His Ex, My Bed: The Ultimate Betrayal
I'm a neurosurgeon who makes seven figures. I support my husband, Jackson, and his entire family. For months, I planned the perfect St. Barts vacation for all of us, paying for every last detail.
Two days before departure, Jackson dropped a bombshell. He gave my first-class ticket to his ex-girlfriend, Amber.
My new itinerary? A series of budget flights, ending with a plane known for crashing into a cliffside.
His family, living off my money, agreed. "You're resilient," he said. "Amber's more delicate."
My own mother-in-law, whose safety concerns got her a first-class upgrade I paid for, told me Amber "needs this more than you do."
I wasn't family. I was just their ATM, and my life was a small price to pay for their comfort.
That night, I found Amber sleeping in my bed. The rage was cold and clear. I canceled the trip. I froze their accounts. And I called my lawyer.
"File for divorce. And prepare to collect on the multi-million dollar loan they owe me."
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Chapter 3
The city lights blurred as my driver navigated the bustling streets. Tonight, I was reclaiming my life, one exquisite bite at a time. I dined alone at Le Cirque, ordering the most expensive champagne and a tasting menu that defied description. Each delicate course, each sip of sparkling wine, tasted like freedom. There was no need to worry about Jackson's disapproving glances at the bill, no pretending to enjoy Cornelia' s bland cooking, no listening to Jordan' s endless drama. Just me. And the world, laid out like a feast.
It was well past midnight when I returned home. The house was a dark, silent monolith. No lights on, no one waiting up. Not a single soul seemed to notice or care about my absence. The familiar chill of neglect settled in my bones, but tonight, it didn' t sting. It simply reinforced the truth. I let myself in, closing the door softly. My footsteps echoed on the marble floors as I made my way to the master bedroom, the sanctuary that once felt like ours.
A strange, cloying sweetness hung in the air, a mix of Jackson' s cologne and Amber' s signature floral perfume. It was a stench of invasion, clinging to my sheets, my pillows, my space. A wave of nausea washed over me, hot and cold at once. They had been in my bed. In our bed.
My territory. Invaded. Desecrated.
I walked to my side of the bed and sat down. The mattress dipped, and a sharp, piercing shriek tore through the silence.
"AHHHHHHH!"
I flicked on the bedside lamp. Amber Compton lay sprawled on my side of the bed, her face contorted in a mask of terror, clutching a silk pillow to her chest. Her eyes, wide and panicked, darted from me to the empty space beside her, where Jackson had clearly been sleeping.
A primal roar erupted from somewhere deep inside me. It wasn't a thought; it was pure, unadulterated instinct. My hand shot out, grabbing Amber's arm. I yanked her, hard, sending her tumbling off the bed with a muffled thud.
"Ow! My head!" she wailed, tears instantly streaming down her face. She was a master of playing the victim.
Jackson, jolted awake by her scream, sat up with a gasp, eyes wide. "Hailey! What the hell?" He scrambled out of bed, instinctively shielding Amber, putting his body between us. "Amber, darling, are you okay?"
"She… she attacked me!" Amber sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at me.
"She was just… sleeping here, Hailey! It was an accident!" Jackson insisted, his voice laced with a panicked urgency that screamed of lies. His pupils dilated slightly, a tell-tale sign I recognized from years of watching him. He was lying.
"Sleeping?" My voice was calm, too calm. "In my bed? Waiting for me to come home? Or waiting for you to return from wherever you ran off to when you heard me come in?"
His face flushed. "Don't be ridiculous, Hailey! She just crashed. We were talking. I, uh, I was on the couch."
"On the couch," I repeated, my eyes sweeping over the rumpled sheets, the two distinct indentations. "Right." My surgeon's eye noted the lack of any obvious physical intimacy between them, but the violation was clear nonetheless. She was in my bed. My space.
"Get out," I commanded Amber, my voice now a low rumble. "Get out of my bedroom. Now."
Amber whimpered, clinging to Jackson. "But, Jackson, where will I go?" She looked at him with puppy-dog eyes, thick with false vulnerability.
Jackson glared at me, his protectiveness for Amber overriding any sense of propriety. "Hailey, you can't just throw her out! She has nowhere to go!"
