After my best friend survived an abusive marriage and finally filed for divorce, I made it my absolute mission to help her rebuild her life. I gave her money, I let her move into an apartment I owned, and I even funded a high-end women's boutique for her. Because she was introverted and insecure, I personally busted my ass running around, managing her marketing, and pushing my wealthy clients to shop there. My fiancé, Ethan Sterling, frowned in disapproval. "If she doesn't have the skills to run a business, she shouldn't open one. Why do you constantly have to clean up her messes? Is she a giant toddler?" We got into a massive fight over it. "Chloe is basically my little sister! If you disrespect her, you're disrespecting me!" A year later, I had to travel to Europe for a brutal, six-month corporate expansion project. When I got back, there were 99 luxury shopping bags from Chloe's boutique piled up in our living room. Ethan had bragged about it during one of our FaceTime calls. "Look at this! I'm practically single-handedly keeping your idiot best friend's business afloat. Aren't I such a good fiancé?" I was genuinely touched, assuming this was his way of compromising because he loved me. I intentionally flew back to the States a few days early, wanting to surprise him. Instead, I walked into the boutique and found Ethan and my best friend hooking up in the back breakroom. "Ethan... we always do this," Chloe murmured. "Make sure you take one of the dresses out front to give to Maya later. But don't you dare pay for it, or I'll feel too guilty." "This is the 99th time, Chloe. Are you going to give her the entire inventory? I'm the one who pursued you; you shouldn't have to sacrifice your profits for this." Standing outside the door, my blood literally turned to ice. So those 99 dresses weren't him "supporting her business." They were a physical tally of the exact number of times they had betrayed me. At 2:00 AM, the massive ashtray on my coffee table was overflowing with cigarette butts. The front door finally clicked open. Ethan walked in, giving Chloe a piggyback ride. They were laughing intimately. "Ethan, put me down! I've gained weight lately, I'm too heavy." "I don't care how heavy you are. I'd carry the woman I love anywhere." They abruptly froze when they noticed me sitting in the dark on the sofa. Seeing the 99 shopping bags piled up in the living room, Chloe's expression violently shifted. She immediately scrambled off Ethan's back. She forced a deeply awkward, trembling smile and reached out to grab my hand. "Maya! You're back early?! I... my shoes were pinching me today, and I got a blister, so Ethan was just carrying me inside so we could put a band-aid on it..." I didn't want to hear her pathetic, insulting lies. I swatted her hand away. "If I hadn't come back early, I probably wouldn't have noticed that the passcode to the house I share with my fiancé has magically been changed to your birthday." Chloe looked incredibly humiliated, desperately searching for an excuse, her eyes instinctively darting to Ethan for rescue. Ethan poured a glass of warm water and smoothly set it on the table in front of me. "This apartment is much closer to Chloe's boutique. Sometimes she's up late doing inventory, and I didn't want her exhausted and walking home alone in the dark. It's not safe. So I told her she could crash here sometimes." Over the years, Ethan had mastered the art of corporate deception, spinning lies to outmaneuver rival executives. Now, he was using those exact same tactics on me. If I hadn't come home to an empty house, found both their phones turned off, tracked his location out of panic thinking there was an emergency... I never would have walked into that repulsive, gut-wrenching scene in the boutique. I let out a harsh, sarcastic laugh. "That makes total sense. I always told you that sofa in the breakroom was too narrow. It must have been incredibly uncomfortable fucking on it." I looked directly at Chloe, kicking one of the shopping bags with my foot. "So, is my man good in bed? You're giving me all these dresses... is this your way of compensating me for prostituting out my fiancé? You're so generous." The remaining color violently drained from Chloe's face. "Maya, I'm so sorry, I..." Before she could even finish the sentence, she covered her mouth and burst into tears. Ethan immediately stepped between us, shielding her behind his back, his brow furrowing as he glared at me. "Maya, calm down. I am the one who initiated this. Do not take this out on Chloe. You know she's too fragile to handle this kind of hostility." He handed Chloe his car keys, gently wiping the tears from her cheeks. "Be a good girl, don't cry. Go wait for me in the car. I'll be right down." His tone was sickeningly tender, exactly like he was soothing a frightened child. Chapter 2 Chloe glanced nervously at me, then nodded, whispering: "Please just talk to her calmly. Don't fight because of