Skylar Brandon Novel The Debt I'll Make Him Pay

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A full year after catching Brandon cheating, I walked down the aisle and married him. .
He never stopped. A rotating cast of lovers, while I perfected the role of the 'understanding' wife.
He developed a taste for a nightclub dancer??I'd have her sent to his suite before last call.
He eyed the new intern??She was reassigned as his personal assistant' by noon.
He'd beam at me. "See, Skylar? Isn't this so much more...efficient?"
But when photos of me passionately entangled with another man, along with my pregnancy test results, landed in front of him, he absolutely lost it.
"You're just jealous! This is your way of getting back at me, isn't it? Break it off with him. Now."
I laughed. He actually thought this was about him?
I wouldn't be ending anything. Besides, the man I loved was already gone.

In my silent laughter, he finally realized something was quietly slipping away.
A tidal wave of emotion churned in his eyes, but he gritted his teeth, desperately trying to rein it in.
"Okay, I was wrong, I don't blame you."
"Please, just get rid of this baby. We can pretend none of this ever happened."
I pushed him away, disdainfully flicking at the sleeve he'd grabbed.
"Brandon, there's no going back."
"And there's absolutely no way I'm getting rid of this child."
He slumped back against the office desk, the sound of a shattering glass eerily clear in the dim room. Blood dripped from his palm onto the carpet.
Suddenly, he lunged across the desk, his large hand clamping the back of my head, showering my lips with brutal, desperate kisses.
"Let go! I don't want this!"
My struggles only made him rougher. A sudden coldness below made my heart leap into my throat.
As his hand moved to touch me again, I kicked him hard in the groin.
He cried out in pain, releasing me, then questioned me, his voice dangerously low.
"Then who do you want? That loser who vanished into thin air?"
"Skylar, he didn't love you. He never did."
"If he loved you, why would he disappear? Why would he let you marry me?"
"In this world, only you and I are meant to be. Only I truly love you."
That word struck a raw nerve. My hand flew up, slapping him across the face.
"Don't you dare talk about him like that! Get out!"
He looked stunned. "You hit me for that scum?"
He wiped a smear of blood from his lip with his thumb, then pulled me into his arms, biting down hard on my lip.
I remained motionless, letting him bite. He must have sensed the change in me because he finally released me.
"Skylar, what do you even want from me?"
He slumped beside me like a deflated balloon.
"This bastard, there's no way he's staying."
He turned his head to look at me, a smile on his face, but I felt not a flicker of warmth.
I snatched a fruit knife from the table and lunged at him. He didn't flinch, instead, he leaned into the blade.
I heard the sickening sound of flesh tearing. He grunted, then shuffled closer to me.
He was forcing me to choose: either he died, or I'd give in.
As his knee moved towards me again, I loosened my grip on the knife.
He grabbed my trembling hand, his smile bitter and triumphant.
"Skylar, I knew you still loved me."
I tore free from his grasp and called Mr. Davies.
Soon, Brandon was being helped into an ambulance. The entire villa returned to its usual silence.
I curled up on the bed and opened SnapChat. A message from Mr. Davies popped up.
"Madam, Mr. Adams has already sent Alexa to Monaco."
"He said to rest well and wait for him to come home."
I suddenly found it all so amusing.
He actually thought sending Alexa away would somehow appease me.
Sadly, he and I, we'd been beyond repair for over a year.
It was the night before our engagement.
Alexa had updated her SnapChat story late that night. The red mole on the man's back instantly stung my eyes.
That very night, I trashed his hotel room.
I cried, accusing Brandon. "Why tonight of all nights? Why her of all people?"
But he said nothing, just gave me a piercing look. He blamed me for interrupting them.
I was dragged out by bodyguards right in front of him and Alexa, stripped of all dignity.
To get back at him, I projected photos of him and Alexa intimately entwined on the big screen at the engagement party, publicly calling off the wedding.
