Shattered Vows: Falling For His Worst Enemy
For three years, I played the perfect, docile wife to Brendon Jimenez, desperate for the real family I never had as an orphan.
But during a high-society gala, I peeked through a cracked door and caught him sleeping with my best friend.
When I packed my cheap canvas bag to leave the penthouse, my mother-in-law blocked the door.
She dumped my clothes on the marble floor, called me a stray dog, and slapped me so hard my mouth bled.
Brendon just stood there, watching his mother humiliate me.
To keep me trapped as his perfect public prop, he even faked his mother's heart attack in a VIP hospital suite.
"Get on your knees. Kneel down right now and beg my mother for forgiveness until she decides to accept it."
I gave them my youth and unconditional loyalty, only to realize this prestigious old-money family was nothing but a rotting corpse built on dirty secrets.
I didn't cry, and I certainly didn't drop to my knees.
Instead, I pulled out my phone right in front of him and called my lawyer.
"File for an at-fault divorce. I have proof of his infidelity with Kaelynn Hudson. I want him ruined."
Then, I touched the matte black card hidden deep in my clutch.
It belonged to Kile Barrett, the ruthless billionaire shark my husband feared most, and I was going to use him to tear the Jimenez family apart.
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Chapter 4
Christen stepped out of the master bedroom, the canvas bag heavy against her hip. She walked down the wide, silent hallway toward the foyer.
A sharp ding shattered the quiet.
The private elevator doors slid open. Constance Jimenez stepped out. She was dressed in a pristine Chanel tweed suit, her hair perfectly coiffed, her makeup flawless despite the late hour.
Constance's eyes immediately darted to the cheap canvas bag in Christen's hand. Her perfectly drawn eyebrows pulled together in deep disgust.
She marched forward, her heels clicking aggressively against the marble.
"Where do you think you're going looking like a beggar?" Constance's voice was shrill, echoing off the high ceilings.
Christen took a slow, deep breath. She didn't have the energy for this. She kept her mouth shut and tried to step around her mother-in-law.
Constance sidestepped, using her body to block the hallway. She looked Christen up and down with absolute contempt.
Brendon walked out of the bedroom, hearing the commotion. The moment he saw his mother, his aggressive posture vanished, replaced by the submissive slump of an obedient son.
Constance pointed a manicured finger at Christen's face. "You embarrassed this family tonight. Leaving the gala early like a petulant child. You will never learn how to behave, will you? You can dress a stray dog in silk, but it still belongs in the gutter."
Christen's grip on the bag tightened until her knuckles ached. "I don't need to learn your hypocritical rules," she said coldly.
Constance's eyes widened in fury, but she refused to dirty her own hands. She lifted a manicured finger, pointing at the bag with utter revulsion. "Brendon, take that filthy thing away from her! Let's see what trash she's trying to steal from us," she commanded. Brendon, eager to regain his mother's approval, lunged forward and grabbed the fabric of the canvas bag, yanking it hard.
Christen twisted her body to protect it, but the sudden force ripped the cheap zipper open.
Three plain cotton t-shirts spilled out, landing in a heap on the imported marble floor.
Constance stared at the clothes and let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "Look at this trash. You are cheap to your very core."
Christen looked at Brendon. He stood there, watching his mother humiliate his wife.
"Just apologize to her, Christen," Brendon sighed, rubbing his temples. "Don't make a scene."
The last ounce of hope Christen had for him died right there. The disappointment solidified into pure, freezing contempt.
She crouched down, her movements slow and deliberate, and picked up her shirts. She shoved them back into the bag.
Constance sneered. "If you walk out that door, I will cut off every credit card in your name. You'll be sleeping on the streets by tomorrow."
Christen stood up. She looked Constance dead in the eye. "I have never spent a single cent of Jimenez money. Keep it."
Constance's face turned purple. She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound of the front door's electronic keypad beeping rapidly cut her off.
The heavy door was shoved open. A blast of cold air swept into the foyer, bringing a fierce energy with it.
Aisling Kearney marched in. She was wearing her signature blood-red trench coat, holding a massive Hermès Birkin bag. She had just landed from an overseas flight, received Christen's SOS text, and come straight here.