me." But my eyes were locked onto the keychain dangling from the car keys. It was a custom, matching anime charm. It perfectly complemented the one hanging off Chloe's phone case. "Didn't you always say stuff like this was incredibly immature and you hated it?" I asked. Ethan stood by the window, waiting until he saw Chloe safely get into his car before he finally answered my question. "Maya, people change. And feelings... feelings change too. I hope you can understand that." I let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. Years ago, someone had asked Ethan if being with me for nearly a decade ever got boring. Ethan had raised an eyebrow and shot back: "Have you ever gotten bored of breathing oxygen? Maya is my oxygen. If she leaves, I'll suffocate." But now, he was standing directly in front of me, staring me dead in the eye, asking me to "understand" his infidelity. "The first time we slept together was March 12th. The power went out in her building. She's terrified of the dark, and she didn't know who else to call. You were out of the country." "When I got there, she was curled up in the corner, sobbing like a terrified little rabbit. It completely broke my heart." My breathing violently stopped. On March 12th, I had a severe flare-up of my chronic gastritis. I was shaking uncontrollably from the pain in a foreign hotel room, desperately just wanting to hear Ethan's voice. But his phone was turned off the entire night. The next morning, he told me he had a late networking dinner and passed out. I even told him to make sure he was resting enough. Looking back on it now, it was an absolute, humiliating joke. Ethan slowly slid our matching engagement ring off his finger and set it quietly on the coffee table. "Maya, Chloe is infinitely more fragile than you are. She needs my protection and care far more than you do. I'm going to marry her." "I'll sign the deed to this penthouse over to you as compensation. Moving forward, we can just maintain a professional relationship at the company, and remain friends." "I don't care if you hate me. But I'm asking you, at the absolute minimum, please be tolerant of Chloe. Don't make her feel guilty about this." The irony was physically nauseating. In the past, Ethan was constantly irritated by Chloe. He always complained that she acted like a giant, helpless toddler, and that I was the only person with the patience to deal with her. I even fought with him over it, demanding he treat her with more respect. And now, the roles were completely reversed. I stared down at the ring resting on the glass table. It was the exact ring Ethan had insisted on sliding onto my finger right before I left for the airport. "My future wife is incredible, and everyone is going to fall in love with you. I can't let some European guy steal you away. Wear this ring so everyone knows you're already taken!" I never, in my darkest nightmares, imagined that the marriage I had anticipated for years would be violently murdered by betrayal before it even began. Unable to contain the explosive rage boiling inside my chest, I grabbed a glass of water from the table and hurled it directly into Ethan's face. "You absolutely disgust me!" Ethan didn't even flinch. His expression remained completely dead, his voice dropping into a chilling, calculated warning: "Maya, I know you're furious, and you have every right to vent. If throwing water makes you feel better, I don't mind letting you do it again. But you need to keep this drama far away from Chloe. I will not allow you to stress her out over this." "Otherwise... we both know exactly how much of your youth, blood, and sweat you poured into building this company. It's essentially your child. I imagine you'd be absolutely devastated if you were forced to walk away from it. Right?" "After all, everyone says they can just 'start over,' but very few people actually manage to pull it off." I stared at him in sheer, unadulterated disbelief, my fingernails digging so deeply into my palms they almost bled. He was using his position as CEO to threaten me. The entire project management division of the company was built entirely on my back. It was my life's work. Ethan was, undoubtedly, a highly effective corporate shark. He knew exactly what my vulnerabilities were. He knew that the more you invest in something, the harder it is to walk away, which is why he felt completely emboldened to threaten my career. It wasn't until the heavy front door clicked shut behind him that the tears I had been fighting back finally fell. The next day was Monday, the day Chloe's boutique was closed. I took an Uber straight to her luxury apartment building. When Chloe opened the door and saw me, she immediately looked away, shifting uncomfortably. Chapter 3 "Maya, what... what are you doing here?" I pointed at the massive pile of 99 shopping bags I had dragged into the hallway behind me. "I'm here to return your merchandise. What, you aren't going to