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Married To My Ex-Fiancé's Silent Uncle

Ming Yue

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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I think I saw something from outside the house. That made me leave the stranger's house and go out to see what's glowing I'm seeing. When I got near it, I saw a small castle that looked like a child's toy and got excited.

What a lucky baby! She was just about to get born but she already has her castle to play with. But then a small man with a pointy red hat greeted me. It's a dwarf as I recognize one from the cartoons.

That castle is not a toy but a real one. The dwarf standing in front of me must live there. I'm only four years old but I know what I'm seeing is real. I get gigglish seeing the castle now displayed with some little flags around it.

"It's a fiesta! Do you want to come inside?" The dwarf asked me.

I giggled, being this young makes me not be afraid of anything. But I declined the dwarf's invitation. Unaware that it's the first good decision I ever made in my life.

"I wouldn't fit inside! That castle is very small!" I said and giggled some more.

My mother is a midwife and she sometimes brings me to her patients' houses when somebody is about to give birth. Living in the province, houses are mostly located in the middle of the forest.

"I have my magic little girl! I can make you smaller so you can fit inside. It's fun there." The dwarf said again.

"I'm already small. I want to be big, not smaller." I complained.

"You don't need to be bigger. If you do, you will never see what's inside that castle." He said again.

"Oh, I don't know. My mom will finish delivering the baby soon. She would get mad if she didn't see me right away." I replied.

"That baby will also go inside the castle with us. It won't take long. Let's go now!" The dwarf holds my hand.

"Okay, but just for a short time." I agreed and smiled at the dwarf who is now smiling bigger.

The dwarf takes out something from his pocket. It looks like candy but it's black.

"Before we can get in, have some candy first so you can fit in!" He offered.

"Hey, little girl! What are you doing there? Come inside the house now! Your mother is waiting for you!``said the old woman.

Before I could take the black candy from the dwarf, I jerked hearing the old woman's voice, and looked up to her. She's very old, like a hundred years old. Or maybe that's what I thought as a kid.

I stood up since I realized I was kneeling from the ground. Then I look back in the dwarf's direction. He's no longer there. The grand castle doesn't look that grand anymore. It's now just a pile of dirt that looks like an anthill.

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