Cait
13 Published Stories
Cait's Books and Stories
Bought The Billionaire For One Night
Romance A week before my wedding, I went to the airport parking garage to surprise my fiancé with a luxury watch.
Instead, I caught him having sex in his car with my best friend and maid of honor.
Devastated and desperate to forget, I went to an exclusive club and blew my $50,000 trust fund to buy a one-night stand with a gorgeous stranger.
But the nightmare was just beginning.
At work, my cheating best friend stole my hard-earned promotion, and my ex shamelessly defended her.
Worse, the escort I had paid for sex turned out to be the ruthless new CEO of my airline.
He tormented me on a flight to Paris. When I was robbed of my passport and wallet on the freezing streets, he forced me to be his gala date just to get my life back.
But the ultimate trap was waiting for me in New York.
A secretly taken photo of me leaving the CEO's penthouse leaked on the company forum.
"I knew she got that Paris trip for a reason."
My ex and my former best friend led the charge in the comments, framing me as a shameless gold digger who slept her way to the top.
I was stripped of my flying credentials, suspended from the job I loved, and publicly humiliated.
I didn't understand why the CEO was playing these cruel games, or who had orchestrated this perfect trap to ruin my life.
Standing outside the airport with my career in ashes, I realized crying wouldn't save me.
I wiped my tears, accepted my mother's invitation to a high-society mixer, and prepared to make everyone who set me up pay the price. Reborn Matriarch: Shattering The Orphan's Mask
Billionaires Christa discovered her adopted daughter Evelyn was sneaking around with a street thug named Dante.
When she furiously confronted her, Evelyn squeezed out a few tears and played the tragic, abused orphan.
"Mom is so cruel to me, I just want someone to love me," Evelyn cried to the men of the house, who instantly took her side.
Christa didn't realize her anger only gave the girl the perfect victim card. Evelyn manipulated the family's guilt to drain their wealth and orchestrate a massive corporate fraud.
When the authorities closed in, Evelyn let Christa's eldest daughter Julianna take the fall, sending her to federal prison.
The Stephenson family went completely bankrupt.
Christa's husband Grant, crushed by the betrayal and debt, jumped off a Manhattan skyscraper.
Until her family was entirely destroyed, Christa couldn't understand. They had given the orphan a home, a trust fund, and endless love.
Why did Evelyn treat them like easy marks? Why did she use their kindness as a weapon to tear them apart?
Opening her eyes again, Christa saw the heavy velvet drapes letting in the pale morning light.
She was back seven years ago, on the exact day she first caught Evelyn texting that thug.
This time, Christa wouldn't scream or fight. She would cut off the money, drop the rules, and watch the parasite dig her own grave. The Rejected Omega's Secret Royal Lycan Bloodline
Werewolf I spent two years scrubbing locker room floors and collecting trash just to buy gifts for my girlfriend, Sylvia. I thought she was the only one who didn't care that I was a "wolfless" Omega.
But the day before my eighteenth birthday, I caught her in the arms of Dixon, our pack's future Alpha.
She laughed in my face, calling me a scentless puppy and admitting our entire relationship was just a cruel bet. When I lunged at him, Dixon beat me half to death. He pinned my bleeding face to the wet tiles with his combat boot and used a permanent marker to scrawl "WOLFLESS LOSER" across my chest. My pack cheered, and even at a party later, the people I thought were my friends treated me like a contagious disease.
I laid in my cramped dorm, suffocating under the crushing despair. Why was I born so weak? Why did I have to endure this brutal humiliation just for existing?
Then, my phone buzzed with an unknown number, and a cold, elegant voice spoke.
"Your trial is over, Aden. You are a royal Lycan, and your hundred-million-dollar trust fund has been activated."
Looking at the impossible string of zeros on my screen, the ancient beast in my blood finally woke up. It was time to make the Alpha who broke me choke on his own arrogance. My Scars, His Fiery Oblivion
Mafia For years, I was Faron Blackwell' s "whipping post." A cruel pact with his mother forced me to endure one hundred public humiliations for his affairs, a living tally of his conquests. I was a joke to high society, the wife who couldn't keep her husband.
After the final scandal, I discovered I was pregnant. But Faron, repulsed by the scars his family' s punishments left on my body, hadn't touched me in months. He was convinced the child wasn't his.
