a low vibration. "The delay was predictable. The company you were keeping, however, was not." Thirty feet away, the air seemed to leave Julian’s lungs. He stood frozen, the champagne glass trembling in his hand. The arrogance that had fueled him for years—the absolute conviction that I was a tool he had outgrown—was being stripped away in real-time. He looked at Lucian, then at my hand on Lucian’s arm, and finally at the stillness of the room. "Mr. Blackwood," Julian began, his voice cracking. He took a stag

The silence of Lucian’s penthouse was absolute, a soundproofed vault suspended eighty floors above the glittering, relentless grid of Manhattan. After the suffocating pressure of the Inner Sanctum, the quiet felt almost heavy. I stood in the center of the master suite, the city lights casting long, sharp shadows across the minimalist expanse of dark marble and imported charcoal suede. The physical exhaustion hit me first, a sudden, heavy ache in my bones. I reached down and unclasped my heels, letting them drop to the floor with a muted thud. The armor was coming off. I walked over to the sprawling vanity mirror and looked at my reflection. The liquid mercury gown still clung to me, but the woman inside it had shifted. Tonight, I had severed the ghost of my past. Julian was no longer the architect of my misery; he was just a dying company on a spreadsheet. I was physically drained from navigating the lethal currents of high society, but my mind was terrifyingly awake, sharper an