Rueful Blessing
While My Husband Cheated, I Married His Powerful Brother
To help her husband build his business empire, Veyra worked two jobs, skipped meals, and sacrificed everything she had. When her mother desperately needed life-saving treatment, she couldn't even scrape together the money. Then, on a New Year's Eve flight, fate seated her beside her husband's mistress. That's when she discovered the cruel truth. Her husband had secretly amassed millions long ago. The wedding ring that belonged to Veyra now glittered on another woman's finger. The $500,000 that could have saved her mother's life had been spent instead on luxury gifts and pocket money for his lover. She lost her baby. She lost her mother. And finally, she lost every illusion about the man she'd loved for years. After leaving the airport, Veyra walked into a bar, kissed the most dangerous-looking stranger she could find, and spent one reckless night in his arms. By sunrise, she disappeared without leaving so much as her name. She thought it was nothing more than a farewell to her broken past. She was wrong. The stranger was Dorian-the most powerful, mysterious billionaire in the business world. Meanwhile, her cheating husband finally realized what he had thrown away. He begged on his knees, signed a postnuptial agreement worth billions, and swore he would give up everything if she would come back. But just as Veyra began plotting to reclaim everything that had been stolen from her, a mysterious car accident brought Dorian back into her life. Only then did she learn the truth. He wasn't a stranger at all. He was her ex-husband's older stepbrother. Now two powerful men are fighting for the same woman-one consumed by regret, the other determined to make her his. Sorry, cheating ex... I choose your brother.
Chapter 1 First Class Betrayal
Caspian had been working overtime through the entire New Year holiday. Veyra Solenne decided she would surprise him. She'd fly out, knock on his hotel door, watch his tired face crack into a smile.
Only business class seats were left. Although she felt bad about the ticket price, she thought it was worth it.
She sat there for a full minute, unable to figure out how to lower the tray table.
The woman beside her - polished, bored, gorgeous in the particular way that costs money - let out a short laugh.
"Never flown business before?"
Veyra managed an awkward smile. "Sorry. You must run a company or something. You've got that air about you."
"Me? No." The woman waved a manicured hand. "But my benefactor does. If I'm not in business class, he sends a private jet."
"A benefactor," Veyra said. "Those must be hard to come by."
"Not really." The woman's mouth curved. "I'm his subordinate. I keep making expensive mistakes at work. He scolds me until I cry, and then-" she smiled, letting the sentence finish itself.
A small chill moved down Veyra's spine, though she couldn't have said why. "Funny," she said slowly. "My husband has a colleague like that too. Always making mistakes."
"You're married?" The woman's eyes swept over her, cataloguing. "His wife's about your age, actually."
She examined her nails.
"He says he got tired of her ages ago. Says touching her feels stale. Less interesting than watching me flip my hair."
Veyra's stomach turned, quietly, the way it does before you know why.
"I told him I wanted to see him over the holiday," the woman went on, pleased with herself. "So he told his wife he had to work."
That was when Veyra saw it. The ring on the woman's finger. A diamond, cut exactly like the wedding band she had lost two years ago.
She went still.
Caspian is an ordinary employee, she thought. So, calm down. Similar rings don't mean anything.
Her eyes fixed on the ring.
"That's a wedding band," Veyra said, her voice coming out strange to her own ears. "Did you marry him?"
"This?" The woman - Xiomara, she introduced herself, admiring the stone as it caught the cabin light - "I made him take it from his wife."
The air went out of Veyra's lungs.
"I wasn't trying to make trouble for her, honestly," Xiomara said. "But on my birthday she had a miscarriage and dragged him to the hospital. I spent it alone."
Veyra's hand drifted, without her permission, to her stomach.
The memory came back whole and freezing: black ice on the walk home from the market, a fall she hadn't seen coming, three months along, and then nothing but blood on frozen concrete. Caspian at her bedside for three days straight, not sleeping. Waking to find her ring gone along with the child.
It's okay, he'd said, voice breaking. We'll have another baby. I'll make you a new ring.
Don't, she'd told him. They're doing layoffs. Save the money. When you make it, get me one then.
She had believed, at the time, that this was a small and noble sacrifice. She had not known she was negotiating away her own ring to a woman she hadn't met yet.
"So he gave you his wife's ring," Veyra said carefully.
"He didn't want to, at first. Said he'd buy me something better." Xiomara tilted her hand, watching the light slide across the diamond. "But that old thing acts so superior just for being his wife. If I don't put her in her place, she'll think she owns the world."
