Married To My Ex-Fiancé's Silent Uncle

Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire. I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper. I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he’d dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family’s land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock. I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim. "If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned. So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell—the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months. Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I’ve suspended Hugh’s executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I’m just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout. But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back.

Modern Scheming Contract marriage Billionaires CEO Flash Marriage Revenge Age Gap

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"Blood type O positive. Donor number XZ-09-2024."

The Master of the Vitalis House tapped a finger in his right temple as the butler servant recited.

Sitting in his throne-like chair fronting the grand hall never had been this painful. Parched, very hungry, and almost at his limit, he waited for his servant to finish. The wine flute that contained the delicious crimson liquid was just within his reach.

Just. Within. His. Reach.

Yet he didn't move a muscle and just waited for the servant to hand it to him.

"Milord, this is the blood that you have been waiting for, " the butler noted, lifting the silver tray nearer.

Amidst seeing nothing other than entire darkness in his front, a small smile grew on his lips.

"At last, " came his reply and with ease, he straightened in his seat and managed to take out the flute from the tray without tumbling it down.

The cold contact of the glass against his warm fingers was a great welcome. It reminded him of the feeling he had in a similar wintry season last year when he held the same container with the same blood flowing with life.

As much as he wanted to drink such precious liquid every day, he couldn't as the supposed donor opt a yearly donation only, in a blood bank where his butler gets to purchase it. He doesn't even know whether the donor, who stayed in the opposite side of the world, was a male or a female, but as if that mattered to him.

He smelt it first, tipping the rim of the glass close to his nostrils and instantaneously caught the faint smell of the jasmine leaves mixed inside.

Ahh, what an aroma, his mind confessed and right then and there, ghosted another smile.

He, of all the living and nonliving beings under his wing, was the only one who preferred to have his meal like this - in a wine flute and mixed with jasmine leaves. Atypical for a dark creature like him, yes, but this was the only leisure that he ever preferred since he disliked feeding directly from the humans.

"As indicated in the Red Cross database, the donor decided for two bags this time so you have two days' supply of the blood Milord, " informed the butler as he watched his Master sip leisurely. One hand was now on the forehead of a fully grown black panther, making doodles while the big cat purred and nudged its cheek against the armrest.

"Good to know, Jerome, " the Master stated with a small nod; his voice in equal parts soporific and velvety. "At least I have two days before my fasting begins again."

"Right, and I believe you are doing that on purpose?" came out a male voice behind the throne. Immediately, the panther stood on guard, hissing and growling as it locked its feline eyes on the trespasser.

To give some privacy, the butler dismissed himself, walking out of the dais into a closed door where it led to a huge kitchen.

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