Chapter 1My Husband Is The Rival

Today was supposed to be the pinnacle of my life—my engagement gala to Alex Cross.

Instead, it became the day he walked into the ballroom with Lucy, the "miracle" biological daughter the Hart family had finally brought home, clutching a marriage certificate. They hadn’t just skipped the engagement; they had already tied the knot.

Alex looked at me, his gaze stripped of the warmth I had relied on for five years. Now, there was only a cold, sharp disdain.

"You didn't actually think I was going to marry you, did you, Isabel?" he asked, his voice echoing through the silent hall.

Lucy clung to his arm, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. "I told Alex to play along for a bit," she said, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. "I thought you needed a reality check, but I didn't realize you were actually delusional enough to believe the act."

Even my parents—the people who had raised me, who had called me their daughter for twenty years—stood firmly behind them. To them, this was simply cosmic justice.

"You had twenty years of a life that belonged to Lucy," my mother said, her eyes hard. "So what if you dated Alex for five years? You were just keeping his seat warm."

It was only then that the fog lifted. Alex and Lucy hadn't just met; they had been orchestrating this for months. This gala, the dress I was wearing, the months of planning—it was all a curated performance designed for my public humiliation.

The whispers from the crowd began to rise like a tide. The charity case finally got kicked out. Did she really think she could keep the Hart inheritance and the Cross fortune?

I didn't argue. I didn't scream. I simply stood there, absorbing the jagged edges of their mockery. And then, I smiled.

"I hope," I said, my voice steady enough to make Alex flinch, "that after today, none of you find a reason to regret this."

* * *

Alex let out a short, sharp laugh, clearly mistaking my composure for bitterness.

"Don't blame me, Isabel. Blame yourself. You were always too busy with your lab work, your research, your 'career.' I'm a man with needs, and you were never there." He stepped closer, dropping his voice. "Lucy actually knows how to be a wife. She fits my world better than a woman who smells like formaldehyde."

He reached out and pressed a set of keys into my palm. My skin crawled at his touch. "The penthouse in the Upper West Side. Consider it your severance package."

I looked down at the silver keys. It was pathetic.

"Alex," I said, my voice carrying just enough to be heard by those closest to us. "Before you try to set me up as your kept woman, you should have asked yourself a simple question: Do I look like the type of woman who wants a man who’s already been handled by someone else?"

The color drained from his face. He hadn't expected me to call out his sordid little plan so bluntly.

Before he could respond, his best man, Mark, stepped in with a sneer. "Give it a rest, Isabel. You’re lucky he’s giving you anything at all now that the Harts have officially disowned you. It’s a house, not an insult. Stop acting like a martyr; it doesn't suit you."

I looked at Alex. He didn't say a word. He just let them tear into me.

A ghost of a memory flickered—the Alex who once drove six hours through a snowstorm just because I mentioned I missed a specific bakery's sourdough. The Alex who, when I was volunteering as a medic in a conflict zone and we lost comms for a month, nearly lost his mind trying to charter a private plane into a no-fly zone just to find me.

It was on that blood-stained soil, where tomorrow was never a guarantee, that I had promised to marry him.

But the man standing in this ballroom wasn't that man. That man was dead.

"Isabel, don't be like that," Lucy purred, stepping forward. "I was just playing a little joke with Alex. I didn't know he’d actually go through with the 'fake' engagement just to show me he was serious about us. It’s sweet, really. I’m sorry if it hurt your feelings."

She held out a glass of champagne, her eyes glinting. When I didn't take it, she grabbed my hand, trying to force the stem into my grip.

The glass shattered.

Shards flew, one grazing Lucy’s leg. She let out a theatrical gasp of pain.

Alex didn't hesitate. He shoved me aside so hard I hit the edge of a table, his entire focus shifting to the tiny bead of red on Lucy’s skin.

"Isabel! If you have a problem, take it out on me!" he roared. "Lucy was just trying to be nice. Can't you be the bigger person for once?"

A sharp, physical ache bloomed in my chest. "The bigger person?"

"Alex, of all the people in this room, you are the last person who should be lecturing me on grace."

His friends circled like vultures, their voices thick with derision. "If you hadn't spent your life nagging him about his diet or his drinking, maybe he wouldn't have gone looking for someone who actually has a heart. You brought this on yourself. Why don't you get on your knees? Maybe Alex will feel sorry enough to give you a job at one of his firms."

The room erupted in laughter.

Everyone knew I had changed after returning from the field a year ago. I had tried to soften my edges, tried to fit into Alex’s social circle, even moved in with him despite the Hart family’s "traditional" rules. They all thought it was because I was desperate to hold onto him.

They thought they had me trapped in their little trap. They thought I would break.

I reached up, unslid the three-carat diamond ring from my finger, and let it fall. It didn't bounce. it just sat there on the polished floor, looking like a piece of junk.

"Happy New Life, Alex," I said. "We’re done."

The air seemed to leave his lungs. He froze, his expression turning ugly as he stared at the ring. "You’re just doing this to get a reaction. You’re mad because I played you at the gala, so you’re acting like you don't care."

I looked him dead in the eye. "Whether I care or not... you'll find out soon enough."

I turned my back on them and walked out of the hall. The moment the heavy oak doors closed behind me, I pulled out my phone.

"Stop the medication shipments to the Cross estate," I said to the person on the other end. "And the research partnership with Hart Pharmaceuticals? Kill it. I’m done collaborating with them. Permanently."