The Heiress Returns: I Married My Ex Husband's Rival For Revenge

Chapter 7

Genevieve walked back into her suite and shut the door. The lock clicked soft in the quiet. She kicked off her shoes and placed Sebastian’s black business card on the bedside table. The silver letters caught the soft light from the lamp. She told herself she would throw it away in the morning. She even reached out once, fingers hovering above it, but she pulled her hand back. She could not make herself touch it again.

She dropped onto the bed fully dressed. The sheets felt cool against her skin. She closed her eyes and waited for sleep. It did not come. Her body was tired, but her mind stayed wide awake, spinning faster than it had in weeks.

The silence pressed in on her. With nothing to distract her, every thought came rushing back like a flood.

She saw the boardroom again. The long table. The lawyer clearing his throat. Uncle Silas laughing that nervous laugh before he asked the lawyer to repeat the last line. Aunt Gigi shaking her head. Maurice’s angry face. Devon’s sharp words. And Nicholas sitting beside her, quiet, with that small smirk she had not noticed then.

Genevieve rolled onto her side and pressed her face into the pillow. The fabric smelled clean and empty. She whispered into it, “You were a fool.”

The next memory came harder. Three weeks later. Nicholas’s office. The way she had stormed past the secretary. The files she had thrown on his desk. The crash of his laptop hitting the floor. His calm voice turning sharp.

“I never wanted you in the first place,” he had said. “I married you because of your inheritance.”

She could still hear Isabella’s soft footsteps when the inner door opened. She could still smell that perfume. She could still see the way Nicholas kissed Isabella right in front of her and then rested his hand on Isabella’s stomach.

“She’s pregnant with my child,” he had told her. “Something you couldn’t even do.”

Genevieve sat up so fast the room tilted. Her heart pounded. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. She paced the small space between the bed and the window, arms wrapped tight around herself.

“How did I not see it?” she said out loud to the empty room. Her voice sounded strange in the quiet. “Five years. Five whole years.”

She stopped at the window and pulled the curtain back a little. The night outside was dark. Only a few distant lights glowed. She stared at them without really seeing them.

She thought about every smile Nicholas had given her. Every time he had called her “darling.” Every quiet night when she had believed they were building something real. Now those memories looked different. They looked like careful lies. She wondered if he had ever truly looked at her with love, or if every soft word had been planned from the start.

The anger started small, like a spark. Then it grew. It burned hotter with every thought. Nicholas had not only taken her money and her house. He had taken the years her grandfather spent teaching her. He had taken her name in the papers. He had taken the future she was supposed to have. He had stood in front of her family and the world and made her look small and broken.

Genevieve turned from the window and faced the bed again. The business card still sat on the table, quiet and waiting.

She walked over and sat on the edge of the mattress. She stared at the card.

“This is crazy,” she said. “Marrying a man I barely know just to hurt Nicholas. What if Sebastian is worse? What if he uses me the same way?”

She stood up again and paced. Her bare feet made soft sounds on the carpet.

“And what if I say no?” she continued, talking to herself like someone else was in the room. “Then Nicholas keeps everything. He wins. He walks around with Isabella and their baby and my grandfather’s money, and I stay hidden in places like this forever.”

She stopped and pressed both hands against her face. Her skin felt hot.

“I wanted a quiet life once,” she whispered. “A real marriage. A home that felt safe. Children maybe. Peace.”

The words tasted bitter now. That life was gone. Nicholas had burned it down.

She dropped her hands and looked at the card again. Her mind kept arguing both sides, back and forth, for hours.

Marrying Sebastian would put her right back into the public eye. The newspapers would call her desperate. Her family would talk. Uncle Silas would laugh. Devon would sneer. People would say she jumped from one man to another without thinking.

But staying quiet meant letting Nicholas keep what he stole. It meant waking up every morning knowing he was still winning.

Genevieve sat down hard on the bed. She pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them. The room stayed dark except for the small lamp. Time moved slowly. The clock on the wall ticked.

She thought about the way Sebastian had looked at her in the bar. Those steel-colored eyes that did not look away. The calm way he had spoken about destroying Nicholas. The simple black card he had left behind like an open door.

“You would be a queen,” he had said. Not a pawn.

She repeated the words under her breath. They sounded strong. They also sounded dangerous.

Her body grew heavier as the hours passed, but sleep still stayed away. She lay down again, then sat up, then paced once more. She talked to the empty air until her voice grew rough.

“If I do this, there is no going back,” she said. “If I walk away, there is also no going back. Either way, the old Genevieve is gone.”

The first soft light of morning began to push at the edges of the curtains. The sky outside turned from black to a pale gray. Birds started calling somewhere far away.

Genevieve sat on the edge of the bed one last time. Her eyes felt dry and tired. Her heart still beat too fast. She looked at the business card the way a person looks at a door they are not sure they should open.

She reached out. Her fingers closed around the smooth black card. She did not throw it away. She held it carefully, surprised by her own hand.

She turned the card over once, then twice, feeling the edges. The silver letters still shone in the growing light.

Genevieve stayed like that for a long moment, the card warm in her palm, the quiet room around her, and the new day waiting outside. She no longer asked if the idea was crazy. She only asked herself one last soft question.

“Is revenge worth everything I still have left?”