The Billionare Vendetta Bride

Morgan's POV

My friend Penny dropped me off at my apartment, giving me a tired smile. "Get some beauty sleep, Morgan. You have the appearance of having been pulled through a hedge by the wrong end." I snorted, saluting her with a mock salute as she teared off in an obscenely large SUV that likely drank gas like a frat boy during happy hour. I watched until her monstrosity of a car disappeared around the corner, then trudged toward my building, snowflakes settling into my hair as if they'd paid rent.

I was excited and bubbling to surprise my boyfriend, Ethan. I'd been on a business trip that was longer than the line at the DMV, and I couldn't wait to see his stupid, handsome face. I'd been fantasizing about him nonstop, all while crushing my sales goals and pretty much saving my company's entire Asian arm. I was 50 percent proud, 50 percent elated and 500 percent prepared to face plant into my bed for like three days.

When I arrived at my building I wondered how Ethan might take my unplanned return. I'd attempted to call him from the cab at the airport, but the calls dropped faster than my New Year's resolutions. A flutter of discomfort pinched my stomach as I ascended the stairs to our second-floor apartment. I inserted the key in the lock but when I turned it, the door opened freely. My heart does a bit of gymnastics routine. This wasn't right. We always locked the door - Ethan was almost paranoid about it.

I cracked the door open with the stealth of a cat burglar, senses on high alert. The apartment was dim, the curtains drawn against the winter afternoon. The TV flickered with some action movie, soft music from the Bluetooth speaker and the smell of takeout filled the air. But no Ethan in sight.

"Ethan. Honey, I am home, I called dramatically, back from the war. Silence was all I got in response. My heart raced with nervousness as I crept deeper and deeper inside, my eyes adjusting to the darkness around me, almost as if I was roaming a cave.

I picked up a baseball bat we had stored on the wall by the front door (Ethan's idea - he'd watched too many home invasion movies) and tried again. "Ethan, your queen has returned from conquest." Still nothing. It was full of space but not space, as if someone had quantum-physics-ed the apartment.

I slowly walked toward our bedroom my knuckles white on the bat. But as I got nearer, I heard noises that didn't require a detective's badge to interpret - rhythmic creaking and moans that definitely weren't from someone putting together IKEA furniture.

My heart now going full on pole-dancing routine in my chest, I tiptoed to the door and threw it open with the dramatic flourish of a telenovela star. What I saw caused my internal organs to do a synchronized dive into my shoes. Ethan was in bed with someone else, their bodies, her breasts, jiggling in MY Egyptian cotton sheets I'd forked over MY bonus money to decorate MY bed.

"Oh Ethan, right there... Don't you dare stop!"

"I'm... So close... There... Can't just... Hit... Pause... Now..." I grunted back as he continued his rhythmic movements as though I was the invisible woman.

The passionate score dropped to background noise as I held my chest, feeling like someone had reached inside and was using my heart as a stress ball.

"Ethan, you two-timing tornado!"

"Holy shit!"

Ethan squealed and also sort of Levitated off the other man and turned to me firing eyes wider than dinner plates. "Babe, that's not what your eyes are seeing right now. I-"

But I couldn't stand to look at his lying face. My eyes went to the woman in my bed, and I felt my knees buckle. It was my sister, Kylie.

"Kylie!"

She pulled the sheet up to her chin, her face turning redder than a baboon's ass.

"One, how could you two stab me in the back with such Olympic precision?" I screamed, as though I had been struck by an emotional freight train.

I picked up the first thing I could reach - an ugly lamp Ethan's mother had given us - and threw it in his direction. He ducked with impressive reflexes for someone who had criticized basic yoga. The lamp fucking exploded against the wall, just like my trust.

"Cupcake, can you just take a deep breath," Ethan tried to come to me, hands raised as if surrendering to the police.