Shattered Vows: Falling For His Worst Enemy
For three years, I played the perfect, docile wife to Brendon Jimenez, desperate for the real family I never had as an orphan.
But during a high-society gala, I peeked through a cracked door and caught him sleeping with my best friend.
When I packed my cheap canvas bag to leave the penthouse, my mother-in-law blocked the door.
She dumped my clothes on the marble floor, called me a stray dog, and slapped me so hard my mouth bled.
Brendon just stood there, watching his mother humiliate me.
To keep me trapped as his perfect public prop, he even faked his mother's heart attack in a VIP hospital suite.
"Get on your knees. Kneel down right now and beg my mother for forgiveness until she decides to accept it."
I gave them my youth and unconditional loyalty, only to realize this prestigious old-money family was nothing but a rotting corpse built on dirty secrets.
I didn't cry, and I certainly didn't drop to my knees.
Instead, I pulled out my phone right in front of him and called my lawyer.
"File for an at-fault divorce. I have proof of his infidelity with Kaelynn Hudson. I want him ruined."
Then, I touched the matte black card hidden deep in my clutch.
It belonged to Kile Barrett, the ruthless billionaire shark my husband feared most, and I was going to use him to tear the Jimenez family apart.
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Chapter 4
Christen stepped out of the master bedroom, the canvas bag heavy against her hip. She walked down the wide, silent hallway toward the foyer.
A sharp ding shattered the quiet.
The private elevator doors slid open. Constance Jimenez stepped out. She was dressed in a pristine Chanel tweed suit, her hair perfectly coiffed, her makeup flawless despite the late hour.
Constance's eyes immediately darted to the cheap canvas bag in Christen's hand. Her perfectly drawn eyebrows pulled together in deep disgust.
She marched forward, her heels clicking aggressively against the marble.
"Where do you think you're going looking like a beggar?" Constance's voice was shrill, echoing off the high ceilings.
Christen took a slow, deep breath. She didn't have the energy for this. She kept her mouth shut and tried to step around her mother-in-law.
Constance sidestepped, using her body to block the hallway. She looked Christen up and down with absolute contempt.
Brendon walked out of the bedroom, hearing the commotion. The moment he saw his mother, his aggressive posture vanished, replaced by the submissive slump of an obedient son.
Constance pointed a manicured finger at Christen's face. "You embarrassed this family tonight. Leaving the gala early like a petulant child. You will never learn how to behave, will you? You can dress a stray dog in silk, but it still belongs in the gutter."
Christen's grip on the bag tightened until her knuckles ached. "I don't need to learn your hypocritical rules," she said coldly.
Constance's eyes widened in fury, but she refused to dirty her own hands. She lifted a manicured finger, pointing at the bag with utter revulsion. "Brendon, take that filthy thing away from her! Let's see what trash she's trying to steal from us," she commanded. Brendon, eager to regain his mother's approval, lunged forward and grabbed the fabric of the canvas bag, yanking it hard.
Christen twisted her body to protect it, but the sudden force ripped the cheap zipper open.
Three plain cotton t-shirts spilled out, landing in a heap on the imported marble floor.
Constance stared at the clothes and let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "Look at this trash. You are cheap to your very core."
Christen looked at Brendon. He stood there, watching his mother humiliate his wife.
"Just apologize to her, Christen," Brendon sighed, rubbing his temples. "Don't make a scene."
The last ounce of hope Christen had for him died right there. The disappointment solidified into pure, freezing contempt.
She crouched down, her movements slow and deliberate, and picked up her shirts. She shoved them back into the bag.
Constance sneered. "If you walk out that door, I will cut off every credit card in your name. You'll be sleeping on the streets by tomorrow."
Christen stood up. She looked Constance dead in the eye. "I have never spent a single cent of Jimenez money. Keep it."
Constance's face turned purple. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound of the front door's electronic keypad beeping rapidly cut her off.
The heavy door was shoved open. A blast of cold air swept into the foyer, bringing a fierce energy with it.