I watched them go, Amber clutching Jackson like a lifeline, her sobs echoing dramatically through the hallway. The moment the door clicked shut, I moved. I stripped the entire bed – sheets, pillowcases, duvet. I threw them all into a heavy-duty trash bag. Then I opened every window, even though it was a cool night. I lit a palo santo stick, letting the cleansing smoke curl into every corner of the room, banishing the lingering scent of her cheap perfume. I sprayed a powerful antibacterial cleaner on every surface, scrubbing with furious energy until my arms ached. This wasn' t just cleaning; it was an exorcism.
Moments later, Jackson was pounding on the locked bedroom door. "Hailey! Let me in! What are you doing? I can hear you spraying things!"
"Getting rid of the stench of betrayal, Jackson," I called back, my voice flat. "Don't worry, I won't contaminate your precious Amber with my 'jealousy' any longer."
"There's nothing to be jealous of! We're not doing anything!" he protested, his voice strained.
"Are you sure about that, Jackson? Because your family seems to think Amber is just perfect for you. And if that's the case, then perhaps you both belong together, permanently."
Then Amber' s voice, shrill and insistent, joined in from the hallway. "Hailey, please! Don't make a scene! We're supposed to be celebrating!"
"Jealousy is such an ugly emotion, Hailey!" Jackson yelled, his voice laced with disgust.
Cornelia' s voice, sharp and cold, cut through the noise. "Hailey, stop this nonsense! You're embarrassing us!"
"Yes, you should be ashamed of yourself!" Jefferson barked, his voice filled with a faux patriarchal authority that had always grated on my nerves.
Jordan snickered from somewhere in the background. "Looks like someone's losing her man-child, huh?"
Amber, peeking around Jackson's shoulder, smirked. Her eyes, full of triumph, met mine through the crack in the door.
Jackson suddenly pounded on the door again. "Hailey, open this door! Now! We have to pack the bags for St. Barts! My parents' luggage is heavy. Amber has three suitcases. Jordan's carry-ons are enormous. You're going to help me carry them to the car in the morning!"
Then Cornelia chimed in, her voice annoyingly sweet, "Yes, Hailey, darling. All of them. We're counting on you."
I smiled. A slow, chilling smile that didn' t reach my eyes. "Of course, Cornelia. All of them."
"Good," Jackson grumbled, relief evident in his voice. "Don't be late. We leave at five AM sharp."
"Five AM sharp," I repeated, my voice as sweet as poison. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
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9.5
I was a disgraced heiress hiding as a dishwasher in a high-end club, scrubbing lipstick off glasses until my fingers went numb. One night, I was forced to deliver a bottle of vintage whiskey to the penthouse, only to find the tech billionaire Kenan Cervantes collapsing from a lethal neural storm. I used my surgeon’s training to save his life, holding him in the dark until his fever finally broke.
The next morning, the world I knew shattered. My coworker Tiffany, who hadn't even stepped foot in the room, claimed my identity as the savior. She signed a non-disclosure agreement and walked away with a $200,000 check, while I was accused of stealing the whiskey and had my entire month's wages forfeited as punishment.
While Tiffany was flaunting Chanel suits and posting photos from his balcony, I was being shoved into the mud by my abusive foster father in a dark alley. I watched from the shadows as Kenan stepped into his luxury car, looking right through me with nothing but cold distaste. To him, I was just "street trash" cluttering the sidewalk, while the imposter was the "angel" who had stabilized his heart.
The injustice felt like a physical weight. I had quieted the noise in his brain and kept him from the brink of death, yet I was the one facing eviction and hunger. I didn't understand how he could be a genius and still be so blind to the truth, rewarding a thief while I rotted in the basement.
Everything reached a breaking point when Tiffany forced me to sneak into his penthouse to help her maintain the lie. But Kenan returned from Tokyo early, finding me on the terrace with his military-grade protection dog. The beast that had tried to bite Tiffany was now resting its head in my lap, protecting me from its own master.
Kenan dropped his briefcase, his eyes locking onto mine as the fragmented memories of the storm finally clicked into place.
"You," he whispered.
8.1
She thought she was marrying the handsome second young master of New York's most powerful family. Instead, she got his older brother, a cold and wheelchair-bound tycoon who wants nothing to do with her.
One wrong move, and her family loses everything.
