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I Married My Billionaire Ex, Not My Sister's Baby Daddy
Novelix
Completed
Valentine's Day. My wedding day. Except my fiancé was at the altar kissing my sister and christening their son. My mother called me "selfish" for wanting my own wedding date. My best friend laughed about getting rid of me. My father toasted my sister's "suffering."They thought I'd crawl back begging. Instead, I pulled out the phone number I'd kept for four years—the billionaire ex they tore me away from with one fake text message. "Free on the 18th?" Sebastian Vane replied in two seconds: "I'm boarding the first flight." This time, fate gave me and my ex a second chance, and I said yes.
Chapters (3)
第1章
The day before Valentine's Day, my friend Chloe Barrett complained in the group chat.
"Why did Amelia have to pick February 14 of all days? Valentine's Day only comes once a year. Who doesn't want to spend it with their partner?"
Two minutes later, my parents messaged me.
Margaret Ashford: You've always been selfish, Amelia. Everything has to be about you.
Richard Ashford: Change the date. Today.
One complaint from Chloe, and my parents were demanding I reschedule my wedding.
In the end, I caved and moved it to February 18.
On the morning of February 14, I remembered I'd left my ring box in the dressing room at Hale Manor.
When I arrived and headed toward the dressing room through the side entrance, I found the hall packed.
At the center of the stage, my fiancé, Julian Hale, stood in a charcoal suit, his body turned slightly to the side.
He had his arms around a woman in a champagne-colored gown.
He bent down and kissed her.
The woman was my sister.
Vivian Ashford.
Chloe was clinging to my mother's arm like they were the real mother and daughter.
"Thank God we kept Amelia from showing up and ruining everything."
"Amelia is such a headache," my mother said. "She just had to schedule her wedding on the same day as Julian and Vivian's baby's christening. Thank goodness she changed it."
The guests burst into applause.
I stood frozen in the shadows of the back hallway.
My family, my friend, and my fiancé had all been lying to me.
And I'd had no clue.
I'd been planning my wedding to Julian like a complete idiot.
I wiped my tears, pulled my phone from my purse, and started recording.
Then I opened my messages.
I'd kept that number for four years.
I'd never called it.
I typed one line.
Are you free to get married on February 18?
Send.
My phone buzzed almost immediately.
"Of course."
More messages came through, one after another.
"I'm in Zurich. I'll book the first flight back."
"Where are you?"
I hesitated, then sent a smiley face.
Onstage, Vivian lifted the baby out of the bassinet and held him up for the guests to see.
That tiny face was the spitting image of Julian.
My father stood up and raised his glass.
"Our Vivian has been through so much."
His voice broke halfway through.
He wiped the corner of his eye with the back of his hand. My mother, crying too, handed him a tissue.
Everyone raised their glasses.
The sight made me sick to my stomach.
A year ago, Vivian had been three months pregnant and had refused to name the father.
She'd cried as she showed me the only photo she had of him on her phone.
It was a blurry photo of a man's back.
I'd taken that photo to the investment bank where she was interning and questioned every man I saw going in or out.
Security threw me out.
It was raining when they shoved me down the steps.
My arm hit the stone edge of a planter, leaving a long gash.
I fractured a bone in my lower leg.
Twice, I tried to get up in the rain.
Twice, I failed.
Julian was the one who took me to the hospital.
He stayed by my bed all night, holding my hand.
"Let Vivian deal with her own problems. Look what you've done to yourself. Do you have any idea how much it kills me to see you like this?"
Only now did I realize the man I'd been searching everywhere for had been sitting right next to my hospital bed.
The baptism began.
Julian stood beside Vivian with a hand on her waist.
My mother sat in the front row, hands clasped against her chest.
My phone buzzed.
Chloe had posted in the wedding group chat.
"The christening went off without a hitch. Finally got rid of Amelia, that pain in the ass. Who does she think she is, hogging Valentine's Day?"
Two minutes later, she realized she'd sent it to the wrong chat and deleted it.