"When a woman lets herself get that pathetic," Xiomara added, almost kindly, "there's really no saving her."
Veyra's fingers found the hem of her sleeve and held on. "If he spends this much on you, he must be paying her a fortune to keep quiet."
Xiomara laughed, bright and careless, and leaned in close enough that her perfume became a wall.
"Here's the funny part," she whispered. "That pathetic woman doesn't even know he runs a company."
---
"Why keep it from her?" Veyra asked. Something in her was still hoping - stupidly, stubbornly - that there was an explanation that didn't end where she thought it did.
"Because what's the point?" Xiomara turned her nails toward the window light. "She already spent her best years slaving beside him while he built everything. If you were a man and you finally made it, would you keep spending on a wife who's already worn out? Money doesn't buy back anyone's youth."
Veyra caught her own reflection in the cabin glass - hollow-cheeked, shadowed under the eyes, ten years of scraping by written into her skin. She used to look better than this. She used to look like Xiomara.
"You know, sis, you've still got some looks left," Xiomara said, studying her with the clinical warmth of someone appraising livestock. "A little cosmetic work wouldn't hurt. Your husband hasn't been that interested lately, has he?"
Veyra said nothing.
"My benefactor gives me half a million a month just for living expenses," Xiomara added, unprompted, unbothered. "Procedures are separate."
"How long," Veyra made herself ask, "has this been going on?"
"Since June twelfth, last year." Xiomara checked her nails again, already bored of the question.
Veyra's grip on her own sleeve went white-knuckled.
June twelfth. The day her mother had needed five hundred thousand dollars for surgery she never got. Caspian had begged everyone he knew and come back with three hundred fifty thousand - everything I have, he'd told her, weeping, and she had believed him, had scraped together eighty thousand more herself and still watched her mother die eighty thousand short of enough.
I'm sorry, he'd said into her hair. I'm worthless. I couldn't even save your mother.
She had wiped his tears instead of her own. You gave everything you had. That's enough. Just wait a little longer, she'd told him, and he'd gripped her hand like a man drowning and sworn they wouldn't suffer forever.
He'd had the other hundred and fifty thousand the whole time.
"Funny thing," Xiomara said, watching her now with real interest. "That woman's mother needed exactly five hundred thousand that same month."
Veyra looked at her and said nothing at all.
Xiomara winked. "He was going to pay it. Originally."
"You took it," Veyra said. "For an allowance."
"Please, he's got plenty more where that came from. I just told him - once her mother's dead, that woman has no family left. Nowhere to go. If he ever gets caught keeping me, she won't dare make a scene." Xiomara smiled, cat-content. "I wanted a Chanel piece that month. Five hundred thousand, as it happens."
"Aren't you afraid she'll find out?"
"I'm smarter than that." Xiomara stretched, satisfied. "It was my idea - tell his wife he'd scraped together everything, let her think he gave his all. She'd be too grateful, too guilty over the shortfall, to ever look for someone else in the picture."
Then, almost as an afterthought, she added the last piece.
"The annoying part is, the only reason he finally agreed to do it was so that if I ever got found out, his precious wife wouldn't leave him." She snorted. "Tch. Some women have all the luck."
The slap landed before Veyra had decided to throw it.
"What is wrong with you?" Xiomara shrieked, hand flying to her cheek.
