Two weeks before I was meant to become the bride of a stranger, I agreed to marry a dying man.
Not for love. Not for mercy.
But because Alina and Creed, my private bodyguard and lover were fucking behind my back–and I don’t believe in forgiveness. Only strategy.
Alina, the illegitimate daughter my father paraded around like a prized lamb, was supposed to marry the Colombo heir, Zacharias Colombo. It was her crown, her alliance, her throne. Until the car went under, until he fell into a coma -and she ran like a coward. Said she wouldn’t “tie herself to a corpse.”
She abandoned the empire like it was a bad purse. And my father–spineless, shivering behind his legacy–begged me to take her place. I said no. Laughed. Poured wine and let it spill like venom across his desk. Again and again. Until I realized something:
If I want to burn them, I need the match.
If I want revenge, I need power.
And the Colombos? They’re bleeding.
So I said yes.
I’ll marry the breathing carcass she left behind. I’ll wear her dress. I’ll take her throne. And when I’m done building my empire, I’ll ruin her.
Let Alina watch me wear the crown she threw away–and choke on every jewel.
“I’ve made my decision now. I’ll marry the comatose heir of the Colombo family.”
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-Father looked up. The cigar fell from his mouth like a man overboard.
“You’ll what?” His voice was soft. Soft like the moment before a noose tightens.
“You heard me,” I replied/ stepping into the room. Each click of my heels on marble was a warning shot. “The Colombo boy. The one with a heartbeat and nothing else. The one who drools in his hospital bed while his family scrambles to keep their empire intact. That one.”
Father’s eyes narrowed. Then, unbelievably, his lips curled into something resembling pride.
“Scarlett, sweetheart, this is… unexpected. The Colombos have been circling
My Ex–lover Begged for My Love after He Abandoned me
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like vultures, and the wedding’s in two weeks. I’ll have Madison bring in designers from Milan. Black, right? Something dramatic?”
“That’s it?” I tilted my head. “I’m sacrificing myself to marry a man in a coma–a man who was Alina’s fiancé to begin with. She was the one who was supposed to walk down that aisle. But the moment things got hard, that unhinged, gold–digging coward ran. And now I’m the one saving your criminal empire. Not bonus? No thank you? Not even a damn crown?”
His jaw locked. The air grew heavy–thick with unspoken threats and old, rotting truths.
“Watch your mouth,” he growled. “She’s your sister.”
“No,” I snapped, my voice like frostbite. “A sister is someone born of the same. woman. That girl is the stain on Mom’s coffin.”
His face twitched–just a flicker of guilt, gone before it could bloom.
We never spoke of it. Not really. But we both knew the truth. My mother didn’t die of illness. She died of heartbreak–watching the man she loved parade his mistress through our home, then force us to play happy family with the bastard child who came after.
Alina.
The daughter he loved more than me. The one who got the smiles, the attention, the mercy. While I got trained like a soldier and starved for affection. I was born with fire in my lungs. She was born with his hand around her
shoulder.
And somehow, I was the one who kept bleeding for this family.
“What do you want?” he asked finally.
“One hundred million wired to my account after the wedding. And I want Vincent Creed reassigned–to her.”
He blinked. Once. Twice. “Creed? Your personal guard?”
I shrugged. “People change. I don’t want him anymore.”
He didn’t believe me–not fully. But he didn’t press. After a moment, he nodded. “Fine. The money transfers when the marriage is legal. Creed goes
with her. Done.
I turned to leave, but his voice caught me like a hook in the ribs.
“Scarlett…” he said, quieter now, almost human. “Creed was the only man you ever cared about. You sure about this?”
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I rested my hand on the door
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handle. My chest tightened. Just for a breath.
Then I exhaled the ache and steeled myself.
“He made his choice,” I said. “Now I’m making mine.”
I don’t want Creed anymore,
Not after I found him with her–with Alina–naked and breathless on my sheets, in my room, where I used to dream about a life that could’ve been ours. The man I trusted, the one who used to trace the scars on my back and kiss every one like a vow, now tangled in the arms of the girl who destroyed everything she touched.
He was never just a guard to me. He was mine–in secret, in stolen nights, in the hidden corners of a world that would never let us be together. For a year, we existed like a whisper between wars. He knew my real laugh, not the one I weaponized. He knew how I liked my coffee. He knew how to hold me when my father’s coldness cracked me open. And I let him see me–every broken, bruised, vicious part.
I loved him in a way that made me feel human. Whole. Safe.
And then Alina came back from Europe.
She waltzed into the estate with her designer bags, sun–kissed skin, and that glittering little smirk that always meant ruin. Everything shifted after that. Creed grew distant. Guarded. He started taking shifts he never used to take- ones that meant he was near her. And I–I made excuses. For him. For her. For the silence that grew like mold between us.
Until the day I came home early.
Until I opened my bedroom door and saw the man I loved inside her.
No one could scream that kind of betrayal. It sinks too deep. It guts too clean. I stood frozen in the doorway, eyes locked on the bed, on the betrayal, on his back as it curved toward her like instinct. I didn’t cry until later–when they were gone and the room still stank of them.
That night, I fell apart. Not like a girl. Like a weapon dropped too hard on stone.
I screamed into my pillows, sobbed until my lungs turned inside out. Because I didn’t just lose him. I lost the one good thing I thought I had. The one man who looked at me like I wasn’t just another soldier in my father’s war.
But the numbness came. Slowly. Like winter crawling under a door. And when it settled, it made things clear.
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Alina always took what was mine. Always.
Friends. Dresses. Teachers‘ praise. Father’s approval. Even the final thread of sanity holding my mother’s soul together. She watched our mother spiral into grief after becoming the “other woman” in her own home, and she never once. looked guilty. She was the golden child, the chosen one, the girl everyone loved because she played soft and sweet while I burned too bright.
And now, Creed.
Even he wasn’t strong enough to resist her gravity.
