After giving up being a billionaire's mistress

A thirty-year-old man’s wants are never complicated. They’re plain, straightforward, right out in the open.

Sariah Allen had lost all track of time. Every muscle in her body felt like it had been wrung dry, pinned under a suffocating heat that left her gasping just to catch her breath. Emory Kelly knew her body better than she knew it herself—every sensitive spot, every trigger, every touch was deliberate, perfectly calculated to unravel her.

"Starting tomorrow, clear my whole schedule. I’m taking a week off. Book two tickets to the Caribbean," Emory finally said. He stood beside the bed, slow and steady as he buttoned his shirt, every movement meticulous.

Sariah shifted just a little, trying to ease the dull ache throbbing in her lower back, and a tiny flicker of hope sparked in her chest. "Emory—are you taking me on vacation?"

Emory hesitated. Then he frowned, glancing over at her like she’d said something ridiculous. "I’m going with Adelaide."

The smile froze solid on Sariah’s face. She dropped her gaze, awkwardness curling tight in her throat. "Alright, Mr. Kelly…"

He caught the disappointment etched across her face, so he spoke again. "Sariah, you’re just an orphan. You’re so young. I can’t marry you."

Sariah lifted her head to look at him, her smile cracked and tinged with raw sadness. "I never asked you to marry me… But now that Adelaide’s back from her divorce, isn’t it time we ended this? This thing we’ve been hiding?"

Emory’s jaw tightened. He brushed a hand softly over her hair, then set a black credit card down on the nightstand, his voice soft like he was trying to soothe a tantrum.

"I won’t be the other woman, Mr. Kelly," Sariah said firmly. She already knew—his marriage to Adelaide was inevitable. It was always going to happen.

"It’s too soon to hash this out now. We’ll deal with it when I’m actually at the altar. Don’t throw a scene. Ending this isn’t your call to make." Irritation sharpened his tone. He glanced at her one last time, then walked out, the door clicking shut behind him.

Silence swallowed the room after he left. It pressed in on Sariah, loud enough to thud against her eardrums.

Sariah had been an orphan since she was a kid. Back in college, her beauty turned Jasmine Kelly green with envy, and it spiraled into bullying so brutal it left her permanently deaf in one ear, a finger that never healed right, and faint cigarette burn scars crisscrossing her skin.

A video of the attack went viral, blowing up into a whole scandal. The school had to bring the families in, and it was Emory Kelly who stepped in to handle it for Jasmine.

Emory Kelly was Jasmine’s older brother.

Maybe it was just family pride, or maybe it was simple kindness. Either way, he reached out to the broken, beaten girl Sariah was back then. The first words he ever said to her were: "Don’t worry. I won’t let anyone hurt you ever again."

It was just one simple promise. But it was everything she’d ever ached to hear.

Sariah fell for Emory because, in the darkest moment of her life, he was everything she’d ever dreamed love and protection would be. She once thought he was her savior. But now? It’s clear he never truly loved her—he just wouldn’t let her go.

Up at Kelly Enterprises, Emory wrapped up a meeting, delegating last-minute tasks before his trip. Adelaide waited for him in his private office, already counting down the minutes until they jetted off to the Caribbean for seven blissful days alone.

Sariah brought in a coffee for Adelaide, and her heart ached so bad it felt like someone was carving it open with a knife. "Miss Patterson. Your coffee."

Adelaide looked up at her and gave her a polite, polished smile.

She came from old money, the perfect match for Emory—they’d grown up together, been carved out for each other from the start. She had that effortless poise and grace only high society breeds. Just sitting there, her confidence outshone anything Sariah could ever pretend to have.

Sariah already knew she’d lost. She could never compete.

Princes don’t actually fall for Cinderella. They just pass the time with her.

She set the coffee down and practically ran out of the office, too overwhelmed to stay a second longer.

She never had any confidence to begin with. Not as an orphan. Not as a poor girl with nothing to her name. Not with the scars from what happened that scream insecurity for everyone to see.

"Did you hear? Mr. Kelly and Miss Patterson are basically going on a pre-honeymoon, right? I heard they’re gonna go public after this trip. Both families are already pushing for the wedding."

In the break room, Sariah’s coworkers gossiped about Emory and Adelaide’s upcoming nuptials, no one bothering to lower their voices.

Sariah was pouring hot water for her tea, and her hand burned so bad it flushed bright red before she even realized what happened.

The mug slipped out of her hand and shattered on the tile. She fumbled, brain moving too slow, and scrambled to hold her burnt hand under the running tap.

Emory and Adelaide were getting married.

That meant it was over—her secret thing with Emory, her internship at Kelly Enterprises, all of it, cut short before it ever really got to end.

"Sariah? Mr. Kelly wants you to drive him and Miss Patterson to the airport at eleven."

A coworker called out the assignment to her. Of course it had to be her.

Sariah forced a bitter smile. Emory really could be… unthinkably cruel.

She knew he did this on purpose. He wouldn’t use his regular driver—he picked her, so she’d have to face reality, so she’d finally drop all her stupid little illusions.

Truth be told, Emory and Jasmine were both the same. They just hurt her in different ways.

After turning it over in her head for what felt like hours, Sariah pulled out her phone and dialed a number she’d blocked years ago.

"Hello, Mr. Sullivan. You mentioned before… if I agreed to marry you, you’d sponsor my studies in Italy… Is that offer still on the table?" Sariah’s voice shook as she spoke.

Getting married was the only way out of this city, away from Emory Kelly. It was her only escape.

"Make sure this is what you actually want," Robert Sullivan’s voice came through steady, calm on the other end of the line. "Thirteenth, seven p.m. Come to Riverfront Estate. We’ll work out the details there."

The thirteenth was only eight days away.