She Burned His World and Chose Another Man

Lindsay Donaldson and Benjamin Delgado were New York's most famous couple bound by nothing but hate.

On their third wedding anniversary, Benjamin sat with his wrists lashed together by his own tie, his eyes rimmed red, his voice wrecked to a rasp. "Lindsay. What did you put in my water?"

"An aphrodisiac." Her red lips curved into a smug arc, one hand trailing down across his stomach. "So? Ready to beg?"

There was want churning in his eyes, but under it, undisguised disgust. "You're shameless."

She opened the camera on her phone and aimed it at him. "Is today the first day you've met me?"

He ground out the words through his teeth. "Don't think you can seduce me with a trick like this. I'd rather die than lay a finger on you."

Smiling, she tossed a contract onto the bed. "The North Side project. Let me run it. Otherwise this video shows up at tomorrow's shareholders' meeting."

The day after she secured the project, Benjamin drugged her and had her delivered to a hospital as a live training body.

A doctor and a cluster of interns crowded around her. A heat spread low in her belly and her mind began to swim, but she still managed to curse him. "Benjamin, you're filthy and low and shameless. Watch me ruin you one day."

He let his fine, handsome eyes flick over her, his tone flat, edged with a trace of contempt. "Then I'll be waiting."

She bit down hard on her lip, struggled up off the bed, and there in the crowd she saw a familiar face.

Benjamin had clearly seen it too. His whole body went rigid, and his voice came out urgent, lit with the joy of getting back something he'd lost. "Veronica Barnes?"

The woman in the white coat spoke. "Sir, you know my sister?"

She said she was Vivian Barnes, the twin sister of Benjamin's dead first love.

Under the drug, Lindsay's mind sank all the way into darkness.

1

She had a dream. It was as if she had gone back to childhood, to the days when she and Benjamin had grown up side by side.

She was the most doted-on youngest daughter of the Donaldson family, the brightest rose in all of New York, living loud and unbridled.

He was the cleverest son of the Delgado family, born into a top dynasty, yet he worked himself ragged, graduated first in the city, got into Columbia Law School, and took up his father's mantle to become a lawyer.

From the time they were small, they had treated each other as rivals, competing over grades, over resources, over who came out on top.

Somewhere in all of that, Lindsay had fallen for Benjamin, helplessly, beyond any way back.

They had been promised to each other for years. She had assumed marrying him was simply how things would go.

Until he stood in front of her and begged, in the most abject posture she'd ever seen from him. "Lindsay, I can't marry you. Please tell your family clearly. Call off our engagement."

In that moment her heart felt cut to pieces, yet she still spoke with her pride intact. "Oh? You've finally figured out you're not good enough for me?"

Benjamin lowered his eyes and said it one word at a time. "I've fallen in love with Veronica. I'm sorry."

"This is your choice? A woman who runs a flower shop. What can she give you?" Lindsay pressed down the pain surging up in her and turned mocking. "The truth is I never liked you at all, Benjamin. If you want out, then out. Just don't regret it later."

The calm she forced herself to hold was only there to prop up her crumbling pride.

Benjamin finally let out a breath, and quietly told her thank you.

But right after she'd raised the broken engagement with her family, Veronica suddenly drowned herself in the sea, leaving behind nothing but a note written in blood.

The note said it was Lindsay who had driven her to her death.

No matter how Lindsay explained, Benjamin simply would not believe her.

He came at her with a fury that made it look as though he wanted to kill her, and forced her to accept the marriage.

In the chapel, as they held each other, Benjamin laid the cruelest curse on her. "Lindsay, the two of us should torment each other to death. That's the only way to atone."

Lindsay jolted awake from the nightmare, a fine cold sweat sheeting her back.

She was in an empty hospital room, and just then her phone rang.

"Miss Donaldson, your brother's heart surgery began last night. The surgeon's improper handling caused a blood infection, and he died unexpectedly—"

Lindsay could hardly take it in. "Weren't you told this surgery was very low risk? Who was the surgeon?"

The voice on the line said, "Vivian Barnes."

The dull ache at her heart turned into a sharp, stabbing pain, so fierce she couldn't breathe.

After their parents died, her brother had been the only family she had left.

She pulled out the IV needle and made her way, stumbling, to Vivian's office.

Through the gap in the door, she saw Benjamin holding Vivian in his arms, soothing her in a low voice. "Vivian, it was only an accident. I won't let anything happen to you."

"Lindsay killed your sister. Her brother dying at your hands is nothing but what she had coming. She deserves it."

Lindsay's nails dug deep into her palms, and she felt no pain at all, only a scalding numbness.

Vivian sobbed. "But I'm only an intern. I'm not qualified to perform surgery. What if she sues me?"

Benjamin's tone was uncommonly gentle. "Without my say-so, no one in New York would dare take her case."

A bang.

Lindsay shoved the door open and spoke without a single hesitation. "Benjamin. Let's get a divorce."