The Price of Unrequited Love

The Price of Unrequited Love

Shearwater

4.5
Comment(s)
2.1M
View
27
Chapters

Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley. Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him. That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!" He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law." Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

Protagonist

: Jayde Rosario and Brendan Maynard

The Price of Unrequited Love Chapter 1 Chapter 1

Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley.

Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him.

That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!"

He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law."

Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

Chapter 1

Eighteen days after she decided to give up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair. She stood in front of the mirror and smoked her first cigarette, the smoke curling around her fingers. The taste was bitter.

That night, she called her father across the country.

"Dad, I got into UC Berkeley."

Her voice was quiet.

"I want to move to California. I want to be with you again."

Her father, Farrell Conner, sounded surprised on the other end of the line. "After your mom and I divorced, I settled down here. I always asked you to come over as an exchange student, but you insisted on staying with your step-brother, Brendan. Why the sudden change?"

Jayde lowered her eyes, which were red and swollen. She forced a small, light laugh.

"Some paths you have to walk to the end to know they're dead ends."

She paused, her voice shaking slightly.

"Brendan is getting married. It' s not right for me, his sister with no blood relation, to cling to him anymore."

Her father sighed, his voice full of sympathy. "It's good you've figured it out. Your mom and Mr. Maynard have been traveling the world, leaving you with Brendan all these years. You're grown up now. It's time to come live with me. You can study and learn to manage the company."

"Okay," Jayde said, then hung up.

She saw her swollen eyes in the reflection of the dark phone screen. She went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. She had two weeks until she left for Berkeley. She had to pull herself together.

She walked down the hallway and noticed the light was on in the study. She hesitated for a moment, then pulled up her e-acceptance letter on her phone and knocked on the door.

"Knock, knock, knock."

Inside, Brendan Maynard sat at his desk. He wore dark blue silk loungewear, and his high nose supported a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He looked elegant, aloof, and disciplined as he typed on his computer.

"Brendan," Jayde said softly. This was the man who was her step-brother. He was also the secret, hidden crush of her entire teenage life.

Brendan looked up from his screen, his brow furrowed in a slight frown. "Something wrong?"

Jayde pursed her lips, hesitating. "The college admission results are out..."

Before she could finish, a cute, bubbly ringtone cut through the quiet room. "Darling, answer the phone~"

Brendan's frown vanished instantly. He picked up his phone, and a gentle smile spread across his face as he listened to the person on the other end.

"Chloie, you can work directly with the wedding planner. Just tell them to arrange whatever designs you want. Remember, money is no object."

A sharp bitterness filled Jayde' s chest. Brendan' s tenderness used to belong only to her.

When she was eight, her remarried mother brought her to the Maynard household. She stood awkwardly in the grand mansion, lost and alone. Young Brendan, dressed in his British-style school uniform, had walked over and taken her hand. "Little girl, I'm your brother now," he'd said.

When she was ten, she was afraid of the dark. Brendan secretly used his allowance to buy her a Totoro nightlight. "Don't be scared," he'd told her. "I'll protect you, just like Totoro protects Mei."

During her teenage years, Brendan was the sun in her world. She didn't know how to tell him about the love she kept hidden, so she wrote it all down in a diary, over and over again.

Then, on her seventeenth birthday, just before Brendan graduated from college, she gave him everything. She gave him the diary filled with her feelings and a love letter where she poured out her heart.

That day, Brendan exploded. He flipped the gift box over, sending its contents scattering across the floor.

"Jayde Rosario, are you sick? I'm your brother!" he had yelled.

But she had been stubborn. "We're not related by blood. You're not my real brother. You've pampered me and protected me and cared for me all these years. Isn't it natural for me to fall in love with you?"

Her stubbornness was met with cruelty. He mercilessly tore the love letter into pieces.

"I knew you'd do something foolish. I shouldn't have bothered with you all these years! You can't even tell the difference between family affection and romantic love!"

