Arranged Marriage With The Sickly Billionaire

Adriana's POV

"Mom, remember when you said you could arrange a marriage for me with one of the billionaires in Los Angeles," I asked my Mom, as my plane was now closer to Los Angeles than New York. Her response came slowly, almost skeptically, "Well, Yes, but aren't you already married, what happened to Jason?" I lifted my fingers, they felt so naked without the ring there. I hesitated briefly before spilling everything to my Mom.

After a long meeting with the PR team, I rushed home and tiptoed to my bedroom door holding a small chocolate cake that had 'Happy Anniversary' written on top with silver-colored icing. My steps froze when I heard the mingled moans of my husband and stepmother slithering through the door that was callously left ajar. The cake slid from my palm and splattered on the ground, but I hardly noticed as my shaky steps carried me into the bedroom.

"Jason?!" I choked out the name of my husband through the thick lump in my throat, and he jolted off my stepmother. A flash of shock waved past his sweaty face. "Adriana... What are you doing here? ""Aren't you supposed to be in the office?" My chest clenched up with pain.

"I came back to surprise you. ""It looks like you turned the tables on me," the words went past my lips like bitter venom as he hastingly slipped on some briefs and Natasha remained beneath the duvet.

"Aren't you going to say anything?!" I snapped at him, all these years in which I had poured undiluted love and loyalty into him, and he didn't have the decency to at least pretend to be guilty?

"What's there to say?" He straightened up after he was done adjusting his briefs and he walked over to me, reaching out to touch my hair, but I recoiled in disgust.

"Don't touch me!" I yelled, the words ripping through my throat passionately. How could he think of touching me with the same hands that had just been all over my stepmother?

I spun around and made a beeline for the door, coming down to the living room and pouring out my heart in heated tears. All the red flags I had been ignoring began to resurface in my mind; how he gradually grew more secretive with his phone, picking fights over nothing and subtly comparing me to my stepmother, saying I should dress more like her.

"I don't think my stepmother's style would look good on me," I had argued with him in the past, and he went off on me. Complaining that I was tasteless, and he was just trying to give me good advice.

Instead of getting upset with him too, the love I had made me question myself instead and reevaluate his absurd criticism as constructive. I'd wake up early in the morning and curl my hair into light waves even though it was a pain because my hair was naturally straight while my stepmother's was effortlessly wavy. I swapped out the clothes in my wardrobe for clothing that would match my stepmother's aesthetic.

I shivered with shame as these memories flashed through my mind. Even tonight, I'd bought some designer lingerie and was wearing it beneath my clothes because it was something Natasha would wear too.

All the pieces finally fell into place. All this time he wanted one thing–my stepmother. At that moment, I hardened my heart, crushing any feelings I had for him until there was just a small emptiness there where I thought my husband would always be.

About half an hour later, Jesse and Natasha came down dressed in matching sleeping robes. Natasha, without a single shred of shame, was all over Jason, her trailing under his robe. Well, she looked at me through the corner of her eye.

Pretending to just notice me, she gasped.

"Oh, Adriana, you are still here–I thought you would have left." Then she didn't snuggle closer to Jason, whose smile only grew wider. He quickly dipped into a frown when he looked at me, then threw his divorce papers carelessly on the table.

"So you've already prepared divorce papers, how ironic," I said nonchalantly.

"What's ironic about that?" He snapped impatiently. Having either nothing to lose or gain, I replied passively, "Do you remember what today is?" At first, he looked more annoyed than earlier, then realization slipped into his eyes and a flicker of guilt flashed past his face.

"Our anniversary, was it today?" I didn't quench his curiosity with an answer and just casually scrolled my eyes across the divorce papers.

Natasha, probably sensing the shift in mood and not wanting Jason to tap into the little bit of shame he had buried somewhere, suddenly let out a dramatic sigh. She retrieved her left hand from beneath his robe and placed it on her head.

"Oh my gosh! So that's what the cake outside the bedroom was for. "" I'm indeed a terrible mother!" I flicked my eyes up but saw Jason stiffen next to her. She went on undeterred by her ridiculous acting skills.

"You were never my mother," I stated frankly, just to set the record straight.

"Please don't say that. I never meant for you to find out like this–you might not believe me, but I'm hurting even more than you!"

She buried her face into Jason's chest, sniffling. Jason tenderly stroked her hair, then looked at me with an irritated glare as if I was the one that was supposed to be repentant of my own actions when they were the ones that stabbed me in the back.

"Adriana, there is no need for you to be petty. Our relationship has already run its course. But that doesn't mean..." he passed self-reflectively, and maybe he should have just kept reflecting without speaking again. However, Natasha lodged him, and he uttered the most ridiculous words I had ever heard in my life. "... It doesn't mean that we can't be a family anymore, our dynamics will just be different,"

I gave them a blank look as a thousand and one thoughts swirled through my troubled mind.

Natasha chipped in, breaking the awkward silence with even more mind-numbing nonsense.

"Think about it, Adriana, some people might judge us, but is there really anything wrong with your husband becoming your stepfather?"

Before I could throw up, I burnt and signed the papers in a single shaky breath, then stood up. "The two of you deserve each other," I said, before spinning around and walking towards the door, out of this house of lies.