Then she posted again.
"Sorry, wrong chat."
I stared at the words, the corner of my mouth twitching.
So they had another group chat too.
What Chloe didn't know was that I'd already screenshotted it.
A low hum came from the speakers behind me.
The enormous screen at the front of the hall lit up.
A title appeared.
"New Parents: Our Four Years Together"
第2章
The first clip showed the entrance to a restaurant.
Julian was down on one knee.
Vivian covered her mouth, the pink diamond on her hand so big it caught the light.
My mother applauded beside them.
My father held up a glass of champagne.
Chloe cheered.
The date appeared in the lower right corner.
February 14, three years ago.
That night, I'd sat in another restaurant until closing because Julian had texted to say something urgent had come up at work.
He'd told me more than once, "Proposals are just a formality."
I'd believed him.
In the end, I'd saved three months of paychecks to buy the watch he'd been eyeing.
Then I'd asked him, "Julian, should we get married?"
The second clip showed a private hospital suite.
Julian supported Vivian's elbow with one hand and hovered the other just behind her back as they walked slowly down the hall.
My parents trailed behind them.
The date was last September.
While they'd been there, I'd been in the ER with acute appendicitis, signing my surgical consent forms alone.
I'd called Julian.
He'd said he was entertaining a client.
My mother had said, "It's a minor procedure. Do you really need someone to hold your hand?"
Every time they'd brushed me off, they'd been somewhere else.
With Vivian.
I stepped back into the rear hallway and called Julian.
He let it ring for a long time before picking up.
"What is it?"
His voice was low.
"I moved the wedding to the eighteenth," I said. "Are you free that day?"
Vivian's voice came through the phone.
"You promised you'd take the baby and me to the beach."
"Amelia, there's no rush to get married," Julian said immediately.
I peeked around the pillar.
He stood beside the stage, one hand resting on Vivian's shoulder.
"What if I insist on getting married on the eighteenth?"
Silence.
Then his voice softened.
"I know planning the wedding hasn't been easy on you."
"But you don't have to be so hung up on the details. A wedding is just a ceremony. It doesn't matter when we have it."
"I'm busy today. I'll come home and spend time with you later."
He hung up.
A new clip appeared on the screen.
Julian and Vivian's wedding.
At Hale Manor.
With the most famous band money could buy.
I'd spent six months planning my wedding.
The entire budget wasn't even a tenth of what this one cost.
On the screen, Julian's mother, Eleanor, took out an emerald necklace and fastened it around Vivian's neck in front of everyone.
"Vivian, the Hale family owes you so much. You're the one we accept as Julian's wife, not Amelia."
Another wave of applause swept through the hall.
I gripped the doorframe so hard my nails nearly dug into the grain of the wood.
When Vivian couldn't find a job after graduation, I'd called in favors with my professor and my friends to get her application into that investment bank.
I'd helped her prep for the interview too.
Everyone praised her beauty, her talent, her competence.
I was the ungrateful one, the petty one, the selfish one.
I didn't need to see any more.
I turned around and drove back to my apartment.
Julian's things were everywhere.
His shirts filled half the closet, his shoes sat by the door, and the Lego set we'd spent two months building sat on the coffee table.
I left all of it where it was.
I opened my laptop and emailed a real estate agency.
I wanted to sell the apartment.
Half an hour later, an agent called.
"Are you sure you have the right property, Ms. Ashford?" he asked. "This apartment is held by a trust for a separate family trust of the Ashford family. The sole beneficiary is Vivian Ashford."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"My parents bought one apartment for me and one for my sister."
Keys clicked on his end.
Then he sounded impatient.
"Both apartments are in Vivian Ashford's name. Please don't waste my time."
He hung up.
I opened the closet.
An entire row on the left held Vivian's old dresses, the ones she'd handed down to me.
On the right were the only two dresses I'd bought new.
There was only one lipstick on the vanity. I'd worn it down to the nub.
In a drawer, I found a photo album I'd never seen before.
