The Thirty-Eighth Divorce's End
Today is my fifth wedding anniversary. It's also the day my husband, Ethan, asked me for a divorce for the 38th time.
He does this for Ilene, his childhood friend. The woman who crashed her car on our wedding day, leaving her unable to have children. Ever since, he's been repaying a debt of guilt, and I've been the price.
For five years, I endured the cycle of divorce and remarriage. But this time was different. Ilene pushed me down a flight of stairs.
Ethan found me bleeding and promised me justice. He swore he would make her pay.
But days later, the police called. The security footage of the incident had been mysteriously erased. There was no evidence, no case.
That night, Ilene had me kidnapped. As her men tore at my clothes in the back of a van, I managed to call Ethan.
He rejected my call.
I jumped from the moving van. And as I ran for my life, bleeding on the cold asphalt, I made a vow.
This time, there would be no 39th remarriage.
This time, I would disappear.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 6
The hotel ballroom was glittering with lights and filled with people. Ethan held my arm in a tight grip, leading me through the crowd.
Ilene rushed to meet us, her face glowing with happiness. She was wearing a stunning, expensive-looking gown.
She threw her arms around Ethan's neck, ignoring me completely.
"Ethan, you came! And you brought her!" she chirped. She kissed his cheek, then turned to me, her smile a slash of red lipstick.
"Thank you for arranging all this for me, Ethan," she said loudly, for everyone to hear. "It' s so much grander than any birthday Aurora ever had."
She looked at me, her eyes dancing with malice. "You don't look very happy, Aurora. Aren't you going to wish me a happy birthday?"
I said nothing. My blood felt sluggish in my veins, thick and cold.
She pouted, then pulled Ethan away toward the dance floor, leaving me standing alone.
I found a quiet corner and sank into a plush sofa, the murmurs of the crowd washing over me.
"That's her, Aurora Kemp."
"The one who's been divorced from Ethan Bruce nine times."
"I heard she's a doormat. She lets him walk all over her."
"I don't blame him. Ilene is the one he grew up with. They were supposed to be together."
"Someone told me the car accident that crippled Ilene was Aurora's fault. She's the reason Ilene can't have children."
"She' s just a third wheel. Ethan obviously loves Ilene more. He' s just with Aurora out of pity."
Every word was a small, sharp cut. I squeezed my hands together in my lap, my nails digging into my palms. The physical pain was a welcome distraction from the storm inside me.
I watched them on the dance floor. Ethan and Ilene, moving as one. He was smiling down at her, a gentle, loving smile I hadn't seen directed at me in years.
They looked perfect together.
Maybe the whispers were right. Maybe I was the intruder. Maybe I should have just walked away a long time ago and let them be happy.
I closed my eyes, the music and the voices fading into a dull roar. I had to get out of there.
I stood up and turned to leave.
But Ilene was suddenly there, blocking my path.
"Leaving so soon?" she asked, her voice syrupy sweet. "The party's just getting started."
She smiled. "But first, a gift. For you."
She held out a beautifully wrapped gift box.
A presentiment of some fresh evil made the skin on my arms prickle. I looked at the box as one might look upon a venomous thing, knowing with a certainty that went bone-deep that I could not touch it.
"No, thank you," I said, my voice firm.
"Oh, don't be like that," she insisted, trying to press the box into my hands. "It's a peace offering."
She grabbed my purse, trying to stuff the box inside. I tried to pull it back. We struggled for a moment, a clumsy, desperate tug-of-war.
The purse fell to the floor.
The gift box tumbled out, the lid flying off.
Its contents scattered across the polished marble.
It wasn't a gift. It was a stack of photographs.
Ilene's face went deathly white. She let out a piercing scream.
"No! Get them away! Get them away from me!"
Ethan rushed over, his face a thundercloud. He saw the photos on the floor and his entire body went rigid.
