You Cannot Afford Your Divorced Wife Now
Adeline had just endured the agonizing pain of giving birth to her daughter.
But when she woke up, the bassinet beside her hospital bed was completely empty.
Her husband, Jeremey, stood at the foot of the bed with his female friend, Hayden, tossing divorce and sole custody papers onto her lap.
"You're leaving. And she's staying," Jeremey said coldly.
He accused Adeline of being a jealous monster, claiming she had poisoned Hayden's tea and permanently destroyed Hayden's chances of ever having children.
Using a manipulated security video as blackmail, Jeremey forced Adeline to sign away her parental rights to protect her newborn from being branded the daughter of a convicted felon.
Stripped of her assets and her dignity, she was thrown out of the Castillo estate and exiled to a nowhere town, forced to leave her baby in the hands of the very woman who framed her.
The despair of having her child stolen by such a vicious lie nearly broke her soul. How could the man she loved be so utterly blind?
Three years later, the grand doors of the Castillo ballroom swung open at her daughter's lavish fourth birthday party.
Adeline stepped in, wearing a scarlet gown and a mocking smile, backed by the untouchable Garrett family.
She was no longer the weak, discarded wife. The war to ruin them and take her daughter back had just begun.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 5
The next day, the glass-walled office on the top floor of the Castillo Corporation building felt like a cage. Jeremey couldn't focus. The image of Adeline's cold, defiant eyes was burned into his mind.
A tablet on his desk displayed the morning's gossip rags. The headlines were sensational. CASTILLO HEIR'S BIRTHDAY BASH BRAWL! EX-WIFE AND MYSTERY MAN CRASH THE PARTY! The accompanying photo was a long-lens shot of Adeline and Gilmer walking away, a united, formidable front.
He swiped the screen off with a curse. The sight of them together was a physical irritant, like sand in his eye.
Miles Proctor knocked and entered, his expression grim.
"Sir. We have the preliminary results of the investigation into Adeline Garrett."
"And?" Jeremey snapped.
Miles hesitated. "Sir, there's nothing. For the past three years, Adeline Garrett doesn't exist. No credit history, no travel records, no tax filings, no social security activity. It's as if she vanished."
Jeremey's jaw tightened. "A person doesn't just vanish, Miles."
"Her entire identity appears to be firewalled by a level of security I've never seen before. As for Mr. Garrett... we've confirmed he's the executive director of something called the Garrett Foundation. But the foundation itself is a ghost. Extremely private, almost no public records."
The dead end was a direct challenge to Jeremey's sense of control. He hated it. It confirmed his suspicion that Adeline was part of something far more calculated than a simple emotional outburst.
His private line buzzed. It was the front desk.
"Mr. Castillo, I have an Adeline Garrett in the lobby. She says she has an appointment."
Jeremey froze. The sheer audacity. To come here, to his territory.
A cruel thought took shape. "Send her up, Rebecca," he said, his voice smooth. Then he spoke to Miles. "Take her to the 19th floor. The unoccupied one."
Floor 19 was a concrete shell. A vast, empty space of raw floors and exposed support columns, waiting for renovation. It was a concrete cage.
When Adeline was escorted in, she took in the oppressive, industrial space without a flicker of emotion.
The heavy fire door slammed shut behind her, the sound echoing in the emptiness. Jeremey emerged from the stairwell, his footsteps loud on the dusty floor. He advanced on her, his size and presence amplified in the stark environment.
"You have a lot of nerve," he said, his voice dangerously soft.
Adeline met his gaze. "I'm not here to fight, Jeremey. I'm here for my daughter. I want visitation rights. I'm legally entitled to them."
Her calm, reasonable tone infuriated him more than any screaming match could have. He closed the distance between them in two strides, grabbing her wrist and slamming her back against a cold, concrete pillar.
The sudden proximity, the familiar scent of her skin, sent a jolt through him. He crushed it with anger.
"Visitation?" he hissed, his face inches from hers. "After what you did to Hayden? After abandoning your daughter for three years? You are entitled to nothing."
Her wrist ached in his grip, but she didn't flinch. "I didn't abandon her. You took her from me."
