Secret Billionaire’s Contract Bride: Marrying My Enemy’s Lover

Chapter 30

“This is your sister,” my father had declared one sunny afternoon. It had been a three-hour drive to get to the huge mansion that loomed behind him, his shadow falling over me and my mother.

The little girl clutching my father’s hand smiled brightly at me, wearing a pretty violet dress that probably cost more than my mom’s apartment.

“I’m Adelaide!” my new sister cried. With her bright eyes and sweet smile, I could almost believe that she was welcoming us, even that she was excited to see me.

But my mother’s nails digging into my palm reminded me of the truth.

“It’s their fault,” my mother would always say on nights when her glass bottles lined the floors. On days when she’d cry herself to sleep, calling out my father’s name between sobs.

When I meant nothing to her.

I always knew I had a sister. My mother never let me forget as she’d tell me the story over and over. How my father married the witch and left us with nothing.

It was their fault that my father could only visit us for a few minutes once a month. Their fault we had to live in an apartment that was falling apart. It was her fault I couldn’t wear a pretty dress like her but one my mom had fixed up from a donation box.

It was all Maelyn McNair’s fault. And her daughter.

Adelaide.

She was the reason I didn’t have a father to come home to. Why the other kids teased me about my clothes being mismatched, why I didn’t have pretty dresses and a garden full of flowers.

All the things that should’ve been mine were hers.

She had taken everything from me my entire life.

If the witch hadn’t died, we still would’ve been in that dirty place, outcasts despite being a daughter of the Hildebrands, too. And she dared to smile at me, like everything we went through wasn’t her fault.

Chapter 30

So that day, standing in front of my new house and my new sister, I made a silent vow.

I would take everything away from her. Just like she’d done to me. We’d see how she liked being the forgotten one. The outcast.

“–And the florist is arriving at eight in the morning with the centerpieces, but they wanted an extra fee to set them all up,” I complained loudly into the phone. “I know, it’s so unfair-”

a towel to dry and dressed only in a bathrobe,

what my mother

front door, and I paused from

up. I turned in my seat as Ashton stumbled his way into the room, the sour smell of alcohol fuming off of

growled, crossing my arms

his words. He moved toward me but lost his balance and grabbed my table to straighten himself up. The hair dryer crashed to the

all night!” I shouted, getting to my feet and ignoring the destruction he’d

yelled, collapsing back onto the bed with

had to plan this

eyes bloodshot as he bared his teeth in a

he might hit me,

he said

Chapter 30

in his suit.

uncomfortably and took my seat at the vanity. It was better to just

good drunk. Not a nice drunk. Not to me anyway.

my hair, picking up my hair dryer off the floor. I glanced at Ashton and then

going the way I had planned. Even if I was taking

prince, but I was realizing that everything he said and did

at night, without telling me where he’d been or why. I could

to get himself together. I never imagined Damon was

on the bed. He

been rather interested in texting someone lately. I knew he was probably cheating on me. Our relationship meant nothing to either one. of us, after all. But

a braid. Even if we weren’t in a real relationship, my pride wouldn’t allow me to lose to some other

glanced at his phone once

too good to lose.

feet on the carpet. I crept

up in a blue glow,

hadn’t even bothered to change it

Chapter 30

I swiped up, however, the phone locked out-a

over at the limp form of Ashton. What he

softly pressed his thumb on the screen’s surface.

up and began to