Seducing my ex husband back
Claire's love for Richard was legendary-three years of devotion that everyone envied. Until the day she found her best friend Monica on top of her husband in their living room, and her world shattered.
"Sign it, Claire," Richard said, tossing divorce papers at her hospital bed, his once-warm blue eyes now ice cold. "You disgust me. You're clingy, obsessed, and suffocating."
One year later, Claire Winfred returns to town-transformed, powerful, and engaged to billionaire Alexander Hayes. But she hasn't come back for a new beginning. She's come back for revenge.
Now she's the one calling the shots, trapping Richard behind his desk, her hand gripping his tie. "Tell me, Richard," she purrs, "do you still find me disgusting?"
"Yes," he lies, even as his body betrays him.
"Then explain why you're so hard right now."
The seduction has begun. But in a game this dangerous, who will be the hunter and who will be the prey?
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Chapter 6
~CLAIRE'S POV~
"Claire, darling, I would like you to meet Alexander Hayes." Eleanor's voice carried across the marble foyer like a bell, but I barely heard her.
I was still staring at the man whose hands had just been on my waist, whose business card was burning a hole in my purse.
"We've already met," I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
Eleanor's perfectly sculpted eyebrows shot up. "Have you now? How delightfully... unexpected."
Alexander's laugh was rich and warm, the sound making my skin tingle. "Eleanor, you're always trying to play matchmaker. Though I have to admit, your instincts are impeccable."
My eyes widened. "Matchmaker?"
Eleanor patted Alexander's cheek with the closeness of an old friend. "Well, if you did not go around Manhattan breaking girls' hearts, I wouldn't be forced to intervene, would I?"
The simple closeness between them sent warning bells through my head. "I don't understand what's...."
"Eleanor!" A voice called from across the room. "There you are!"
Eleanor squeezed my arm gently. "I'm afraid duty calls, darling. But Alexander will take excellent care of you." She fixed him with a pointed look. "Won't you, Alexander? And I do mean excellent care. This one is special."
Before I could protest, she was gliding away, leaving me alone with the man who was supposed to be my salvation.
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Alexander observed, his green eyes dancing with amusement.
"Eleanor....." I started to call after her, but she had already disappeared into the crowd.
"I'm offended you're so desperate to escape my company."
I turned back to him, my heart hammering.
The truth was, I did not trust myself around him. His reputation preceded him, and Eleanor's obvious matchmaking had thrown my carefully laid plans into chaos.
I had not come here to find love.
My heart, as painfully as I hated to admit it, still belonged to Richard. I wanted power. I wanted revenge.
I wanted Richard to suffer for every cruel word, every dismissive glance, every moment he had made me feel like my love was suffocating.
I wanted him to regret choosing Monica over me.
But I was not ready to move on. I was not ready to give my heart to anyone else. My love for Richard was consuming-if not careful, it would ruin me.
But I would bear it.
"Champagne?" Alexander appeared at my elbow, holding two flutes of golden liquid.
I hesitated.
Richard had never offered me drinks at parties.
He had barely acknowledged my existence once he got caught up in business talk or schmoozing with investors.
The one time I had tried to get his attention, he had scolded me so harshly that I had wanted to disappear.
The memory still stung.
I had tried associating with other guests, but the women wanted nothing to do with me, and the men... well, they listened, but their interest had nothing to do with what I was saying.
The night everything changed flashed through my mind. A man had grabbed my waist inappropriately. I had slapped him.
Instead of defending me, Richard had been furious-at me.
"You were flaunting yourself," he had hissed in the car afterward. "Acting like a slut while your husband was right there."
He had not touched me for a month after that. Called me names. Made me feel like I was nothing.
"Earth to Claire." Alexander's voice pulled me back to the present.
"Sorry." I accepted the champagne, taking a full sip to steady my nerves.
"Impressive liquid tolerance." His smile was approving, and I felt heat rise in my cheeks.
Looking around the room, I noticed the stares.
The whispers.
The two women from the bathroom were glaring at me openly, one mouthing "gold digger whore" in my direction.
