The Ex-Wives Club: Begging Us Back

Eden and I married into the city's most untouchable family. I married the corporate heir, Nathaniel. She married the Alist Hollywood actor, Zane.

She stared at the leaked paparazzi photos. Zane, arm in arm with Penelope, the girl he never quite forgot. Eden asked, trying to hide her pain. "Are you divorcing him?

Once we are officially divorced, we'll travel the world.

Two male models each." I stared at my phone screen, reading the press release that named Penelope as the new global ambassador for Nathaniel's empire. I set my jaw. "I'm filing.

And make sure my male model is absolutely shredded," I added, the obsession taking over. "Nathaniel has an eightpack.

The new guy needs ten." A massive hand clamped on the back of my neck, hauling me backward until my spine hit a rocksolid chest. "If you're so obsessed with my body, why the hell are you leaving?" Nathaniel's low growl vibrated against my ear.

Chapter 1 Her finger froze on the glowing screen. I leaned closer. Holy shit. A famous paparazzi account just dropped a bombshell.

Zane, caught dining with the freshly returned sweetheart, Penelope. They were walking arm in arm, looking incredibly intimate. Penelope was the ghost haunting the Sterling brothers.

Since the day we had married them, she had only existed in the clueless, sweet ramblings of our motherinlaw, Victoria. "Penelope hasn't called me.

I miss her so much," Victoria would sigh. "Can one of you text Penelope? See when she's flying back to the States?" Penelope this. Penelope that.

It was pure psychological gaslighting. Eden's face went blank for a split second. Then the mask slipped back on.

She swallowed the betrayal. "I'm filing for divorce," she said flatly. "Are you?" My temptation meter hit ten percent. I was Eden's shadow my entire life.

She was a STEM major, I was a STEM major. She went to Yale, I followed her to Yale. She married a Sterling, I eagerly married the older brother.

But my husband wasn't the one caught on a date. Filing for divorce felt extreme. Eden sensed my hesitation. She raised the stakes. "I have Zane's platinum card.

I'll fund everything. Once we're free, we travel the world. Two male models each." Temptation spiked to forty percent.

A male model sounded fun, but probably lacked Nathaniel's lethal stamina. "Ten! Ten male models!" she pushed. Eighty percent. My eyes went wide. The word 'yes' hovered on my tongue.

Common sense barely held me back. Ding. A push notification flashed across my lock screen. FreshFaced Starlet Penelope Inks $50 Million Deal as Global Ambassador for Sterling Corp!

The attached photo showed her cutting a ribbon beside Nathaniel. She beamed, radiating pure victory. And my ruthless husband? He was staring at her with dark, consuming intensity.

He never looked at me like that. Whenever I joked around or acted goofy, he just gave me a deadpan glare. "Are you out of your mind?" he'd ask. A sour taste flooded my mouth.

I made the call. "I'm getting a divorce." Eden's eyes lit up. She instantly dialed her lawyer, Brooks. She started rattling off asset division strategies like a total shark.

She demanded half the Sterling empire. My jaw practically hit the floor. That was generational wealth. She even haggled with Brooks on speakerphone. "Two divorces.

Give us a twenty percent bundle discount." This was exactly why Eden called the shots and I followed. Her brain just worked better than mine. I stared at my lock screen.

A gorgeous wedding portrait of me and Nathaniel. A tiny ache hit my chest. Nathaniel gave me unlimited black cards.

But the mindblowing orgasms he delivered behind closed doors… that was hard to walk away from.

I cleared my throat, my voice weak. "Hey… Make sure my male model is toptier." Eden snapped her head toward me, her face instantly freezing.

I was too deep in my delusion to notice. "He absolutely has to perform better in bed than Nathaniel!" Eden slapped a hand over her mouth, muffling a gasp, her trembling finger pointing right over my shoulder.

Before I could even turn my head, a large, familiar hand clamped down.

Fingers gripped the nape of my neck, hoisting me up like a misbehaving kitten and dragging me flush against his rigid side.

The temperature in the room plummeted. "If I perform so well," Nathaniel murmured, the vibration of his deep baritone sinking into my bones, "why the hell are you leaving?" Chapter 2 Nathaniel narrowed his dark eyes at Eden.

He looked at her like she was the one gaslighting me into walking away. "Eden," he bit out the words, his jaw flexing. "Zane is minutes away.