Aisling took one look at the scene-the spilled clothes, Constance's pointing finger, Christen's pale face-and her eyes turned lethal.
Aisling strode forward in her Louboutins, physically wedging herself between Christen and Constance to shield her friend. She used her height advantage to look down at the older woman. Only after ensuring Christen was safely behind her did Aisling turn slightly and slam her massive Birkin down onto the nearby entryway console table. The heavy thud made everyone jump.
"Is this how old money spends their Friday nights?" Aisling drawled, her thick Manhattan accent dripping with venom. "Bullying women in their own homes?"
Constance stumbled back a step, shocked by the sudden intrusion. Her finger trembled as she pointed at Aisling. "How dare you-"
Aisling slapped Constance's hand away. She didn't even look at her. She turned her head and gave Christen a fierce, protective look that said, I've got you.
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8.3
I was the long-lost Donovan heiress, finally brought home after a childhood in foster care. My parents adored me, my husband cherished me, and the woman who tried to ruin my life, Kiera Reese, was locked away in a mental facility. I was safe. I was loved.
On my birthday, I decided to surprise my husband, Ivan, at his office. But he wasn't there.
I found him at a private art gallery across town. He was with Kiera.
She wasn't in a facility. She was radiant, laughing as she stood beside my husband and their five-year-old son. I watched through the glass as Ivan kissed her, a familiar, loving gesture he’d used with me just that morning.
I crept closer and overheard them. My birthday wish to go to the amusement park had been denied because he’d already promised the entire park to their son—whose birthday was the same day as mine.
"She’s so grateful to have a family, she’d believe anything we tell her," Ivan said, his voice laced with a cruelty that stole my breath. "It's almost sad."
My entire reality—my loving parents who funded this secret life, my devoted husband—was a five-year lie. I was just the fool they kept on stage.
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Ivan, sent while he stood with his real family.
"Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you."
The casual lie was the final blow. They thought I was a pathetic, grateful orphan they could control.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were.
8.5
After four years of marriage, my wealthy husband Brad handed me a $50,000 severance check outside the Manhattan Family Court.
He linked arms with his mistress, Jenna, who flaunted the diamond ring that used to be mine.
"Just take it, Hayley. Take the money and get out of our lives," he sneered, looking at me with absolute disgust.
I tore the check into pieces, but my nightmare was just beginning.
To access my grandfather's trust fund, I had exactly seventy-two hours to get legally married, so I desperately proposed a one-year contract marriage to a poor insurance salesman I met in a dive bar.
When Brad found out, he and his arrogant family cornered me at their estate.
Brad mocked my new husband for being a penniless, money-grubbing parasite, while my former mother-in-law slapped me hard across the face, knocking me to the ground.
"You are trash, just like your mother," she spat, watching my knee bleed onto the sharp gravel.
Jenna gleefully kicked my phone away, shattering the screen and cutting off my only lifeline.
Lying there in the dirt, I stared at the broken glass in absolute despair.
I didn't understand why four years of quiet devotion had earned me nothing but cruel betrayal and endless humiliation from the people I once called family.
Just as I thought I had completely lost, a black Lincoln Navigator slammed to a halt at the gates.
My "penniless" new husband stepped out, radiating a terrifying, righteous fury that made the entire Patton family freeze in horror.
7.8
Andrea was trapped in a suffocating marriage with billionaire Gregory Morse, forced to live as the pathetic substitute for his dead fiancée.
When armed intruders broke into their estate in the dead of night, she called her husband in pure terror.
"Stop playing these cheap, attention-seeking games," Gregory sneered with disgust, and hung up the phone.
She barely escaped with her life, but the cruelty only escalated. At the family mansion, his dead fiancée's sister deliberately scalded Andrea's hand with boiling tea. Instead of defending his wife, Gregory publicly humiliated her, ordering her to clean up the mess while calling her a stray dog.
That night, hiding in the dark wine cellar, Andrea overheard a chilling confession.
Gregory admitted to his brother that he knew Andrea was completely innocent of the car crash that killed his fiancée. He knew she had been framed.
Why did he marry her? Just to use her as a psychological punching bag to vent his twisted grief. He watched her suffer every single day, treating her like disposable trash, while violently threatening anyone who showed her an ounce of kindness.