He didn't look at me. He didn't ask what happened. He just wrapped his arms around the screaming, sobbing Ilene, shielding her from the world.
He glared at me, his eyes blazing with a hatred so intense it stole my breath.
"What have you done?" he snarled.
I was confused. I didn't understand. I bent down and looked at the pictures.
My mind went blank.
The photos were horrific. They showed Ilene, years ago, bruised, bloody, and torn. They were photos of the aftermath of a sexual assault.
The source of her trauma. The reason for Ethan' s guilt. The foundation of our broken marriage.
And now they were scattered on a ballroom floor for the world to see.
My mind flashed back to Ilene pressing the box into my hands. The setup. The trap.
"It wasn't me," I whispered, my voice trembling. "She gave them to me."
But no one was listening.
You may also like
8.7
For three years, Blair Guzman poured her resources into turning a broke waiter into an Oscar-winning actor, letting the world believe they were a couple just to keep him under her control.
But the night he won his Oscar, he publicly betrayed her by kissing Kiana—Blair’s estranged, rival sister.
Kiana and her mother brought the scandal right to the Glover family dinner table, trying to humiliate Blair.
"You're just mad because he dumped you for me," Kiana sneered in front of the entire family.
Instead of crying, Blair ruthlessly dismantled them, exposing how their cheap tabloid stunt tanked the family's corporate value.
Impressed by her cold logic, the family matriarch handed Blair the ultimate voting power, but it was a trap.
The matriarch immediately used Blair's elevated status to force her into an arranged marriage with a notorious, debt-ridden playboy just to secure a European shipping lane.
To her family, she was never a daughter—she was just a premium asset to be traded to the highest bidder.
What her greedy family didn't know was that Blair had already made a terrifying deal.
She was secretly married to the ruthless billionaire Butler McIntyre—a man who demanded absolute possession of her body and soul.
Now, her family's arranged parasite and her secret devil of a husband were on a collision course, and the wreckage was going to be spectacular.
8.3
My husband watched as my skin melted, scalded by boiling soup, yet his hands were busy comforting my attacker. Five years of marriage, built on a foundation of my family's power, crumbled with a single, brutal act of betrayal. He bought me off with a penthouse and a trust fund, but I tore out my IV and threw his charity back in his face.
It was our fifth anniversary, but my husband, Ethan, remained distant, avoiding any talk of Chicago or the mafia protection my family once offered him. He then pushed a black velvet box across the table.
Inside was a Separation and Property Division Agreement, not a diamond. He told me to sign for Ilene's security, offering millions. When I refused, Ilene hurled boiling soup. Ethan shielded her, not me, as the scalding liquid melted my dress.
With second-degree burns, he blamed me, ordering me from our home for Ilene’s comfort. My family saved him, yet he sacrificed my body and marriage for another woman.
The love I felt turned to ash. What kind of debt demanded my flesh and marriage?
I ripped the IV from my arm, hurling his "charity" keys back. My diamond ring placed on the agreement, I walked away. From today on, Ethan, you and I are dead to each other.
9.1
For three years, June played the perfect, submissive wife to billionaire Augustus Pruitt, hoping a child would finally warm his cold heart and secure their marriage.
But when she cautiously suggested they have a baby, he looked at her with pure, unfiltered disgust.
"A woman who schemes her way into a marriage doesn't get to carry my blood."
He sneered, leaving immediately to lavish his mistress with diamonds. The nightmare only escalated from there. Augustus bought the one painting June desperately wanted—a piece she had secretly created herself—just to gift it to his mistress. He publicly outbid June at the gallery, mocking her lack of wealth, and left her to collapse in the freezing rain. When the storm gave her a severe 104-degree fever and she nearly died on their staircase, he didn't even stay by her hospital bed. Instead, he sent an assistant with a box of jewelry to buy her silence, then forced her to attend a family dinner where his mother and sister viciously mocked her barren womb and background.
