Too Late To Love Your Mute Wife
To save my father's bankrupt company, I endured a forced marriage to billionaire Godfrey Valentine. He despised me, believing I was a scheming mute who trapped him.
When his former fiancée, Allyson, returned, my nightmare truly began. During a family dinner, she deliberately knocked a bowl of boiling lobster bisque directly onto my lap.
The scalding liquid soaked into my heavy dress, instantly blistering my flesh. Because of my paralyzed vocal cords, I couldn't even scream. I could only gasp in silent, blinding agony as I collapsed.
At that exact second, Allyson let out a blood-curdling shriek over a tiny drop of soup that had splashed onto her knuckles.
Godfrey didn't even glance in my direction.
"Tell the driver to pull up to the front!"
He roared in panic, scooping Allyson into his arms like fragile glass and rushing her to the hospital.
"You clumsy, stupid girl!"
His mother sneered at me before following them, leaving me kneeling alone in a puddle of boiling soup.
That night, seeing the paparazzi photos of him fiercely protecting her at the private ER, my heart completely shattered. I finally realized that to him, my life was worth less than a single scratch on her finger.
I wiped my tears, contacted my best friend to start a street bakery, and walked away. This time, I chose to live for myself.
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Chapter 4
Aubree dragged her aching body off the floor and limped into the massive walk-in closet. Every step sent a sharp pulse of pain through her lower half.
She reached toward a section of soft, cotton loungewear, her fingers brushing against a loose grey sweater.
Godfrey walked up behind her. He snatched the sweater out of her hand and threw it onto the hardwood floor.
He reached into the formal section and pulled out a stiff, heavy Chanel tweed dress. It was a dark, suffocating navy blue.
He shoved the rough fabric into her chest. "Put this on," he commanded.
"Mrs. Valentine does not need to be comfortable," he added coldly. "She needs to be presentable."
Aubree turned around without making a sound. She stripped off the remnants of her torn nightgown and pulled the heavy dress over her head. The stiff fabric scratched against her sensitive skin, the tight waist restricting her breathing.
She walked over to the vanity mirror. She opened a small jar of thick concealer and began dabbing it heavily onto her neck, desperately trying to cover the dark purple bruises and bite marks he had left on her skin.
Ten minutes later, they stepped out of the private elevator into the underground parking garage.
Miles Mercer, Godfrey's executive assistant, was already standing by the open rear door of a black Maybach. He held a tablet in his hand, his face completely devoid of emotion.
Godfrey stepped into the car first, his long legs taking up most of the space in the back seat.
Aubree climbed in after him. She pressed her body flush against the opposite door, trying to put as much physical distance between them as the leather seat would allow.
The heavy door slammed shut. The air inside the cabin instantly felt thick and unbreathable.
The car pulled out of the garage and merged onto the highway heading toward Long Island.
Godfrey opened his laptop and began typing rapidly, completely ignoring her existence.
Aubree turned her head and stared out the tinted window. The trees blurred past. Her stomach cramped violently, twisting into tight knots at the thought of facing his family.
The Maybach suddenly jerked forward as the driver hit the brakes hard. Traffic had come to a dead stop.
Aubree's body pitched forward. Her shoulder brushed against the sleeve of Godfrey's suit jacket.
Godfrey instantly recoiled. He looked down at his sleeve and brushed his hand over the fabric, as if she had just wiped mud on him.
The small, dismissive gesture felt like a physical slap to Aubree's face.
The traffic did not move. Godfrey's breathing started to speed up. The suffocating enclosed space and the stagnant traffic triggered a dark, violent restlessness deep within his chest. A fierce, unyielding pressure built up behind his ribs, demanding immediate release. He gripped the leather armrest so hard the material creaked under the pressure of his white-hot tension, his knuckles turning completely bloodless.
"Pass them," Godfrey barked at the driver, his voice sharp and aggressive. "I do not care about the fines. Get this car moving."
The driver swallowed hard. He jerked the steering wheel, pulling the massive car onto the narrow shoulder of the highway, speeding dangerously past the line of stopped vehicles.
Aubree squeezed her eyes shut. She reached across her chest and gripped the seatbelt with both hands, her heart pounding against her ribs.
Two hours later, the Maybach turned onto a private, tree-lined road in the Hamptons.
The massive iron gates of the Valentine estate slowly swung open. The car crunched over the pristine gravel driveway, heading toward the towering main house.
Godfrey snapped his laptop shut. He turned his head and glared at Aubree. "Fix your face. Stop looking like a corpse."
The car rolled to a smooth stop in front of the grand portico.
The driver got out and opened Aubree's door. She looked up, preparing to step out, but her entire body froze. All the blood drained from her face in an instant.
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9.6
Minutes before announcing her grand engagement, Darla caught her fiancé sleeping with her stepsister.
She publicly exposed them and canceled the wedding on the spot.
Furious, her adoptive mother demanded Darla marry a fifty-five-year-old predator to save their broken business deal.
"If you don't do exactly what I say, I'll let your father rot in prison for the rest of his life."
Desperate to escape her family's control, Darla grabbed a massive, intimidating hotel security guard she bumped into in the hallway.
She shoved all the cash in her purse at him—eight hundred dollars—and begged him to fake-marry her.
They signed the papers at City Hall that same day.
But the nightmare didn't end.
That evening, Darla received a cold phone call from the state penitentiary.
Her father had been found dead in his cell, and her company, owned by her ex-fiancé's family, fired her immediately.
They had taken everything from her, leaving her completely broken and sobbing on the floor of her tiny apartment.
