The Billionaire's Blind Spot: She Only Loved His Money

My billionaire ex drives his fist into my client's face.

Cartilage crunches under his knuckles.

He shoves his bride into a floral pedestal and grips my wrist.

He begs me for a second chance in front of all the guests.

His bride hits the marble floor and screams the ugly truth.

She tells everyone I intercepted her love letter six years ago.

She exposes how I used his money as a stepping stone to launch my law firm.

He stares at me, and the blood drains from his face.

I pry his fingers off my skin and walk out the door.

Chapter 1

He rarely slipped up like this. As Silas grew older, he buried his emotions deeper behind a stone-cold mask.

Seeing him hurl the bouquet into the trash jolted me. The veins in his hand bulged against his skin as he gripped Seraphina's wrist. My pulse pounded in my throat.

Seraphina let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Do you really hate me that much, Silas?" she sneered. "We're pushing thirty. Can't we bury the hatchet? I came all the way here to celebrate your wedding. You're throwing a tantrum over some flowers?"

Pierce stepped in fast to play the peacemaker. "Come on, man," Pierce said, clapping Silas on the shoulder. "Seraphina is offering an olive branch. Take it."

Silas froze. His spine went rigid. The fury left his face, replaced by a tight, practiced blankness. He turned his head and locked eyes with me.

It was as if he just remembered I existedthat I was his bride standing right there in a white gown.

He sucked in a sharp breath. He closed the distance between us and reached out for my hand.

Then Seraphina spoke again. "It's time to grow up anyway. We're both settling down now. Can't exactly have our future kids watching us bicker like teenagers, right?"

Silas yanked his hand back before his fingertips even brushed mine. He spun around so fast his shoulder clipped the massive floral pedestal beside him. The arrangement crashed to the marble floor.

Dirt and shattered porcelain exploded across the aisle, mirroring the sudden, sickly pallor of Silas's face as he stood completely still. "What do you mean?" he rasped. "You're getting married?"

"I am." Seraphina arched an eyebrow. "What, you're the only one allowed to tie the knot?" she asked with a mocking smirk.

She reached into her designer clutch and pulled out a heavy, cream-colored envelope. An elegant wedding invitation. Stamped in gold foil were her name and Dominic's.

Silas took the card. His hand shook. A violent, uncontrollable tremor.

A cold weight dropped in my stomach. I remembered the last time his hands shook like that. We were on a ski trip with Cordelia. An avalanche caught us off guard. When the rescue team finally dug us out of the snow, Silas dragged his mother and me into a crushing embrace. He shook exactly like this, gripped by the raw, paralyzing terror of losing us.

Now, he was looking at Seraphina's wedding invitation with that exact same terror.

Silas was a billionaire heir. Old money, untouchable, and brilliant. I was the charity case. The working-class girl who aced her exams to land a spot at their elite prep school. Naturally, I existed at the bottom of the food chain. I was invisible. I never imagined I would ever cross paths with Silas.

Ironically enough, Seraphina brought us together. She despised me. She locked me in pitch-black bathroom stalls. She shoved dead rats into my locker. She poured superglue all over my chair.

Her final act of cruelty happened at the Senior Gala. She took a pair of scissors to the white dress my mother, Denise, had saved a month's wages to buy for me.

Seraphina looked down her nose at me. "Who do you think you are, Sutton?"

"You can get perfect grades. You can be pretty. You can claw your way up until your fingers bleed," she mocked, parading me in front of the entire senior class. "But your finish line is my starting line. Trash like you doesn't belong in the same room as me."

She flashed a cruel, red-lipped smile.

She expected me to take it. I always stayed quiet.

But that night, I fought back.

Chapter 2

I threw my glass of wine dead center into her face.

Seraphina's eyes went wide. Crimson liquid dripped from her perfect blowout. "You" she gasped. "How dare you?"

I dared.

Over her piercing screams, I grabbed two more glasses off a catering tray. Splashed them both over her head. I gripped her arm, yanking hard enough to rip the couture fabric of her gown right down the seam. Someone snapped a photo of her ruined, tear-streaked face. It hit the school's gossip feed seconds later.

I lost my mind that night. Nobody could stop me.

The other students backed away, terrified of the crossfire. Except Silas.

