Secret Billionaire’s Contract Bride: Marrying My Enemy’s Lover

Chapter 30

“This is your sister,” my father had declared one sunny afternoon. It had been a three-hour drive to get to the huge mansion that loomed behind him, his shadow falling over me and my mother.

The little girl clutching my father’s hand smiled brightly at me, wearing a pretty violet dress that probably cost more than my mom’s apartment.

“I’m Adelaide!” my new sister cried. With her bright eyes and sweet smile, I could almost believe that she was welcoming us, even that she was excited to see me.

But my mother’s nails digging into my palm reminded me of the truth.

“It’s their fault,” my mother would always say on nights when her glass bottles lined the floors. On days when she’d cry herself to sleep, calling out my father’s name between sobs.

When I meant nothing to her.

I always knew I had a sister. My mother never let me forget as she’d tell me the story over and over. How my father married the witch and left us with nothing.

It was their fault that my father could only visit us for a few minutes once a month. Their fault we had to live in an apartment that was falling apart. It was her fault I couldn’t wear a pretty dress like her but one my mom had fixed up from a donation box.

It was all Maelyn McNair’s fault. And her daughter.

Adelaide.

She was the reason I didn’t have a father to come home to. Why the other kids teased me about my clothes being mismatched, why I didn’t have pretty dresses and a garden full of flowers.

All the things that should’ve been mine were hers.

She had taken everything from me my entire life.

If the witch hadn’t died, we still would’ve been in that dirty place, outcasts despite being a daughter of the Hildebrands, too. And she dared to smile at me, like everything we went through wasn’t her fault.

Chapter 30

So that day, standing in front of my new house and my new sister, I made a silent vow.

I would take everything away from her. Just like she’d done to me. We’d see how she liked being the forgotten one. The outcast.

“–And the florist is arriving at eight in the morning with the centerpieces, but they wanted an extra fee to set them all up,” I complained loudly into the phone. “I know, it’s so unfair-”

dryer. My wet hair pulled up into a towel to dry and

That was what my

the front door, and I paused

as Ashton stumbled his way into the

crossing

up,” Ashton snapped with a slight slur to his words. He moved toward me but lost his balance and grabbed my table to straighten himself up. The hair dryer crashed to the floor along

all night!” I shouted, getting to my feet and ignoring the destruction he’d just caused. “May I remind you that we are getting married in three days?”

that!” Ashton yelled, collapsing back onto the

“I practically had to plan this wedding by myself!”

eyes bloodshot as he bared his teeth in

hit me, but instead, he sighed, rubbing a hand down his

this,” he said bitterly and then

Chapter 30

in

It was better to just let

good drunk. Not a nice drunk. Not

up my hair dryer off the floor.

the way I had planned. Even if I

that everything he said and did was fake.

long periods at night, without telling me where he’d been or why. I could barely say a word to him before he’d start screaming

didn’t have the patience to treat him like the child he was. He was going to have to get himself together. I never imagined Damon was the best of the two of them. But Ashton was proving that to be

at the phone he’d left on the bed. He let out. a

texting someone lately. I knew he was probably cheating on me. Our relationship meant nothing to either one.

real relationship, my pride wouldn’t allow me to lose to

at his

was too

careful not to make a sound with my bare feet on the carpet. I crept slowly over

in a blue glow, showcasing the standard background.

to change it from the default.

Chapter 30

I swiped up, however, the phone

over at the limp form of Ashton. What he didn’t know

right side up, and softly pressed his thumb on the screen’s surface. He didn’t even stir, much to my relief.

the phone now open, I snatched it up and began to scroll. First through his contacts and then, through text