invite me inside?" Chloe bit her lip, hesitating for a long moment, before finally stepping aside to let me in. Once I stepped inside, I instantly understood why she hesitated. And I understood exactly why Ethan had left the penthouse so quickly and easily the night before. He didn't even bother packing a suitcase. He just texted me to throw all his stuff in the trash. Because he had already completely moved in here. There were matching couples' slippers in the entryway. Matching electric toothbrushes in the bathroom. Ethan's specific, ridiculously expensive brand of body wash was sitting in the shower, already half-empty. An entire row of his tailored suits hung in her closet, and a photobooth strip of them kissing was plastered directly onto the refrigerator. Looking around at the domestic bliss, I let out a soft, hollow laugh. "Wow. This is great. While I was busting my ass overseas, you two were playing house." Chloe awkwardly tugged at the hem of her shirt, desperately trying to change the subject. "Maya, those dresses... I wanted you to keep them as compensation. You didn't have to bring them back..." I let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "Chloe. When your abusive ex-husband was beating you and cheating on you, I was the one who drove over there in the middle of the night with a baseball bat to back you up. I paid for your divorce lawyer." "When you said you were too traumatized to move back in with your parents, that you felt completely disconnected from society and were terrified of working a corporate job... I used my own money to buy you this apartment. I paid the lease for your boutique. I paid for all the marketing. Every single time you needed cash for inventory, I wired it to you." "Other people called me a pathetic ATM, but I didn't care. We grew up together. I just wanted you to be okay. But right now? You are living in the apartment I bought for you, sleeping with my fiancé, and trying to use my own money to 'compensate' me. Do you not realize how incredibly, psychotically pathetic that is?" Chloe's eyes instantly welled with tears. She suddenly dropped to her knees right in front of me. "Maya, I know what I did was horrible. But I'm two months pregnant! I want to keep this baby! I want him to grow up in a complete, happy family!" "I love Ethan. I have never met anyone who makes me feel so safe and protected. You've always been so incredibly good to me, you've always let me have my way since we were little kids... can you please, please just let me have this one last thing?" Right. I had been programmed since childhood to yield to Chloe. When I was seven years old, my father and my stepmother decided I was a burden who was draining resources away from my new half-brother. In the dead of winter, they abandoned me at a Greyhound bus station and moved out of state. I managed to find my way back to our house, only to discover it had already been sold. I had nowhere to go. I nearly froze to death on the sidewalk. It was Chloe, the girl who lived next door, who found me and brought me inside. Her parents took me in and shared their home with me. Because of that, I made a silent vow that I would spend the rest of my life repaying them. I vowed I would always yield to Chloe. When I started making real money, I bought them houses. I paid her father's massive medical bills. I gave them hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. But precisely because I treated Chloe like my own flesh and blood, her betrayal felt like a shotgun blast to the chest. I stared coldly at her stomach. "Chloe, considering the two decades of history we share, and out of respect for your parents, I am giving you one chance." "Get an abortion. Cut Ethan out of your life entirely. You can either choose your sister, or you can choose a man who cheats. Think very carefully." Chloe instinctively wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach, shaking her head as she sobbed. "Maya, I know you gave me so much. But I want a family! I can't live without Ethan! And my baby needs a father..." "I'll close the boutique. I'll sign the deed to the apartment back over to you. But Ethan... I cannot give him up." I let out a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. "Chloe, what you are doing right now is the exact, identical behavior of the mistress who destroyed your own marriage. I have absolutely zero respect for you." She froze. And then, the pathetic, weeping victim routine completely vanished. She scrambled up from the floor, frantically grabbing the heavy luxury shopping bags and violently hurling them directly at my face. "Maya, what gives you the right to look down on me?! If it wasn't for me, you would have frozen to death in a gutter! Everything you have, everything you've ever given me, you owe me!" Chapter 4 "I am never leaving Ethan! And I am absolutely not going to let my child grow up as a pathetic, abandoned bastard like you!" I stood completely