I suggest you figure out exactly how you're going to explain this mess to him." Eden froze. She sank heavily onto the designer sofa, her mind visibly racing.

She completely ignored my panicked, wideeyed stares. Some rideordie bestie. I swallowed hard, my gaze trapped on Nathaniel's sharp, unforgiving profile.

He snapped his head toward me. The hostility in his eyes instantly shifted.

A microscopic smirk ghosted across his lips, but his baritone remained icecold. "One divorce in this family is enough. They can split.

We stay." His voice felt like a magic potion to me. It bewitched me into nodding. I nodded dumbly. The divorce papers and the army of male models instantly vaporized from my brain.

The roar of a sports car engine came from outside. Zane. The flashy gearhead was home. With a sudden screech of brakes, less than a minute later, the front door flew open.

He must have sped straight from the film set. He was still halfdressed in his perioddrama costume, sheer exhaustion etched deeply into his features.

His gaze swept over us. "Nathaniel. Wren." Nathaniel's large hand gripped my waist, pulling me flush against him.

He gave a single, dismissive nod. "Your wife just tried to talk my wife into a divorce.

Handle it." Zane marched straight toward Eden, rubbing his temples with an impatient sigh. "Eden, what the hell is it this time?

Last time you threatened to leave over a kissing scene, I banned them from all my contracts. The time before that, Cora baked me a damn cake, and I fired her on the spot.

What is your problem now?" Eden let out a humorless, icy laugh.

She chucked her phone directly at his chest. "Look at it yourself." I leaned forward, desperate for the frontrow drama, but Nathaniel hooked a muscular arm around my waist and hauled me away. "Let them handle their own mess," he muttered against my hair.

Aren't we all literally in the same family? I thought. But I kept my mouth shut and let him drag me out to the garage.

Sitting in the passenger seat, I kept my voice soft. "Why Penelope?" She just flew back to the States. Her resume was completely empty. Zero hit movies.

We literally had an Alist actor in the family—even if they wanted to avoid a conflict of interest, Hollywood was overflowing with toptier talent.

Penelope didn't deserve that contract in a million years. "Wren, don't let Eden feed you her paranoia," he stated flatly, his large hands gripping the leather steering wheel. "Penelope is just a girl we grew up with.

A little sister. I don't see her like that." Just a little sister? A sharp, physical ache bloomed in my chest. My throat went painfully tight.

Right after our wedding, I had found a hidden Polaroid shoved deep in his nightstand. My hands trembled as I showed it to Eden. Eden hadn't said a single word.

She just walked into her own bedroom and pulled out the exact same Polaroid. It was a group shot. All three of them. Penelope stood dead center, flashing an innocent, angelic smile.

Nathaniel had cropped Zane out of the right side. Zane had cropped Nathaniel out of the left. Such perfect synchronization, exactly what you'd expect from biological brothers.

I clamped my jaw shut. I cranked the stereo volume to the max and stared blankly at the blur of the passing city. He hauled me straight up to his executive suite.

He refused to let me out of his sight.

He dragged me into a highstakes board meeting, shoving a legal pad and an expensive pen into my hands like I was a toddler, forcing me to sit directly behind his leather chair and doodle.

I had to admit, Nathaniel was really handsome when he was working. The goldrimmed glasses sharpened his ruthless features. His dark eyes were glued to the projector screen.

When he interrupted the executives, his voice cut through the room like a scalpel—precise, dominant, and brutal.

His face remained an unreadable mask, but every few minutes, he’d glance back over his broad shoulder. His intense gaze would lock onto mine.

A silent, heavy look that screamed: I know you're bored. Almost done. Chapter 3 The board meeting dragged on forever. My eyelids grew impossibly heavy. I was used to it.

This was the same man who ditched our first anniversary dinner over a minor supply chain glitch.

Leaving me alone in the topfloor hotel room, staring blankly at the flowers and cake. I ended up calling Eden to crash with me.

Otherwise, that massive kingsized bed would have just been a pathetic waste of space. A sharp knock broke my trance.

Morgan slipped into the boardroom. "Sir, Penelope is here." Nathaniel instantly closed his laptop. "We're done for today," he commanded the room. "We pick this up tomorrow." He didn't hesitate.

Penelope was the only person on earth who could shatter his ruthless corporate focus. I trailed behind him. It was my first time seeing her in the flesh. I had stalked her online.

Twentyfive. A pristine resume. Zero scandals. The press didn't even know she was the heiress to the Wentworth family, presumably because she was fiercely protected by them.