"And now she calls Hayden 'Mama'," he whispered, the words meant to be a blade to her heart. "She doesn't need you."
A bitter smile touched her lips. "Doesn't she? If that were true, Jeremey, why are you so terrified of me seeing her?"
He was. The realization struck him with the force of a physical blow. He was afraid. Afraid Isabell would choose her.
The truth, spoken aloud, made him lose control. His grip tightened. "I'm warning you, Adeline. Stay away from my family. Or I'll make sure you and your 'brother' disappear from New York. Permanently."
He meant it. The threat hung in the dead air between them, heavy and real.
Adeline didn't show fear. With her free hand, she slowly reached into her handbag and pulled out a small, digital voice recorder.
She pressed a button.
His own voice filled the silence, tinny and distorted, but unmistakably his. "...I'll make sure you and your 'brother' disappear from New York. Permanently."
Jeremey's blood ran cold.
She clicked it off, twisted her wrist free from his suddenly slack grip, and took a step back.
"I'm not the same woman you threw away three years ago, Jeremey Castillo," she said, her voice steady as she slipped the recorder back into her purse. "Now, you have two choices. You can arrange for me to see Isabell. Or we can let my lawyer play this recording for a judge, and the entire world can hear how the CEO of Castillo Corporation threatens his ex-wife."
He stared at her, truly seeing the woman she had become. Calm. Calculating. Unbreakable.
He had created his own worst enemy.
Keep Reading
The story is getting intense! Switch to App to
Unlock All Chapters
You may also like
9.0
My father was dying in the ICU, and our family company, the Martin Group, was on the verge of total collapse.
While I was desperately trying to sign the consent form for his life-saving surgery, my fiancé, Eston, sent me a text.
"I told you not to be stubborn. The company is mine by Friday. Beg me, and I might pay for the funeral."
He had been secretly looting my family's assets from the inside, waiting for me to break so he could steal everything. He thought I would crawl back to him in absolute despair, surrendering my father's legacy just to survive. The sheer weight of my helplessness crushed my chest as the heart monitor next to my father's bed let out a frantic, high-pitched scream.
The betrayal tore through me, but the despair quickly hardened into a cold, sharp stone.
Why should I let the man who ruined me dance on my family's grave? Why should I let him walk away with everything while I lost the only family I had left?
I wiped away my tears and blocked his number permanently.
Then, I stepped out into the freezing Manhattan rain and went straight to the top floor of the Maxwell building.
I threw my remaining shares onto the desk of Ellwood Maxwell—the apex predator of Wall Street, and Eston's untouchable, ruthless uncle.
"I want you to marry me," Ellwood said, pushing a marriage contract toward me. "That is the only way your company survives."
I picked up the pen. If Eston wanted to destroy my life, I would become his aunt and make him bow.
9.3
A pitiful wolfless Omega, Lana discovers that she is pregnant for her beloved fiancée and Alpha to be, Asher. He is the only man she has ever loved, but her world turns upside down when her Fiancée coldly reveals that he is getting married to her sister who is also already pregnant for him.
To make matters worse, her cruel sister and cheating Fiancé banish her from her only home!
Lana is devastated, but thankfully, her best friend Jasper, helps her runaway and hide her pregnancy from her former fiancée.
8 years later, Lana has become the mother to Asher's triplets and is engaged to be married to her best friend Jasper.
But by a cruel twist of fate, Alpha Asher suddenly changes his mind and kidnaps her!
So what is Lana supposed to do when she forced to choose between two powerful men, while also fighting off the traitors and enemies surrounding her?
9.7
Gemma expected the tearing agony of the bullet wound that had just ended her life.
Instead, her trembling fingers met the cool, smooth friction of heavy silk.
She stared into the mirror. Her face was flawless, completely devoid of the jagged scar that had marred her cheek for the last five years.
It was exactly ten years ago. The day of her engagement party to the ruthless billionaire, Brion Hubbard.
In her past life, her "best friend" Katelyn convinced her to run away with a scheming scumbag.
Katelyn claimed Brion was a heartless tyrant who would ruin her. Gemma had foolishly believed those fake tears.
