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-”

My wet hair pulled up into a towel to dry and dressed only in

was what my mother had taught

of the front door, and I paused

seat as Ashton stumbled

growled, crossing my

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

to my feet and ignoring the destruction he’d just caused. “May I remind you that we are getting married in three

know that!” Ashton yelled, collapsing back onto the bed with a

you?” I huffed. “I practically had to plan this wedding by

bloodshot as he bared his teeth

flinched, stepping back. For a moment, I thought he might hit me, but

not in the mood for this,” he said bitterly and then fell

Chapter 30

in his suit.

uncomfortably and took my seat at the vanity. It was better to just let him sleep off the

a nice drunk. Not to

up my hair dryer

the way I had planned. Even if I was

had always seemed like a prince, but I was realizing that everything he said and did was fake. He wasn’t perfect in the slightest; he wasn’t even a

telling me where he’d been or why. I could

was going to have to get himself together. I never imagined Damon was the best of the two of them. But Ashton was proving that

at the phone he’d left on the bed.

he was probably cheating on me. Our relationship meant nothing to either one.

hair into a braid. Even if we weren’t in a real relationship, my

his phone once

was too good to

my bare feet on the carpet. I crept

blue glow, showcasing the standard background. How predictable.

hadn’t even bothered to change it

Chapter 30

however, the phone locked out-a

at the limp form of Ashton. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt

on the bed right side up, and softly pressed his thumb on the screen’s surface. He didn’t even stir, much

up and began to scroll. First through his