He stormed out of the house that day without a second glance. Jayde cried as she picked up the shredded pieces from the floor. She took them to her room and painstakingly taped them back together. But the letter was scarred, a patchwork of its former self.

Her failed confession didn't kill her love for him. She studied harder, determined to get into the same university he attended, to stay in the same city.

But on the day she finished high school, Brendan brought a woman named Chloie Ellis home.

"Jayde, call her 'sister-in-law'," he'd said.

That night, Jayde cried until she couldn't breathe. She finally understood that the ninety-nine steps she had taken through thorns to reach him meant nothing. She and Brendan would only ever be siblings. There was no other possibility.

The intense love that had burned in her heart for years now felt like a fire that was burning her alive.

Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.

Continue Reading

Other books by Shearwater

More
The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

Modern

4.5

I was four months pregnant, weighing over two hundred pounds, and my heart was failing from experimental treatments forced on me as a child. My doctor looked at me with clinical detachment and told me I was in a death sentence: if I kept the baby, I would die, and if I tried to remove it, I would die. Desperate for a lifeline, I called my father, Francis Acosta, to tell him I was sick and pregnant. I expected a father's love, but all I got was a cold, sharp blade of a voice. "Then do it quietly," he said. "Don't embarrass Candi. Her debutante ball is coming up." He didn't just reject me; he erased me. My trust fund was frozen, and I was told I was no longer an Acosta. My fiancé, Auston, had already discarded me, calling me a "bloated whale" while he looked for a thinner, wealthier replacement. I left New York on a Greyhound bus, weeping into a bag of chips, a broken woman the world considered a mistake. I couldn't understand how my own father could tell me to die "quietly" just to save face for a party. I didn't know why I had been a lab rat for my family’s pharmaceutical ambitions, or how they could sleep at night while I was left to rot in the gray drizzle of the city. Five years later, the doors of JFK International Airport slid open. I stepped onto the marble floor in red-soled stilettos, my body lean, lethal, and carved from years of blood and sweat. I wasn't the "whale" anymore; I was a ghost coming back to haunt them. With my daughter by my side and a medical reputation that terrified the global elite, I was ready to dismantle the Acosta empire piece by piece. "Tell Francis to wash his neck," I whispered to the skyline. "I'm home."

The Broken Ballerina's Secret Paris Escape

The Broken Ballerina's Secret Paris Escape

Modern

5.0

I traced the floral patterns on the silver candlestick, my fingertips numb from the cold of the penthouse. It was our fifth anniversary, and the Wellington steak I’d spent four hours preparing sat soggy and defeated under the dim chandelier. Fielding finally walked in at 1:00 AM, smelling of scotch and tuberose—a scent I didn't own. When I tried to touch him, he recoiled as if my fingers were acid, then disappeared into the bathroom where I heard him moan his ex-girlfriend's name with a desperate, guttural longing. The betrayal didn't end there. The next day, I found him at a luxury restaurant, watching him slide a massive pink diamond onto Corinna’s finger—the same ring he’d told me was a "business investment." I stood hidden behind a frosted glass partition as his friends laughed, calling me a "lame duck" and a "depressed millstone" around his neck. Fielding didn't defend me; he calmly told them our marriage was just a "debt" he had to pay because I’d saved his life in the crash that ended my ballet career. "She's a millstone, Fielding. How long are you going to play nursemaid?" "I owe her. It's a debt. I pay my debts." When I finally confronted him, he didn't show remorse. Instead, he threatened to use his power to declare me mentally unstable and freeze my grandmother’s trust fund so I’d be left "crippled and penniless" on the street. I realized then that Fielding didn't want a wife; he wanted a martyr to ease his survivor's guilt, as long as I stayed broken and dependent. He thought he’d clipped my wings for good, but he didn't know I’d been secretly studying for the Sorbonne while he was out with his mistress. As I put on my designer gown for the charity gala, I wasn't preparing for a party. I was liquidating my jewelry for untraceable cash and planning the ultimate exit. He thinks I’m his prisoner, but the countdown to my final act has already begun.

