All Chapters of The Substitute Bride's Revenge : Chapter 1 - Chapter 6

"These can't be right."Aria hunched over the quarterly reports, the numbers swimming before her eyes. Each column told the same story—a downward spiral that had begun years ago, almost to the day her father had married Victoria Pierce.She tucked a strand of dark curls behind her ear. Her fingers left a smudge of ink on her cheek, unnoticed as she recalculated the figures for the third time.The office around her had emptied hours ago. At twenty-four, Aria was often the first to arrive and the last to leave, desperately trying to keep her father's legacy from crumbling beneath the weight of mounting debt.The business degree she'd worked so hard for at State University—scholarship-funded, unlike Vivian's designer education was being put to use in ways her professors had never covered: how to stretch payments, which creditors to prioritize, when to beg for extensions.Her phone vibrated on the desk. A notification from Instagram. Without thinking, she tapped it open.Vivian Pierce's p

Morning light filtered through the blinds, casting prison-bar shadows across Robert Taylor's sleeping form.Aria shifted in the uncomfortable chair where she'd spent the night, her neck stiff, her mind foggy from fitful sleep interrupted by nurses' checks and the steady beep of monitoring equipment.The doctor had called it a "cardiac event"—not quite a heart attack, but a warning shot across the bow. "His heart is weakening," Dr. Winters had explained in hushed tones outside the room. "The stress, his age, his previous attack... He needs calm and stability. Another episode like this could be fatal."Aria rubbed her eyes, smudging yesterday's mascara further.Her phone showed seventeen missed calls from the office. Monday morning, and for the first time in her working life, she wasn't there to open the doors.The click of expensive heels announced Victoria's arrival before she appeared in the doorway, immaculate in a dove-gray suit, not a hair out of place despite the early hour.She

Xavier Harrington's office was a monument to power. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city he was systematically conquering, furniture of dark leather… not a single personal photograph or memento to suggest the occupant was human rather than a perfectly engineered corporate machine.The man stood with his back to the door, speaking quietly into a phone while gazing out at his domain. Tall and broad-shouldered, his bespoke suit emphasized a physique maintained by expensive personal trainers and ruthless self-discipline.When he turned, Aria's breath caught—not because of his conventional good looks, but because of the absolute coldness in his ice-blue eyes.Those eyes barely registered Aria's presence, focusing instead on Victoria as he concluded his call. "Meeting later. Pierce priority."With that, he set down the phone without saying goodbye."Victoria. I expected this meeting four hours ago." His words fell like ice shards into the silence."A family emergency," Victoria exp