STIGMA

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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Katherine looks at the letter in her hand, her personal copy of the settlement. Her heart aches on nights like these, laying alone in bed is something she had grown used to these past five years but the pain was still there.

She hates cold nights, the thought of waking up in the morning to nothing but an empty home and bed unnerved her.

She sighs deeply, she used to dream about him, coming back for her but it never happened sometimes she still does. Now it's started to dawn on her that he never would. After all she has nothing a billionaire could ever want. There are plenty of other women who would be more than happy to fill her shoes. That was always the problem though.

She sets the papers down on the bedside locker thinking about how the cheap bugger photocopied them in black and white rather than in colour. It makes her roll her eyes a little, the tight arse, its not like the coloured ink used would cost a lot to replace and even if it did, to him he wouldn't have seen a difference in bank balance, the amount he rakes in every hour.

She tosses in bed trying to shake the thoughts of her old life. Her marriage. Her ex husband, the billionaire and the image of him cheating on her with her best friend.

Such a typical cliché. Man with too much money has a wife, he isn't happy so he finds someone better, gets caught and he is divorced and free to mingle with whomever he pleases. wife is devastated and somehow manages to build her life up but still feels something is missing.

No, she stops herself. This happens all too often, one minute she's happy living life and then he comes along and infiltrates her life, well mentally that is.

She thought she had moved on she even had a date last night, he was tall, lean, had blonde hair with those bright baby blue eyes that pierce into your soul. He was funny and made her laugh. His name was Dylan he works in the office with her too it was where they met, she could tell the way he looked at her he was interested but was she? She didn't know.

The clock on her bedside locker read 3.45 am and as usual she had spent hours thinking about a man no longer in her life. She told herself off for being so silly he won't ever come back he didn't need some average woman he could have anyone. He definitely didn't stay up for hours at night thinking about her. She rolled on her back closing her eyes to get 40 winks before work in the morning.

Katherine woke up to find the light streaming through the window the next morning. Her blinds left unpulled and yesterdays clothes still on. She looks in the mirror on her bedside locker and shakes her head God she is a mess.

Getting up of the bed she stretches her aching muscles and trudges slowly to her bathroom.

The hot water of the shower pours over her body and she lets herself be enveloped in the warmth, her muscles relaxing as the water massages her aches and pains. After her shower she steps into her usual outfit for work a blouse and fitted skirt alongside a pair of heels. She puts her usual light makeup on and her naturally curly hair is put up in a high ponytail.

The thought of going to work today makes her queasy. She hasn't seen Dylan since their romantic date. And somehow telling him she isn't interested in further contact doesn't seem that appealing.

She walks out of her apartment locking the door behind her and takes the elevator down to the car park.

The drive to Hudson's law firm is a short one about fifteen minutes but today it seems to drag and she can't help but feel something strange is going to happen.

Finding a space in the office car park has always been a nightmare and although she is early as usual its still a struggle. After spending fifteen minutes waiting for someone to leave she finally finds a space and sighs in relief looking at her watch. Still early.

The office is buzzing and smells like morning coffee. Every desk Katherine walks past holds a coffee cup from the ba0rista across the road. But she always found coffee too bitter she prefers something a little sweeter like a smoothie or orange juice.

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