His hand locked onto my shoulder. He shoved me out of the crowd. A dark, twisted amusement burned in his eyes. "Sutton." He rolled my name off his tongue, tasting it. "You really think an Ivy League acceptance letter makes you untouchable?"

My facial muscles locked.

"Academics were your only ticket out of the gutter. You couldn't risk fighting back." Silas dissected three years of my silent suffering in two sentences.

Then he dropped the hammer.

"You live outside the one percent. You don't get how this world works" His fingers gripped my chin. His thumb brushed over my jawline. "The things you earned? Seraphina's family can snap their fingers and vaporize them."

The blood drained from my face. I clamped my teeth down so hard copper flooded my tongue. I glared up at him. "What do you want?"

The crystal chandelier above us swayed, casting harsh shadows across half his face. He let out a low laugh. "Be my girlfriend, Sutton."

I didn't find out the truth until my senior year of college. Rhonda, my academic advisor, confessed that Seraphina's family had tried to revoke my university admission, but Silas's family stepped in and blocked them.

By then, Silas and I had been together for four years. He cut off his entire roster for me. No more Instagram models. No more actresses. Seraphina was the only woman left in his orbit.

But their relationship was pure warfare. They slit each other's throats in the boardroom and despised each other in public. Whenever her name came up, Silas only had one word.

"Seraphina is disgusting."

He told me how she secured a massive real estate deal. She got Jocelyn, her own best friend, blackout drunk and offered her up to an elderly billionaire investor's bed like a gift. Disgusting. He told me about the day I opened my law firm. Seraphina had spread vicious rumors to the partners, claiming I was an incompetent fraud propped up by his money. My grand opening was a ghost town. Disgusting. He told me she dressed like high-end trash, practically grinding her lap into a board member just to secure a five percent stock option. Absolutely disgusting.

Just like right now. The pure disgust burned in Silas's eyes as he gripped his coffee mug. The ceramic shook in his hand.

"Her family is drowning," he muttered. "They actually have to pawn her off to a man just to keep the lights on. Seraphina is selling her own body to save her dying empire. It makes me sick."

He kept repeating how sick she made him, completely forgetting that this was our wedding night.

My hair snagged in the zipper of my wedding dress. I asked him for help.

He kept rambling about her. His hand yanked the zipper down on autopilot. The metal teeth clamped right into my flesh.

I sucked in a sharp breath. A brutal sting shot up my spine. Cold sweat broke out across my forehead. "Ouch!"

Warm blood welled up from the cut. It soaked into the white lace of my gown. Silas dropped his phone on the vanity and sprinted to the bathroom for the first aid kit.

The second he turned his back, his phone screen lit up.

Chapter 3

My birthday unlocked the screen.

I tapped into his private group chat with Pierce and the guys. I always knew it existed, and I knew Seraphina was the only girl allowed in their toxic little circle. But as my thumb swiped up, a sick feeling twisted my gut. Silas had muted the thread, yet hundreds of messages flooded it daily. He was active in it even the night before our wedding.

Seraphina tagged him. "What exactly does Sutton have that I don't? You hate me so much you're actually going to marry my worst enemy just to spite me?"

Silas shot back instantly. "Yeah. I despise you. If I don't marry Sutton, who do I marry? You? I'd have to be cursed in three different lifetimes to let you drag me down the aisle."

The chat went dead for a long time. Then her bubble popped up again. "Are you secretly obsessed with me, Silas? Is that why you fight me on everything? Grow the hell up."

I calmly scrolled down the screen. After that text, a twenty-hour gap swallowed the chat. It was the only time their chaotic thread had ever gone dead silent for a full day and night.

Until five minutes ago. Seraphina dropped a screenshot into the chat. A confirmed City Hall appointment. She and Dominic were signing their marriage certificate tomorrow morning at eight thirty.

The cotton swab in Silas's hand jerked. He jabbed it straight into my open cut.

A sharp gasp tore from my throat. "Stop, that hurts!"

Silas dropped the swab and shot to his feet. A rare panic flickered in his eyes.

"Something just came up at the office."

I picked up the discarded swab. I didn't even bat an eyelid. I kept my eyes locked on the blood-stained lace of my dress. "It is our wedding night, Silas. What could possibly be more important than right now?"

His knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of his slacks. "Sutton, I"

The screen on the vanity lit up again. I could not read the exact words, but I saw the notification bubble from their group chat.

