My Best Friend's Uncle....And My Baby Daddy.
Five years ago, Autumn Martin broke the ultimate rule: she fell in love with Eric Kingston-her best friend's uncle and the most powerful man in London.
Their relationship was a beautiful, forbidden secret, but it was doomed from the start.
Fleeing with a secret he was never meant to find out, Autumn left the man she loved behind.
Now, she is back for her best friend's wedding, praying she can survive three days without Eric discovering the truth.
But Eric hasn't forgotten the woman who vanished.
When he catches a glimpse of a child with his own storm-gray eyes, the game changes.
Trapped in the Kingston estate, Autumn must navigate guilt, rekindled passion, and the terrifying reality that Eric Kingston never lets go of what belongs to him.
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Chapter 5
Today was the day of the rehearsal dinner, and the air in the estate was thick with a different kind of tension. Chloe and I had spent the afternoon going through the final arrangements, but if I was being honest, it was all Chloe, not me. She was the one who had everything under her absolute control. The plans, the flowers, the seating charts-it was all managed by her and the high-priced coordinator she had hired. I was just there as "decoration," a silent support system for a world I didn't understood.
I didn't understand why the hand-blown wine glasses had to be imported from Norway, or why it was a crisis that her third backup dress from a Paris boutique was a shade off from "eggshell." But I sat there anyway, nodding and showing support, commenting on how lovely everything looked or how gorgeous the centerpieces were every time she pointed at something.
By the time the evening rolled around, I was exhausted. I was currently getting ready in my room. Just like the previous party, Chloe had sent another dress for this one-a deep emerald silk that felt like water against my skin.
God bless her heart; she even offered to have her private maids come and help me get dressed, but I declined. I already felt awful enough being a "charity case" in this house; I didn't need to be waited on like a princess.
I managed to make myself look presentable. I took my clutch, checked my reflection one last time, and stepped out into the hallway, bracing myself to interact with a room full of high-class, pompous snobs. I didn't get five steps before I stopped dead in my tracks.
Eric was standing by the top of the grand staircase, looking like a god in a tailored charcoal suit. My stomach did a somersault. What did he want now? Was he going to try to confront me about the "cutie pie" phone call from last night?
Panic flared in my chest. Maybe I could hide in my room for a bit. If I just stayed behind the door, maybe he would get bored and leave. I didn't have the energy for our usual cat-and-mouse fight right now. I began to slowly, gently back away, my hand reaching for the doorknob.
Crrrk.
The sound of my heel catching on the floorboard echoed like a gunshot in the quiet hall. Fuck my heels. Why the fuck did I choose to wear these tonight? Eric turned, his thoughts interrupted as he acknowledged my presence. I hated when he did that-the way he stared at me like I was worth all the gold and silver in the world. It made my skin feel raw, as if he could see right through the emerald silk and see the terrified girl underneath.
Deciding to break the tension before I suffocated, I cleared my throat. "Good evening, Mr. Kingston."
"Evening, Autumn." He didn't move. He just watched me, his eyes tracking the way my pulse jumped in my neck. It was unsettling.
"Dinner is about to start," I said, trying to nudge him toward the stairs. But Eric refused to take the hint. He seemed perfectly content to see how long he could make me squirm.
"Let's go," he finally said, turning to lead the way.
When we reached the dining hall, the long table was already filled with the Kingston and Hawthorne elite. Eric walked to the head of the table and pulled out the chair directly to his right.
"Sit," he commanded.
I froze. All eyes in the room snapped to me. The silence was deafening. I felt a flush of heat crawl up my face, embarrassed to be the sudden subject of everyone's scrutiny. Why did this man keep doing this? He was marking me in front of his entire family.
"Mr. Kingston, I believe I have a seat arranged further down," I whispered, desperate to create distance. "This place is reserved for family members."
"Yes, Uncle. Tummy already has a place arranged for her," Chloe said, her voice hopeful as she tried to help me escape the nightmare.
"Eric, she is just a... well, as Chloe said, a guest," a woman sitting across from us spoke up. She looked to be in her late forties, radiant and sharp-featured. She was a polished, older version of Chloe, so I presumed this was Eleanor, Chloe's mother. I finally understood why Chloe had never let us meet during our university days. The woman bled arrogance. "Why would you seat a no-name at the family table?"
