Jilted Bride: Now Call Me Auntie, Darling
On the eve of my glamorous Waldorf Astoria wedding, I went to the penthouse to surprise my fiancé, Hugh, wearing my late mother's heirloom pearls.
Instead, I heard my stepsister's familiar laugh and caught them tangled together on the sofa.
Through the cracked door, I heard Hugh slur that he was only marrying me for my family's financial backing.
"As soon as I secure my inheritance, she's the first thing I'm getting rid of," he promised her.
Floy giggled and asked for my mother's pearl necklace, my only legacy. Hugh agreed without hesitation, mocking my dead mother's naivety and my desperate dreams of building a family.
Every sweet word he had ever said was a lie, a knife he had been patiently sliding between my ribs for years. They planned to strip me of everything the moment I signed the prenup.
I didn't cry or scream. The crushing weight of their betrayal hollowed me out, leaving behind a terrifying, absolute calm.
Why should I be the one to lose everything while they stole my future and insulted my mother's memory?
I calmly walked down the hall, set the prenuptial agreement on fire, and vanished into the rainy night.
If Hugh wanted to play dirty for the Maxwell empire, I would play for keeps.
Using a forgotten, century-old family covenant, I was going to marry Hugh's uncle-the comatose, paralyzed war hero, Fleet Maxwell.
I would return not as a naive bride, but as their worst nightmare: his aunt, and the new lady of the house.
Chapters
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Chapter 1
Darcie Mayo POV:
My fingertips traced the delicate lace of my wedding gown. It hung before me like a promise, the silk and pearls glowing in the soft light of the Waldorf Astoria’s bridal suite. Just looking at it made my heart beat faster, a warm flush crept up my cheeks.
I moved to the velvet box on the dresser. Inside, nestled on a bed of satin, was a single strand of pearls. My mother's necklace. Her only legacy.
The pearls were warm, not with heat, but with a life of their own, like they held the memory of her skin. I remembered her telling me, her voice a soft whisper in a fading memory, that they were her grandmother’s before her. A symbol of purity, a blessing passed down through the women of our family. This necklace was the anchor to a past I barely knew, a physical manifestation of the home and heritage I craved so desperately.
I fastened the clasp at the back of my neck. The cool touch of the pearls against my skin sent a shiver through me, a flicker of unease so faint I almost missed it. I dismissed it, surrendering to the joy that flooded through me.
From the floor-to-ceiling window, Manhattan glittered below, a galaxy of lights laid out just for me. I felt like I was on top of the world, the luckiest woman alive.
My phone lit up on the nightstand. A message from Hugh.
Sleep well, my bride. Can't wait to see you in that dress.
A sweet, involuntary smile curved my lips. You too, my groom, I typed back.
I thought of him on one knee in Central Park, the autumn leaves a kaleidoscope of red and gold around us. His eyes had been so sincere, his voice thick with emotion as he promised to make me the happiest woman in the world, to build a family so strong it would erase the shadows of my childhood. He knew how much I ached for that, for the love I’d lost when my mother died. His promise was the key that had unlocked the most guarded parts of my heart.
I poured myself a glass of the champagne the hotel had sent up, the bubbles fizzing excitedly. Lifting the flute towards the window, I whispered to the city, to the stars, to her. "Mom, I found him. I found my happiness."
The alcohol warmed me, making my cheeks flush and my thoughts bold.
What was Hugh doing right now? Was he in his suite, too excited to sleep, surrounded by his groomsmen?
An impulse, sharp and thrilling, shot through me. I wanted to see him. I wanted to share this perfect, overflowing moment of happiness with him, right now.
He was in the presidential suite on the top floor. Tradition said the bride and groom shouldn't see each other before the wedding, but breaking the rules felt impossibly romantic. A secret, just for us.
I’d give him a surprise. Just like this, in my silk robe, with my mother’s pearls around my neck.
I checked my reflection, fluffing my hair with my fingers. A nervous, excited energy hummed beneath my skin. Grabbing my room key, I slipped a cashmere coat over my robe, leaving it unbuttoned.
The hallway was silent, the plush carpet swallowing the sound of my footsteps.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I pressed the button for the penthouse floor.
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9.3
On her wedding night at The Plaza Hotel, Clara went looking for her husband.
Instead, she found him in the dimly lit parking garage, passionately pinning down her bridesmaid.
She couldn't even scream or expose them. Just hours before the ceremony, Julian had tricked her into signing away her twenty percent shares of their co-founded company, leaving her completely penniless and unable to pay her grandmother's life-saving medical bills.
Fleeing in absolute despair, a sudden hotel blackout plunged her into a second nightmare. She was dragged into a pitch-black room and brutally violated by a heavily drugged stranger.
When a shattered Clara returned to the office to audit the books and reclaim her power, Julian demoted her to a dusty desk by the trash cans.
He flaunted his mistress in the executive suite and deliberately sent Clara into a horrifying trap. He arranged for vicious clients to drug and assault her, demanding high-definition blackmail photos so he could divorce her with absolutely nothing.
"Since you want to play rough, you can service Mr. Petrocelli tonight," the thug sneered, locking the VIP room door.
Clara was pushed to the brink of hell. Why was the man she devoted three years of her life to trying to destroy her so completely? And why did the freezing cedarwood scent of the stranger who ruined her in the dark perfectly match Conrad Vance, the ruthless CEO and Julian's untouchable uncle?
Rather than let Julian win, Clara smashed a glass bottle, held the jagged edge to her own throat to force the men back, and threw herself off the second-floor balcony into the freezing night.
