Accidentally married to the Right Von Duvall
(Trigger warning: this book has some elements of dark romance with an unhinged ML)
"Would you give me your surname or better take mine then? Will you be the lucky man?" I blurted out having no idea of what I was saying. My head was already in the clouds and blinded by his smile. It calmed the storm in my mind.
He laughed. Those dark abysses were truly alluring when they sparkled.
His fingers grazed my cheeks, wiping off my tears, before cupping them in his callous palms. "If you love my surname so much."
A foolish smile graced my lips, oblivious of the fact that he wasn't joking. "You can't back down now, hubby. You just got a wife."
I thought I lost everything when I walked away from Sinclair. I never imagined I'd end up as Alaric Von Duvall's wife.
*******
Her life was written in stone. A perfect life one she always dreamt of.
Everything Cassandra wanted was within reach until one night revealed the love she'd trusted was a lie. Betrayal and deceit from those she trusted the most made every belief she had crash down.
What she didn't expect was to stumble into a stranger's arms, into his bed and wake up married. Alaric gave her what she thought she wanted; now she can't take it back.
One reckless mistake became a wedding vow. Now she's trapped inside Alaric's empire of lies. Married to a stranger who knows more than he's letting on
He's dangerous. He's charming. And in front of everyone, he claimed her as his
.
Caught between Sinclair's obsession, Alaric's shadowy intentions, and her family's betrayal, Cassandra doesn't know if this marriage will be her downfall... or her salvation.
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Chapter 4
Cassandra's POV
My head was a complete mess, and I wasn't thinking straight at this point, like it mattered.
His lips were intoxicating, I knew I should not kiss him and didn't know why I couldn't stop.
His hold on my waist was firm, and I clung to his shirt, deepening the kiss, nibbling and licking his lower lip until we both moaned into each other's lips.
We unravelled each other. A gasp escaped my lips, his hand squeezed my butt, and I didn't even know when his fingers crawled over my skin to get to the edge of my panties. He ignited something forbidden in me.
He forced our lips apart, his teeth nibbling under my ear, sending jolts of sparks through my spine. He hovered over my ear, and a soft chuckle rang in my ears. "Be careful with fire or it might burn you."
The warning came in through one ear and left through the next. I tiptoed to nibble his lower lip once more before giving him a half-witty smile. "Enough talking, hubby, or don't tell me you are scared chicken now?" I taunted him.
He cocked his brow at me, something dark ran through his eyes. My legs almost gave up. A low rumble escaped his throat. Next, I spun around, my back against the cold wall.
A man over twice my size is hovering over me. "You really love pushing me." There was something dark and alluring in his voice, but my brain couldn't register it properly because he was all over me like a storm.
His kiss trailing down my neck and his hands wandering in place, it shouldn't be. The rest of the night drowned in heat, his lips, his hands, the taste of liquor on my tongue until everything blurred into darkness.
*******
The rest of the night was a blur, once he started consuming me. The irritating sound of my high-pitched ringing tone rang next to my ears.
My eyes jerked open and shut back immediately. It was too bright. Why were all the windows open?
I groaned rolling to the side opposite the window. My eyes opened again, and for a moment, I was dazed.
I jolted up without thinking; a sharp headache struck me, and my entire world spun at once. I hissed under my breath trying to make sense of what was happening or where the fuck I was?!
The room was completely foreign like a luxurious penthouse. My body acted on its own, ignoring my piercing headache or the fact that my legs were wobbly.
I ran off the bed, my eyes darted around the room and fell on a mirror. My reflection stared back at me. I was wearing an oversized black shirt, shrouded with a strong masculine cologne clinging. Several hickeys could be spotted from the gaps in the shirt
' Fuck!!. What have you done, Cassie? Another mistake you can't take back.'
I cried out invisible tears, my aching head screamed.
Luckily, my clothes were folded on a nearby table, and they were already dry-cleaned. I didn't need an explanation of what happened, I just needed to get out of here ASAP.
The sound of rushing water echoed from the bathroom. Shit, he was still here. I didn't even remember his face because the entire night was a blurry mess upto when I asked him to marry me.
My hands moved the fastest it has in ages, I grabbed my purse and phone and ran barefoot for my life, leaving the tiara.
