2025-07-29 22:41:42Ethan took the marriage certificate from Emma’s hand with a curious brow, flipping it open and reading the content. For a second, his brows creased in confusion. Then, they shot up in disbelief.
“What the hell…” he muttered under his breath.
His eyes traced the names again: Emma Jane Robbins and Ethan Northstrum. The location—Harmony Creek Registry. The time—11:06 PM, just hours ago.
He looked up, stunned. “I swear, I didn’t see this in the envelope earlier,” he said. “I had no idea.”
Emma stared at him, arms folded, face hard to read. But inside, her mind was spinning out of control.
Married?
To this man?
How?
Why?
Tracy snatched the certificate from Ethan’s hand and gawked at it with Stella.
“This is real,” Tracy said, eyes wide. “Emma, you actually married him.”
“An ex-convict,” Stella added with disdain. “You married an ex-convict.”
Jennifer stood to the side, disgust smeared across her face. “It’s a setup,” she declared. “He planned this. Took advantage of your drunken state, faked a marriage to trap you into his pathetic little fantasy of becoming someone.”
“That’s not true,” Ethan said firmly. “I didn’t even know this happened. I was just as out of it as she was.”
Stella scoffed. “So what—Emma just walked into a marriage by herself?”
That’s when Ethan’s memories began to stir. He closed his eyes for a moment, tracing the sequence. After the fight with Cobra… carrying Emma into his private lounge… the drinks…
His eyes flew open.
Mela.
She was the one who brought the drinks.
She was the only one who hovered around.
Was it possible…?
Before he could speak, Tracy stepped forward, holding her phone. “You know what? Doesn’t matter how it happened. We’ll fix it.”
Emma looked up at her. “How?”
“Easy,” Tracy said, already dialing. “I’m calling Anthony Custin. He owes me.”
She turned around as the call connected, placing it on speaker.
“Tony!” she said cheerily. “Darling, I need a favor. Quick one.”
Anthony chuckled. “Always ready for you, Tracy. What’s up?”
“A friend of mine mistakenly married some guy last night. It was in a little registry somewhere outside the city. Can you annul it for us?”
There was a pause.
“Was it in Harmony Creek?” Anthony asked.
“Yes, exactly!”
Another pause, longer this time.
“I’m sorry, Tracy. That registry has strict procedures. No annulment can be made until after 30 days—and even then, only with strong legal grounds.”
Tracy’s face dropped. “What? Can’t you just override them from the city?”
“No can do,” Anthony replied. “They’ve got independent status. Only advice? Tell them not to consummate the marriage. That way, they’ll have grounds to invalidate it when the time comes.”
Everyone groaned as the call ended.
Stella turned to Emma, her face pale with shock. “You’re stuck. For a whole month. Married to… him.”
Jennifer scoffed. “Exactly what he wanted.”
She turned to Emma with a sneer. “Pay him off. Make him disappear till the 30 days pass. Then bury this whole mess.”
Emma sat down slowly, her body drained of strength. Her childhood friends had now turned cold. Everything she had built, everything she’d worked to maintain—her image, her circle, her dignity—felt like it was crashing down.
Tracy didn’t hold back. “I’m honestly ashamed of you, Emma. This is embarrassing. You’ve just thrown away your status.”
She picked up her handbag with disgust. “I can’t be seen around you until this mistake is erased.”
She looked at Stella. “Let’s go.”
Stella hesitated for a beat, then followed her friend to the door. But not without a final jab.
“Maybe your husband can help with that $50 million hole in your company… or win you the Enzogrande contract back.” She smirked, waved, and left.
The door closed with a heavy silence.
Jennifer stood fuming. “I should’ve left with them,” she muttered. “But I actually need this job.”
Then, glaring at Ethan: “Just know this—you ruined her life. And I’m going to make sure you pay for it.”
Emma was lost in thought, rubbing her forehead with trembling fingers. Her friends. Gone. Her status. Tarnished. Her company. Barely afloat.
Ethan stepped closer, voice low but sincere. “Emma… I’m sorry. For everything.”
She looked up.
“I think someone drugged us,” he continued. “Probably Mela, the waitress from the club. It wasn’t planned—not by me, at least.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Right. And of all people to get drugged with, it had to be our boss. Why couldn’t they match her with someone who actually has a future? Or a suit? Or a bank account?”
“That’s enough, Jennifer,” Emma said suddenly. “Leave us.”
Jennifer gawked at her. “What?”
“Leave us,” Emma repeated firmly. “Now.”
