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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With her hands grasping the sheets tightly, Rose Lin bent up to see him sprawling over her body.

She groaned as the pain and pleasure mixed together. The she pushed her hips upwards in an effort for his body to agree with hers even more.

"Relax."

A smooth voice came from the top of her head. However, she also noticed his breathing became much heavier than usual.

Rose Lin unconsciously released her tightly curled fingers and the bed sheet around her crumbled back down.

It was no other than Burke Gu, the man who she had been married to for half a year.

She had loved him for twelve years, so she didn't really mind trusting him with this simple act.

Burke Gu gazed deeply at the bewildered Rose Lin under him. Her seducing eyes, shadowed by the lurking darkness around them.

The moment he entered her, he groaned as hundreds of thoughts flashed into his mind.

This was his wife – his actual wife. As groans and moans echoed throughout the room, he just couldn't believe that he was this lucky.

It felt as if a fire was lit up right in his chest as he lived in the moment over Rose's skin.

He leaned over and kissed her sweet and soft lips, and she moaned, pulling his face deeper into hers.

The next morning,

a pile of paper dropped in front of Rose.

She stopped what she was doing, stunned at being shocked out of her reverie. She took the forms doubtfully and scanned the familiar content.

Wasn't this their agreement, the contract they signed before marriage?

"What do you mean?"

she said, trying to steady her already shaking voice.

There was a two year deadline on their marriage. They'd already been married for half a year, yet he found the time to take it out again. Was there something wrong?

"Look at the third clause," he stated.

She narrowed her eyes at the third clause of their agreement.

"On the basis of both sides' wishes, both sides can perform the duty of a couple."

She was dumbfounded, her tongue tied at the predicament.

Trust Burke to label sex in such a formal manner.

Back then, there was only one clause in their obligation, that Rose didn't need to serve Burke in bed. All she needed was to act like his wife in public.

Once he saw the change in her face, he reached out and buttoned his suit sleeve with one hand elegantly. "You don't have to think too much into it. I'm a man, and I have my own needs to fulfill, and you happen to be the solution," he stated.

A flicker of surprise flashed in her face.

Did she hear it right? Did Burke just ask her to have sex with him?

In fact, she never really heard him speak of this topic till the time they both signed the arrangement.

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