I should have been used to this. Should have developed thicker skin. But the truth was, I had come here to catch a rich man to fund my revenge.
I was ready to use any means necessary, even if it meant being called names.
As long as I got what I wanted.
As long as I brought Richard to his knees.
Alexander must have noticed my discomfort because he glanced around, taking in the nasty stares.
Without thinking, I reached out and touched his wrist, my fingers trailing along his skin in what I hoped looked like a flirtatious move.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise.
God, I was really doing this. Really sinking this low.
"Could we go somewhere private?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "Away from the prying eyes?"
Alexander's smile turned predatory. "Lead the way."
I was surprised he did not argue or question me. Maybe he was that easy. Or maybe he was just used to women throwing themselves at him.
I kept my head high as I walked through the crowd, ignoring the whispers that followed in our wake. Alexander stayed close behind me, his presence like a heated shadow.
My heart was beating so fast I was sure he could hear it. I had no plan. No idea what I would say or do once we were alone.
I hadn't expected to meet him this quickly, hadn't expected him to take such an obvious interest in me.
Did he know who I was? My divorce had been splashed across every society page. Richard was too well-known a figure for it to stay quiet.
The media had probably had a field day with the story of the devoted wife who had lost her husband to her best friend.
Let them make fun of me. Soon they wouldn't be laughing when I destroyed Richard and Monica.
I stopped in front of a door marked "Private Lounge." Everyone was busy at the party-no one would think to come here except cheating couples looking for privacy.
How fitting.
I bit my lower lip, acutely aware of Alexander watching me. My reputation was already in ruins. Richard had made sure of that.
What did I have left to lose?
I grabbed the door handle and stepped inside, Alexander following close behind. The soft click of the lock made my pulse spike.
I was about to turn and face him when strong hands gripped my wrists, pulling me back against a hard chest.
Before I could react, I was being spun around and pressed down onto the plush couch, Alexander's weight pinning me beneath him.
"What are you-" I started, but he caught my wrists, pinning them above my head with one hand while the other found my exposed thigh where my dress had ridden up.
"I didn't think you were this type of woman, Claire," he murmured, his voice pure seduction.
His fingers traced slow circles on my skin, moving higher with each pass.
Panic flared through me. This wasn't what I had planned. I was not ready for this.
"Stop," I breathed, struggling against his hold. "Get off me."
"Isn't this what you wanted?" His green eyes glittered in the dim light. "Suggesting a private room, bringing me here for our little rendezvous?"
"No, I....." The words stuck in my throat as his meaning sank in.
He thought I had brought him here for sex.
"I didn't expect this behavior from a divorcée," he continued, and the word hit me like a physical blow. "Especially from the former wife of my stepbrother."
The world swayed. "Your what?"
"Richard Blackwood." His smile was sharp as a blade. "My dear stepbrother."
Ice flooded my veins.
Richard had a half-brother-David. Sweet, kind David who had tried to comfort me during the loneliest parts of my marriage.
David who had confessed his feelings for me when Richard was at his cruelest.
But this was not David.
Before I could process what was happening, Alexander's mouth crashed down on mine.
The kiss was hungry, desperate, like he had been waiting for this moment. His tongue parted my lips as a low groan escaped him.
My mind reeled. How many stepbrothers did Richard have?
What was Alexander's connection to the family? And why did it feel like I had walked straight into a trap?
Alexander's kiss grew more demanding, more possessive. My heart was breaking because I could feel myself losing-losing before I had even started.
It was all Richard's fault.
Why did I love a man who had turned into a monster? What was so good about Richard that had made me so blind to what he was becoming?
I hated him. And I would make him pay, even if it meant losing my pride.
Closing my eyes, I stopped fighting. Tears slipped down my cheeks as I surrendered to the kiss, to the plan, to whatever this was becoming.
'Fuck you, Richard,' I thought as Alexander's hands roamed my body with practiced skill.
'I will come for you like a beautiful nightmare dressed in silk.'
But as his lips moved to my throat, as his fingers traced patterns that made my breath catch, one thought echoed through my mind:
Who was hunting whom?