That choice led to her family's bankruptcy, her brutal disfigurement, and ultimately, a fatal bomb explosion.
The only person who tried to save her was Brion, his blood-soaked body shielding hers from the blast.
She even realized too late that the strawberry cream cakes she always made for him were full of dairy.
He wasn't leaving to cheat on her. He was locking himself in a medical bay, fighting fatal allergic shock, just to accept a tiny scrap of her affection.
Gemma had been so incredibly blind. Why did she trust the venomous snakes who destroyed her, while hating the man who died for her?
Hearing Katelyn frantically knocking on the dressing room door, urging her to run away again, a towering hatred surged through Gemma's veins.
This time, she wasn't going to run.
She was going to expose the traitors, take back her family's wealth, and claim the tyrant for herself.
8.9
My family's company went bankrupt, and my biological father was lying in the ICU, kept alive by machines that cost tens of thousands a day.
I thought it was just a tragic business failure, until I caught my mother in bed with my stepfather.
They had secretly transferred all our assets months ago, deliberately bankrupting the company and leaving my father to die.
To pay the hospital bills, my stepfather forced me to a private club, trying to sell me to a sleazy investor.
When I refused, he slapped me across the face, and my mother just looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"Be realistic, Jaelynn. A woman's body is a tool. Use it to get what you need."
Later, right before my father's emergency surgery, my stepfather signed a Do Not Resuscitate order and froze the medical accounts.
"If you don't get on your knees and spread your legs for him, I will tell the hospital to pull your father's plug."
Standing in the freezing rain, covered in mud and blood, I stared at the astronomical hospital bill in my hand.
My own family had plotted to murder my father and sell me to the highest bidder. The betrayal shattered every ounce of sanity I had left.
I didn't cry or beg them anymore.
Instead, I pulled out a water-stained, gold-embossed business card.
It belonged to Dolph Valentine, the most ruthless billionaire in New York and my ex-fiancé's uncle.
If they wanted to destroy my life, I was going to sell my soul to the biggest monster of them all and drag them straight to hell.
9.3
WARNING!! THIS STORY CONTAINS A LOT OF MATURE THEMES, ELEMENTS OF HARDCORE BDSM, PRAISE KINKS, SLUT-SHAMING KINKS, AND DEGRADATION KINKS. READ WITH CAUTION.
(BOOK ONE OF THE DELUCA KINGS SERIES)
Serena would do anything to uncover the death of her parents, including sleeping with the most dangerous man in New York, Nero DeLuca. And he knows this, so he strings her along so he can see how far she's willing to go.
***
"Get on your knees," Nero said.
"Excuse me-"
"You're my submissive, and you exist for the sole purpose of my pleasure. I don't tolerate defiance. When I say get on your knees, you get on your knees."
"Yes," I replied as I got on my knees, hating how much his commanding tone turned me on.
He put his finger under my chin and lifted it so I could look at him.
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good girl. Now get on the bed and show me that beautiful cunt. I want to see what it looks like before I destroy it with my cock. Tonight, the whole of New York will know you belong to me. I'll not take anything less than you screaming my name, and by the time I'm done with you, you'll feel me between your legs for a week."
8.8
"I loved you with all my heart, but you betrayed me, cheating with me on her? Really?" Vionne Wallace said bitterly to her husband.
"Sign it! We are getting a divorce, I've come to realize Nora is the one for me. You can't even bore a child, barren woman." He said sharply, his void devoid of emotions
He could tell it all, he was in love with Nora, my own step sister.
Lene Wallace, was a fashion designer and also business administrator, she got married to the love of her life, Harrison Worthington
Just after 3 years of marriage, she couldn't give birth and the marriage started crashing, he cheated on her with Nora.
With a broken heart, she drank to stupor and had a one night stand with a powerful billionaire.
When her father found out, he was in support of Harrison and Nora, while he disowned her, giving everything he had to Nora.
She found out there was more to the one night stand man, when they met again.
He was her father's best friend
The one night stand was not just powerful, he had a connecting relationship with her father and her ex husband, he will get married to her and help her defeat them.
Will they come to fall in love? Or will she go back to her ex husband after this?