It was a miracle my wobbly legs didn't collapse until I got to the elevator. I slouched on the floor to catch my breath while dreading the hangover.
A few minutes later, the elevator ding opened and I fled the building, ignoring the curious stares from the onlookers. A taxi pulled over and I successfully escaped further embarrassment. So I thought.
*****
The entire ride home, I did my best not to cry. What the fuck did I just do? Even if Sinclair was a cheating scum, I shouldn't have stooped to his level.
Cassandra Sterling, the boring, nerdy daughter of the Sterling family, hooked up with a random gigolo on the eve of her wedding.
"I'm dead," I cried, earning a suspicious look from the driver through the rare mirror. My lips clamped together and I sank back into my thoughts. What if he didn't use protection and I accidentally got pregnant, or worse, contracted some kind of disease? Was it worth it?
Time wasn't on my side, soon the taxi drove through the Villa's gate from the glass window I could see Aurelia patiently waiting for me.
The car door slammed behind me and the taxi drove off. Our eyes met and she narrowed suspiciously at me. My stomach churned looking back at the large villa, which was my home, yet filled me with dread of what awaited beyond those doors.
Aurelia scoffed at me, "the slut is finally back." My brows furrowed. Something was off. Did she change after last night?
I glared at her, as memories resurfaced of how my sister, my only sibling, was hooking up with my fiancé. She shrugged and marched through the doors.
My fingers curled into a fist, that's right I wasn't going to run from this. Why was I scared of them? I gathered every drop of bravery I had in me and marched through those doors.
From the foyer, I could hear several voices and a muffled cry. Not too surprising, I got to the parlour and was welcomed by glares. My parents, Aurelia, the cheating bastard and his parents are all sitting on the couch, glaring at me like some hideous monster.
Mum was the first one to speak. She burst out crying. "Where have you been Cassandra Angelina Sterling?"
What was going on? Mum even called my entire name. Before I could even think of a reply, a harsh slap out of reflex I returned the slap
. "How dare you disgrace the Von Duvall name, you little slut?!."
My palm had already struck Sinclair's mother's face.
"Cassandra!!!" Dad's voice boomed. Sinclair's mother was already stumbling, luckily, he caught her before she hit the floor.
"What do you think you are doing Cassie? You spend the night fooling around and have the guts to slap my mother." He accused me.
Baffled, my brows twitched. How did he know?!
"Don't look so shocked, sis. Everyone's already seen what you did last night. You're trending." Aurelia pulled out her phone and showed me a popular TikTok video. A man and a girl are dancing carefree in a bar.
My face was very visible to the camera, but the man lurked under the shadows of the dark light, hiding his identity completely. It looked too convenient.
Shit, this was just great. I clutched my dress then glanced at Sinclair. I was immediately taken aback. His eyes looked completely heartbroken.
Mum was breaking down in a corner crying. I laughed, stunning them all. "You even have the nerve to laugh after what you did. You disgraced our family name." Aurelia self-righteously accused me
I could not stand their hypocrisy. My laugh died down. "Slut?" I laughed bitterly. "That's rich, coming from the one spreading her legs for my fiancé. A pot calling a kettle black."
" You are losing it, Cassie. Stop playing the victim card. Today is our wedding day for crying out loud." Sinclair grabbed my hand, his grip firm as he trembled.
I arched my brow at him completely unaffected. "Did you forget that fact while you were kissing Aurelia last night?"
The room went silent. Sinclair seemed stunned; his grip tightened.
"You are so shameless. Because you have destroyed your reputation, you want to drag me through the mud. " Aurelia jumped in to defend herself.
I completely ignored her, my head was still aching, and I didn't have the strength to deal with her hypocrisy. My eyes fell on Sinclair and I calmly requested. "Let go of hands."
He didn't react, completely dumbfounded like a hurt puppy. I gritted my teeth and yanked my hand off. "Do me a favour and get out of my face." I barked then stormed away, running up the stairs, knowing he would follow behind.
Sinclair ran after me, his footsteps closing in. "Please stop running Cassie. I know you were probably drunk, I will forgive you as long as you apologise." He kept up the act...
My chest tightened but I didn't stop running. I ran into my wedding dressing room, and the door burst open immediately after I stepped in.