He ordered his mistress, a doctor, to terminate the pregnancy.
"Make sure she feels every bit of it," he said. "No anesthesia."
To force a confession about a lover who never existed, he trapped me and the children from my non-profit in a building and set off a bomb. As the inferno raged, I heard him screaming my name.
I ran straight into the flames, ready to end the nightmare.
But Faron didn't know his own mother had a different escape plan for me all along. Secret Baby: The Jilted Wife's Final Goodbye
Billionaires I sat on the cold tile floor of our Upper East Side penthouse, staring at the two pink lines until my vision blurred. After ten years of loving Julian Sterling and three years of a hollow marriage, I finally had the one thing that could bridge the distance between us. I was pregnant.
But Julian didn't come home with flowers for our anniversary. He tossed a thick manila envelope onto the marble coffee table with a heavy thud. Fiona, the woman he'd truly loved for years, was back in New York, and he told me our "business deal" was officially over.
"Sign it,"
He said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. He looked at me with the cold detachment of a man selling a piece of unwanted furniture. When I hesitated, he told me to add a zero to the alimony if the money wasn't enough. I realized in that moment that if he knew about the baby, he wouldn't love me; he would simply take my child and give it to Fiona to raise.
I shoved the pregnancy test into my pocket, signed the papers with a shaking hand, and lied through my teeth. When my morning sickness hit, I slumped to the floor to hide the truth.
"It's just cramps,"
I gasped, watching him recoil as if I were contagious. To make him stay away, I invented a man named Jack-a fake boyfriend who supposedly gave me the kindness Julian never could.
Suddenly, the man who wanted me gone became a monster of possessiveness. He threatened to "bury" a man who didn't exist while leaving me humiliated at his family's dinner to rush to Fiona's side. I was so broken that I even ate a cake I was deathly allergic to, then had to refuse life-saving steroids at the hospital because they would harm the fetus.
Julian thinks he's stalling the divorce for two months to protect the family's reputation for his father's Jubilee. He thinks he's keeping his "property" on a short leash until the press dies down.
He has no idea I'm using those sixty days to build a fortress for my child. By the time he realizes the truth, I'll be gone, and the Sterling heir will be far beyond his reach. The Hidden Camera Captured Everything
Modern For seven years, I was the secret wife of Chandler Roberson, a rising political star. I sacrificed my own journalism career to be his "rock," the ghost in the background of his perfect life, always believing his promise that it was all for us.
That promise shattered the night he brought his mistress, Britni, to our home. She took one look at me, then threw herself down the stairs, letting out a theatrical scream.
"She pushed me!" she cried.
Chandler didn't hesitate. He slapped me across the face, his eyes blazing with a rage I'd never seen.
"You bitch! What did you do?!" he snarled, rushing to her side.
He cradled her in his arms, his face a mask of concern for her and pure hatred for me. He believed her instantly, ready to paint me as a violent, jealous monster to protect his affair and his career.
In that moment, watching him choose her, watching my life crumble under his cold, indifferent gaze, the woman who had loved him for twenty years died.
But then I was back. Reborn in that same moment, with the memory of his betrayal burning in my soul. And I remembered the one thing he'd forgotten: the hidden camera in the entryway, recording his perfect crime. My Mother's Ashes, My Fury Unleashed
Romance My husband Collin forced me to watch him with his mistress, Jaime, calling it my "education" on how to be a woman. This was my reality for months, even on our wedding anniversary.
He refused to pay for my mother's life-saving treatment, causing her death. Then, he let Jaime beat me so severely that I miscarried the baby I didn't even know I was carrying, leaving me unable to ever have children.
As if that wasn't enough, Jaime shattered my mother's urn in front of me and fed her ashes to a dog, all while Collin watched.
My mother's last words were, "Stop begging him."
She left me a number for my estranged uncle, a powerful man I barely knew.
When I called him, he sent a jet to bring me to London.
Now, I'm back. Not as the broken wife he discarded, but as the new CEO of his collapsing company, ready to take everything from him. The Unseen Scars of Her Lies
Romance My passport was in my hand, my bag zipped, when my girlfriend, Sophia, walked in, fresh from a trip with another man. "What are you doing, Ethan?" she asked, her voice airy as she flaunted a high-end jewelry bag.