But I lost again.
Watching me leave, he simply stated, without a hint of pain.
"Don't bother, she'll be back."
The moment Brandon uttered those words, the guests' whispers grew louder.
"If you ask me, Ms. Thorne and Brandon are a match made in heaven."
"That small-town girl just doesn't know her place. Brandon didn't even call off the engagement after cheating, who was she to do it?"
"For Brandon to even look her way was more than she deserved, and she still had the nerve to pick on him."
Not a single person blamed Brandon.
He was the one who cheated, but somehow, I was the one in the wrong.


The next morning, the moment I opened my eyes, Brandon's haggard face was right there.
I instinctively looked at his chest. A faint smile touched his lips.
"Don't worry, the doctor said it's nothing serious."
He propped his hand beside my pillow, smiling softly. "I knew you still cared about me."
He was still the same as a year ago, always believing he had complete control over me, both emotionally and financially.
Having always gotten everything he wanted since childhood, he wouldn't understand that some people shine on their own, not just because they're by his side.
I didn't want to talk to him, so I got up and went to the bathroom.
When I came out, Brandon was lounging on the sofa, watching me.
He offered me a glass of milk. "Here, drink this. Your health is the most important thing, Skylar."
I took the milk and drank it down, not to appease him, but because I was going to anyway.
He, however, misinterpreted it as acceptance, and his eyes lit up instantly.
"Skylar, I've already sent Alexa away, Mr. Davies told you, right?"
"From now on, I'll only be with you. Whenever you want to see me, no matter where I am, I'll come to you immediately."
"I'll never do anything you don't like."
"We can go back to how we were before. You can call me Brandon, and I'll call you Skylar, okay?"
I looked at him, a mocking smile slowly spreading across my face. I deliberately loosened my grip, and the glass crashed to the floor, shattering everywhere.
"Brandon, there's no going back."
"Just like this glass. Once it's broken, it's broken. Even if you melt it down and reshape it, it's not the same glass anymore."
His body stiffened, then he immediately knelt down.
"Skylar, we can go back. Trust me, as long as we're still here, everything can be like it was before."
The glass shards cut his hand, blood mixing with milk into a pinkish red, yet he stubbornly picked up the fragments as if he felt no pain.
I couldn't help but scoff. Let him pick them up if he wanted to.
Perhaps it was the pregnancy, but I was constantly drowsy. The moment I sat down, my head felt heavy and uncomfortable.
When I woke up again, the overhead lights dazzled my eyes.
The pungent smell of disinfectant filled the air, and a few white figures moved around me.
"Now?this?is the kind of drama one pays a fortune to witness. Tell me, doesn't old man Adams worry she'll make a spectacular scene when the anesthesia wears off?"
"Oh, I doubt it. These arrangements are purely transactional. Women in that position tend to be more pragmatic than you or I could ever be."
"But Brandon is still legally married. To have a child with his mistress? How could he bear such scandal?"
"Besides, who in this circle doesn't know that his secretary is the one he truly cares about?"
"The women around him come and go, but the only one who stays is Ms. Thorne."
"A child no one truly wants, it's a curse to be born. Better to get rid of it early."
An alarm blared in my mind.
This was a hospital. Brandon had drugged the milk.
This was my child. How dare he make decisions for me?
I tried to get up, but met the chief surgeon's eyes.
"You're awake."
She tried to comfort me. "Just lie still. It'll only take an hour, it'll be over quickly."
I struggled free from her grasp, frantically grabbing a scalpel and holding it to my throat.
"Where's Brandon? I want to see him!"
The nurse, seeing this, hastily opened the operating room door. Brandon rushed in.
"Skylar, put it down."
"Don't come any closer!"
His raised foot hung in the air, then slowly retreated.
"Okay, I won't come closer. Just don't do anything reckless."
Grief and helplessness welled up, choking me until every breath hurt.
