Married To My Billionaire Rival

(Laura POV)

I should have known something was wrong when I received a call early in the morning.

"Hello, am I speaking to Laura?"

"Who is this?" I asked, rubbing my eyes and glancing at the clock on the bedside table. It showed 5:45 a.m, and the room was still dim.

I guess it's time to get up for work.

"This is Mr. Marcos, the family lawyer. I'm sorry to tell you that your father is dead."

"What did you just say…" I asked, sitting up in shock.

"Your…" he started to say, but none of the words registered in my mind as the phone slipped out of my hand and landed somewhere in the sheets.

I stared blankly at the wall opposite me, trying to recall the last time I'd heard his voice. It was early this year, and the moment I'd realized I was speaking to him, I'd cut the call.

I walked away from the only family member I had two years ago, when I couldn't take the pain anymore.

I grew up not knowing my mother. I was told she died giving birth to me.

And I was ten when my father came home and introduced Luciana and Betty as my stepmother and stepsister.

"She will be your new mum now, dear," my father said, smiling.

"Oh, dear." Luciana came close and squatted down. "I will make sure I take very good care of you, and you now have a sister," she said, smiling at me as she drew her own daughter closer.

That was the last time I ever had anything I could call my own. My dolls, my clothes, everything I had was taken away, down to the attention my father used to show me. And when I complained, I was scolded for not loving my sister enough, for not wanting to share.

I still remember the first boy I ever crushed on. Jason Reeves golden boy of Hill High, the kind of name that made the whole hallway go quiet when he walked through it. I was fourteen, and I'd rehearsed what I'd say to him for a week before he ever said a word to me first.

"You're in my English class, right?" he'd asked one afternoon by the lockers.

"Yeah," I'd managed, gripping my textbook like it might float away.

"Some of us are hanging out this weekend. You should come."

I couldn't stop smiling through out the day. Immediately after school, I ran home and found Nanny Gina in the kitchen, and I told her everything the way he'd leaned against the locker next to mine, the way he'd said you should come like it mattered whether I did.

I didn't notice Betty in the doorway until it was too late.

By Sunday night, Luciana was waiting for me at the top of the stairs.

"I hear you've been sneaking around with boys," she said, arms crossed.

"I wasn't sneaking anywhere."

"Your father will hear about this."

And he did. And when he looked at me that evening, it wasn't with curiosity or concern it was with the flat disappointment of a man who'd already decided I was guilty.

"No boys, Laura. Not until you're older," he said, and that was the end of it. I never went to that hangout. I never told Jason why.

That was the first time my father ever raised his voice at me over a lie Betty had planted with a single sentence in a doorway.

What finally broke me, what made me decide to leave the house, was finding Betty and Mark, my college sweetheart, together in bed.

The memory is as clear as anything. After college, I started working at my dad's company. I remember coming back from a business trip with him and arriving home a few hours early. I wanted to surprise him, but I got the surprise of my life instead they were tangled together as I walked in.

"Hi, sis," Betty said, waving. She was the first to see me from the doorway.

"Babe, it's not what you think," Mark rushed to say, trying to untangle himself from her.

"Then explain to me what it is," I said.

"Come on, sis, can't we share the same man?" Betty chuckled, pulling one of Mark's shirts around herself.

"How long has this been going on?" I asked Mark, staring at him.

"Three years," Mark whispered back.

That included my final year of college. "So all that time you kept saying you were busy, you never were."

I don't remember turning around and walking out of the house, all I remember was getting to the side of the road and pulling out my phone from my bag to call my best friend, Tia.

“Girl, what's wrong? Tia asked.

“I… I…” I couldn't get the words out of my mouth.

“Just stay where you are, turn on your location and I will pick you up” She interrupted me.

That night I cried in her car as we drove back to her place, I cried as I lay down on her bed. All the pain I'd bottled up finally came loose. Tia was the only one there to comfort me.

The next morning, when I came home, I found Betty with Dad and Luciana having breakfast, the smell of coffee and toast thick in the air like nothing had happened.

"Where were you last night, Laura?" Dad asked.

"I was at Tia's," I replied, starting up the stairs.

"Without informing me or your stepmother?"

"I'm sure your precious daughter Betty already told you what happened," I burst out.

"Dear…" Luciana reached her hand toward Dad's. "The girls just had a little misunderstanding, that's all."

"You call that a misunderstanding, when I caught your daughter in bed with my boyfriend?" I all but shouted.

Betty's eyes widened. I'm sure she wasn't expecting me to say what had really happened.

"Dad, we're in love. He doesn't love Laura anymore," Betty cried out.

"Does that give you the right to date him?" I asked.

"But he no longer…"

"Enough." Dad's voice boomed, halting all conversation. "I don't want to hear about Mark."

"Is that all you have to say, Dad?" I asked, staring at the man who, for years, had always taken Betty's side. "She betrayed me. She slept with my boyfriend."

"If he truly loved you, he wouldn't have fallen for your sister. That just means he never loved you."

His words stabbed me. He turned around, picked up his newspaper, and walked toward his study.

I looked around the breakfast table, and my eyes caught the mother daughter duo smiling at me, as if to say they'd won.

By the time I got to my room and shut the door behind me, all my pent-up anger and frustration lashed out in the form of tears. I cried and cried, not knowing how long it had been.

Until Nanny Gina walked in and held me in her arms.

"It's okay, dear, you'll be fine," she whispered, petting my hair until I fell asleep.

When I woke up again, it was evening. The room had gone gray and quiet, and I'd already made up my mind about what I wanted to do.

I walked to my closet and started dropping clothes into my bag. It was time to leave.

As I kept folding and packing, I heard my door open, and Nanny Gina called out to me.

"Laura, where are you?"

"In here," I called back.

"What are you doing?"

"I think it's time I leave this house. I can't keep being around people who don't love me."

"Your father loves you," she said, walking toward me.

"No, he doesn't," I told Nanny Gina, wiping the tears rolling down my face.

It's time for me to take control of my own life