Too Late, Ex-Fiancé: The Secret Heiress Shines

“I stood in the biting November wind for twenty minutes just to deliver a coat to my fiancé, Ethan. But when I entered the private club suite, I found a wealthy socialite sitting in his lap. He hadn't forgotten his coat. She had used his phone to summon me, just to mock my plain clothes and make me the punchline of their cruel joke. Ethan didn't defend me. Instead, he publicly denied our engagement in front of the city's elite, threw some cash on the table, and told me to get out. When I fled home and begged my father to call off the wedding, he furiously refused. "It is your duty to this family!" He roared the words, reminding me that this marriage was my lifelong penance for the car accident that killed Ethan's mother years ago. My stepmother just watched, fully aware that my father was using my trauma to secure his business deals with the Sterlings. I was suffocating under the crushing weight of a sin I didn't commit. Why did my entire existence have to be a transaction? Why was I forced to endure endless humiliation for a tragedy that wasn't even my fault? I had spent years being their obedient, silent victim, letting them drain the life out of me. But the next morning, when Julian Carlisle-the city's most notorious and untouchable billionaire who had unexpectedly defended me at the club-walked into my bakery, everything shifted. I looked right into his dark, intimidating eyes and smiled. This time, I was going to use the devil himself to break my cage.”