My Boyfriend Handed Me His Wedding Invitation with Another Woman

Vivienne Calloway had always been known as the good girl, the kind who never caused trouble, never stepped out of line. The most reckless thing she ever did was crawl into her stepbrother Julian Ashford's bed on the night of her eighteenth birthday. Julian had been cold and resistant at first. Then came the lust. After that, he kept her up until the small hours every night, unwilling to let her go. Eight years they were together. On the day she won the Best Emerging Journalist Award, Julian booked the bridal suite at The Swan Crest Hotel, the most coveted wedding venue in Nexis City. Vivienne let herself believe it. She let herself think that after all this time, they were finally going to make it official. What greeted her instead was a camera flash in the dark while she slept. She jolted awake to find a woman standing at the edge of the bed, beautiful, glacial, and utterly composed. "Sweetheart." The woman's voice was silk over ice. "There's a price to pay for sleeping with my fiancé." A manicured nail dragged slowly across Vivienne's cheek. Blood welled up in its wake. But Vivienne barely felt it. She turned toward Julian, searching his face for something, an explanation, a denial, anything. He was lounging against the headboard, a cigarette between his fingers, his voice still roughened from earlier. "This is Ellie," he said. "She will be your sister-in-law, Vivi." Vivienne felt something inside her collapse. By the time she came back to herself, the photos had already spread across the internet. The comments were merciless. "Vivi, I brought you into the Ashford family so Mr. Ashford would look after you, and this is how you repay him?! Throwing yourself at your own stepbrother, shameless as you are?!" Her mother said, brutally, "Don't hold back. Make it hurt." Vivienne was on her knees on the floor when the whip came down across her back. Love turned to stone in an instant. Across the room, Julian calmly covered Eleanor's eyes. "Too gruesome," he murmured. "Don't look." Vivienne stared at the two of them and forgot to cry out. Eight years. Eight years of him being there for everything. When her period came, he, a man who ran an empire, had stood in the kitchen and made her brown sugar ginger tea from scratch. When she held her photography exhibition, he had bought out the entire Midtown Plaza Tower, some of the most expensive real estate in Nexis City, just to give her the space she deserved. And at night, he gave everything, as though he wanted to hollow her out completely. She had believed, truly believed, that she and Julian Ashford were heading toward something permanent. Now she understood that she had been dreaming. Fifty lashes. By the end, her back was raw and broken open. They threw her into a room and locked the door. Three days. No food, no water. Her stomach burned like something was eating through it from the inside. When they finally let her out, she could barely walk. She pushed open the door to the study, gathered her laptop in her arms, and held onto one single thought: she was leaving the Ashford family, and she was never coming back. Then she stopped. Her flash drive was gone. Six months of work. Every frame, every interview, every sleepless night she had poured into her submission for the Best Journalism Award vanished. She went downstairs and pulled up the security footage. "Mr. Ashford, you gave the flash drive to Miss Whitfield. What do we do if Miss Calloway finds out?" The assistant's voice. Vivienne's footsteps froze. "It'll be fine." Julian's tone was easy, unbothered. "She owed Ellie that much anyway." The assistant hesitated. When he finally spoke again, his voice was careful, almost pained. "But… Miss Calloway's photos are all over the internet. Everyone is tearing her apart. She's already been punished. Why are you still doing this to her?" "This way Ellie gets the award she's always wanted," Julian said, "and Vivienne finally lets go of ideas she never should have had in the first place." He leaned back against the wall and lit a cigarette. "Frankly, I'm so tired of having to deal with her." "Mr. Ashford, forgive me for saying so, you talk about Miss Calloway like she's nothing, but I've watched you. The feelings are there. When she caught COVID, everyone else in this house was too afraid to go near her. You stayed by her side for three days straight. Didn't sleep once. The Whitfield family has been pushing the marriage arrangement for a long time now. You've kept stalling. I don't believe Miss Calloway had nothing to do with that." Julian was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed, a short, humorless sound. "Maybe. But compared to Ellie… she still doesn't measure up." The assistant said nothing. After a long silence, he exhaled softly. "I suppose so. Miss Whitfield is your Ellie, after all. The future Mrs. Ashford." He paused. "If Miss Calloway hadn't reported that the Whitfield family's construction project was cutting corners, her father wouldn't have died. And you were the one who documented that story first, for Ellie's sake." "I've said it before," Julian replied, his voice flat. "As long as I'm here, no one touches Ellie." Vivienne felt the floor drop out from under her. She bit down so hard her jaw ached, the only thing keeping her from making a sound. Her father. Her father had been destroyed by the Whitfield family. And Julian had known. He had known all along. After her mother remarried, Vivienne had tried to use the Ashford family's resources to investigate what had really happened. But every time she got close, every time she was on the verge of something real, the trail went cold. Some invisible force shut it down, every single time. Julian had gone with her to lay flowers at her father's grave. He had held her while she cried and told her to keep moving forward. She had thought he was her salvation. He was the one who had buried her father. Everything he had ever done for her, every kindness, every late night, every quiet gesture, had been for Eleanor Whitfield. A pain tore through Vivienne's chest, sharp and vicious. She pressed her nails into her palm until it grounded her. Inside the room, the voices continued. "Mr. Ashford, Miss Calloway's situation is going to be awkward once you're married. What do you plan to do with her?" Julian paused before saying, "She came to my bed at eighteen. If she leaves me, where else is she going to go? I'll keep her around. A kept woman, something to pass the time. But she will never have a name in this family. Not ever."