Dumped My Cheating Husband, Married a s*x God

Chapter 13

The sound of my phone buzzing woke me before the alarm could.

I groaned, rolling over in the impossibly soft sheets, my hand fumbling across the nightstand until my fingers closed around the device. The screen was blinding in the early morning light filtering through the curtains, and I squinted at the notification that had dragged me from sleep.

Thirty million dollars deposited into your account.

I sat up so fast the room spun.

Thirty million? I blinked at the screen, my heart hammering against my ribs. That couldn't be right. The debt was fifty-five million, not thirty. And even then, Alex and his mother didn't have that kind of money. They could barely afford the mortgage on the house I'd thrown them out of.

My thumb swiped open the notification, and another alert popped up immediately after. An email from Liam.

Subject: Partial Payment Received + Meeting Request

I opened it, scanning the brief message with growing confusion.

Miss Hale,

Mrs. Voss and her son have made a partial payment of 30 million this morning. They have also requested an urgent meeting with you to discuss "remaining arrangements." Please advise on how you would like me to proceed.

Best regards,

Liam

I stared at the screen, my mind racing. Thirty million. Where on earth had they gotten thirty million dollars? Alex's salary at the company had been generous, but not that generous. His mother had no income of her own. And the Voss family business had been struggling for years—that was half the reason Alex had married me in the first place, to get his hands on my company's resources.

Unless...

Unless they'd liquidated assets. Sold property. Borrowed from every loan shark in the city. The thought should have made me feel something—pity, maybe, or satisfaction. But all I felt was a cold, hard resolve. They owed me fifty-five million. Thirty was a start, but it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

I typed out a quick reply to Liam.

Decline the meeting. Remind them that the remaining balance is 25 million plus accumulated interest at 1% per day. No negotiations. No meetings. They pay, or they face the consequences we discussed.

I hit send before I could second-guess myself, then set the phone back on the nightstand with a sharp click.

Thirty million dollars.

A smile tugged at my lips despite myself. It wasn't the full amount, but it was more than I'd expected them to scrape together. And the interest was still climbing, ticking upward like a metronome counting down to their financial ruin. Let them squirm. Let them panic. They'd made their bed—the same bed I'd found Alex and Mara in—and now they could lie in it.

I was still basking in the satisfaction of it, mentally calculating how much the debt would grow by the end of the week, when a warm arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me back down into the mattress.

"You're awake too early," Adrian murmured against my neck, his voice rough with sleep. His lips found the sensitive spot just below my ear, and I shivered despite myself.

"I had a notification," I said, my voice coming out breathier than I intended. "Business."

"Business can wait." His hand slid up my torso, warm and possessive, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast through the thin fabric of the shirt I'd slept in—his shirt, again. "It's barely seven. We don't leave until ten."

"Adrian—" I started, but his mouth cut me off, his lips trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of my throat. His hand pushed the shirt up, exposing my stomach to the cool morning air, and I gasped when his palm flattened against my skin, branding me with his heat.

"You taste like sleep and something sweet," he growled against my collarbone, his teeth grazing the tendon there with just enough pressure to make my toes curl. "What did you dream about?"

"I don't remember," I lied. I'd dreamed about him. About this. About the way his hands felt mapping every inch of my body like he was memorizing terrain he intended to conquer.

"Liar." He bit down, harder this time, and I felt the unmistakable pull of suction as he marked me. A hickey. Right where anyone could see it.

"Adrian, stop." I pushed at his shoulder, my palms meeting the solid wall of muscle beneath his skin. He was shirtless—I didn't know when he'd lost his shirt, but the heat radiating off him was intoxicating, making it hard to think straight. "We can't. Not this morning."

He pulled back just enough to look at me, his dark eyes heavy-lidded and dangerous. "Why not?"

"Because." I gestured vaguely at my neck, at the spot he'd just been attacking. "I'm meeting your parents today. Your mother. I don't want to show up looking like I've been mauled by a wild animal."

His lips curved into a smile that was half-amused, half-feral. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is a bad thing." I shoved at him again, and this time he let me sit up, though his hand remained firmly planted on my hip, his thumb tracing idle patterns against my skin. "I need to make a good impression. I need to look... respectable. Presentable. Not like someone who spent the morning being ravished by her husband of two days."