paralyzed, not even registering the blood dripping down my forehead where the sharp cardboard edge of a shopping bag had sliced my skin. This was the woman I treated like a blood sister. Weaponizing the deepest, most agonizing trauma of my childhood, plunging it directly into my heart like a dagger. Because Chloe was screaming and thrashing so violently, she suddenly clutched her stomach, groaning in pain. My deeply ingrained, muscle-memory instinct kicked in, and I immediately reached out to catch her. But before I could, I was violently shoved backward. Ethan, having just walked through the front door, caught Chloe in his arms. He glared at me furiously and hurled a black AMEX card directly into my face. "Maya, she is pregnant! Was verbally abusing her not enough for you?! You actually tried to assault her?!" "The balance on this card is more than enough to repay every single dime you've ever spent on her. Stop using your money to guilt-trip and terrorize her!" Chloe, sobbing hysterically, grabbed my jacket and violently shoved me out into the hallway. "You evil bitch! Get out! We are completely even now! I will never let anyone destroy my family or hurt my baby!" My balance shifted on my heels, and I crashed hard onto the floor of the hallway. The back of my head slammed against the metal elevator doors. A warm, thick stream of blood rushed down my neck. But neither of them even glanced at me. The door slammed shut in my face. Through the heavy wood, I could faintly hear Ethan whispering gentle, soothing apologies to her. I lay on the cold hallway floor, letting out a weak, bitter laugh as the tears finally spilled over. I remembered the night I brought Chloe back to our apartment after rescuing her from her abusive ex-husband. The mistress had shown up at her door, beaten her, and caused her to miscarry her two-month-old pregnancy. Chloe had just sat on our sofa, helpless and sobbing. The situation was incredibly traumatic. Ethan had been visibly shaken by it. He held both my hands tightly and swore to me: "Maya, I swear to God, I am going to treat you like a queen for the rest of my life. I will never, ever let you experience what Chloe just went through." "If I ever betray you, or if I ever lay a single finger on you, I pray I lose absolutely everything." Later, when I was running myself ragged at the hospital, completely exhausted after staying awake for three days straight to take care of her, Chloe had looked at me with deep guilt. "Maya, you're always taking care of me. I'm going to learn how to be brave. If Ethan ever tries to bully you in the future, I'm going to be the one who protects you." Now, she had finally found her "bravery." And she was using it to attack me. And he... he had completely, utterly forgotten the vow he made. A few days later, my close friend and top corporate client, Sarah, called me. "Maya, that 'best friend' of yours just sent out a mass promo text. She claims she sold her old boutique and opened a massive new flagship store in the Diamond District." "The commercial rent down there is astronomical. I asked around—apparently Ethan Sterling funded the entire thing. She even renamed the store 'Eternal Grace.' It's so painfully obvious. Wait, isn't he your fiancé?" "The only reason the girls in our network even shopped at her tacky little store was as a favor to you. What the hell is going on?" I replied, my voice completely devoid of emotion: "She's pregnant with his child. Moving forward, whatever they do has absolutely nothing to do with me." Sarah was silent for a few seconds before she muttered a quiet, vicious curse under her breath. "Understood. If you need me to burn anything down, just say the word." A week later, my PTO officially ended. I returned to the corporate office. Ethan summoned me to his executive suite. The exact second the heavy glass door clicked shut, he lunged forward, violently pinning me against the wall. "Maya, are you the one spreading vicious rumors to Chloe's VIP clients, calling her a homewrecker?" "Do you have any idea what you've done? Her clients are demanding refunds on their memberships, they're blocking her number, and they're sending her horrific, abusive messages. She had such a severe panic attack she almost miscarried again! How could you stoop to such disgusting, underhanded tactics?!" I let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Whether it's a rumor or a clinical fact, you know exactly what the truth is. All I did was answer their questions honestly about why we broke up." Ethan took a deep, jagged breath. "You are going to call every single one of those women right now. You are going to clear Chloe's name, and you are going to issue a public, formal apology to her." "In your fucking dreams." Ethan's face turned ashen with absolute rage. "Maya, you forced my hand. Do not regret this."
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "570848", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel