Bolanle

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.

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A searing pain shot through her arm. It was unbearable.

Claire Williams licked her chapped lips and tried to open her eyes but couldn't.

Her eyelids felt hot and heavy. She heard a muffled voice as she stirred on the bed. Sometimes the voice sounded loud and clear and at times it softened, confusing her.

"Gosh, poor thing! The girl's family refused to give her anesthesia. I wonder why they hate her so much."

"Yes. She has thirty stitches on her arm. I feel the pain just by looking at it."

After a long while, Claire slowly opened her eyes and found herself lying in a hospital bed. Her eyes widened in horror when she saw the IV drip pinching her skin. She soon realized what had happened.

Sierra Brooks had asked her to go shopping with her. But she had brought her only to carry the shopping bags for her.

Sierra often ordered Claire to do her chores, and the latter always obeyed her. That was the case even now.

On the way back, Sierra drove the car and Claire was sitting in the back seat. The next moment, the car crashed.

The car accident flashed in her mind. Claire's heart was drumming in her chest. She broke into a cold sweat. The fear wracked her nerves.

Her body trembled. She frantically looked around and realized no one else was in the ward.

Just as she was about to sit up, she heard sound of footsteps outside the ward.

Claire turned around and saw a tall figure. Her heart fluttered as she realized it was the person whom she had missed a lot.

"Darren!" she cried with joy.

Darren Sampson was her husband. They had been married for three years. She liked him even though they barely saw each other.

Claire thought he had come to visit her after knowing about the car accident. She knew it. He cared about her.

But the next second, the man hurried away, not bothering to even look at her.

Claire's smile vanished in an instant.