I couldn't stop crying. "Brandon, I just want to keep my child! Why won't you just let me?"
He let out a laugh as if he'd heard a joke, then snapped, "Skylar, this is a bastard child anyway, what's wrong with getting rid of it?"
"Brandon, my child's life is tied to mine."
The knife in my hand pressed closer, blood trickling down my neck. He instantly panicked.
"Stop!"
His voice softened. "Skylar, does it have to be this way?"
"We'll have our own children. Do you really need him to stand between us?"
I chuckled, tightening my grip on the knife. He finally couldn't hold back, cursing.
"Goddamn it, what do I owe you?"
"You'll regret this."


This was the first time Brandon had compromised.
From the moment he agreed to marry me, I knew he would always prioritize my life.
But I could never reconcile the two: the man who claimed to love me, and the one who couldn't stay out of other women's beds.
Alexa's Snapchat story updated again.?There was Brandon, grinning in Monaco.
Her caption read: Love is when he crosses an ocean just to see you smile."
Just like the night of our engagement a year ago, it was another photo of her and Brandon, still not one that was appropriate for public viewing.
The difference this time was that Brandon's face was visible.
His lips were on her neck - truly a perfect pair of scoundrels.
Most striking was the HW ring on Alexa's ring finger.
That was the wedding diamond ring Brandon had personally designed. After the wedding, I'd casually left it on my bedside table.
I casually liked the post, and immediately a message from Alexa popped up.
"Ms. Thorne, I don't need to introduce this ring, do I?"
"Brandon doesn't love you at all. Besides, you're pregnant with a bastard."
"I advise you to leave with nothing now, at least that way your bastard child might live."
I typed out a response.
"A mistress should know her place. I hope you use every trick in the book to keep him by your side."
Almost the instant the message sent, Brandon's call came in.
"Skylar, are you that happy to see your own husband sleeping in the same bed as another woman?"
I scoffed. "Wasn't CEO Adams enjoying himself when he was 'at it'?"
"Isn't that just CEO Brandon's everyday life?"
Even over the phone, I could feel his exasperation.
"Skylar, you've got guts."
"You better not come begging for me to come back."
With a loud crash, the call abruptly ended.
If it were me a year ago, I probably would have begged him to come back.
But now I no longer loved him. Who he loved, who he was intimately involved with, I no longer cared.
He knew all the torment and humiliation I endured throughout high school and even college, she was behind it.
Yet, he still slept with Alexa.
The engagement photos were leaked online by paparazzi, and a torrent of insults poured in.
"Thank God the Ice Queen didn't marry him, I don't know what part of her deserved our CEO."
"What? She looks so prim and proper, I thought she was a neighborhood mom, and you're telling me she's CEO Adams' fiance?"
"Look at herself! How dare she compete with our Alexa?"
"I bet she used some underhanded tricks to force Brandon to marry her."
"Maybe she's ugly, but she's wild in bed."
Alexa was a legal genius on a hit legal reality show, while I was just an insignificant elementary school teacher.
She was vibrant and charming, while I was like still water, unchanging.
When people want to tear you down, they'll find fault with anything, even your breathing.
I knew this truth, yet in the dead of night, I would question myself over and over.
The memory of being dragged out of the hotel by bodyguards, right in front of Alexa, tormented me endlessly.
I kept thinking, was I truly so ugly, so disgusting, that it drove Brandon to cheat?
Those strange thoughts tortured me day and night. At my worst, buying groceries, I'd imagine the vendor screaming insults at me.
If someone's gaze lingered on me, I'd assume they were disgusted by me.
I became paranoid, eventually too afraid to even leave the house.
But the worst wasn't the self-doubt; it was my love for Brandon.


Brandon was my savior when I was young. Without him, I felt like I truly couldn't live.
His scandalous news was on the trending list every day, yet he never once came looking for me.
I gradually began to doubt if I was truly in the wrong, if my expectations for a partner were simply insane.