She still thought I was just throwing a tantrum. But when I told her I was leaving her, the playful mask slipped, revealing the cold, calculating woman beneath. Then she laughed, sharp and condescending, suggesting an insincere wedding to make my "sick sister" feel important.
My blood turned to ice. She didn't know. How could she? Lily was already dead. The memory of her last breath, just after Sophia's engagement party with Mark Peterson, burned in my chest. Her organ rejection, the doctors said, was triggered by emotional shock from seeing Sophia with another man. When I begged Sophia for the money I'd saved with her for Lily's treatment, she coldly refused, hanging up on me, even having her bodyguards throw me out of their mansion.
Lily died on New Year's Eve, holding my hand as fireworks lit the sky. And now, Sophia offered a wedding, a shallow gesture, an insult to Lily's grave. My art, my life's passion, she called "nothing" as she destroyed my supplies, sending a wooden box crashing into my forehead, leaving me bleeding.
"I need the money back," I told her, referring to the fortune I had entrusted to her over seven years, money she had instead spent on Mark and their extravagant future. She laughed, calling it "pocket change." What words could capture the horror, the utter betrayal, of realizing the woman you loved had systematically stripped you of everything-even the memory of your dead sister? What deeper depths of cruelty could she sink to?
Later, as I fled, she drained my bank accounts, every last cent of my life' s savings. But a new life called to me-the prestigious international art gallery' s offer-a chance that felt like a flicker of hope after so much despair. Now, finally free, I was ready to live for myself. Unmasking The Monster: A Wife's Fight
Modern The crisp white envelope from the lab looked utterly normal on my kitchen counter, but a knot of dread still tightened in my stomach. It was just a routine health screening, something I, Ava Williams, a professional athlete, did every year.
Then I tore it open, and the bold letters screamed at me: Positive: Chlamydia trachomatis. My world, carefully built on discipline and a loving engagement to Mark Johnson, shattered in an instant.
I confronted Mark, but his casual dismissal and a text from "Jessica" on his phone exposed a sickening truth-a web of betrayal including Sarah, Emily, and Chloe, each message a punch to my gut confirming his depravity. The situation spiraled out of control when his mother, Carol, burst in, attacking me, dismissing me as a "gold-digger" when she saw his phone.
How could the man I loved, the man my entire family adored, be such a monster? What twisted game were they playing?
Later that night, I overheard Mark and Carol. "It' s…it' s HIV," Mark whispered, followed by Carol' s chilling plan to frame me, destroy my career, and ruin my academic parents. My father then collapsed from a stress-induced heart attack during their public smear campaign against me. The fear inside me calcified into pure, unadulterated fury. This wasn't just about infidelity anymore; it was war. Divorce: A Woman Reborn
Billionaires The two pink lines on the pregnancy test announced a truth Chloe Davis had yearned for, prayed for.
But the baby wasn' t her husband Liam' s, a man whose wealth was matched only by his emotional distance and public disdain for children.
For five years, she'd endured his family's pointed questions about her "barren" state, while Liam made it painfully clear he wanted no children with her.
Now, with a secret donor and a sterile clinic, she had what his family wanted, but the truth would destroy everything.
The irony was bitter; his indifference had already killed their marriage, yet she' d secretly conceived a life he' d never wanted to give her.
Then, the ultimate humiliation: Liam brought his heavily pregnant ex-girlfriend Isabella Rossi into their home, expecting Chloe, an obstetrician, to care for them both.
He dismissed her life' s ambition, viewing her expertise as merely a tool to serve his mistress and her child.
She was reduced to a glorified caretaker in her own home, constantly reminded of her supposed failure by the very man who caused it.
The injustice burned, fueling a quiet rage and a fierce, primal need to protect the life growing inside her.
He told her, "If you don't like it, you can leave."
With a chilling smile, Chloe walked out, a plan solidifying in her mind.
She' d embark on a calculated act of defiance, exposing his hypocrisy and reclaiming her life, one devastating truth at a time. Finding Fullness in Quiet
Sci-fi I stood there, presenting my research, my heart thrumming with artificially amplified love for Professor Alistair Finch.
For three years, the "Aura Emboldener" patch had allowed me, Sarah Miller of the "Quiet Heart," to feel a full spectrum of emotions, to build a future, and to believe in our genuine connection.
I' d gambled my entire inheritance on The Phoenix Initiative, hoping to permanently cure my lifelong emotional flatness.
