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 5
Aubree stared through the open car door, her eyes locked on the figure standing at the top of the stone steps.
It was a woman wearing a flowing white silk dress. Her blonde hair was perfectly styled, blowing gently in the ocean breeze. It was Allyson Pennington. Godfrey's former fiancée.
Godfrey saw her too. The dark, violent storm that had been brewing in his eyes all morning completely vanished. His face relaxed.
He stepped out of the car and walked quickly up the steps.
Allyson smiled brightly. She opened her arms wide as he approached.
Godfrey wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close, and pressed a natural, lingering kiss to her cheek.
Aubree forced her stiff legs to move. She climbed out of the car, her high heels sinking slightly into the gravel. Her ankle rolled, sending a sharp pain up her calf, but she caught her balance.
Neither Godfrey nor Allyson looked back at her. She followed them up the steps like an unwanted servant carrying luggage.
They walked into the massive, double-height living room. Genevieve, Godfrey's mother, was sitting on a tufted velvet sofa, holding a teacup.
When Genevieve saw Allyson, she stood up immediately. A massive smile broke across her face.
"My dear girl," Genevieve said, reaching out to grab both of Allyson's hands. "It is so wonderful to see you."
Aubree stopped at the edge of the Persian rug. She stood perfectly still, keeping her hands clasped tightly in front of her stomach.
Genevieve shifted her gaze. Her smile dropped instantly when she saw Aubree. She looked Aubree up and down, her eyes lingering on the dark tweed dress.
"That color makes you look like an old widow," Genevieve said, her voice dripping with disdain.
Aubree lowered her chin. She raised her hands and signed, Good afternoon, Mother.
Genevieve rolled her eyes and turned her head away. "Stop waving your hands at me. I do not understand those monkey gestures."
Aubree's hands froze in the air. A hot flush of deep humiliation burned her cheeks. She slowly lowered her arms back to her sides.
Allyson linked her arm through Genevieve's. "The art exhibition in Paris was exhausting, but the gallery sold out," Allyson said, her voice smooth and sweet, completely ignoring the tension.
Genevieve laughed, patting Allyson's arm.
Godfrey handed his suit jacket to a waiting butler. He stood near the fireplace, watching Allyson with a soft, attentive expression Aubree had never received.
Aubree felt completely invisible. She took a small step backward, planning to slip away into the hallway and hide in a guest room.
"Aubree," Allyson called out suddenly.
Aubree stopped.
Allyson walked over to her, her heels clicking loudly against the marble floor. She stopped right in front of Aubree and tilted her head, her eyes locking onto Aubree's neck.
"Oh my," Allyson said, raising her voice so it carried across the entire room. "Are you having an allergic reaction? Your neck is covered in awful red marks."
Godfrey's head snapped toward them. His face darkened instantly. He stared at the bruises he had violently left on her skin the night before, his jaw clenching. He thought she had intentionally done a poor job covering them up to mark her territory.
Genevieve let out a harsh scoff. "The daughter of a bankrupt fraud always has cheap, sensitive skin."
Aubree bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she refused to let them fall.
Allyson turned around and looked at Godfrey, batting her eyelashes innocently.
"Anyway," Allyson smiled, "I have some wonderful news. I am moving back to New York permanently."
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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?