Aisling Kearney marched in. She was wearing her signature blood-red trench coat, holding a massive Hermès Birkin bag. She had just landed from an overseas flight, received Christen's SOS text, and come straight here.
Aisling took one look at the scene-the spilled clothes, Constance's pointing finger, Christen's pale face-and her eyes turned lethal.
Aisling strode forward in her Louboutins, physically wedging herself between Christen and Constance to shield her friend. She used her height advantage to look down at the older woman. Only after ensuring Christen was safely behind her did Aisling turn slightly and slam her massive Birkin down onto the nearby entryway console table. The heavy thud made everyone jump.
"Is this how old money spends their Friday nights?" Aisling drawled, her thick Manhattan accent dripping with venom. "Bullying women in their own homes?"
Constance stumbled back a step, shocked by the sudden intrusion. Her finger trembled as she pointed at Aisling. "How dare you-"
Aisling slapped Constance's hand away. She didn't even look at her. She turned her head and gave Christen a fierce, protective look that said, I've got you.
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8.4
Ayleen Avery was just a struggling hotel worker trying to survive her shift. But during a sudden blackout, she accidentally stumbled into the pitch-black VIP suite of a ruthless billionaire driven mad by chronic insomnia.
Calmed only by her unique natural scent of roses and rain, the terrifying man attacked her from the shadows and forced himself on her. Terrified and broken, Ayleen fled at dawn, unknowingly leaving behind her late mother's antique rose necklace in his bed.
Her greedy coworker found the necklace, claimed to be the woman from that night, and was instantly swept into a life of luxury. Meanwhile, Ayleen was blackmailed into a forced marriage with her attacker—Cassius Doyle—to save her adoptive father from prison. Deceived by the stolen necklace, Cassius believed Ayleen was a manipulative spy. He brought the coworker into their home and paraded her around the master bedroom.
"In this house, you are lower than the dirt on my shoes."
He choked Ayleen, forced her to sleep in a damp storage room, and treated her with violent disgust while pampering the thief.
Ayleen was suffocating in absolute despair. She had lost her innocence, her freedom, and her mother's only relic to a vicious liar. She couldn't understand how this all-powerful man could be so completely blind. Why couldn't he recognize the very scent that had cured his agonizing madness?
Staring at the dark bruises he had just left on her neck, Ayleen wiped the blood from her lip. She would endure this three-month marriage to secure her family's safety, but once the contract ended, she would expose the truth and tear down the fake savior he cherished so much.
8.0
Abigayle was the proud heir to the Pena Group, living a perfect life and engaged to Jeffery Sullivan.
But the morning after a charity gala, she woke up drugged in a hotel room, blinded by paparazzi cameras. Her fiancé and her best friend stood at the foot of the bed, throwing a forged pregnancy report at her face to publicly frame her for cheating.
The betrayal was only the beginning of the slaughter. Before she could even clear her name, the Sullivan family ruthlessly bankrupted her family's company overnight. Her father was rushed to the ICU with a heart attack, her brother was run off the road into a coma, and violent repo men raided her penthouse. Just as she was thrown out into the freezing rain, Jeffery's terrifying uncle, Donovan Sullivan—the very mastermind who engineered her family's ruin—stepped in. He offered to cover the life-saving medical bills, but only if she agreed to become his personal plaything.
Abigayle's blood turned to ice. She couldn't understand how the people she trusted most could plot such a vicious, coordinated destruction just to break an engagement. How dared the man who destroyed her entire family stand there playing the savior, trying to buy her body with her own stolen wealth?
Facing a $100,000 hospital deadline and abandoned by everyone she knew, she didn't shed another tear.
"I will never beg him."
Clutching her last diamond bracelet, she hailed a cab straight to the biggest pawnshop in the Diamond District. The Sullivans thought they had buried her, but her counterattack was just beginning.
8.3
For three years, I hid my identity as a billionaire heiress to build a life with the man I loved. I gave up everything to support Ben's career, believing we were creating a future together from the ground up.
The day before our engagement, I overheard him with his boss, Haylie. He called me a "stepping stone," a poor, simple girl he was using to climb the corporate ladder and get closer to her.