The Hero's Other Life

The Hero's Other Life

Romance

5.0

My husband, Mike, was a hero: a National Guard Sergeant, beloved teacher, and football coach. I was his proud, supportive wife, a registered nurse at the VA, and I believed our life was built on his service to our country. But on a charity delivery for Gold Star families, I drove to a quiet town expecting to help a grieving sister. Instead, I saw my "hero" husband in a backyard, laughing with a woman and a little boy who called him "Daddy." My world tilted, the air left my lungs as I watched them, a perfect family portrait under the sun. He came home days later, full of lies about the Nevada desert, his smiles not reaching his eyes. When I confronted him about Mill Creek, Brianna, and Cody, his facade cracked, but he spun a tale of noble duty to a fallen comrade' s family. But I knew the truth: Cody's age didn't add up to a "one-time mistake." The silence hung heavy, confirming not just one betrayal, but two – Brianna was pregnant again. The next morning, he shoved insurance forms at me, printed for Cody, demanding I sign them to pay for his illegitimate son' s medical needs with my federal benefits. When I refused, "No" became a rock, and he grabbed my arm, shoved me against the counter, hurting my hip. "You owe me this," he hissed, the hero stripped away, revealing a monster. Then, with vindictive cruelty, he exposed my sister Olivia' s husband, Mike' s best friend, as also having had an affair, tying our pain together. I was attacked, our sacred family bonds shattered by his cold, calculated malice. How could I have been so blind? How dared he weaponize my sister's pain to control me? That was the moment. The fear became cold, righteous anger. This wasn't just about my broken marriage; it was about two sisters betrayed, their lives upended by a manipulator. We would not just leave; we would fight back. With every rule he broke, every lie he told, we would systematically dismantle the hero he pretended to be.

You'll also like

The Billionaire's Blind Bride: No Mercy

The Billionaire's Blind Bride: No Mercy

Emma
5.0

I married Clive Harrington, the coldest billionaire in Manhattan, under a strict contract that forbade any emotional burdens. When I needed a high-risk surgery to save my sight, I checked into the clinic alone, hiding the procedure from a husband who saw me as nothing more than a legal asset. I thought I could handle the darkness in silence. But while I was blind and bandaged in my hospital bed, my biological mother called, screaming that if I didn't produce a Harrington heir by the end of the fiscal year, she would cut off the life-saving treatments for my disabled sister. I was crawling on the cold hospital floor, desperately feeling for a cane I had dropped, when I touched a pair of expensive leather shoes. It was Clive. He was supposed to be in London closing a multi-million dollar deal, but there he was, watching his "contract wife" groveling in the dark like a beggar. He didn't walk away in disgust. He carried me to a five-thousand-dollar-a-night VIP suite and sat by my bed, listening in chilling silence as another voicemail from my mother filled the room, calling me a "useless broodmare" who was only worth the trust fund disbursements my marriage secured. I expected him to remind me of Clause 34B or hand me divorce papers now that I was "damaged goods." Instead, I felt his thumb brush a stray tear from my cheek, his presence shifting from a statue of ice into a predatory shield. "I thought I was just currency to you," I whispered, my voice trembling behind the gauze. "Just an investment." Clive didn't answer with words. He picked up his phone and called his head of legal with a single, terrifying command: "Kill the Douglas family’s credit lines. Every debt, every lien—trigger them all. If they want a war, I’ll give them a massacre." As he leaned down to kiss my bandaged forehead, I realized the contract was dead. My husband wasn't protecting an asset anymore; he was hunting the people who had dared to touch what belonged to him.

