Chapter 28
My grandmother Victoria Valcruz always gave Jessica everything. The billion dollar inheritance.”
A perfect debutante ball and a curated rise in the tabloids as “Valcruz’s Darling Heiress.”}
So I knew that she would finally give me this- a wedding full of thorns.
As anticipated, an envelope arrived the next morning sealed in blood–red wax with the Arrows crest- a coiled serpent around a crown.
I stared at it for a long time, my fingers trembling as I broke the seal.
[MARRIAGE CONTRACT
Athena Valcruz and Killian Arrows
Status: Approved]
Along with the contract was a letter for me.}
[I will come to receive you in three days. A private villa that had already been prepared and bridal fittings are scheduled. Our marriage is in two weeks Killian]
The wedding ceremony? In two weeks.
I placed the letter down on the desk, my hand numb.
So this was it.
I had been sold. Again.”
Just this time, it was my own voice that sealed the bargain and made me realize that this family never accepted me from the beginning. Walking down the hallway reminiscing my life that I was about to throw away I came across Xander’s room
And the noises stopped me cold.
Low pants and masculine moans ignited the atmosphere.
It was raw,…ferocious… Shameless.
My hand reached for the door and opened hell.D
Xander was sitting shirtless, muscles taut, sweat gleaming off his skin, his hand buried between his legs his eyes half–closed, lost in pleasure.
His back to me as papers were scattered everywhere…. The floor. The bed. The desk.
My eyes widened as I stumbled back.
Jessica.
He had drawn her face in every angle laughing, looking over her shoulder, hair tousled like she had just rolled out of bed.
And then there was something more.
Sketches of her nude.D
Not crude or pornographic but intimate soft curves.
In one image, she was lying on her back, her head turned slightly, mouth parted.
In another her arms above her head, a silk sheet barely covering her thighs.
I stood frozen as Xander lifted one particular sketch of Jessica topless, back arched and kissed the paper softly before moans of pleasure filled the room.
“Jess…Jess…”
I felt everything inside me sink. Collapse.
He hadn’t just used me.”
He had never even seen me.
Then his phone buzzed.
“No” he said gruffly. “I can’t return to the mafia until she’s mine, I want her at my side as my queen. Jessica is my everything.”
I choked on my breath.
Mafia?
Xander Thorn.
My heart froze completely.”
My once–betrothed fiancé that I never even saw… who publicly rejected me after my mother’s funeral, calling me “unworthy of his blood.“>
A tear escaped my eye in horror. He had been beside me this whole time, with a new name, a new face…
and I had welcomed him like a lamb to slaughter.
“I am only here for Jessica..” he continued. “Always was. Athena? Still throwing herself at me like a dog in heat.
You think I would waste three years on Athena if it wasn’t for the bigger picture?”
Tears dribbled my eyes as a dagger twisted in my heart deep.
She is useful and lonely. That’s what makes her easy. Always trying to seduce me wearing such clothes…it is almost like she is a prostitute.”
Chose Her Lies Over Mort
10:00 AM
L
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t feel my legs.
Three years. Three goddamn years. I let him into every corner of my life. My schedule. My insecurities. My mother’s ashes.}
I thought he was stone, unmoved by glitz and glamor.
But all this time… he was chasing her…the reason my mother died of heartbreak.
The day my mom found out my father had a secret mistress and a second child, something in her snapped. I witnessed her stop eating… stop speaking and soon began scratching at her own skin until she bled.
I was eight when they took her to the psychiatric wing, her broken eyes looking at me for the last time.
One day, she walked into the sea wearing pearls and never came back.
They called it “an accident.”
Jessica moved in the next week. Took my room. Called my mother “that unstable woman.“>
She framed me at ten for trying to push her down the stairs. My father slapped me across the face in front of the servants.
I should have walked away. Should have screamed when Xander chose her and yet I stood in the doorway frozen with Xander not even flinching as our eyes met.
He saw that I looked at his body and unabashedly dressed himself without a care, eyes staring at me like I was just another assistant who had forgotten to knock.
I should have screamed. Should have thrown something.
“Even if I am your guard, knock before you enter Miss Valcruz.“}
Miss Valcruz.
As if he hadn’t memorized the sound of my footsteps, the pattern of my panic attacks, the way I liked my wine after boardroom disasters.} As if he hadn’t held me when I collapsed on the bathroom floor the day I lost my mother’s estate in court whimpering and thrashed like a ragdoll.
He moved to pick up his sketchbook, wiping it like it was some treasure before keeping it away.”
I could no longer bear and said “Tomorrow is an event I am organizing, you have to follow me as my bodyguard-“]
“Will Miss Jessica come?“}
My heart shattered completely as I looked at him with my eyes wide.
“W–What? It’s a tribute for my mom…for her death anniversary! Do you think I will invite that wench?!”
As soon as my words fell into his ears, Xander’s face darkened instantly.
Not for the mother who raised me in a backroom apartment while Jessica had nannies and ponies.
“Follow me tomorrow, it is an order!” I turned to leave, my throat burning.
Then, as if to make sure the knife twisted fully, I heard him mutter under his breath-
“She’s still chasing me…” he muttered behind my back. “Thinks one night in my bed changed anything. It’s pitiful.”
I stopped walking.
He didn’t know I heard.
Didn’t care if I had.
For him I was just the stepping stone.
I left the door open behind me.
Let the wind blow through as I told myself that everything as coming to an end.
And I was going away from the chaos.
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