Marrying His Rival: The Heiress's Sweet Revenge

Carlis

uette with a satisfying crunch. I hummed al

was a ce

the star forward for the New York Mavericks, he'd sc

le of Romanée-Conti, its dark glass cool against my fingertips. This was our t

I, Ava Carlisle, sole heir to the Carlisle Holdings fortune, had hidden my name and opened a small bakery in Brooklyn to support

e some money from our joint investment account-the one I'd seeded

in the p

reen l

ile f

Balanc

omach. I hit the refresh butt

.3

to steady myself. It had to be a system error. It had to be. Or maybe J

The phone rang and rang, then went straight to

d landed on his laptop, left open on th

My intention was to log into the online banking portal, to

's not w

en, a messaging app

t the top read "My

caught in

e screen: "Baby, the money came through. You're amazing

n the profile picture. A woman with strawberry blonde hai

g. The pet names and explicit messages w

fool has

ou as soon as

t a steppi

cipient was Scarlett Hicks. The amount was the exact sum missing fr

o

nk. I couldn't p

rky, until I found a link to a so

n's laptop was logged in. The prof

s, her stomach slightly rounded. The caption: "Waiting for o

t scr

n holding a little boy with blond hair, a

the boy, Cody, playing i

gned, piece by piece, dreaming of the

on the wall, was a painting I'd given

three. Then I looked down at my own hands, dusted with fl

sheer, crushing weight of the

tched over the toilet, but nothing came up. Only dry, heaving

the wall. In the mirror, a woman with a chal

word a shard of glass. "Aveline Carli

idn't close the laptop. I didn't touch

deleted every text, every

alked back to the kitchen and took the

bother wi

d swallow. The expensive wine burned my throat, but

li

l pay f

in the lock echoed from t

kitchen doorway, the heavy bottle

in, a tired but satisfied smile o

ed out. "Guess what surpri