Then Alistair spoke, his voice smooth and utterly dismissive.
"Sarah," he said, turning cooler, "this has been an interesting academic diversion."
Beside him, Victoria Sterling smiled a small, knowing, unkind curve of her lips as he announced their engagement.
His words hit me like a physical blow.
My vibrant, borrowed emotional life, fueled by the patch, instantly felt like a branding iron.
My phone buzzed: "Target unrecoverable. Mission failure. Await extraction."
Extraction meant Reflection House, the patch removed, and a terrifying return to my "Quiet Heart," only this time, a profound apathy worse than before-a complete emotional flatline.
How could my desperate journey to feel, my three years of intense, patch-fueled devotion, be dismissed as a mere "diversion"?
How could I go back to a silent world, now knowing the joy and pain I'd experienced, only to feel nothing at all?
The thought of this deeper silence, this absolute void, was terrifying.
But what Alistair and The Phoenix Initiative didn't grasp was that this very blankness, this chilling apathy, would become my unexpected shield and my new path.
With no emotions left to manipulate, I was finally free to refuse him, to see through their games, and to discover a truer, quieter connection awaiting me back home. The CEO's Ex-Wife: A Billion-Dollar Comeback
Romance It was our seventh anniversary, Valentine's Day, and I was dining alone at a Michelin-star restaurant in New York.
My husband, Jake, CEO of the company I helped build, was a no-show.
The phone rang, his voice sharp: "PR crisis."
But a younger, female voice giggled in the background, "He means our PR crisis, Mrs. Shen."
His intern, Chloe, mocked me, revealing they somehow had matching dresses, and the one meant for me arrived visibly damaged, just like her public flaunting of their affair.
The next morning, Jake demanded I create a "united front" at a press conference, simultaneously gaslighting me about the "misunderstanding" and publicly humiliating me for my past.
He called me bitter, aging, and dramatic when I recalled his cruel dismissal of my health, even our miscarriage.
I dedicated my entire inheritance, my career, my life to him, only to be reduced to "Mrs. Apex CEO," a brand extension.
How could the man I built an empire with betray me so brazenly, then have the audacity to demand my compliance?
Why did he deliberately mock me, while Chloe sent me pictures of herself in our bed?
I was no longer weeping or shaking.
The raw sting of his deceit had finally given way to a chilling clarity.
My stomach didn't drop, my hands didn't shake.
Not anymore.
I made one call to my lawyer, initiating divorce proceedings for half of everything.
Then I called Ethan Chen, accepting his partnership offer.
The ring came off.
My new life began now. You might like
Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father
Madel Cerda I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector.
That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world.
The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor.
The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist.
Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch-a titan of industry and my best friend's father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared.
"Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb.
Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen.
"Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back."
I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe. While I Was Bleeding Out, He Lit Lanterns For Her
Katie Oettgen As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole.
I begged him for help, my vision blurring.
But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background.
"Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again."
He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm.
I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube.
Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry.
Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled.
"You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up."
He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research.
I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym.
They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive.
They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity.
I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding.
I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it.
Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house.
The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born. Flash Marriage To The Alpha Colonel
Mo Yufei I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing.
During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me.
I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst.
She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side.
"Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house."
I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip.
My heart went completely dead.
So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate.
I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table.
"I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today." One Night With My Billionaire Boss
Nathaniel Stone I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn.
Beside me lay Ezra Gardner-my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers.
He didn't offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement.
"Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins."
He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend's apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I'd spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes.
I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe.
"Showtime, Mrs. Gardner."
Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend's face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down. Too Late, Mr. CEO: Watch Me Shine
Nieves Gómez Kayla stood outside the CEO suite, holding a custom suit for her fiancé, Brennon. They had spent seven years building a tech company from a freezing garage into a billion-dollar empire.
But through the cracked door, she heard the breathy laugh of Evelin, the newly hired director. Then came Brennon's low, careless voice.
"The wedding's a PR milestone for the IPO, nothing more."
Kayla's blood turned to ice.
"She's comfortable. Makes sense on paper," Brennon continued. "But you, Evelin. You understand ambition."
The betrayal hit her like a physical blow. She had written the core code that made him a billionaire. She had stayed up until 4 AM debugging while he slept on a futon. Now, he was mocking their relationship to his mistress and handing over her life's work to a woman who couldn't even read a data log.