Looking at Augustus, who sat there casually cutting his steak while his family tore her apart, the last flicker of hope in June's chest sputtered and died.
She finally understood that her three years of bleeding devotion were nothing but a pathetic joke to them.
She dropped her silverware, the sharp clatter silencing the entire room. She wasn't going to be their punching bag anymore. It was time to finalize the divorce papers, reclaim her hidden identity as the world-renowned artist 'mr.sun', and make them all regret it.
8.2
Denice Copeland's son was dying of leukemia, and his only hope for survival was a savior sibling.
But the wealthy Montgomery family offered a cruel ultimatum. To get the experimental treatments her son desperately needed, Denice had to conceive a child naturally with Jasper Montgomery—her dead husband's cold, estranged twin brother.
Jasper treated the arrangement like a clinical transaction, taking her body without a shred of tenderness and threatening to cut her son's medical care if she disobeyed. The ultimate betrayal happened when Denice collapsed from exhaustion at his hospital. Jasper's glamorous partner, Kira, suddenly appeared and took control of Denice's dying son. Kira made the little boy call her "Mommy" and ordered security to throw Denice out.
"I don't know you. I've never seen you before in my life."
Jasper stood between Denice and her own son, coldly defending the woman who had stolen her child.
Denice was completely shattered. She finally understood she had never been anything but a cheap stand-in for Kira, a convenient breeding vessel for the Montgomery bloodline. Stripped of her dignity, her past love, and now her only child, her mind violently fractured in her freezing, mildew-stained apartment.
Abandoning the last shred of her pride, she sent Jasper one final, desperate text.
"Tonight. I'm ovulating. Come."
Then, she stepped fully clothed into a scalding shower to drown herself, forcing the man who destroyed her to finally face the wreckage he had made.
8.2
Framed. Disowned. Forgotten.
Thira Calderon lost everything in one night-her reputation, her family, and the man she loved. Five years later, she returns to New York with three secretive little geniuses and a high-powered job at a billionaire's company.
What she doesn't know?
Her new boss, Riven Dax, might be the man she's spent years trying to forget.
What her kids know?
He might just be the dad they've been searching for.
"He has Kai's eyes."
"And Niko's ears."
"Let's get proof," Elara whispers. "Real proof."
And three kids determined to uncover the truth their mother's too afraid to ask.
7.8
VANESSA
They say revenge is a dish best served cold. But for me, that's not enough. I want it to hit so hard they beg for their lives.
Five years ago, my own husband left me to die in a fire. I watched him walk away, his eyes full of hate. In my last moments, I thought about how unfair it was, that I was dying while the people who did wrong were free. As if some higher power heard me, I was saved.
Now, I'm back and my only purpose is to give Ethan Croft exactly what he deserves. He took everything from me, and now I will take everything he loves, in the most painful way possible.
I have it all planned out. But there's something or someone else I didn't plan on. Ceron Morrison. He's tall, dark, and dangerously handsome. He's a mystery and a distraction I can't afford. He's a threat to the revenge I have sworn to complete.
But no matter what comes my way, I'll make Ethan pay. I'll burn his entire world to the ground, even if it means I get burned in the flames, too.
CERON
Vanessa Ashford has taken over my mind without even trying.
The first time I saw her, she was putting a thief on the ground at the airport with a single, perfect kick. I was captivated. As the heir to a powerful family, I'm used to getting anything I want. And I want her. I want to know her secrets.
Vanessa has built high walls around herself, but I am not a quitter. As I slowly peel back the layers, I'm discovering a past filled with pain. I can see the fire of vengeance burning in her eyes, a fire so strong it could destroy her.
My family wants me to secure our legacy with a sensible, strategic marriage. But all I can think about is the woman who wears her revenge like a custom-made gown. I know I should walk away. But something in me can't stand the thought of her facing the darkness alone.
The real question is, when she finally plays her last card, will I be the one to save her? Or will I just become another victim caught in the crossfire?