Silas straightened his spine. The hesitation vanished. "It is an emergency, Sutton. I have to go."

He turned his back on me and walked out.

What emergency trumps a wedding night?

The heavy oak door clicked shut. I reached around blindly, my fingers slipping on my own skin as I awkwardly slapped a bandage over the cut. I grabbed my car keys and walked out into the cold night.

The leather seat of my car was freezing. I stared up at the glowing windows of his corporate tower, a sickening knot of doubt forming in my chest. Was I gaslighting myself? Was I paranoid? Maybe they really just despised each other.

But a woman's intuition never lies.

At six thirty in the morning, Silas walked out of the glass lobby, looking like he hadn't slept all night. He still wore his tailored wedding tuxedo. He ducked into a corner cafe, walked out with two breakfast sandwiches, and slid into his Lincoln Navigator, merging into the brutal morning traffic.

I hated breakfast sandwiches. Once Silas and I started dating, he stopped eating them entirely. But Seraphina? She was obsessed with them.

Silas used to complain about it constantly. "Our families go on vacation and she dictates the whole itinerary. Bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches every single damn morning. It makes me sick. It is dry and tasteless."

I remembered him swallowing a bite of the homemade breakfast skillet I cooked for him, his eyes softening. "Nobody makes breakfast like you, Sutton."

I actually felt happy that day. I actually believed him.

Chapter 4

I never imagined Silas would actually buy two breakfast sandwiches and walk them straight into City Hall for his worst enemy.

Seraphina and Dominic stood at the clerk's counter, filling out their marriage license.

Silas stormed through the double doors, his face like thunder. His hand clamped onto Seraphinas wrist. He yanked her away from the desk.

Shock rippled across Seraphina's face. "Silas? What are you doing here?"

"You cannot marry him," Silas snarled, his jaw locking.

Dominic slammed his pen down. "Excuse me?"

A violent tremor ripped through Seraphina's body. She stared up at Silas, a desperate, frantic energy pooling in her eyes. She pressed her lips tightly together. "Why?" she breathed.

The word hung in the air. She looked like a woman waiting for an answer she had craved for a lifetime.

"Do you have any idea who the hell you are marrying?" Silas shouted. "Do you know anything about him?" He shoved a thick manila folder onto the counter. Photos spilled across the laminate wood. Dominic with college girls. Dominic with Instagram models. Women twice his age. Girls barely out of high school. "He's kept more than a dozen women like trophies! Are you really that desperate, Seraphina? Are you that cheap?"

The pieces suddenly clicked together in my head. That was his emergency. He had spent our entire wedding night hunting down dirt. Anything to stop her from belonging to another man.

Seraphina's eyes quickly rimmed with red. Her teeth dug into her lower lip until the skin turned white. "You tracked me down just to call me a whore?" she choked out, her whole body shaking.

Silas sucked in a ragged breath. He stared at her, completely silent.

A broken, hollow laugh scraped out of Seraphina's throat. "If you came to warn me," she whispered, stepping into his space. "Save it. I already know."

Silas's pupils dilated in pure shock.

"I know exactly what he is!" Seraphina screamed. "I know everything, and I still have to sign that paper!" She shoved Silas in the chest. "Do you have any idea what my family is going through? I am their only life raft! My body and this ring are the only currency I have left!"

Her voice cracked, raw and guttural. "I know I have zero self-respect, Silas! I know I do! I am selling myself to a man with a harem because I have no other choice!"

Tears finally breached her lash line. "I am so pathetic that when they told me I had to sell myself to the highest bidder I actually prayed the buyer would be you."

Her chest heaved. She dragged in a jagged breath and squeezed her eyes shut, looking utterly exhausted.

Silas froze. The color violently drained from his skin. His massive frame swayed, looking like a man who just took a bullet to the chest. "What what are you talking about?" he stammered.

A deep confusion clouded his dark eyes.

Silas spent his entire life pulling the strings. He calculated every risk.

Seraphina was his only blind spot. The only variable he could never control.

She was a walking red flagrebellious, toxic, fighting him at every turn. She weaponized her own feelings, turning her obsession with him into a twenty-year war.

It destroyed them both.

Even her confession felt like a physical assault.

Seraphina stumbled backward, her face a ghostly white. "I have loved you, Silas," she choked out. "For years."

Chapter 5