Seven years of loyalty, reduced to a PR stunt. She didn't cry. Instead, a cold, violent clarity washed over her. Why should she let him keep the crown she forged?
Without a word, she pulled the three-carat diamond off her finger and dropped it into her bag. She walked out of the building, drafted her resignation, and accepted a VP position at his biggest Wall Street rival. It was time to show Brennon what happened when the real genius behind his empire decided to tear it down. Broken Ring, Billionaire Secrets: Watch Me Shine
Cornelia I sat on the edge of the examination table, the crinkle of the sanitary paper sounding like thunder in the sterile room. The doctor didn't even look at me as he confirmed the news: the pregnancy was over. My husband, Keyon, didn't answer my call. He just sent an automated text: "In a meeting."
When I returned to our cold mansion, I found his iPad glowing with a message from his "muse," Katina. He was throwing her a secret gala tonight-on our third wedding anniversary. He told her he couldn't wait to escape the "boring" and "draining" atmosphere I created at home.
Keyon didn't stumble in until 3 AM, smelling of Katina's perfume with a smear of red on his collar. When I handed him the divorce papers, he laughed in my face. He called me a "glorified housekeeper" with no skills and no future, promising I'd be back in three days begging for a subway ticket. He even bet his friends ten thousand dollars that I wouldn't survive a week without his name.
He had his assistant cancel my credit cards and block my gate access before I even reached the end of the driveway. He wanted me to starve. He wanted me to crawl. He sat in his office, mocking the "desperate" woman who pawned her three-million-dollar wedding ring for scrap metal just to pay for a meal.
I stood on the rainy curb, watching the man I had protected for three years treat my life like trash. He didn't know about the ultrasound I just threw in the bin. He didn't know that while he was calling me "dull," I was the one secretly writing the code that kept his billion-dollar empire from collapsing.
As I slid into a cheap Uber, I opened a hidden, encrypted app on my phone. The screen refreshed to a dashboard for an account Keyon didn't know existed. The balance was ten figures long-the accumulated wealth of "Solaris," the world's most elusive tech genius. Keyon thinks he just evicted a parasite, but he's about to find out he just declared war on the only person who can hit "delete" on his entire life. His Twisted Game, My Dangerous Love
Elroy Notman Vesper's marriage to Julian Sterling was a gilded cage. One morning, she woke naked beside Damon Sterling, Julian's terrifying brother, then found a text: Julian's mistress was pregnant. Her world shattered, but the real nightmare had just begun.
Julian's abuse escalated, gaslighting Vesper, funding his secret life. Damon, a germaphobic billionaire, became her unsettling anchor amidst his chaos.
As "Iris," Vesper exposed Julian's mistress, Serena Sharp, sparking brutal war: poisoned drinks, a broken leg, and the horrifying truth-Julian murdered her parents, trapping Vesper in marriage.
The man she married was a killer. Broken and betrayed, Vesper was caught between monstrous brothers, burning with injustice.
Refusing victimhood, Vesper reclaimed her identity. Fueled by vengeance, she allied with Damon, who vowed to burn his empire for her. Julian faced justice, but matriarch Eleanor's counterattack forced Vesper's choice as a hitman aimed for her. After Divorce: My Arrogant Ex Regrets Calling Me Trash
Sea Jet Aurora woke up to the sterile chill of her king-sized bed in Sterling Thorne's penthouse. Today was the day her husband would finally throw her out like garbage. Sterling walked in, tossed divorce papers at her, and demanded her signature, eager to announce his "eligible bachelor" status to the world.
In her past life, the sight of those papers had broken her, leaving her begging for a second chance. Sterling's sneering voice, calling her a "trailer park girl" undeserving of his name, had once cut deeper than any blade. He had always used her humble beginnings to keep her small, to make her grateful for the crumbs of his attention. She had lived a gilded cage, believing she was nothing without him, until her life flatlined in a hospital bed, watching him give a press conference about his "grief."
But this time, she felt no sting, no tears. Only a cold, clear understanding of the mediocre man who stood on a pedestal she had painstakingly built with her own genius.
Aurora signed the papers, her name a declaration of independence. She grabbed her old, phoenix-stickered laptop, ready to walk out. Sterling Thorne was about to find out exactly how expensive "free" could be. 
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