thousand autumn

My mother sells special éclairs. Each one costs a thousand dollars, but the female customers fight each other to buy them. They look like they can't get enough. My sister wants to take a box to share with her boyfriend when she sees how popular they are. However, my mother firmly rejects her. She says she's the only one who can touch those éclairs. My sister refuses to listen. She secretly sneaks into the freezer in the basement. Then, in the middle of the night, I hear her wanton moans.

I was just eighteen when I mistook a business deal for a fairy tale, letting a schoolgirl crush blind me to the truth. My prince charming? He turned out to be more of a wolf in an Armani suit. Now, five years and a thousand broken pieces later, I've rebuilt myself into someone I barely recognize, a CEO, a survivor, and most importantly, a mother to my beautiful son Griffin. I thought I'd buried the naive girl who once dreamed in a garden. Apparently, the universe had other plans. My ex-husband's back, claiming he's changed and wanting a second chance. And then there's James Drake, a billionaire with scars that match my own, who makes me wonder if my heart remembers how to beat for something other than revenge. Between poisoned flowers showing up at my office and threats creeping too close to my son, I'm learning that success is the best revenge, if I can stay alive long enough to enjoy it. They say love is sweeter the second time around, but can I trust it when betrayal wore the face of love once before? One thing's certain: I'm not that naive wife anymore. And this time, I'm playing for keeps.

The day after the new year, during a family gathering, my aunt sneered at me as I worked overtime, reviewing a proposal. "Why are you pretending to be so busy? It’s not like we don’t know you only make three thousand a month. Real money-makers are people like my daughter, a designer so successful she doesn’t even have time to come home!" I ignored her, but she directed her spoiled son to delete all my files while I was in the bathroom. My hands trembled with rage. "This proposal is due in ten minutes—if I don’t submit it, everything is ruined!" She scoffed dismissively. "He’s just a kid. What could he possibly know? Besides, your job isn’t even worth much. If you lose the files, you lose them. Worst case, you get fired." I chuckled coldly but said nothing. She had no idea it was the proposal her daughter had spent an entire month working on. And I was the client who held her daughter’s fate in my hands.