He wasn't even fazed, he only smiled wider, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that made my chest tighten. "My mother has five sons, Selena. She knows what newlyweds are like. She won't judge you for having marks on your neck."

"Five sons?" I repeated, my brain latching onto the new information like a lifeline. "You have four brothers?"

"Three brothers. One half-brother." Adrian's hand finally left my hip, and he sat up beside me, running a hand through his disheveled hair. It stuck up in dark, messy tufts that made him look younger, almost boyish. Nothing like the intimidating CEO who'd signed my company's contract with a single flourish of his pen. "Marcus is the oldest. Then me. Then Julian and Damien—the twins. And finally Tristan, my half-brother. He's the youngest."

I tried to process this. Five sons. A whole dynasty of Vale men. No wonder Adrian was so comfortable taking charge, so used to getting his way. He'd probably been competing for attention since birth.

"Are they all like you?" I asked before I could stop myself.

Adrian raised an eyebrow. "Like me how?"

"You know." I waved a hand at him, at the broad shoulders and the sharp jawline and the eyes that seemed to see straight through my carefully constructed defenses. "Intense. Overbearing. Used to getting whatever they want."

He laughed then, a real laugh that rumbled deep in his chest and transformed his face into something almost approachable. "Marcus is worse. Julian and Damien are... chaotic. They feed off each other. And Tristan—" He paused, his expression shifting into something softer, almost fond. "Tristan is different. You'll see."

I swallowed hard. I'll see. Because I was actually doing this. I was actually going to meet his entire family, sit across from them at a lunch table, and pretend to be the wife I'd become by accident.

"I should get ready," I said, sliding out of bed before Adrian could reach for me again. My legs were steadier this morning, though I still felt the lingering ache of yesterday's activities deep in my muscles. A pleasant ache. A reminder. "What time did you say the driver was coming?"

"Ten." Adrian leaned back against the headboard, watching me with those dark, unreadable eyes as I gathered clothes from the shopping bags still scattered around the room. "Take your time. My mother appreciates punctuality, but she appreciates effort more."

"I'm not putting in any effort" I reminded him again. Though I knew I would. There's no way I'm giving a bad first impression. They need to see me and go 'wow'.

He smiled but didn't reply.

I scoffed and grabbed the cream blouse with the pearl buttons and one of the pencil skirts, along with a pair of modest heels from the collection he'd bought. Not the strappy ones. Something that said "respectable businesswoman" rather than "woman who was thoroughly debauched last night."

I caught my reflection in the bathroom mirrors again and sighed. The ones from yesterday haven't faded, and another has joined the list.

I spent twenty minutes carefully applying concealer, layering it until the worst of the bruises were hidden beneath a mask of foundation and powder. My neck was still slightly discolored, but it was passable. Respectable enough for a first meeting.

By the time I emerged from the bathroom, dressed and made up and feeling more like myself than I had in days, Adrian was already waiting by the door. He'd changed into dark trousers and a charcoal sweater that clung to his torso in ways that should have been illegal, his hair neatly combed back from his face.

"You look beautiful," he said, his gaze sweeping over me from head to toe with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

"I look like I'm going to a board meeting," I countered, adjusting the pearl buttons on my blouse.

"Same thing." He held out his hand. "My family is essentially a corporation with better food."

I took his hand, his fingers intertwining with mine in a grip that was firm and warm and somehow reassuring. "That doesn't make me feel better."

"It should. You're a CEO. You negotiate million-dollar deals before breakfast." He squeezed my hand gently. "My family is just... a different kind of negotiation."

The drive to the Vale estate took exactly one hour, though it felt like both an eternity and no time at all. Adrian sat beside me in the back of the Rolls-Royce, his thigh pressed against mine, his hand never leaving mine except to answer the occasional message on his phone. We didn't talk much, though I couldn't help thinking of my first time in this car. I wanted to bury my head in shame. Why did it have to be the same car?

Soon, the car slowed to a stop in front of a huge towering mansion, and I found myself staring up at the imposing facade, my hand tightening unconsciously around Adrian's.

We had arrived.