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8.1
I was the top trauma surgeon at the city’s busiest hospital until my family decided I was nothing more than a disposal fee. I stood in my father’s mahogany-lined study, staring at a two-hundred-thousand-dollar check that was meant to buy my silence and my dignity.
"Sign the confession, Aurelia," my father demanded, the silver cigar cutter snapping with a violent finality. They wanted me to take the fall for a medical error I never committed, all to protect my sister Dominique’s image before her high-profile merger with the Blackburn family.
When I refused to sign my life away, the betrayal turned lethal. My sister planted a priceless sapphire heirloom in my bag and called the security team to search me in front of my ex-fiancé. My mother watched with cold indifference as I was branded a thief, and my father threatened to pull the plug on my grandmother’s nursing home payments by noon if I didn't vanish.
I was thrown out into a freezing rainstorm with a revoked medical license, a battered suitcase, and exactly forty-two dollars to my name. Even the man I once loved looked at me with pity, believing I had stooped to grand larceny because I was jealous of my sister’s success.
I stood at a bus stop, shivering and broken, wondering how my own blood could trade my truth for a corporate PR stunt. They had taken my career, my home, and my reputation, leaving me with nothing but the clothes on my back and a burning need for justice.
Desperate to protect my grandmother, I sought out the one man they all feared: Avery Blackburn, the "monster" CEO rumored to be a brain-damaged vegetable. But the man I found in the shadows of the VIP wing wasn't a victim; he was a wolf waiting for the right moment to strike.
"I need a shield, and you need a wife," he rasped, sliding a titanium card across the desk. I didn't hesitate to sign the marriage certificate. The Blanchards think they’ve discarded a liability, but they’re about to find out what happens when you give a desperate surgeon a billionaire’s scalpel.
8.3
Hovering as a translucent soul in the freezing cemetery, I watched Corbin Mendez—the ruthless billionaire I had spent my entire life despising—violently smash open my tomb.
I thought he had come to desecrate my corpse. Instead, he collapsed to his knees, reverently kissed my dead lips, and swallowed a lethal bottle of pills without a drop of water.
In my past life, I was betrayed by my ex-fiancé, framed by my vicious step-family, and trapped in a suffocating marriage with Corbin. I thought he was a paranoid, abusive monster who only wanted to control me. I fought his madness every single day until I died sick, exhausted, and utterly defeated.
But watching him climb into my casket, wrapping his massive arms around my cold body to die beside me, my non-existent heart shattered.
Why hadn't I seen the truth? He wasn't a monster; he was a deeply traumatized man suffering from severe PTSD, and his obsessive love for me was his only tether to sanity.
The regret and agony tore my soul to pieces.
"My love, I'm too late."
Those were his last words before his heart stopped.
When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't floating in a dark tomb. I was lying in Corbin's bed, exactly two years in the past.
This time, I wouldn't run away. I would heal the broken beast who died for me, and I would personally put a bullet in everyone who ruined us.
9.0
I died on the cold delivery table, bleeding out while the heart monitor flatlined.
Through the blinding surgical lights, I heard my husband Damon's cold, final order to the doctors.
"The child is the priority."
He didn't care about my life. To him, I was just a vessel to produce an heir, a tool to fulfill his prenuptial clause and secure his billionaire empire.
While I took my last agonizing breath, he was already planning his future with his fragile, theatrical mistress, Jasmin.
In my past life, when he first brought her into our home claiming she was a helpless victim, I shattered.
I screamed, threw vases, and played the hysterical wife perfectly.
My desperate pleas for his affection only gave him the exact weapons he needed to ruin my reputation, isolate me, and ultimately force me onto that fatal delivery bed.
Until my very last moment, the suffocating pain in my chest wasn't just physical.
I couldn't understand how the man I loved could treat my death like a simple business transaction.
Why was my absolute devotion rewarded with a carefully calculated execution?
But then, my eyes snapped open.
I was sitting on the edge of my king-sized bed, exactly three years before my death.