Vampire's Blessing
In a world of mortals lives a beautiful little girl named Evangeline. She was a Blessed Werewolf princess raised in secrecy to learn her powers and wait for the right time to make a comeback. She was fiercely trained by a powerful Angel Prince Mark but on her eighteenth birthday, she found out that
The Unwanted Blessing
I was eight, maybe nine, when my father branded me "bad luck." Exiled from the Miller empire, I grew up with Elara in the quiet Ozarks, who saw a light in me, saying "things grow better in the sunshine." Ten years later, a thick, gold-embossed envelope arrived, pulling Sadie back. It was a summon
Havenwood's Dark Blessing
The Seattle rain washed away the dust of our suffocating hometown, Havenwood, as my sister Emily and I embraced college life, finally free. Then Dad' s call came, urgent and raspy: Mom was gravely sick, and we had to come home. But Havenwood wasn't sick, it was dead quiet, shrouded by the sinister
The Goddess' Blessing: Lovers by Truce
"I am your Prince!" "And I am THE Princess!" She said with fire in her eyes, anger fuelling her words. She had promised herself to remain civil with him but his words had pushed her over the edge once again. "You are not my prince. We share a title, we will share a throne but that's as far as it g
Juleka: Billionaire's Contracted Wife
"You are nothing without me. I own you." ******** After sacrificing her happiness for three years as his contract wife, Juleka could no longer stand Allen's cruelty, on learning about her past pregnancies, which she knew nothing of. Currently pregnant, she decides to fight for her right, but Allen
Divorcing My Billionaire Husband
I am getting married to the love of my life, my university lover, Cornell Smith. I had actually dreamt of this day to come, picturing it in my mind thousands of times. It felt incredible to finally see it turning into reality. As I stood behind the curtains, waiting for my cue, my heart raced with e
His Ex-Wife Came Back-Stronger
"Listen, I'm tired of this marriage. We only got married because I needed a wife to secure my CEO position, and now that it's settled, you're not useful to me anymore." My husband, Dale, said to my face, nothing close to guilt flashing in his expression. And that was when I knew... I really was n
Fractured Reflections
In Fractured Reflections, Tiffany Gotez is at the pinnacle of her career, a powerful real estate mogul known for her ruthless ambition and icy demeanor. With wealth, influence, and an untouchable reputation, she strikes fear in anyone who dares to oppose her. Yet behind her polished exterior, Tiffan
The Cold Alpha's: Second Chance Mate
Falling in love was never the deal, no, a simple vanilla relationship which only held worth in paper-that was the deal but when passions tug against chained desires mixed in a pot of intrigues and lies a heart cannot afford to be apathetic anymore but will the new found affections become a strength
CEO's Obsession
"Suck my nipples, now!" He ordered before he spoke again. "Yes! I Own you! You are mine alone. Remember you are indebted to me. If you can't accept that fact, walk away from me and be imprisoned. The choice is yours." He said. His name was CEO Evidence. He own a condom company. He was arrogant and
Hello, My CEO Ex-husband
Three years ago, a once-proud relationship had turned sour. Her love had betrayed her and the public drama became too much. She was determined to leave her beloved and all that he was associated with. The divorce was finalized and she was ruthlessly cut off from the love that once gave her life. He
His For A Year: The Basketball Lord's
"I know you need someone to teach you basketball," he started, only confusing me further, "so I'm yours for now, if you'll be mine for a year." What was happening? ♠ Kim Stan, a renowned romance author, has a secret: she doesn't believe in love. When she's forced to write a sports novel, she's stuck
My Lover is My Target
Elena Rouge was assigned to disclose a young billionaire who was in disguise as an ordinary person and they involved in a romance until the next mystery of her identity would reveal by an old billionaire, Emir Drake.
Ex-Luna's Revenge
On her wedding anniversary, Brielle plans on gifting her husband, Alpha Argon, a news on her pregnancy. But she's left shattered when she found Argon proposing to his first lover, Estelle, a super model and daughter of Alpha Deron from Red Wood pack. Argon rejects Brielle for his first love. He and
Mated To The Heartless Beast
Have you ever lived in a mansion, have servants do your biddings and guys flock at you at every chance? Have you ever had a life you can describe as perfect and then just when everything starts to get more fantastic; It crashes? If not, then I have and trust me, my experience is a pretty toecur
The Blind curse
In a world where humans, vampires, werewolves, witches, and goblins once lived in harmony, an ambitious goblin named Omhigan sought power and created a devastating weapon that destroyed all nations, including his own. The survivors banded together to defeat Omhigan, but centuries later, the vampires
Coming Back Home
The night she comes back from her best friend's apartment after finding out her boyfriend is married, she meets a huge man sleeping on the snow in her backyard. 23-year old Charlie Jordan doesn't know what to do. After so many calls and studying, she finds out the man—Blurin Jameson— is an ex-mili
I dated a vampire
'Penelope Connal' is a teenager of 18 years old who has her entire life planned out by her overprotective father, who wants her to graduate from high school with honors and go on to become the medical doctor that he dreams of her becoming. As she began an affair with Ethan, whose identity is still
Take Me, Alpha Lord.
!!CONTAINS MATURE CONTENT!! Anastasia was once Daddy's favorite, until the day of her wedding to Alpha Damian of Wolf Blood Pack. The man she once called her mate, rejected her before the people by shaming her as well as her father, and revealing her dirty secret of being a nymphomaniac. Before t
