The Widow's Son

A secret society of widows. A cold billionaire with a deadly past. One woman sent to seduce him... and destroy him. When Genevieve Holloway buries her husband, she thinks the worst is behind her. But the black-veiled woman at the funeral of her husband says otherwise. “You’ve been chosen.” Drawn into a shadowy society of grieving wives turned silent assassins, Genevieve is given one final task before she can walk free: infiltrate the life of Dominic Rourke—the enigmatic tech billionaire tied to her husband’s mysterious death—and expose the truth. Her mission is clear: seduce him. Infiltrate him. Ruin him. But Dominic Rourke is nothing like she expected. Cold. Calculating. Unreachable. And he’s never let any woman get close—until her. Worse still, his five-year-old daughter clings to Genevieve like a lost soul, whispering secrets she shouldn’t know. Secrets about her dead mother… and the club Genevieve now serves. The deeper Genevieve sinks into Dominic’s world, the more dangerous her own becomes. The women she trusted have blood on their hands. The man she was sent to destroy might be innocent. And the lies that bind them all go deeper than any grave. Genevieve begins to develop feelings for the man she’s sent to ruin, and he sees himself letting go of his cold nature to make her happy and find her husband’s killer. In a game of power, seduction, and betrayal, only one can survive. And Genevieve must decide: Is she the hunter or the hunted? Will she be Dominic’s ruin, or will she become his everything?

In my past life, my selfish son stopped caring about my husband and me after marrying a woman who followed her mother's words like they were holy commandments. In fact, he orchestrates an accident to kill my husband and me under the influence of his wife and her family. It's all so he can inherit our fortunes earlier than expected. When I'm reborn, I look at my son, who's rotten to the core, and decide that I don't want him anymore!

I had been missing for twenty-five years when the Whitmore family finally found me. My mother sobbed in my arms. Vivienne told me she had never stopped searching. My father promised that Whitmore House would always be my home. I believed them. I gave up the career I had built and moved to Boston. I never resented them for continuing to love Sebastian. For twenty-five years, while everyone believed I was dead, he had been the son who stayed by their side. But they soon learned that all they had to say was, “You’re stronger than he is,” and I would step aside. So Sebastian remained the heir. He kept the East Wing and used my work to secure his place on the board. I lived in the guest suite and waited for promises that were always supposed to be fulfilled later. Then, at the dinner formally welcoming me home, the family attorney handed me a trust agreement. All I had to do was sign away any future claim to the inheritance, shares, and voting rights, ensuring that my return would never threaten anything Sebastian already had. My mother took my hand. “You wouldn’t take away the only home he’s known for twenty-five years over a piece of paper, would you?” They expected me to understand, just as I had for the past year. Instead, I returned the unsigned agreement to the attorney. “I came back because you said you loved me, not because I wanted to take anything from him.” “But if your love always requires me to be the one who gives way—” I stood. “Then I don’t want this family anymore.”

My son is dead. He dies in a cramped toilet cubicle after having his skull smashed in. My husband, the school principal, arrives on the scene. The first thing he does is carry his true love's son, the one who killed my son, into an ambulance. They hurriedly leave. Before his death, my son tells me, "Don't cry, Mom. I'm not sad that Dad doesn't believe me. It's enough that you do…" I call Joshua Tucker during my son's funeral. He roars angrily, "Kenny had to get two stitches on his arm because of your son! If you keep pestering me like this, I'll beat him up when I get home!" My son? I look at the gaping hole in my son's head, the one that won't ever bleed anymore. I shut my eyes. Yes, he's my son. My son is dead, Joshua. From now on, there's nothing between us.

Lucas Okon used to have it all — a corner office, a wife who laughed too loud, a future he never questioned. Grief took it apart piece by piece. Now he fixes leaking pipes for people who don't look at him twice, raises his three-year-old alone, and smiles with his mouth because his eyes gave up on it long ago. Vivienne Kingston has everything money can buy — and almost nothing it can protect. Six months after burying her father, she's running his empire alone, surrounded by cousins circling the inheritance like it's already theirs, an uncle who calls her "family" with a blade folded into the word. She's the only one who still misses the man, not just what he left behind. Then she sees him — a plumber in her neighbor's driveway, sadness worn like a coat he can't take off. She tells herself to stop looking. She doesn't. What starts as curiosity becomes something neither of them asked for. A careful, dangerous pull between a woman drowning in wolves dressed as family, and a man who buried more than his wife the day he walked away from his old life. Vivienne carries her mother's legacy too — a woman the Kingstons never forgave for marrying up without permission — and history has a habit of repeating itself on the people who refuse to shrink for it. He has nothing to offer her but honesty. She has everything — except someone who wants her for free. Neither of them is looking for this. Both of them need it more than they'll ever admit. Grief. Inheritance. And a love that shows up in work boots, not a boardroom — and refuses to leave.

It was the night of my husband's and my third anniversary, and I had gotten home early. I caught him in bed with another woman—for the tenth time. But unlike the previous times, I did not throw a tantrum. I even closed the door to the master bedroom quietly, not wanting to interrupt. In Scott Jameson's eyes, I had no choice but to tolerate his cheating because I became Mrs. Jameson by getting pregnant with his child. Three months later, he flung divorce papers at me. "My young lover wants me to give her a home and to bear my son. Sign the papers." I looked into his cold, distant eyes and said with conviction, "All right. All I want is custody of our son. I don't want a cent of the Jamesons' money." The court proceedings were difficult, and I was accused of being mentally unstable. Many people made fun of me for not knowing my place. All of Cloverton was waiting for me to humiliate myself, counting the seconds until a nobody like me succumbed to desperation. However, I fought the case with everything I had. Eventually, I was finally able to leave with my son. No one knew that Scott suffered from a serious case of asthenozoospermia. His sperm were completely useless. No other woman could have Scott's baby except me, as I happened to be unusually fertile. My son would be the only heir to the Jameson family legacy.