Object Substitute

Married To My Ex-Fiancé's Silent Uncle

Ming Yue

Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire. I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper. I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he'd dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family's land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock. I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim. "If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned. So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell-the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months. Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I've suspended Hugh's executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I'm just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout. But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back.

Modern Scheming Contract marriage Billionaires CEO Flash Marriage Revenge Age Gap

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Every woman was looking forward to marrying her beloved man.

So was I.

I married a man who I had a crush on for twelve years, in the name of my sister, Caroline Archer...

Although Caroline and I looked identical on the surface, I had been sent to an orphanage because of the negligence on the hospital's side as soon as I was born.

It was not until three years ago that I came back to Archer Family.

I, a wild girl, didn't fit the grand Archer Family. However, without parents by my side since I was a child, I was extremely discreet, hoping that I could get along with others of this family as well as winning the favor of my parents.

Consequently, when both my parents and Caroline had begged me to marry Patrick Cowell on behalf of Caroline the day before yesterday, I had consented immediately without deliberation.

On the one hand, it was because I loved Patrick Cowell. On the other hand, it was the first time that I felt that my family needed me. And I didn't want them to be disappointed.

It was already 12 p.m. Patrick left in a hurry after the wedding ceremony without even giving me any explanation.

Looking at the diamond ring in my hand, I felt inexplicably bitter in secret.

There came the sound of the engine of a car being powered off from downstairs, indicating that Patrick was back. I walked to the front of a mirror, tidied up my hair in a hurry, and walked out of the bedroom nervously.

Then I went downstairs.

Taking out a pair of slippers from the shoe cabinet, I waited for him at the door.

Seeing Patrick come in, I put on a happy smile the way a wife should do, put the slippers beside his feet, and called, "Honey, you're back..."

Before I could finish my words, I smelled alcohol in the air, which was mixed with a strong perfume...

I couldn't help but feel a twinge of pain in my nose.

As for where he had gone tonight...

The answer couldn't be more evident.

Even so, I knew what my task was, which was that I got married on behalf of my sister. And the relationship between me and Patrick had something to do with the cooperation between the Archer Family and the Cowell Family."

Thinking of this, I still tried to smile despite the disappointment in my heart.

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