He laughed about our "humble" life and mocked the silver ring on my finger, calling it a necessary prop. He was sleeping with her, taking credit for the multi-million dollar deal I secretly engineered, and saw my love as a naive distraction.
The man I sacrificed my entire world for saw me as less than nothing. My love didn't just die; it turned into ice-cold rage.
So I walked out of his life and straight into the arms of my family's biggest rival.
He offered me a deal I couldn't refuse.
"Marry me," Jaxson Banks said with a smirk. "And together, we'll burn their world to the ground."
8.4
Everly spent four years playing the perfect, accommodating wife to Carson Moss, swallowing every grievance just to secure medical treatments for their sick daughter.
But at a high-society banquet she exhausted herself organizing, Carson's pregnant mistress crashed the party.
The woman shoved an ultrasound of Carson's "real heir" directly into Everly's frail grandfather's face.
The shock triggered a massive heart attack.
Carson refused to use his private helicopter to save the dying old man, choosing to protect his mistress and his company's IPO instead. Her grandfather died on the hospital table.
Instead of remorse, her mother-in-law demanded Everly publicly cover up the murder.
"You will do exactly as I say, or I will freeze every single cent of the medical trust fund paying for your crippled daughter's treatments."
When a battered Everly returned to the estate, she discovered her three-year-old daughter covered in dark bruises and pinch marks. Her in-laws were deliberately torturing her disabled child.
Everly couldn't comprehend how a family could be so utterly heartless. Her only family was murdered, her child was abused, and her husband threw a five-million-dollar check at her face as hush money.
They thought she would just break and quietly disappear.
But when a terrifyingly powerful billionaire unexpectedly blocked Carson's security team from locking her up, Everly finally saw her window.
She grabbed her sleeping daughter and ran out into the freezing storm, making a blood-bound vow to make the entire Moss family bleed.
7.1
For seven years, I hid my identity as a wealthy heiress to be with my boyfriend, Ewing. I followed him across the country and made myself small so he could feel big.
On Thanksgiving, he ditched our celebration for his first love, Bree, who supposedly had a "burst pipe."
Later, she posted an intimate selfie with him, calling him her "hero."
Then she sent me a video of him at a bar, laughing with his friends.
"She's just being dramatic," he slurred, smirking at the camera. "A new necklace and she'll forget all about it. She's easy."
Easy. Seven years of my life, my love, my sacrifice-all reduced to that one word. I realized I was never his partner. I was just a placeholder.
I didn't cry. I packed my bags, booked a one-way flight to New York, and sent him one final text before blocking his number.
"Don't bother coming home. I'm getting married."
7.6
Overnight, Ella lost her family, her home, and her entire life. Discarded by the foster system, she was left shivering in the freezing mud outside her ruined estate.
That was when Javier Shepherd appeared. The terrifyingly cold, powerful billionaire pulled her from the dirt, threw her into a massive glass penthouse, handed her an unlimited black card, and vanished overseas, leaving her in the hands of a cruel caretaker.
The caretaker treated Ella like garbage, feeding her cheap, processed meals while using the black card to buy designer bags. The toxic food triggered a severe allergic reaction. Ella collapsed in the dark hallway, her throat swelling shut, gasping for air while the caretaker locked the door and turned up the TV. She almost died on that cold hardwood floor.
When Javier found out, he ruthlessly destroyed the caretaker and sent her to prison. He guarded Ella's hospital bed with terrifying intensity and even moved into her apartment to stop her panic attacks. Yet, when Ella finally broke down crying over her dead parents, his eyes turned to ice.
"Losing emotional control over a juvenile past is an inefficient waste of energy."
He sneered, treating her grief like a bad financial investment. Ella was completely bewildered. Why did this dangerous man protect her so fiercely, yet hate her past so deeply?
It wasn't until his cousin visited the hospital that the cruel truth was revealed. Javier wasn't saving her out of kindness. He had been obsessed with Ella's mother—his family's adopted daughter who ran away years ago. To him, Ella wasn't a person to be loved. She was just a replacement asset, a ghost of the woman he never got over.