From downstairs, I heard Damon's voice echoing in the foyer, bringing Jasmin into our home for the very first time.
This time, the scream building in my chest turned to ice.
I didn't cry or throw a fit.
Instead, I calmly swallowed a secret birth control pill, smiled at his mistress, and dialed the most ruthless divorce lawyer in Manhattan.
8.5
Aileen transmigrated into a dark, unfinished novel as the villainous, abusive wife of a powerful billionaire.
The moment she opened her eyes, her husband's calloused hand was crushing her throat, and her six-year-old stepson was pointing a box cutter at her face, screaming for her to die.
A cold system voice suddenly exploded in her brain, forcing a mandatory mission: save the villainous father and son, or face immediate death.
To survive the system's strict Out-Of-Character warnings, Aileen had to keep playing the role of the deranged, hateful wife.
She was despised by everyone. Her husband threatened to drag her to an asylum, and her terrified stepson scrubbed the floor with his own pajamas just to avoid her wrath.
Things escalated when the novel's original female lead publicly framed Aileen in Central Park, throwing herself onto the grass and clutching her pregnant belly.
"She pushed me. She tried to hurt the baby!"
Archer rushed over, shoved Aileen aside with absolute disgust, and looked at her with the eyes of a murderer.
Aileen felt a bitter wave of exhaustion. She had discovered the original owner's hidden antipsychotic pills; the woman wasn't just evil, she was severely mentally ill and completely broken by this loveless marriage.
Yet, no one cared, and her husband would always choose to believe his childhood sweetheart's fake tears.
Since everyone in this world was convinced she was an unpredictable lunatic, she decided to give them exactly what they expected.
Aileen turned her back on the ridiculous scene, a cold smile forming on her lips.
She was going to stage a massive, undeniable psychological breakdown, using her "insanity" as the perfect shield to play the system and rewrite her fate.
8.3
I never thought I could find myself sucking the dìck of a man I should call father and made him moan out so loud. I found myself going back to have him finger and pound my clit, ripping moans off my throat as day passed by. I found myself moaning to him every single day, taking all his sexual command and fantasies, being daddy's naughty girl and wishing for nothing other than his 8 inches dick buried deep into my wet clit.
I grew up invisible, the illegitimate daughter of a woman who valued status more than motherhood. While she chased elite society, I learned to survive on my own, retreating into art and quiet fantasies of being chosen by someone who would finally see my worth.
Everything changes when my mother marries Calder Rhys, a billionaire widower seeking stability, not love. Thrust into a world of wealth and rigid expectations, I moved into the Rhys mansion and met Wells, Calder's polished and charismatic son. Drawn to him despite knowing he is unavailable, I mistake attention for affection, unaware that my longing is about to pull me into something far more dangerous.
A single mistake blurs boundaries that should never be crossed.
Caught between a mother who sees me as a liability, an elite society eager to destroy me, and a man whose influence could either protect or ruin me, I must decide who I want to become.
7.2
Still nursing the wounds of a devastating breakup, Olivia turns to online dating When she agrees to meet a charming stranger, she braces herself for awkward small talk and forced smiles. What she doesn't expect is to walk into the wrong date.
Embarrassed. Olivia is ready to walk away. But then a perfect stranger Mr. Damian Carrington decided to make it worthwhile. Handsome, confident, and dangerously persuasive, he offers to salvage her ruined evening. One drink turns into two. One laugh turns into a kiss. And one reckless, drunken night leads to a one-night stand she swears she'll forget.
Until she walks into work the next morning... and finds out her new boss is none other than Damian Carrington.
He remembers everything.
And he's not letting her go.
Damian is powerful, relentless, and hooked on making Olivia his no matter how many walls she builds or how many times she says no. But Olivia knows the risks. She's already been burned by love, and getting involved with her boss could destroy everything she's worked for.
As fate pulls them together and buried secrets begin to surface betrayals, heartbreaks, and truths neither of them are ready to face Olivia must decide: will she protect her heart, or risk it all for a man who could ruin her... or love her beyond reason?
When love is born from a lie, can it survive the truth?