Sinclair's gaze was panicking filled with fear. "Come on, baby, what happened? Did I do something? Just tell me and we can put this aside. You know I love and can do anything for you." He pleaded.
I stood staring at this man I couldn't recognise. "Including fucking my sister behind my back," I asked him
His jaw clenched, "You're imagining things, Cassie. Aurelia? She's your sister. I can never do that "
"Shut up." I cut him off then grabbed a bottle of whiskey.
I marched straight to my luxurious designer's wedding dress. "You are the fucking problem!!!" I barked then poured the whiskey on the dress. My eyes didn't even waver.
Before he could process what I was doing. I pulled out Sinclair's old lighter, which I normally carried around, and then tossed it on the dress. It caught fire immediately.
The door was pushed open with the rest rushing in. "What is wrong with you Cassandra?!" Mum cried.
My bloodshot eyes stared back at them. Sinclair looked pale as a ghost. "The engagement is off."
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7.1
I sat alone at my long marble dining table, staring at a plate of cold truffle risotto. My husband, Jere, was late again, claiming he was stuck in a "war zone" of a board meeting for a multi-billion dollar merger.
A single Instagram notification shattered the silence. It was a photo of a candlelit birthday dinner, featuring a man's hand resting on a white tablecloth. I recognized the slight veins, the jagged scar on the thumb, and the navy-faced Patek Philippe watch I had spent six months tracking down as a wedding gift. Jere wasn't in a boardroom; he was celebrating his ex-girlfriend Irina's birthday while texting me to "don't wait up."
The next morning, I followed him to a VIP hospital wing. I watched through a cracked door as my husband cuddled a five-year-old boy and whispered tender promises to Irina. When he came home, he tried to buy my silence with a rare pink diamond bracelet, but I found the receipt: he had bought two identical ones. He had branded his wife and his mistress with matching jewelry, using hidden trackers to keep us both on a leash. When I confronted him, he didn't flinch. He coldly reminded me that he owned my father's massive debts and could send him to prison for insolvency fraud with one phone call.
"Stop with the attitude, Deliah," he said.
I felt like a ghost haunting my own life, trapped in a gilded cage by the man who paid for my mother's heart surgery while keeping a secret family across town. The humiliation peaked at our rescheduled anniversary dinner when Jere received a text, threw a stack of hundreds at me like I was a stranger, and abandoned me in a crowded restaurant to rush back to her.
"Pay the bill," he commanded before walking out.
Standing in the wreckage of a shattered crystal vase back at the penthouse, I realized my silence was the only thing keeping his empire standing. I pulled the crumpled divorce papers from my purse and signed my name with a steady hand. I wasn't just walking away; I was calling his sister to help me burn his perfect world to the ground.
8.3
I woke up in a bedroom that screamed old money, but the body I occupied felt sluggish and fragile. I was now Chris Olson, a man known as a pathetic failure who spent his marriage groveling at his wife's feet for a single look of approval.
Elizabeth didn't even wait for me to clear my head before she threw the divorce papers on the nightstand. She stood there in her silk robe, eyes cold as ice, demanding I sign them before breakfast so she could finally go public with her "White Moonlight," Greg.
"You're walking away with nothing," she snapped, her voice full of the disgust she'd harbored for years. She reminded me that my family had disowned me and that I'd be on the streets within a week without her charity.
As I sat up, a metallic, garlic-like scent on my breath confirmed a terrifying truth: the Olson family hadn't just disowned me; they had been micro-dosing me with arsenic for years. They wanted me weak and mentally unstable so they could split the inheritance without a fight.
The original Chris would have cried and begged for her to stay, but I just looked at her like she was a target. I realized then that my "loving" family and my "faithful" wife had been watching me die in slow motion, and neither of them had lifted a finger to stop it.
I signed the papers without reading a single line and walked out with nothing but a duffel bag and a rusted sedan. I didn't need her alimony; I had already called her greatest rival, Adelia Cherry, to discuss a merger that would rock the city.
"I'm not here to save this marriage," I told Elizabeth as I moved into the mansion right next door to hers. "I'm here to bury it, along with everyone who thought they could poison me and get away with it."
7.4
Tonight was supposed to be Cordelia's grand engagement party, the night she finally secured her future.
