From Captive to Cherished Wife

From Captive to Cherished Wife

Gavin

5.0
Comment(s)
30.3K
View
10
Chapters

I was at my wedding rehearsal, standing at the altar across from my fiancé, Holden. Our marriage was meant to be the event of the season, a perfect union of two prominent families. Then, his future sister-in-law, Jaidyn, crumpled to the floor. Without a single glance my way, Holden vaulted over a row of chairs, scooped her into his arms, and sprinted out of the hall, leaving me alone and publicly humiliated. Hours later, his voicemail finally came. His voice was thick with emotion, but not for me. He told me Jaidyn has a secret heart condition and has been secretly in love with him for ten years. He said the stress of our wedding was too much for her, and then asked if I could be like a sister to her once we were married. A text followed moments later: "Postponing the wedding. Jaidyn needs me at the hospital." He expected tears. He expected me to wait patiently, to graciously accept being sidelined for his secret admirer. He mistook my love for weakness. But I am Eloise Bowers. My dignity is not something to be discarded. I scrolled past his name and called his older brother, Alphons-the man Jaidyn was supposedly engaged to. "Your brother's wedding is off," I told him, my voice steady and clear. "But the bride is still a Callahan. I'm at the city hall courthouse. You have thirty minutes."

Chapter 1

I was at my wedding rehearsal, standing at the altar across from my fiancé, Holden. Our marriage was meant to be the event of the season, a perfect union of two prominent families.

Then, his future sister-in-law, Jaidyn, crumpled to the floor.

Without a single glance my way, Holden vaulted over a row of chairs, scooped her into his arms, and sprinted out of the hall, leaving me alone and publicly humiliated.

Hours later, his voicemail finally came. His voice was thick with emotion, but not for me. He told me Jaidyn has a secret heart condition and has been secretly in love with him for ten years.

He said the stress of our wedding was too much for her, and then asked if I could be like a sister to her once we were married. A text followed moments later: "Postponing the wedding. Jaidyn needs me at the hospital."

He expected tears. He expected me to wait patiently, to graciously accept being sidelined for his secret admirer. He mistook my love for weakness.

But I am Eloise Bowers. My dignity is not something to be discarded.

I scrolled past his name and called his older brother, Alphons-the man Jaidyn was supposedly engaged to.

"Your brother's wedding is off," I told him, my voice steady and clear.

"But the bride is still a Callahan. I'm at the city hall courthouse. You have thirty minutes."

Chapter 1

The crystal chandeliers of the grand hall cast a warm, golden glow on the white roses lining the aisle. It was the rehearsal for Eloise Bowers' wedding, a union of two of the city' s most prominent families. She stood at the altar, her heart full, looking at her fiancé, Holden Callahan.

Then, a gasp rippled through the guests.

Jaidyn Albert, Holden' s future sister-in-law, had crumpled onto the plush red carpet. Her face was pale, her hand clutched at her chest.

Holden didn' t even glance at Eloise. He vaulted over a row of chairs, his a B-line for Jaidyn. He scooped her up into his arms, his face a mask of panic, and ran out of the hall, shouting for someone to call an ambulance.

Eloise was left standing alone at the altar, the symbol of their future now a stage for her public humiliation. The whispers of the guests were a low hum of pity and speculation that felt louder than any shout.

Hours passed in a silent, empty bridal suite. Her phone finally buzzed. It wasn' t a call, but a long voicemail from Holden.

His voice was thick with emotion, but not for her. "Eloise, it' s Jaidyn. She has a hereditary heart condition. The doctors say any emotional distress can trigger it. She... she' s been in love with me for ten years, can you believe it?"

Eloise' s hand went numb.

"She only agreed to marry my brother, Alphons, when she heard about our arranged marriage. She was trying to be brave. The stress of our wedding was too much for her."

A cold, hollow laugh escaped Eloise' s lips. It sounded foreign in the quiet room.

"Listen," Holden continued, his voice earnest, "when Jaidyn gets out of the hospital, I was thinking... she' s been through so much. Maybe you could be like a sister to her. Once she' s done with this whole acting gig she has lined up, we could all live together. It would be good for her."

The sheer audacity of it was breathtaking. He wasn't just sidelining her; he was rewriting their entire future to include his secret admirer.

A text message followed a minute later.

Holden: We have to postpone the wedding. Jaidyn needs time to recover. I' ll be at the hospital with her.

Postpone. Not cancel. As if this was a minor inconvenience, a rain delay at a baseball game.

Eloise stared at her reflection in the dark screen of her phone. She was Eloise Bowers, of the Bowers family. Her name meant something. Her dignity was not a toy for a fool to discard.

She knew exactly what Holden expected. He expected tears. He expected her to wait patiently, to understand, to graciously accept this bizarre, insulting proposal. He had mistaken her love for weakness.

With a clarity that was almost painful, she scrolled through her contacts, past Holden' s name, and stopped on another.

Alphons Woodward.

Holden' s older brother. Jaidyn' s supposed fiancé.

She pressed the call button. He answered on the second ring, his voice calm and low.

"Alphons."

"Eloise. Is everything alright? I heard about what happened."

"Your brother' s wedding is off," she said, her voice steady and clear, devoid of any emotion.

There was a pause on the other end.

"But," she continued, a faint, sharp smile touching her lips, "the bride is still a Callahan. I' m at the city hall courthouse. I' ll give you thirty minutes."

She didn't wait for his answer. She stated her terms, a challenge laid bare.

"The bride is still a Callahan," she repeated softly to herself, her eyes glinting. "Let's see which one."

She hung up the phone, her decision made. She would not be the woman left waiting.

---

Continue Reading

Other books by Gavin

More
Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Mafia

4.3

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

He Chose The Mistress, Losing His True Queen

He Chose The Mistress, Losing His True Queen

Mafia

5.0

I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

You'll also like

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book