He thought she was just a useless, helpless shadow who would quietly endure his torment forever.
He had no idea that behind her submissive facade, she was secretly Madame Lan, the apex predator of the global fashion world. And now, she was ready to burn his empire to the ground.
7.1
After the one-night stand with a man who refused to tell her his name, Charlotte would figure out on TV that the man she had s*x with the previous night was the heir to a billionaire empire.
At the same time, Jace Norman-the infamous playboy heir-faces a public scandal that threatens his inheritance. To protect the family empire, his ruthless father forces him into an immediate contract marriage.
And just like that Charlotte would get married to the spoiled, reckless son of the most powerful billionaire in the city.
That One night, Room 55 and Five thousand dollars she desperately needed would change her life forever.
Weeks later, Charlotte discovers she's pregnant.
But before she can process the truth, her manipulative boyfriend claims the child is his and begins blackmailing her.
As their fake marriage becomes dangerously possessive, secrets begin to spiral. An ex-boyfriend demanding money. Jace's jealous college lover is determined to destroy Charlotte. Charlotte's sister is hiding betrayal behind sweet smiles. And a billionaire father who will eliminate anyone to protect the Norman name.
When a forged DNA test claims the baby isn't Jace's, the empire turns on Charlotte.
But the truth is far darker than any of them realize.
Because someone has been orchestrating every lie from the beginning.
And when Jace finally discovers the baby is his...
He will have to choose between his father's empire-
Or the woman carrying his heir.
9.0
Eileen woke up in a trashed hotel room, her head pounding with the pathetic memories of a despised Hollywood actress.
Outside the window, paparazzi were already screaming about her manufactured cheating scandal, but the real nightmare was waiting at her door.
Her paralyzed, billionaire husband, Carlisle Vinson, looked at her with pure disgust while his butler shoved a divorce settlement at her chest.
"Mr. Vinson is offering a severance package of fifty million dollars, provided you sign immediately and vacate the premises."
The original owner had left her an absolute mess.
Her trusted assistant had sold her room number to the press to frame her, and a playboy had scammed her out of her entire two million dollar life savings.
If she signed those papers and lost the Vinson family's protection, the breach of contract fees and her enemies in the industry would swallow her alive in days.
Eileen felt a cold fury override the original owner's lingering panic.
Why should she take the fall and be thrown out on the streets while the parasites who set her up lived out their wealthy fantasies?
She had died once, and she wasn't about to waste her second chance playing the victim.
Eileen slammed the heavy divorce folder shut right against the butler's chest.
"I'm not signing," she said with a terrifying, absolute calm.
She stepped behind her husband's wheelchair, ready to shield him from the cameras, secretly cure his dead legs, and make everyone who betrayed her bleed.
9.4
I was the Thornton Pack's brilliant but "wolfless" assistant, a defect they treated like a charity case.
After years of letting the Alpha, Caleb, control me to prove my worth, he publicly humiliated and discarded me for a pure-blooded pack princess.
Heartbroken and drunk at a bar, I accidentally bit and marked a terrifying stranger who saved me from two creeps.
I woke up to find out I had drunkenly claimed Damien Blackwood—a ruthless billionaire and the apex Lycan King of the werewolf world.
To prevent a pack war over the claiming mark, Damien trapped me in a two-year contract marriage, treating me like a convenient political tool.
Right after we signed the papers, I got a call from the police.
My little brother, Jamison, had been arrested for punching Caleb, who was bragging about ruining my dignity.
At the precinct, Caleb sneered at my misery, threatening to destroy my brother's future.
Seeing the fresh bite mark on my neck, Jamison exploded in handcuffs, screaming that Damien had blackmailed me into his bed to get him out of jail.
I begged Damien to step outside so I could explain this horrific misunderstanding, feeling like I had sold my soul to a cold-blooded predator.
But Damien ignored my pleas. He pulled me behind him, his suffocating Lycan aura crushing everyone in the room.
"Yes, she was with me last night, because she is my wife."
Before anyone could process the shock, his eyes darkened with a terrifying, unhinged possessiveness.
"And I didn't marry her to solve a problem. I married her because I've been in love with her for ten years."
I stared at his broad back, my blood running cold as I realized I had no idea what kind of monster I had just bound my life to.