The Billionaire's Cold And Bitter Betrayal

The Billionaire's Cold And Bitter Betrayal

Clara Bennett
5.0

I had just survived a private jet crash, my body a map of violet bruises and my lungs still burning from the smoke. I woke up in a sterile hospital room, gasping for my husband's name, only to realize I was completely alone. While I was bleeding in a ditch, my husband, Adam, was on the news smiling at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. When I tracked him down at the hospital's VIP wing, I didn't find a grieving husband. I found him tenderly cradling his ex-girlfriend, Casie, in his arms, his face lit with a protective warmth he had never shown me as he carried her into the maternity ward. The betrayal went deeper than I could have imagined. Adam admitted the affair started on our third anniversary-the night he claimed he was stuck in London for a merger. Back at the manor, his mother had already filled our planned nursery with pink boutique bags for Casie's "little princess." When I demanded a divorce, Adam didn't flinch. He sneered that I was "gutter trash" from a foster home and that I'd be begging on the streets within a week. To trap me, he froze my bank accounts, cancelled my flight, and even called the police to report me for "theft" of company property. I realized then that I wasn't his partner; I was a charity case he had plucked from obscurity to manage his life. To the Hortons, I was just a servant who happened to sleep in the master bedroom, a "resilient" woman meant to endure his abuse in silence while the whole world laughed at the joke that was my marriage. Adam thought stripping me of his money would make me crawl back to him. He was wrong. I walked into his executive suite during his biggest deal of the year and poured a mug of sludge over his original ten-million-dollar contracts. Then, right in front of his board and his mistress, I stripped off every designer thread he had ever paid for until I was standing in nothing but my own silk camisole. "You can keep the clothes, Adam. They're as hollow as you are." I grabbed my passport, turned my back on his billions, and walked out of that glass tower barefoot, bleeding, and finally free.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
The Price of Unrequited Love The Price of Unrequited Love Shearwater Young Adult
“Eighteen days after giving up on Brendan Maynard, Jayde Rosario cut off her waist-length hair and called her father, announcing her decision to move to California and attend UC Berkeley. Her father, surprised, asked about the sudden change, reminding her how she' d always insisted on staying with Brendan. Jayde forced a laugh, revealing the painful truth: Brendan was getting married, and she, his stepsister, could no longer cling to him. That night, she tried to tell Brendan about her college acceptance, but his fiancée, Chloie Ellis, interrupted with a bubbly call, and Brendan' s tender words to Chloie twisted a knife in Jayde' s heart. She remembered how his tenderness used to be hers alone, how he had protected her, and how she had poured out her heart to him in a diary and a love letter, only for him to explode, tearing the letter and yelling, "I'm your brother!" He had stormed out, leaving her to painstakingly tape the shredded pieces back together. Her love, however, didn't die, not even when he brought Chloie home and told her to call her "sister-in-law." Now, she understood. She had to put that fire out herself. She had to dig Brendan out of her heart.”
1

Chapter 1 Chapter 1

14/07/2025

2

Chapter 2 Chapter 2

14/07/2025

3

Chapter 3 Chapter 3

14/07/2025

4

Chapter 4 Chapter 4

14/07/2025

5

Chapter 5 Chapter 5

14/07/2025

6

Chapter 6 Chapter 6

14/07/2025

7

Chapter 7 Chapter 7

14/07/2025

8

Chapter 8 Chapter 8

14/07/2025

9

Chapter 9 Chapter 9

14/07/2025

10

Chapter 10 Chapter 10

14/07/2025

11

Chapter 11

14/07/2025

12

Chapter 12

14/07/2025

13

Chapter 13

14/07/2025

14

Chapter 14

14/07/2025

15

Chapter 15

14/07/2025

16

Chapter 16

14/07/2025

17

Chapter 17

14/07/2025

18

Chapter 18

14/07/2025

19

Chapter 19

14/07/2025

20

Chapter 20

14/07/2025

21

Chapter 21

14/07/2025

22

Chapter 22

14/07/2025

23

Chapter 23

14/07/2025

24

Chapter 24

14/07/2025

25

Chapter 25

14/07/2025

26

Chapter 26

14/07/2025

27

Chapter 27

14/07/2025