Jennifer huffed, shooting one last glare at Ethan before storming out. “I’m watching you,” she spat before slamming the door.
With the room finally quiet, Emma poured herself and Ethan a glass of champagne and sat.
Ethan noticed something. “You… still don’t remember what happened before the hotel, do you?”
Emma shook her head. “Only waking up next to you.”
Good, he thought. Then he said nothing.
Instead, she leaned back and asked, “So… what now?”
Ethan gave a half-smile. “Honestly, I’m still wondering how your so-called best friends walked away so fast. Seems their love was conditional.”
Emma sighed. “It was still hard to see. I wouldn’t have walked away from either of them.”
He nodded slowly. “Can you trust me?”
She looked into his eyes, trying to read them.
“You’re still a stranger, Ethan.”
“I get that,” he replied. “But give me a month. I’ll make sure you never regret meeting me.”
Emma narrowed her eyes. “That’s a big promise.”
He raised his glass. “I’m your husband now, right? I’ll protect you. Defend your interests. Support your goals. And I’ll slap anyone who mocks you.”
Emma chuckled—just a little. Something in his voice felt like a warm fire in a winter storm.
Maybe… just maybe… she could give him time.
Before she could say anything else, her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID and sighed. “It’s my mom. Grandpa’s called a family meeting.”
She answered.
Mom’s voice was calm but serious. “Emma, your grandfather is ill. He wants to meet the whole family. It’s about the Enzogrande deal.”
Emma swallowed hard. “Alright. I’ll be there.”
After hanging up, she turned to Ethan. “Can you drive?”
“Of course.”
“Good. You’re coming with me,” she said.
Ethan raised a brow.
“To the family meeting,” she continued. “But first—we’re going shopping. You need a change of clothes.”
They stepped out of the building together.
Just before they reached the car, Ethan’s phone rang. He checked the screen.
Matthew Witkov.
He answered. “Matthew?”
The elderly man’s voice was warm but apologetic. “Forgive me, Ethan. I know you asked for peace. But I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t important.”
Ethan paused. “What is it?”
“It’s Enzogrande Corporation.”
Ethan’s tone shifted slightly. “What happened?”
“No issues,” Matthew assured. “But since you haven’t taken over the full Witkov empire yet, I figured… why not give you Enzogrande for a start?”
Ethan blinked.
Matthew continued, “You built that company from the shadows. It’s time you owned it officially.”
“I’m not ready to run any company,” Ethan replied.
“You won’t have to,” Matthew said. “Just sign. They’ll operate as usual. You want changes, you call the acting CEO.”
Ethan hesitated, thinking of Emma, of the pain in her eyes, of the way her friends abandoned her.
Then he smiled. “Alright. I accept.”
Matthew sounded thrilled. “Wonderful. I’m about to announce the company has just hit a $1 trillion net worth. Shall I include your name?”
“No,” Ethan said. “Keep my identity hidden. Just make the announcement.”
“As you wish.”
The call ended.
Ethan slipped his phone into his pocket, eyes hard with purpose.
“Emma Robbins,” he whispered under his breath, “I’ll keep my promise. And I’ll make every single one of them regret mocking you.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 207: Visions like memories
Ethan lowered himself onto the woven mat, the coarse fibers a tactile anchor in the surreal chamber. He crossed his legs, rested his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes. The weight of the stone room, the scent of earth, the profound silence—it all pressed in, not as an assault, but as an invitation to dissolve.This was the same thing he had run away from back then that he was now finding himself performing again.But what choice had he got? He needed to complete this before he could think of facing Nathan for the sake of Emma and his unborn baby.“Breathe into the stillness,” the Grand Physician’s voice murmured, not from across the room, but seemingly from within the stillness itself. “The Quieting is not an erasure. It is a re-ordering. You will see the tapestry of your life. The threads of joy, of pain, of choice and consequence. Do not cling to them. Observe them as patterns in the weave. You will have visions. Keep an open mind. The mind that judges is the mind that suffers
Chapter 206: The sanctuary of stillness
They passed through corridors Ethan vaguely remembered, places of instruction and meditation. But the Grand Physician led him deeper than he had ever gone before, to a part of the compound that felt less like a building and more like a natural cave system that had been gently shaped. The air grew cooler, the scent of stone and damp earth replacing the incense.Finally, they entered a circular chamber. The ceiling was a natural dome of rock, with a single shaft of muted light falling from a hidden opening far above, illuminating the center of the room. In that pool of light was a simple mat of woven reeds. Around the perimeter, in deep shadow, stood nine smooth stone pillars, each carved with a single, complex symbol that seemed to shift in the low light.This was the Sanctuary of Stillness. The air itself felt thick, heavy with intention, as if sound went to die here.The Grand Physician gestured to the mat. "The place of unraveling."Ethan moved toward it, the gravity of the room pre
