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weaponized his severe OCD against me, recoiling from my touch while I walked on eggshells in our cold, sterile mansion. My foo
rmanently disabled, all to protect her. Then, at Cassie's birthday party, h
chosen a liar over me, and I was left wi
f my despair, I dis
ond, my brother had found a secret that c
pregnancy. Then, I planned to u
sentence, sealed by my father's dying wish and a debt of honor. I signed away my future, hoping my heart would somehow f
rafton McDonald, Edwardo' s grandfather, held the key to our survival. He proposed the marriage. A strategic alliance, he called it. A sacrifice, I knew it was. But deep down, a foolish part of me, the part that had harbored a secret crush on Edw
I stood at the threshold of his bedroom, a room I would rarely enter without an invitation, my heart hammering against my ribs. I wore a silk robe, the delicate fab
voice was a low, precise comm
My breath
t, devoid of any warmth. "You are not to touch anything in
urned. "Edwardo, it's our wedding night." I tried
"This marriage is a transaction, Blair. Nothing more. We have an agreement
as sucked out of the room. My
squeezed a generous amount onto his palm, rubbing his hands together with a meticulous, almost v
respect it. H
g. The bedrooms were separate, of course. My bathroom was not to share a single towel, a single bar of soap, with his. Our meals were served by staff who
or, perhaps worse, were found crumpled in the waste bin. I cooked his favorite dishes, leaving them
hed on his face. He' d been up for days. I brought him a cup of
narrowed. "Did you to
was c
t to the sink, and poured it down the dr
as a cold, cons
o secure my position. A child was part of the contract. I wore a silk nightgown-not fo
e did, his gaze swept over me, then quickly away, a flicker
ice steady despite the humiliation I felt. "An
ood, his expression utterly repulsed. "Get out. Now. I can't work wittightened my robe around me. "You a
ely going to the dispenser to
intimacy, against me. I retreated, not as a ghost, but as a woman who realized her husband was broken beyond rep
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