Alle Kapitel von Claimed by my Ex-husband Billionaire Brother : Kapitel 1 – Kapitel 10

Valerie."Mrs Valerie. I have told you the honest truth. Mr. Collins is a busy man and since he has a board meeting, I am not sure you will be able to see him right now." One of the managers explained to me."When will he be done with the meeting?" I asked."I don't know. But I have a suggestion. How about you convey whatever you want to tell him and I inform him later." The young man who had a long mustache asked."What is your name?" I asked."Dorian." He replied politely."Well Dorian. Whatever I want to say to Collins is none of your business. I don't mind waiting till he is done with the meeting." I said to him and walked away from the reception.I checked my wristwatch and realized that the time was far going and evening was fast approaching. Perhaps I could use this moment to start looking for a new apartment. Even if Greg allowed me to stay, I still wouldn't be able to find peace with myself.Scrolling through my phone for a house agent, someone cleared their throat behind me

Valerie."It's good that you are here Greg. Your brother has a new bride." Collins's mother revealed after we broke away from the hug.I looked away as Greg took steps further into the living room."Bride?" He asked and then chuckled. "This isn't a bride. This is a whore." "Watch your mouth, Greg!" Collins warned with anger laced in his tone."Come on Collins. Stop pretending like you don't know what I am talking about." He said and turned his gaze to me."That woman is my former wife and somehow she has managed to guilt-trap you into believing she is the best thing in your life." My head was buried in shame and more than ever I wanted out of this agreement with Collins."What is he talking about Collins?" Their father questioned. "Father. My choice has been made and I certainly hope everyone will respect that and not try and interfere." He said."Good luck trying to get a child from her," Greg said and laughed.Collins' face was red hot in anger and before anyone could react, he

Valerie.The silence that followed Collins saying her name was the kind that had weight to it.It pressed against the walls of the living room, against my chest, against the carefully constructed version of the evening we had been building together just minutes before.Jasmine.I had heard the name enough times to have formed a picture of her in my mind — the woman the tabloids loved, the woman Greg had betrayed Collins with, the woman whose shadow had somehow preceded her into every conversation I had shared with Collins since the night we met.But a picture was one thing.The woman standing in the doorway was another entirely.She was tall. That was the first thing I registered — the kind of tall that wore itself like a statement. Her hair was dark and pin-straight, falling past her shoulders in a way that suggested deliberate effort masked as effortlessness. The coat she wore was cream-colored and expensive, the kind of cut that only looked that precise on a body maintained for the

Valerie.The dress was midnight blue.Collins had arranged it, a stylist arriving at the mansion that afternoon with a rack of options and the quiet efficiency of someone accustomed to preparing women for rooms they had never entered before. I had not asked for it. He had simply knocked on my door at noon and told me there was an event tonight and that someone would be up to assist me at three.He said it the way he said most things, as a fact already in motion rather than a question still being considered.The stylist, a compact woman named Élise who communicated primarily through small decisive sounds, had moved through the rack with practiced speed before stopping at the midnight blue. She held it against me once, studied my reflection in the mirror with her head tilted, and made a sound that apparently meant this one and nothing else.I didn't argue.Now, standing at the top of the staircase in it, I understood why she had stopped there. The dress was simple in the way that only e

Valerie.The car was quiet on the ride back.Collins drove the way he did most things with a focused economy of movement, one hand on the wheel, his eyes on the road ahead. The city passed outside the windows in its late-night register: the amber of streetlights smearing across wet asphalt, the thinning pedestrian traffic, the occasional lit window in an otherwise dark building suggesting someone else still awake and mid-way through something that hadn't resolved itself yet.I watched it all without really seeing it.Greg's voice kept reassembling itself in the corridor of my mind, the people I owe money to have connections to people Collins has been avoiding, and beneath it, threaded through it, the way Collins had looked out at the gala room when I'd finished telling him. The set of his jaw. The long pause before he spoke.There are things in my past that I managed and closed. I believed they were closed.I turned those words over carefully, the way you turn something fragile, check