She thought she had nothing left but a broke, fake husband to keep her company.
She had no idea that the "poor security guard" holding her in his arms was actually Anson Prince, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And he was already making the calls to tear her abusers' empires to the ground.
7.5
I was tied to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, the heavy stench of gasoline suffocating me.
Ten steps away, a masked kidnapper slammed a loaded Glock onto a metal barrel and forced my husband, Alvie, to make a sick choice.
"The wife or the mistress. You only get to walk out of here with one."
Alvie didn't even blink.
He walked straight toward the dark corner where his mistress, Gail, was crying. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, shielding her, and guided her toward the exit.
He never looked back. He didn't cast a single glance over his shoulder. To him, I was already a corpse, just trash left on the pavement.
The kidnapper laughed and tossed a lighter onto the soaked concrete floor.
A wall of ghostly blue fire erupted instantly, swallowing me whole. The absolute agony of my skin blistering and melting shattered my sanity.
In my last moments, consumed by the inferno, I couldn't understand how the man I had loved and served so submissively could leave me to burn alive. My heartbreak quickly morphed into a hatred far deeper than the flames.
Then, I violently jerked awake.
I shot up from the bed, gasping for cold air, my hands frantically checking my perfectly smooth, unburned skin.
I looked at the desk clock. I had returned to exactly four years ago, the morning of the annual Gallagher family gathering.
The fragile, naive wife died in that warehouse. This time, I am going to destroy them both.
8.3
Hovering as a translucent soul in the freezing cemetery, I watched Corbin Mendez—the ruthless billionaire I had spent my entire life despising—violently smash open my tomb.
I thought he had come to desecrate my corpse. Instead, he collapsed to his knees, reverently kissed my dead lips, and swallowed a lethal bottle of pills without a drop of water.
In my past life, I was betrayed by my ex-fiancé, framed by my vicious step-family, and trapped in a suffocating marriage with Corbin. I thought he was a paranoid, abusive monster who only wanted to control me. I fought his madness every single day until I died sick, exhausted, and utterly defeated.
But watching him climb into my casket, wrapping his massive arms around my cold body to die beside me, my non-existent heart shattered.
Why hadn't I seen the truth? He wasn't a monster; he was a deeply traumatized man suffering from severe PTSD, and his obsessive love for me was his only tether to sanity.
The regret and agony tore my soul to pieces.
"My love, I'm too late."
Those were his last words before his heart stopped.
When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't floating in a dark tomb. I was lying in Corbin's bed, exactly two years in the past.
This time, I wouldn't run away. I would heal the broken beast who died for me, and I would personally put a bullet in everyone who ruined us.
7.4
I was freezing to death in an abandoned cabin, desperately waiting for my fiancé to save me.
Instead, my phone flickered with a video from my adopted sister.
She was smiling as she confessed that she and my fiancé had orchestrated my kidnapping, and my parents' fatal plane crash, just to steal my family's trust fund.
When I called him with my dying breath, he mocked me for faking a PR stunt and hung up.
I died in the sub-zero blizzard, consumed by absolute despair.
But as a ghost, I watched my greatest business rival, the ruthless billionaire Collins, kick down the doors of my mansion.
He didn't just mourn me.
He shot my fiancé, trapped my sister, and set the entire place on fire, choosing to burn alive in the inferno just to avenge me.
I couldn't understand why the man I had publicly despised for a decade loved me so fiercely, while the people I gave everything to wanted me dead.
Opening my eyes again, I was back backstage on the night I won my Oscar, four years ago.
My fiancé smiled, holding out his arms to hug me.
I pushed him away in disgust, marched straight into the crowded theater, and kissed my billionaire rival on live television.
"Let's get married tomorrow."
This time, I would use him to burn them all to the ground.
9.5
For twenty years, Krista lived as the perfect daughter of the wealthy Cain family.
But a single DNA report shattered her entire world. Her adoptive parents coldly declared she was just a mistake and immediately replaced her with the true bloodline.
Desperate, she ran through the freezing rain to find her fiancé, only to hear him laughing with his friends.
"Marry a fake? I don't collect the Cain family's second-hand trash."
She slapped him, threw her diamond ring at his chest, and stumbled into a jazz lounge to drown her pain.
Drunk and heartbroken, she accidentally crashed into a stranger, clinging to him like a lifeline, which ended in a wild night in a luxury penthouse.
When she woke up, she realized the man she had ravaged was Jasper Stone, the most ruthless, cold-blooded billionaire on Wall Street.
At the same time, her phone lit up with notifications. Her bank accounts were frozen, and the Cain family had just released a brutal public statement permanently cutting her off.
She was completely abandoned, stripped of her home, her family, and her dignity in a single night. Why was twenty years of loyalty erased so easily?
But instead of kicking her out, Jasper tossed a prenuptial agreement onto the bed.
"Pay off your debt with marriage. Stay, and you are the untouchable Mrs. Stone."
Looking at the contract, Krista wiped her tears, put on bold red lipstick, and signed her name.
9.5
How far are you willing to go for your family's company?
Eloise Jane Lopez is the one true child of the Lopezes, and due to her sick father's wish, she needs to marry a man she doesn't know to keep the company her parents manage in order. And the man she will marry is none other than Cosmo Dominguez, a multi-billionaire, whose supposed fiancée was Eloise's step-sister but got pregnant, leaving Eloise with no choice but to be the substitute bride.
After the wedding, Cosmo laid out another agreement with Eloise, that the marriage would only be temporary, and that they would have to separate after two years.
Can they uphold the signed agreement until the end, or can they stop the feelings forming between them?