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-”

on the vanity stared back at me as I plugged in the hair dryer. My wet hair pulled up into a towel to dry and dressed only in a bathrobe, I looked more

That was what my

the front door, and I paused from talking into the

seat as Ashton stumbled his way into the room, the sour

drunk,” I growled, crossing my arms impatiently.

He moved toward me but lost his balance and grabbed my table

shouted, getting to my feet and ignoring the destruction he’d just caused. “May I remind you that we are

Ashton yelled, collapsing back onto

“I practically had to plan this wedding

roared at me, his eyes bloodshot as he bared his teeth in

hit me,

the mood for this,” he said bitterly and then

Chapter 30

still in

my seat at the vanity. It was better to just let him sleep off the

was not a good drunk. Not a nice drunk. Not to

the towel away from my hair, picking up my hair dryer off the floor. I glanced at

the way I had planned. Even if I was taking everything from Adelaide.

had always seemed like a prince, but I was realizing that everything he said and did was fake. He wasn’t perfect in

and leaving for long periods at night, without telling me where he’d been or

to have to get himself together. I never

the bed.

he was probably cheating on me. Our relationship meant nothing to either one. of us, after all. But

in a real relationship, my pride wouldn’t allow

his phone once more.

too good to

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

screen lit up in a blue glow, showcasing

even bothered to change it from the default.

Chapter 30

I swiped up, however, the phone locked out-a

form of Ashton. What he didn’t know wouldn’t

as I lay the phone on the bed right side up, and softly pressed

the phone now open, I snatched it up and began to scroll. First