She stood in the hallway wearing a flowing white sundress. She looked exactly like that polaroid from when she was eighteen. I suddenly understood.

I understood why both brothers were utterly obsessed. She radiated an untouchable, innocent purity.

It was the ultimate kryptonite for men like them. "Nathaniel," she chimed, her voice sickeningly sweet. "Am I interrupting?" Her eyes slid right past me.

She completely dismissed me, probably assuming I was just another faceless assistant. "No," Nathaniel replied, his tone softer than I'd ever heard it. "Your timing is perfect." He turned his head slightly, barking an order at Morgan. "Take Wren to the executive lounge." He threw in a command for Morgan to order my favorite macarons and iced passionfruit tea.

Playing the perfect, considerate husband. But he never actually looked at me. Not once.

As Morgan ushered me away, the artificial frost of the blasting AC hit my bare arms, instantly hollowing out my chest. A chill went straight to my heart.

My fingers trembled slightly as I gripped my phone. Over a dozen missed calls from Eden. I hit dial.

The second the line connected, I didn't wait for her to speak. "Eden," I asked, my voice tight. "Are you still filing?" A heavy silence stretched through the speaker.

Then, a razorsharp response: "Yes." "Wren, do you know what that bastard said?" Eden’s voice shook with raw anger. "He claimed she just moved back.

Claimed she needed industry connections, so he took the meeting." A bitter laugh scraped from her throat. "What about me? I was a rising star before I married him.

I had just as much talent as Penelope. And what did this marriage give me?

Being locked in a gilded cage, with a husband who mentally belongs to someone else." I swallowed hard. "But… you got the black cards." Eden burned through cash like it was oxygen.

Thank God she married into the Sterling empire; no normal trust fund could survive her spending habits. Her breathing hitched.

Her eyes instantly lit up. "You're right." Her voice hardened into a vicious vow. "I have the money.

We take half the empire, and we can buy whatever men we want." Then, the line went dead quiet. "Wren," she asked slowly. "You didn't sign a prenup with Nathaniel, did you?" My stomach plummeted.

I had. Before the wedding, Nathaniel had slid a thick stack of papers across Brooks' mahogany desk.

I was so mesmerized by his face and body that I signed it without even taking a single glance. "Fuck," Eden cursed. "We're only getting a quarter of the assets." "How much is a quarter?" I whispered.

I heard her doing the math. "Enough to book ten premium male models a day. Different guys. Every single day until we die." My pulse spiked. "Hell yes!" The decision was locked in.

The second Brooks finished drafting the paperwork, we were done. Chapter 4 While waiting for the divorce papers, it happened to be our motherinlaw Victoria's birthday banquet.

We had to keep up appearances. Eden and I arrived in full couture, linking arms. We completely ditched the brothers, leaving them staring at each other in the grand foyer.

Every other year, we played the perfect trophy wives. We'd hang off our husbands' arms, smiling through the brutal corporate small talk.

Seeing them solo tonight felt like a power move from Victoria. A deliberate slap in the face to the daughtersinlaw she never quite accepted. But it wasn't about us.

It was all about Penelope. Victoria always craved a daughter. After having two boys, she basically adopted the neighbor's neglected little princess.

She raised Penelope like her own flesh and blood. Eden couldn't stomach it. She grabbed my wrist, ready to bolt.

Penelope’s gaze flicked toward us—a calculated, innocent stare. "I haven't properly met my new sistersinlaw," she chimed. "Aunt Victoria, aren't you going to introduce us?" We were trapped.

Penelope played the sweet angel, complimenting Eden's stunning looks. No shit. Eden was a flawless knockout. If she hadn't quit Hollywood, Penelope wouldn't even exist on the radar.

Then her eyes dragged slowly up and down my body. She smiled, remarking that I looked like I had a "very healthy appetite." So what if I gained a few pounds recently?

Standing next to Eden's supermodel frame made it obvious, but the backhanded fatshaming was completely uncalled for. I swallowed the humiliation.

Eden didn't. "So nice to finally meet you," Eden drawled, her tone dripping with venom. "You really do give off that pure, innocent vibe. Especially in that white dress.

You play the perfect little pickme." Victoria entirely missed the insult, nodding along proudly while Penelope's face flushed a blotchy red.

Not daring to snap back, she spun around instead and wedged herself right between Nathaniel and Zane. The perfect, happy little trio. Eden and I locked eyes.