Eric didn't even look at her. He kept his hand on the back of my chair, his voice steady and cold. "I was the one who told Chloe to invite her. And I am the one who reserved this seat for her. If anyone has a complaint about where she sits, they can deal with me directly."
He dismissed their protests with a finality that shut down the room. We sat, and for a while, dinner went smoothly, if you could call a room full of people glaring at you "smooth." But then, I felt it. Under the table, Eric's palm landed on my thigh.
My breath hitched. My heart was hammered. I expected him to do something crazy, something to shame me, but he didn't. He just gently caressed the silk of my dress, his thumb tracing small circles as he calmly instructed the servers to place more food in front of me, as if he were simply taking care of a cherished guest.
"Eric, dearest little brother," Eleanor continued, her voice dripping with fake sweetness that felt like venom. "Any lead on finding that 'ghost' you've been chasing for five years? Or have you finally decided to settle for whatever is closest at hand?"
The words were a jagged jab. From what I remembered, Eleanor had always been salty that Eric was the successor to the Kingston empire and not her, despite her being the firstborn. She never missed a chance to subtly humiliate him.
Eleanor wasn't finished, though. She kept prodding, her voice rising as she talked about the "sanctity of the family bloodline."
Eric set down his utensils and fixed her with a bored, lethal gaze. He lifted his wine glass, took a slow sip, and set it back down. "Eleanor, my dearest sister. My private matters are none of your concern."
He used the same fake endearment she had, mocking her. "But since we are airing out private matters in front of the help, how is your husband? And more importantly, how is his girlfriend? I heard through the grapevines she recently had another child a couple of months ago. An heir, I presume?"
The table went silent. Eleanor's face turned a violent shade of red, and her husband paled, looking like he wanted to vanish into the floorboards. Eric didn't stop. He twirled his wine glass, his eyes cold. "I wonder whose assets that child will inherit? Because I sure as hell know it won't be mine."
He had completely humiliated both of them in one breath. Then, with a cold smile that didn't reach his eyes, he looked around the table. "Cheers up, everyone. Today is about our little Chloe, not family drama."
I felt a strange mix of fear and relief. I knew then that if a day ever came where Fin was bullied by these people, he would have his father's wicked tongue and absolute power as backup. But that thought only made the secret in my chest feel heavier.
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7.6
She was the heir of a criminal syndicate, bred to command the underworld.
For seven years she loved the wrong man, serving his family and building their fortune. Her payment was betrayal-his affair with her best friend.
During her three-year coma, he hissed, "Don't wake up."
They carried on at her bedside, then plotted her death to steal the company. She woke anyway and shattered them, rattling high society as a mafia heir and lethal fighter who ran the black-market economy.
He begged. She kicked him aside and chose the man who'd waited a decade-the world's top arms dealer. "I'm yours."
8.8
I was the despised adopted daughter of the Sanders family, hiding behind heavy gothic makeup and enduring their daily disgust.
The day my adoptive father died in a severe car crash, my adoptive mother and stepsister didn't even bother to call me.
Instead, while his body was still warm, my mother filed a multi-million dollar life insurance claim.
"I am not feeding a useless freak for another day. Pack your trash and get out."
She kicked me out into the freezing rain, but that wasn't the worst of it.
My stepsister Cornelia stole my greatest secret. Five years ago, I saved the life of Fidel Vaughan, a ruthless billionaire heir, from a burning estate.
Cornelia claimed my identity, accepted a million-dollar reward, and secured a marriage proposal from him, burning my only proof to ashes.
They thought I was just a helpless, pathetic high schooler they could discard and replace.
But when I hacked the police files, I discovered my father's crash wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit, and the Vaughan Group had hijacked the traffic cameras to cover it up.
I washed off the ugly black makeup, shedding the disguise of a pathetic outcast.
I am Spectre, the world's most elusive hacker and underground doctor.
I intercepted the billionaire heir's heavily armed convoy in the dead of night. They thought they could steal my life and murder my father, but now, I hold the needle that controls Fidel Vaughan's sanity, and I will make them all pay.
7.9
I hid my terminal stomach cancer diagnosis, hoping to spend my last six months with my husband, Gerard.
But the moment I stepped into our penthouse, he threw a divorce agreement at my feet.
"We are ending this marriage. Kena is waiting for me."
He said his first love had returned, and he had no time to play games with me anymore.
