It was New Year’s Eve.
Every home was aglow, families embracing the joy of togetherness. Evangeline Rearden, however, was excluded from the glee. She raced her heavy motorcycle down Jetty Road, cutting through the biting cold wind on a mission to expose Walter’s infidelity aboard a cruise ship.
The whole city buzzed with the news that her stay-away husband, Walter Gordon, has splurged on a cruise for his mistress, complete with a fireworks display.
Still ringing in her ears was the harsh ultimatum her mother-in-law, Aria Jones, delivered at the Gordon family’s New Year’s Eve feast.
“Evangeline, Walter is so averse to seeing you that he hasn’t come home for the holidays in years! You’re just warming the bench. If you can’t give us a Gordon heir, call it quits early. Step aside and let a more fertile woman take your place as Mrs. Walter Gordon.”
Three years into their marriage, all Evangeline could think of was having Walter’s baby.
The Gordons were on her case, and so was Cole Foster, her maternal grandfather. She had exhausted every trick in the book to cement her status as Mrs. Walter Gordon.
Walter was a different man outside—voracious and wild. At home, however, he had been distant and disinterested.
Forget intimacy. She could have paraded naked in front of him and not even earned a blink.
All the heartache had boiled down to one bitter truth: Walter did not love her. She had never been the one he wanted to marry.
The cruise ship Walter rented had been ablaze with lights as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, the air alive with celebration.
Evangeline stepped onto the cruise and swung open the door to the buzzing private room.
Walter, the seventh heir to Avalon City’s elite Gordon family, had carved out his empire with Strata King Group at just 27 years old. In a mere three years, he shot to the top of the game, poised to take over the family’s legacy.
There he was, oozing laid-back charm in his sleek black suit, coaching a woman in a tiny black skirt on her pool shot.
Just then, a voice cut through the buzz, “Mr. Walter Gordon, it’s late. Aren’t you heading home?”
“Not tonight,” he shot back, and with a smooth move, he swept the pool table clean.
The women in the room could not peel their eyes away, green with envy at the lady by his side.
“Wow! That’s impressive! You still have the magic touch, even after all these years!” someone exclaimed.
“So, Julia, don’t you think Walter’s even more of a catch than he was three years ago? If you don’t snag him this time, you’ll have some explaining to do, huh?”
At those words, the demure woman next to Walter turned a deep shade of red, gazing up at him with eyes full of worship and longing.
At that moment, Evangeline’s gaze landed on the woman’s face. It hit her like a ton of bricks.
She had expected just another fling, someone she could brush off without a second thought. However, that was not just anyone—it was Julia Rearden. Walter’s ex-lover, the one he had been forced to leave, and her own half-sister.
Evangeline felt like her heart was stabbed.
She smoothed out her windblown hair and strutted across the threshold in her high heels, instantly dissolving the charged silence.
“She thinks she can just get married? She’ll need my say-so for that!
“I was trying to figure out who was brazen enough to flirt with my husband tonight… Oh, it’s the homecoming of the other woman’s kid!
“No shocker that Walter’s been pulling out all the stops with cruises and fireworks to woo you, strutting around like a show-off, not even bothering to come home for New Year’s. He’s not even scared of his grandfather giving him a piece of his mind!”
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