Trapped in a gilded cage with a husband who pushes her away at every turn, Giselle has no choice but to stay. She tells herself this is just survival. But the closer she gets to Reid, the more she realizes something about him doesn't add up. Beneath the ice, there are moments of unexpected warmth. Beneath the darkness, there are secrets he will kill to protect.
What if the man who claims he cannot walk is hiding the truth?
7.5
I was the supreme architect of reality. Now I'm trapped in a womb with my twin brother Jaden, and he's already trying to kill me.
Born with a Void Lord core, Jaden is a gluttonous black hole that started draining my life force before I even had eyelids. Unfortunately for him, my ancient soul came with me. I crushed his consciousness, chained his dark power, and established the only rule that matters: Sister is God.
Three years later, he's a whimpering, chocolate-donut-obsessed mess who cries when I threaten to cancel snack time. I've got a demonic shadow bird enforcing my orders and a mother who has no idea her adorable daughter is secretly terrifying.
But when assassins hunting my family corner us in the forest, I have to stop playing cute. They see a toddler in pink overalls. I show them what an architect of reality looks like.
My twin is a Void Lord destined to consume worlds. He still flinches when I raise an eyebrow. Some hierarchies are eternal.
9.8
I stood at the edge of the freezing pond on the Boone estate, my body trembling with a fear that rattled my bones. Across from me, Amanda Olsen looked immaculate in her cashmere coat, a sharp contrast to the jagged reality I was trying to hold together.
"Why?" I whispered. Amanda just smiled, admitting she killed Grandpa Boone because he actually liked me. She pulled out a thick envelope-divorce papers Cordero had signed that morning. She told me he called me a parasite and was celebrating with her the night I suffered a miscarriage.
Before I could even scream, Amanda lunged and shoved me into the icy water. My heavy wool coat acted like a sponge, dragging me into the artificial abyss. I thrashed and gasped for air, but Amanda just stood on the bank, watching me drown with her hands tucked casually in her pockets.
As my lungs burned and the darkness closed in, I realized I had spent my entire marriage taking their abuse. I was the "foster trash" and the "gold digger" who let them win every single time. I was dying alone, hated by the husband I had tried so hard to love, while my murderer stood victorious on the shore.
I never fought back. I just let them destroy me.
Then, a violent spasm tore through my body. I sat up gasping, sucking in dry, air-conditioned oxygen instead of murky pond water. I wasn't dead. I was back in the opulent master suite, surrounded by red rose petals and wedding decorations.
The digital clock glowed: October 14, 2019. I had gone back five years to the very night my nightmare began.
The bathroom door clicked open, and Cordero stepped out, looking at me with the same cold disgust I remembered. But as I gripped the silk sheets, a new resolve hardened in my chest. This time, I wasn't going to be the victim. This time, the Boone family was going to find out exactly what happens when you push someone too far.
7.3
Aliyah Pollard POV:
For six years, my husband, Chase, refused to divorce me, gaslighting me while he built a new family with his mistress, Faye. After 99 failed attempts, I was ready for my 100th try.
But the man I met in the park wasn't my cold, cheating husband. It was Chase from ten years ago-eighteen, idealistic, and still madly in love with me.
He didn't understand why I looked so sad, why I flinched from his touch. He didn't know about the affair, the miscarriage Faye caused, or the child they now had together.
He saw the divorce papers and his world shattered. "I would never hurt you, Aliyah," he cried, his young eyes filled with genuine anguish. "I love you."
His pain was a stark contrast to the cruelty of the man he would become. The older Chase had sneered, "You're mine, Aliyah. Who would want you?"
But this boy, this pure version of my husband, saw my suffering and didn't hesitate.
He took the pen, his hand shaking, and signed the papers his future self had refused for years. "If this is what you need," he whispered, "I'll do it."
7.7
Kiara Watson had lived an unhappy life with her family, always overshadowed by her sister, Cloe, who stole all the attention with her beauty.
However, Kiara's fate took an unexpected turn when, by mistake and out of obligation, she found herself linked to Archie Villarreal, the man who caused a sensation in the most powerful family, the Villarreals.
A dirty trick by Cloe awakened the fury of billionaire Archie. For Kiara, being Cloe's twin became her greatest sin.
She received cruel punishment from Archie, who would do everything in his power to keep her from escaping, creating a stormy and passionate game of love and vehemence.