The urge to sign those divorce papers solidified into pure titanium. The ballroom was packed with Zane's Hollywood backers.

Penelope clung to his shadow, playing the shy ingenue while absorbing all his elite connections. Eden tracked their movements, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "See Damien?

He begged me to star in his last blockbuster. I rejected it because I was completely blind and obsessed with Zane." Her eyes shifted across the room. "And Preston over there?

He offered to fund my own production company. He still emails me trying to pull me out of retirement. Fuck this.

She's scavenging my leftovers." She looked like she was going to explode from anger. "If I knew this would happen, I would have died on a movie set before marrying him." The final trigger snapped.

In the middle of the crowded room, Penelope reached up. She intimately brushed a stray eyelash off Zane's cheek. The suppressed fury of the entire night exploded.

Eden didn't hesitate. She timed her steps perfectly. She stepped heavily on the hem of Penelope's dress with her high heels. Penelope let out a piercing gasp.

The dress ripped, tearing a large chunk off the hem. She wasn't exposed, but standing in a room full of Alisters with a shredded dress was absolute social suicide.

Zane closed the distance in two strides. He grabbed Eden’s arm, his voice raising a dangerous octave. "Eden! What the hell is wrong with you?

Why are you humiliating her?" Nathaniel strode over.

He looked down at me, his jaw clenched tight. "Can you lend her one of your spare dresses?" That was the very first sentence either of our husbands had spoken to us all night.

A hollow laugh scraped my throat. "Sure," I smiled, the expression feeling like cracked glass on my face. "You bought them all anyway.

You make the call." His dark eyes locked onto mine, searching for something unreadable. Finally, he waved his hand, ordering Nancy to escort Penelope upstairs to change.

Eden hooked her arm through mine. We walked out of the Sterling estate without looking back. We dropped into the low leather seats of Zane's cherryred Ferrari.

Eden gunned the engine, pushing the speedometer past a hundred and twenty down the dark highway.

When she finally slammed on the brakes, the silence in the car was deafening. "We aren't waiting for the lawyers." Her breathing was jagged.

Her grip was whiteknuckled on the steering wheel. "We leave tomorrow." Chapter 5 This tropical island was supposed to be our dream honeymoon destination.

But Nathaniel was always buried in corporate mergers, and Zane was always booked backtoback on Hollywood sets. The trips just never happened.

Now, we lounged on plush cabana beds, gripping icecold mojitos and soaking in the blistering sun. Pure paradise. Our phones vibrated relentlessly against the teak table.

Zane bombarded Eden’s lock screen. "Are you done throwing this tantrum? Come home. I already apologized to Penelope for you.

I let the divorce threat slide, and now you’re giving me the silent treatment?" Nathaniel’s texts were chillingly calm. "Stop letting Eden drag you into her drama.

Come back, and I’ll take you shopping. Once you’re done playing around, fly home.

Muffin is waiting for you to feed him." One was completely delulu about the severity of the situation. The other thought his wife was just on a girls' trip.

Two arrogant, clueless brothers. We were completely blind when we married them. But I really couldn't bear to leave my dog behind.

I nudged Eden. "Can Brooks add a clause to the prenup? I want full custody of Muffin." Eden gave a sharp nod and immediately dialed her lawyer.

Brooks promised the revised papers would hit the Sterling estate by tomorrow morning.

We exchanged a satisfied smirk, powered down our phones, and slid our designer shades down our noses. It was time to scout the beach for some toptier male models.

The brothers never expected us to actually pull the trigger. They were spiraling. Zane shifted from explosive rage to absolute desperation.

His final text was a pathetic plea. "If you leave, you only take half.

Stay, and my entire net worth is yours." Eden rolled her eyes hard, scoffing. "Does he really think I married him for the bag? What a joke." She wasn't lying.

When she first fell for Zane, she didn't even know he was a billionaire Sterling heir. "What did your husband—I mean, Nathaniel—send you?" Eden asked.

My fingers trembled slightly as I handed her the phone. Nathaniel’s message burned on the screen: "Didn't you say I perform well?

If I do, then drop the divorce." Eden snatched the phone. Her manicured nails clacked violently against the glass screen.

When she shoved it back to me, my jaw dropped so hard I nearly lost my grip on the device. "I was just naive back then.

Now that I've tested out other options, I realize you're actually pretty disappointing in bed." Absolute savagery