But the bone-crushing impact never came. A massive figure shot out from the shadows and caught her, and her brutal counterattack finally began.
8.7
For three years, Blair Guzman poured her resources into turning a broke waiter into an Oscar-winning actor, letting the world believe they were a couple just to keep him under her control.
But the night he won his Oscar, he publicly betrayed her by kissing Kiana—Blair’s estranged, rival sister.
Kiana and her mother brought the scandal right to the Glover family dinner table, trying to humiliate Blair.
"You're just mad because he dumped you for me," Kiana sneered in front of the entire family.
Instead of crying, Blair ruthlessly dismantled them, exposing how their cheap tabloid stunt tanked the family's corporate value.
Impressed by her cold logic, the family matriarch handed Blair the ultimate voting power, but it was a trap.
The matriarch immediately used Blair's elevated status to force her into an arranged marriage with a notorious, debt-ridden playboy just to secure a European shipping lane.
To her family, she was never a daughter—she was just a premium asset to be traded to the highest bidder.
What her greedy family didn't know was that Blair had already made a terrifying deal.
She was secretly married to the ruthless billionaire Butler McIntyre—a man who demanded absolute possession of her body and soul.
Now, her family's arranged parasite and her secret devil of a husband were on a collision course, and the wreckage was going to be spectacular.
7.0
On her wedding night, Liora Vale expected passion from her wealthy husband. Instead, she got rejection and humiliation.
When his dangerously seductive best friend, Kael Draven, corners her on the balcony and claims her virgin body with raw, unprotected fury, Liora discovers a pleasure she never knew existed.
Now addicted to Kael's brutal touch and filthy promises, the once-innocent bride becomes his secret slut, sneaking creampies in limos, riding him at galas, and begging to be bred while her husband sleeps nearby.
Kael won't stop until he destroys Silas and fills Liora's womb with his child.
She was supposed to be the perfect wife... now she's the shameless breeding whore who belongs only to him.
7.2
Azura Briggs was just a broke college student working freezing valet shifts to pay her adoptive mother's crushing medical debt.
Her desperate life shattered the night a bulletproof Maybach violently cornered her in an alley, and a ruthless billionaire kidnapped her by mistake.
After a harrowing escape, Azura was forced to take a humiliating "plus-one" gig at a high-end gala just to survive. But her date turned out to be the billionaire's arrogant nephew, who promptly abandoned her to the wolves. Cornered by a sleazy executive and his psychotic wife, Azura was publicly slapped, her dress torn, and left bleeding on the floor while hundreds of elites watched in disgust.
Just as she prepared to fight to the death, the crowd violently parted. Hunter Mcintosh, the terrifying man who had kidnapped her days ago, dropped to his knees in the broken glass and wrapped his bespoke jacket around her trembling shoulders.
Azura was completely paralyzed. Why was the monster who threatened her life now destroying billionaires just to protect her?
But the illusion of safety didn't last. Trapped in his Maybach hours later, Hunter threw a draconian employment contract at her feet.
"Sign it, and her care is covered. Forever."
He knew exactly how to break her. He was offering to pay off her mother's debt, but only if she signed her life away to become his personal assistant. With no other way out, Azura picked up the heavy pen.
7.2
Two years ago, Amaya Bennett witnessed a murder.
A powerful man was killed in cold blood, right in front of her. She should have died that night too.
Instead, she woke up in a hospital with no memory of what happened. No faces, no names and no clues. Just fragments, blurred images that slip through her fingers every time she tries to hold on.
Now, Amaya lives a quiet life, piecing herself back together. She works part-time, avoids trouble, and stays invisible. Until she lands a job at Twilight Global.
A company owned by Jake Anderson, the cold and untouchable CEO whose father was murdered the same night Aria lost her memory. Jake spent years searching for the only witness. But she vanished without any trace. Or so he thought.
But somehow, they cross path again, working under his roof, completely unaware of the truth she carries.
The killer is still out there.
And when Amaya starts getting flashes of blood, a voice, a ring glinting under the dim light, the hunt begins again.
But this time, she's not alone. Because even before he realizes who she is... Jake has already started protecting her. In the most relentless and dangerous way.
8.2
My ex-boyfriend of three years, Axel, married a perfect wealthy heiress.
I attended his wedding, not to mourn our relationship, but because he had spent the last three years bleeding me dry.
He left me with absolutely nothing but a final notice from the hospital for my dying brother's life support.
Instead of feeling guilty, Axel cornered me in the church hallway, crushing my wrist.
"I'll set you up with an apartment. You won't have to work another day in your life."
He thought he could buy my silence with spare change, while leaving my seventeen-year-old brother, Julian, to die when his treatments were cut off the very next day.
When I refused to be his dirty little secret, Axel used his power to utterly destroy my acting career.
He had my talent agency terminate my contract under a fake morals clause, publicly humiliated me on set, and blacklisted me across the entire industry.
I was shoved out into the freezing rain, left with a torn dress and absolutely no way to pay the five hundred thousand dollar medical bill.
He actually believed he could step on my brother's dying body to build his own fake empire.
He thought I was just a weak, pathetic victim who would eventually crawl back to him on my knees.
But he forgot about the one monster he was absolutely terrified of: his legitimate, ruthless billionaire half-brother, Jace Bauer.
Looking at the three positive pregnancy tests hidden in my drawer, I stepped right in front of Jace's armored Maybach.
"Marry me, and I'll give you the heir you need to secure your empire."