I opened it.
Every picture was of Julian and Vivian.
The love I'd imagined had never been mine to begin with.
I packed the last of my things and rolled my suitcase toward the door.
My phone buzzed.
"I'm on the plane."
"I've had my assistant take you to our house. The deed is in your name."
I opened the door.
A black Maybach was waiting downstairs.
At nine that evening, after the christening reception ended, Julian tried to call me.
I didn't pick up.
"Where did Amelia go?" he asked.
Chloe glanced at her phone and suddenly cried out.
"Amelia just posted a wedding invitation on Instagram."
第3章
Julian frowned.
"Didn't I tell her to postpone it?"
Chloe scrolled and laughed.
"She has no shame."
Vivian leaned over to check the date.
"It really is the eighteenth. She's that desperate."
Julian called me again.
I was sitting in the living room of the riverfront mansion.
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the river stretched out across the view.
"Amelia."
His voice was tight with anger.
"I told you I'm not marrying you on the eighteenth. Take that post down."
"Julian," I said. "Look at the groom's name."
He went silent for a moment.
Then he sounded even angrier.
"Amelia Ashford, what the hell kind of tantrum is this? I'll cancel every vendor you booked. Take some time to cool off."
He hung up.
For the next ten minutes, my phone kept buzzing.
The officiant: "I won't be able to make it. Sorry."
The photographer: "Sorry."
The makeup artist: "Sorry."
I replied to each one.
"Okay."
My new fiancé had already lined up a better team for me anyway.
I opened another window.
The apartment's live security feed.
On the screen, Chloe was perched on the dining table, swinging her legs.
"Julian, are you really not going to marry Amelia?"
"She's going to cry, you know."
Julian poured himself a drink.
"Vivian, the baby's still so little."
"I'll make it up to Amelia when he's older."
Chloe bumped his shoulder with hers, laughing.
"You already have a baby with Vivian. What does that make Amelia? The other woman?"
Vivian laughed.
Julian was quiet for a few seconds.
"I was drunk that night."
"Vivian and Amelia look so much alike. I thought she was Amelia."
"I never meant to get involved with Vivian, but..."
"Now I love them both. I'll take care of both of them. I owe Vivian too much."
I closed the feed and went to the bathroom to throw up.
Then I drove to the Ashfords' house.
I wanted answers about the apartment.
No one was home, but the study light was on.
An open folder lay on the desk, the Hale Group emblem printed on its cover.
Next to it was a note.
"Richard, finalize Amelia's marriage arrangements next week. -E.H."
I opened the folder.
The first page was a trust transfer record from twenty-one years ago.
The Ashford family trust had paid $1.8 million to a company that had since been dissolved.
The signature was Richard Ashford's.
The second page documented the reimbursement.
Hale Group had covered the missing $1.8 million.
The third page was a memorandum.
The Ashford family would settle that debt through a marriage between Amelia Ashford and Julian Hale.
The fourth page listed the beneficiaries of the Ashford family trusts.
One name had been circled in red.
Vivian Ashford.
At last, I understood why we'd been treated so differently our whole lives.
When I finished first in my class, they said, "Vivian would do better than you if she cared about school."
When I washed a sink full of dishes until my fingers blistered, they praised Vivian.
"She never has to lift a finger. What a lucky girl."
On her birthday, they took her to Disney World.
I got a slice of her leftover cake.
I wore the dresses she didn't want until I was eighteen.
I'd spent my whole life trying to prove I deserved to be loved.
They'd saved every scrap of their love for Vivian.
I photographed all three documents, page by page.
Just as I was about to leave, my mother called.
Her voice was shaking.
"Amelia, somebody beat up your father at the casino. Get over here now."
When I arrived, the door was ajar.
I heard my mother's hushed voice inside.
"Make it convincing, or Amelia will keep pushing Julian to marry her."
"Vivian still needs him to take care of her for the next few days."
My hand froze against the door.
A second later, a man behind me kicked it open.