Over the next few days, he watched me vomit violently, coldly accusing me of faking a pregnancy to secure a massive payout.
When his own grandfather suffered a massive heart attack upon discovering his public affair, we rushed the old man to the emergency room.
But Gerard didn't stay for the surgery.
Kena showed up in a wheelchair, crying about a mild chest pain, and he immediately turned his back on his dying grandfather and me to comfort her.
I had loved this man in secret for thirteen years.
I even saved him from a rival's drug trap just nights ago, giving my failing body to him in a dark hotel room to protect his reputation.
Yet, to him, I was nothing but a greedy, calculating transaction standing in the way of his true love.
Watching him walk away to hold another woman while the surgery light flashed red, the thirteen years of desperate love inside me finally shattered.
I calmly wiped his grandfather's blood from my hands and turned around.
This time, I will sign the papers and disappear from his life forever.
8.8
My little boy died on the operating table during a minor, routine surgery.
That exact same night, my billionaire husband bought out the Hudson River for a massive, million-dollar fireworks show.
It wasn't to mourn our child. It was to celebrate his first love's son being discharged from the hospital.
When I confronted him with our son's death certificate, he sneered and accused me of hiding the boy to get his attention.
He held his mistress in our home, watched her fake a panic attack, and threatened to bankrupt my family if I didn't get on my knees and apologize to her.
But the most horrifying truth came from a terrified hospital nurse.
My son's anesthesia was deliberately kept low during the procedure to keep his tissue viable to save the mistress's child.
He was awake and in agonizing pain while his own father planned a grand celebration for another man's son.
I couldn't understand how a father could be so completely heartless.
How could he sacrifice his own flesh and blood just to please a woman who constantly manipulated him?
Looking at the ashes on my son's favorite toy, my paralyzing grief evaporated, replaced by a cold, unyielding rage.
I arranged my little boy's funeral alone in the freezing rain, left my wedding ring on the counter, and walked straight into the private hotel suite of my husband's most ruthless business rival.
"Let's take him down," I said.
8.0
I pointed a gun at my husband and made him sign our divorce papers.
He thought I was too soft to survive without him, he had no idea of the rebel he created. I was about to become his worst nightmare.
Dante Caruso taught me two things: how to love a monster, and how to become one. When I discovered he murdered my family for power, I carefully planned my exit and transformation into the heiress I was meant to be. I transformed from an innocent bride to his worst nightmare, I spent two years building an empire on the ashes of the girl he thought he knew.
Now I'm back. Not as Bella Russo, the wife he's been desperately searching for. But as a force shaking the underworld, the enemy that is systematically destroying everything he built.
He wants his wife back.
I want him buried.
Now the real question is what will be his decision, when he discovers the enemy that is destroying his empire and the woman he's lost are the same person.
8.3
I was a ghost in the rafters of Sotheby’s, five floors above the most expensive pavement in New York, clutching a ten-million-dollar ledger hidden inside a drop of blood-red agate. I had the perfect exit planned, but I didn't count on Harding Bishop, a security predator who could track a shadow through a rainstorm.
When the exits were sealed and the tactical teams started swarming, I made a split-second choice to survive. I stepped out of the shadows and looked into the eyes of a billionaire socialite searching for her missing daughter, whispering a single, broken word: "Mom?"
Just like that, I wasn't a thief anymore; I was Cassandra Sterling, the heiress who had been gone for five years. But the homecoming was a nightmare. My new "sister" promised to send me back to the gutter, my "father" held a gold-plated pistol to my knee the moment the limo doors closed, and the family patriarch tried to strike me down with his cane just for breathing his air.
Every second was a high-wire act. I had to play the part of a traumatized victim while a ten-million-dollar stone was literally sewn into the raw, bleeding wound on my shoulder. If I moved wrong, I’d bleed out; if I spoke wrong, I’d be buried in the backyard of the Hamptons estate.
Harding Bishop didn't believe a word of it. He moved into the room next to mine, watching my every breath and checking my hands for gun calluses under the guise of protection. He thinks he’s the warden and I’m his prisoner, but he’s about to find out that a cornered rat is the most dangerous thing in the house.
"Sleep tight, Vesper," he whispered as he locked my door, using my real name for the first time.
He thinks he’s won, but he has no idea that I’m already reaching for the Agate hidden under my pillow, ready to burn his empire to the ground.