Chapter 205: The ‘Quieting’ Ritual
As Ethan drove to the Grand Physician’s the following morning, his hands tight on the wheel, his mind was a million miles away—or rather, decades.He wasn't navigating by GPS, but by muscle memory of a journey taken in a different life. The towering pines blurred into a green-grey wall, and with them, the present dissolved.“The focus is not to feel nothing, Ethan. That is the crude aim of a brute. The aim is to feel everything… and choose which sensation becomes action. The rest, you relegate to a silent room and lock the door.”The Grand Physician’s voice, dry as ancient parchment, echoed in his mind. He could see the austere training hall, the smell of sandalwood and cold stone. He’d been young, arrogant, flush with the early successes of the skills he’d already learned. The ‘Quieting’ had been presented as the final masterwork, the capstone. Not a new weapon, but the forging of an impregnable armory for the mind itself.And he’d walked away just before he could even get to underst
Chapter 204: Back To The Grand Physician
Ethan didn’t answer for a long moment. He pushed back from the desk, the chair rolling soundlessly on the thick rug. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, his back to the room, his silhouette tense against the glittering, indifferent cityscape.“I know my brother,” Ethan said, his voice hollow, stripped of all its usual command. “I know that Elizabeth Robbins would swallow broken glass before calling me for help. The fact that she did…” He bowed his head, a hand coming up to press against the cold glass. “It means she has exhausted every other option.”Ethan gave a single, jerky nod. The weight of it—the dual loss, the compounded violation—seemed to press him physically into the floor. “My brother understands currency. He understands leverage. He has just acquired the only two things in this universe I would trade the crown for. Not that I would ever be given the choice.”He strode back to the desk, not with purpose, but with a frantic, caged energy. He picked up the dead phone, s
Chapter 203: What do we do now?
Elizabeth’s phone slipped from her nerveless fingers, thudding softly onto the carpet. She didn’t hear it. All she heard was the roaring silence of a timeline that ended at seven o’clock.She was leaving.Four hours ago.The chill from the balcony was nothing compared to the glacial fear freezing her from the inside out. Every terrible possibility—the kind she’d spent years as a corporate wife learning to suppress—flooded her mind. An accident on the winding coastal road. A mugging in the city garage. Or worse, something deliberate, something linked to the crown, to the viper’s nest Emma had just been thrust into.Her gaze swept the room, landing on the family portrait from a decade ago—Richard’s arm around her, a young, smiling Emma between them. A perfect, painful lie. She was alone. Utterly alone with this terror.And then, unbidden, the most complicated, infuriating face of all surfaced in her mind: Ethan.She recoiled from the thought. Emma’s fury at him had been absolute, scorch
Chapter 202: Four hours ago
"You're operating under the assumption that Ethan and I are still connected. That I am leverage." Emma's voice was cold and sharp. "You're wrong. What happened with my grandfather severed that tie completely. I am done with Ethan. There is no loyalty to exploit, no affection to manipulate. Keeping me here is a pointless risk. Your quarrel is with him. Let me go, and you eliminate a complication. He will still come for you, for the crown. But you won't have an angry, resourceful hostage who has zero stake in his survival cluttering your operation."She delivered the speech with icy precision, every word a calculated move on this new, horrifying board. She was a redundant asset. A liability. She painted the picture with clear, logical strokes.And of course, that was what she thought. There was no point in dragging her into a sibling rivalry that she had no stakes in, and much worse, dragging her unborn child into it as well.Nathan listened, his head tilted. When she finished, he didn'
You may also like
TRILLIONAIRE ON TOP
Sweet savage221.0K viewsIncredible Oliver Storm
Dragon Sly103.0K viewsThe understated miraculous Doctor.
Pen thinker 81.2K viewsThe Rise of a Master: It Starts With Rejection
Dreamy Fire266.2K viewsThe Hidden Dragon Son-in-Law
Amy Precious632 viewsHarborview's Shadow
Aviela1.4K viewsAdrian Cole; Return of the Lost Heir
Evie Penheart3.3K viewsThe Abandoned Ex-husband Dominates
Life_Of_Mid34.3K views