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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In the maternity ward of the hospital.

The strong smell of blood and disinfectant densely filled the air.

Ashley Fang laid on the hospital bed, sweat matting her hair on her forehead.

She was so weak that she could hardly breathe. "Baby, my baby..." She stroked her flat stomach and whispered, her eyes red and swollen with tears.

The doctor's voice echoed in her thoughts countless times. 'I'm sorry. We did everything we possibly could...' It had been nearly 24 hours since she was wheeled out of the operating room. And yet, those words were like a magic spell, constantly ringing in her ears and stabbing her heart over and over again.

Just then, the door opened.

Ashley Fang turned around and saw a familiar figure.

Sorrow and grievance welled up. "Francis, what took you so long?" she said, voice trembling.

After receiving the phone call from her husband Francis Xue, Ashley Fang went to the supermarket for shopping as per his request. When she went out, she was knocked down unexpectedly by a man in a black jacket, and rolled down the steps outside the supermarket.

She phoned Francis Xue, but it just kept ringing until it went to voicemail. She called another four or five times, but no one answered. With much determination, Ashley Fang endured the pain and took a taxi to the hospital by herself.

There was a severe pain on her bulging stomach. When she was almost at the hospital, she passed out from the amount of pain she was feeling. What was waiting for her when she woke up was the heartbreaking news that her unborn son's life was taken by the fall she had.

"Francis, you have to trust me. I am sure I was hit on purpose by some bastard! We have to find him!" Much to Ashley Fang's surprise, Francis Xue didn't say a thing. As he walked closer to her with a cold look on his face, Ashley Fang's eyes were filled with tears again.

Ashley Fang was emotionally broken down. Seeing her pallid face, Francis Xue leaned against the wall and stared at her apathetically.

He was well dressed in an exquisite suit paired with gleaming leather shoes. As he stood there beside Ashley Fang, who looked utterly distraught and unkempt, he looked like a person from a completely different world.

His calmness made Ashley Fang feel even worse, and she thoroughly understood that the death of their baby meant nothing to him. 'Why doesn't he even seem to care!?' Ashley Fang screamed in her heart.

Ashley Fang wiped her tears carelessly on her face. As soon as she came to herself, she grabbed his clothes and asked in a trembling voice, "Where were you?! Why aren't you doing anything? !"

The past 24 hours had been the most painful and the most miserable time in Ashley Fang's life. As she laid there in bed, she felt as if her heart was breaking into two. What's worse, it seemed like nobody cared.

Her mother, her husband... No one was there for her.

"The man who pushed you..." Francis Xue said in a soft, and sweet voice, "...was me."

Before Ashley Fang could react, a woman who was just about her age came through the door. As soon as she saw Francis Xue, she beamed from ear to ear. The woman then walked over and put her arms around Francis's body.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Ashley Fang asked, completely bewildered.

Sheila Fang smiled and turned around to look at Ashley, her black miniskirt flaunting her slender and radiant skin. "Isn't it obvious? I'm here to say farewell to your poor son. Look, the clothes I chose to wear are perfectly matched with today's occasion. Didn't you notice?"

Ashley gritted her teeth as she glowered at Sheila Fang.

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