“That child is mine. And so are you,” he commanded, his viper-green eyes pinning her in place.

Grace couldn’t believe that he—Carlos Benjamin, her new CEO and eight years her junior—was the father of her unborn baby.

“You can go back to that deadbeat you call a husband, or you can come with me and have everything.”

=====

For the last five years of her marriage, Grace Preston, 32, believed she was broken. She couldn’t have a child, and her deadbeat husband, Charles, never let her forget it, calling her useless while she worked tirelessly to fund his failed acting career. He didn’t just break her spirit; he shattered her trust by cheating on her with her own sister.

Heartbroken, Grace fled to her office late one night, seeking solace at the bottom of a bottle. She wasn’t alone. A beautiful, blond-haired man was there, nursing his own wounds.

He never told her his name, but he offered her a night of oblivion. Fueled by whiskey and a desperate need for revenge, she gave in to her darkest desires, pulling the willing stranger into her web.

In her drunken haze, she thought, “If my husband can have his fun, then so can I.”

She never worried about protection, convinced she was barren. Until a month later, when a positive pregnancy test trembled in her hands. Grace Preston, the ‘barren’ wife, was pregnant.

In a single night, the stranger gave her what Charles couldn’t in five years.
Now Carlos has made his claim, pulling her into a world of immense power and lethal secrets. Will Grace escape her toxic marriage only to be trapped in this captivating young billionaire’s golden cage? Or is trading one prison for another a mistake that will cost her more than just her heart?


I woke up in the morning consumed by dread.


I despised having to face Amara again today, knowing I'd have to hand over those two replacement credit cards to compensate for the ones I'd frozen.


"In the end, I'm helpless against those monsters..." I whispered to my bedroom ceiling. "How can someone be so twisted, weaponizing her own dying mother against her sister? Where did everything go so wrong? Did I somehow teach her to be this heartless?"


Waves of regret crashed through my thoughts. "Does Amara despise me this much for refusing to lie about what Dad really is? He's scum who deserves no protection. I won't whitewash the reputation of a piece of trash like him!"


My emotions surged as I recalled all the disgusting things my father had done behind our backs. Who could have imagined that such a supposedly devout man would be so depraved and revolting?


I remembered how my idealized image of him crumbled the moment I witnessed that scene when I—


Chapter 40 - Chapter 40 Caught In The Crossfire