Butlers Amusement

I was Lonnie Vaughn's fiancée, yet he treated me with disdain, looking at me as though I was nothing more than a bothersome obligation. To outsiders, I was just a caged songbird he kept for amusement—disposable when he tired of me. I refused to believe it. In my eyes, Lonnie loved me, too; he was just terrible at expressing it. But that illusion shattered when I became the victim of face-swapping. When those filthy videos were played in front of Lonnie, he refused to listen to my desperate explanations. When I was kidnapped, he refused to pay the ransom. All because his maid sneered, "Olivia's tainted. She needs to be taught a lesson." Lonnie responded, "I never want to see you again in this lifetime." Those words fueled the captors' cruelty. For three months, they tortured me. By the end, I truly was tainted, and my love for Lonnie was buried beneath layers of ash and despair. Then Lonnie appeared before me while sobbing in regret, begging me to love him again.

“This is Abraham Blackwood, heir to the Blackwood empire, one of the richest families in the country." The moment I stepped ahead, he turned slowly and my breath caught in my throat. The shock of seeing him again struck me like a bolt of lightning. No… It can’t be him. But it was. Sitting there, casually sipping tea, was him—the man from the bar. The same piercing blue eyes locked onto mine, his expression shifting from mild amusement to disbelief. His sharp blue eyes pierced through the room and locked onto mine with an intensity that made my breath freeze in my throat. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. The memories of the night in the bar flooded back—his arrogance, his rude comments, his piercing gaze that had felt so unsettling. I stared at Alexander, still in shock. The man sitting across from me wasn't just any stranger. He was a billionaire—an heir to a vast fortune. My brother had been friends with him for years, and their families had arranged this marriage as part of a business partnership.

Living with my aunt and her family was meant to be a temporary, quiet arrangement just helping out and keeping to myself. On the first day of the new year, while everyone else was out celebrating, I stayed home, enjoying the rare silence and catching up on sleep. But when we ran out of water, I reluctantly stepped outside to fetch some, and that’s when I saw him. He stood by the gate of the house next door, effortlessly commanding attention with just a glance. A smirk played on his lips, and a flicker of amusement danced in his eyes behind his blue-ray glasses. At that moment, he was impossible to ignore. Meanwhile, I felt disheveled and barely awake, my hair was a mess and still shaking off sleep. But he didn’t seem to mind. There was something about him an air of mystery that made me wonder who he was and why he was there. Before I could look away, he spoke, “Hi.” Caught off guard, I managed a quick, “Hi,” while trying to pull myself together. “Can I know your name?” he asked. I hesitated but replied, “I’m Clara,” and kept walking. “Can I have your number?” he called after me. “Just as friends.” I almost refused but reluctantly agreed, entering my number into his phone. “There,” I said, handing it back. “I’ll call you,” he promised with a smile, as I turned to leave. What began as a chance encounter soon became an inexplicable connection. He had secrets, but there was something about him that saw through me, understanding things no one else did. The man I met next door wasn’t just a fleeting stranger,he became the reason I started questioning everything I thought I wanted.

Après l'accident, j'ai délibérément fait semblant d'être amnésique pour taquiner mon mari et mon fils. « Qui êtes-vous ? » Les yeux de mon fils ont brillé d'un soupçon d'amusement et il a entraîné la femme qui se tenait à l'extérieur de la salle. Il m'a dit : « Tata, mes parents et moi sommes ici pour te rendre visite. » À côté, mon mari n'a rien dit, acquiesçant à l'appellation de mon fils.