Hate and love intertwined, I was practically losing my mind.
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore.
I couldn't forget Brandon, but I also couldn't bring myself to seek him out.
Unable to solve the problem, I thought of a good solution: solving myself.
But in the murky river water, he pulled me back.
In just six months, he took me to see desert sunsets in Arizona, climbed the challenging trails of the Rockies, and we galloped across the sprawling plains of Wyoming...
We had even promised to declare our vows to the universe by the serene waters of Lake Tahoe, to walk hand in hand through this life.
But because of Brandon, he died.
Searching for traces of love in my memories was a cruel thing. I must have unknowingly drifted off to sleep.
"Where's Skylar?"
Brandon's voice faintly reached me. I thought it was a hallucination and pulled the covers over my head, trying to sleep again.
Until the bedroom door burst open, and a man scooped me up, blocking the words in my throat.
Brandon's face loomed larger in front of me. I struggled fiercely, biting through his tongue. The metallic taste of blood spread in my mouth.
But he seemed to feel no pain, relentlessly invading my space.
He only let go when I was almost breathless.
I gasped, scoffing, "What? Alexa not satisfying you enough?"
His face was terribly grim. "Skylar, you're a cruel woman."
He gripped my shoulders tight. "Since there's no going back, let's just be tangled like this."
"I've thought it through. As long as the end result is you, the process doesn't matter."
"You want this child? Then have him. As long as I agree, he'll be a legitimate Adams heir."
A self-deprecating smile touched his lips. "Without him, I'm not sure if you can live. But without you, he certainly can't."
He squeezed my jaw. "Skylar, you've just handed me another leverage point to keep you shackled."
He propped himself up from the bed, and the door quickly closed.
He was right. With this child, I would never leave again.
In the following days, he took Alexa to various galas, gave her access to his network, and allowed their scandalous news to fly everywhere.
Yet, he would unfailingly be home before ten every night.
I still ate and rested well, attending my regular prenatal check-ups.
I thought I had Brandon all figured out, but I overlooked the fact that he was the heir to the Adams empire, and ruthlessness was his core.
I was blindfolded and gagged in the hospital hallway and abducted. When I woke up again, I was on an abandoned dock.
Alexa ripped off my blindfold, a knife pressing against my slightly swollen belly.
"The old Brandon probably never imagined that a woman would dare to make him a cuckold."
She slapped me across the face. A stinging pain immediately flared on my cheek.
I struggled fiercely, my mind racing.
"Alexa, if you dare touch me, Brandon will never let you go!"
She laughed, bending over, then handed her phone to my ear. Brandon's voice came through the receiver.
"She belongs to me in life, and in death. How could I ever let her give birth to a bastard child?"
My heart plummeted instantly.
"You're lying! Brandon clearly said he could accept it!"
"Cute how stupid you are. What man would accept his woman giving birth to another man's child?"
"If it wasn't Brandon's idea, do you think I'd have the guts to kidnap you?"
She gestured behind her, and two bodyguards stepped forward, pinning me to the ground.
With a sickening crack, my jaw was dislocated in an instant. Alexa grabbed a bottle of pills and force-fed me the contents.
Once released, I kept trying to force myself to vomit, but the pills wouldn't come up.
The gate slammed. Silence.
The heavy, dragging pain in my lower abdomen grew more pronounced, and the warm gush between my legs became clearer.
I dragged myself to the door, leaving a long trail of blood. The door absorbed my pounding. No answer.
I never knew pain could be this total. It hurt so much, I started seeing things-the man I used to ride horses with, clear as day.
But even then, I hated myself. Because the only voice left in my head was Brandon's.
A warm tear hit my cheek. He gathered me up, his whole body trembling.
"Skylar. Don't you die. I forbid it. If you dare..."
But the blood kept flowing, a steady final rhythm beneath us. This time, there was no stopping it. I was dying. And for the first time,?Brandon's words had no power here.