But an hour before the banquet, she received an anonymous video. Her fiancé was in the hotel's penthouse, tangled in the sheets with her stepsister. They had even paid off her trusted staff to keep her isolated.
Cordelia didn't shed a single tear. She walked onto the grand stage, hijacked the screens, and broadcasted their betrayal to hundreds of New York's elite. She tore up the multimillion-dollar prenup and threw the pieces in his face.
"The engagement is canceled. My legal team will seize your family's assets by tomorrow morning."
But instead of support, her own father violently grabbed her wrist, furious that she ruined their reputation. Her stepmother tried to slap her for the cameras, and her ex-fiancé threatened to completely destroy her career. Surrounded by the people who were supposed to be her family, she was treated like the villain.
Just as she was cornered, Justice Duncan, the most ruthless billionaire on Wall Street, stepped out of the shadows.
He offered her absolute protection and capital, but only if she signed a five-year contract marriage to mother his four-year-old heir.
But when Cordelia finally met the little boy, her blood ran completely cold.
The boy was the exact baby she was told she had miscarried four years ago. And the billionaire handing her the marriage contract was the same stranger who had taken him.
7.2
My family went bankrupt overnight, leaving me to face a mountain of predatory debt.
Instead of standing by my side, my billionaire fiancé's mother threw a five-million-dollar check on the marble table, demanding I take the money and disappear from her son's life forever.
Meanwhile, my former social circle mocked my downfall. They secretly took photos of me meeting with ruthless loan sharks, waiting for me to come crawling back to beg for charity.
I didn't give them the satisfaction. I legally took on my father's massive debt, threw the check back, and ruthlessly dumped my fiancé.
To stop my heartbroken mother from worrying, I lied and told her I had already found a new, reliable boyfriend.
But the lie was a ticking time bomb. My malicious rival even forced her way into my cramped apartment, demanding to meet this mysterious man, laughing that he must live in a dumpster.
I was suffocating under the pressure. I had nothing, and I had no idea how I was supposed to magically produce a husband to get these toxic people off my back.
Until a dying stranger I helped in the park made a final wish.
His grandson—my cold, aloof high school upperclassman, Caleb Barnes—handed me a watertight prenuptial agreement at the hospital.
"Marry me," Caleb said flatly. "I get to give my grandfather peace. You get a shield against your family."
I picked up the pen and signed my name.
8.8
After three years together, the man who had once promised to marry me, Babur Caldwell, threw me out the moment he got into Redmont University.
"Valeria, a pretty little fool who only knows how to dress up, how could you ever be worthy of someone like me, a future elite of Gilded Row?"
Later, when I, Valerie Quinn, became the Financial Queen admired by thousands, he knelt in front of me, sobbing, begging for another chance.
Holding the bouquet Kearney Smith had sent me, I answered in the same tone he had once used. "Sorry, Babur, someone as short-sighted as you isn't worthy of an elite like me."
9.8
Adeline's stepmother had secretly drugged her for years, turning a child genius into a drooling, mentally disabled laughingstock just so her stepsister could steal her life.
But when her greedy father sold her off to Griffin Herring—a violent, untouchable billionaire psychopath—to save his company, things took a deadly turn.
Before the wedding, Griffin attacked her in a dark alley, nearly snapping her neck before stealing her grandfather's silver necklace.
That necklace held a micro-drive with her family's deepest secrets, and without it, she had nothing.
Back at the estate, her situation only worsened. Her stepsister Damaris paraded around in the Herring family's diamond engagement gifts, trying to force-feed Adeline wet dog food on an Instagram live stream.
When Adeline's calculated "clumsiness" ruined the video, her furious father locked her in a damp, rusted basement.
"Give her to the psycho," her stepmother hissed through the door. "Let him lock her away forever."
Listening from the shadows, Adeline's fists clenched until her palms bled.
Her supposed mental fog wasn't a tragedy—it was a calculated assassination of her mind. They had destroyed her childhood and were now throwing her to a monster just to keep the billions.
The dull, empty look in Adeline's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a razor-sharp, chilling clarity.
She pulled a thin surgical needle from her messy bun and picked the heavy iron padlock in ten seconds. It was time to break into the billionaire's penthouse, take back her necklace, and tear them all apart.