Filed To Story: The Broken-Hearted She and The Icy He Book PDF Free
James blinked, startled. “Did you just say… wife? Grandma… what are you talking about?”
He’d never been into women. Never cared. He thought he’d go his whole life without ever falling for anyone, and he was fine with that.
But three months before the accident, he’d met someone online. A girl named Leila.
She’d meant to add her senior on Instagram but typed the wrong username and accidentally messaged him instead.
And somehow… they just clicked. They talked about everything.
He couldn’t believe it either.
He’d been around all kinds of women growing up-smart, gorgeous, charming-but none of them ever meant anything to him. None of them made him feel the way she did. Leila was different.
He’d even started thinking maybe… maybe she was the one.
The day before the accident, he was planning to tell her how he felt.
Who would’ve thought a single car crash would put him in a coma for nearly four and a half years?
Now he was awake, and everything was wrong. He’d opened his eyes to a woman he didn’t recognize-a total stranger touching him. And now everyone was saying they were married?
His heart twisted with rage and confusion. He’d promised himself he’d stay loyal to Leila. He wasn’t supposed to be with anyone else.
He couldn’t take any of this!
His eyes darkened, bloodshot with anger. Every part of him screamed rejection. “She’s not a maid? She’s the wife you picked out while I was unconscious? How could you do that? How could you marry me off to someone I don’t even know-someone I don’t love? I’m not agreeing to this. I want a divorce. Now,”
“You little bastard!” Henry’s voice thundered through the room, his chest heaving with rage. He cared about Lily. And there was no way in hell he was letting his eldest grandson divorce her.
Henry caught his wife’s encouraging look, took a few exaggerated breaths, then clutched his chest and dropped to the floor like he was having a heart attack.
“Lily is the only woman we’ve ever accepted as our granddaughter-in-law, and I won’t let you divorce her! If you go through with this, what-are you trying to give me a heart attack? Trying to put me in the ground? Ah, my chest… I can’t take this. He’s going to put me in the hospital at this rate!”
When Grace shot him another glare, Henry immediately flopped back, legs stiff, pretending to pass out.
“Dad!”
“Grandpa!”
As Henry lay motionless, Blanc and the others rushed over to catch him.
Grace wiped her eyes, getting choked up. “You poor thing… You’ve always loved James so much, and now he’s breaking your heart. Why does life have to be so hard on you? If anything happens to you, I don’t want to live either…”
Blanc helped hoist Henry onto Ivan’s back, then shot James a fierce glare. “Don’t bring up divorce again. If Grandpa actually ends up in the hospital over this, you’re going to answer for it. I swear I won’t forgive you.”
As Ivan carried Henry out, Blanc pulled out his phone and called the butler, his voice sharp and urgent. “Get a car ready now. We need to get Grandpa to the hospital-fast.”
Soon, the bedroom was empty-except for James and Lily.
James still looked furious-stuck in a marriage with a woman he didn’t know and definitely didn’t love.
He had a reputation for being cold and ruthless in the outside world, but deep down, he valued family- especially the man who’d raised him.
Henry had raised him. There was no way he could watch the old man collapse and not feel something.
He sat stiffly at the edge of the bed, fuming in silence for a long while before finally speaking.
His face still cold, his voice sharp, he glanced at the woman across the room. He didn’t even know her name. Without softening a bit, he glanced at her coolly and said, “Name.”
Lily looked away from the door and replied politely, “Lily Ginger.”
She truly liked the Luke family.
If James had stayed in a coma forever, she would’ve spent her whole life quietly by his side, never asking for more. She’d have stayed in this house, at peace.
But now he was awake-and it was obvious he resented her. He wanted out o. his marriage. And she wasn’t the kind of woman to cling to a title that wasn’t truly hers.
She paused, then quickly added, “I get it-being suddenly married like this must feel suffocating and unfair. I’m fine with a divorce. I just worry that if we do it immediately, your grandpa might not be able to handle the shock. I-“
“We’ll get divorced in six months.” James cut her off coldly before she could finish.
He paused for a beat before continuing, just as coldly. “Six months is enough for Grandpa to accept the truth. I’ll have someone draw up the paperwork, and you can sign it tomorrow. In the meantime, I don’t want anyone outside this family knowing we’re married. For the next six months, no physical contact, no interference in each other’s lives. We’re married in name only. You and I remain separate individuals. You do whatever makes you happy. I’ll live mine. When the time’s up, I’ll make sure you get a payout. It’ll be enough to keep you comfortable for the rest of your life.”
Divorced in six months… Lily actually thought that was a pretty reasonable timeline. It was long enough for Grandpa to slowly accept that the two of them weren’t meant to be.
She nodded seriously. “You have my word. I won’t cross any lines. No touching, no overstepping. Once the six months are up, I’ll walk away and file the divorce myself.”
“Good.” James seemed satisfied with that.
His bedroom was massive-close to two thousand square feet.
Past the oversized bed was his private office, where he usually worked.
There was also a bed inside the study.
He shot Lily a cool look, then gripped the bedframe and pushed himself into a wheelchair before heading for the study. “You take the master bedroom. I’ll sleep in the office. Let’s keep our distance from now on.”
“Of course. I won’t bother you.”
Hearing her firm reply, James didn’t say another word. Cold as ever, he wheeled himself away and shut the door behind him.
The moment he shut the door, the cold look on his face softened. For once, a bit of warmth broke through his sharp, guarded expression.
He unlocked his phone and sent a message to Leila. “I’m sorry.”
He really was.
He’d disappeared for nearly four and a half years. And now, somehow, he’d woken up married to someone else. How could he ever face Leila after that?
Almost the instant he hit send, Lily’s phone buzzed.
She blinked in surprise. Her Instagram-silent for years-had just lit up with a new message.
Elias.
She stared at the dark profile photo on the screen, her breath catching in her throat. It felt like a lifetime ago.
Nearly five years ago, the theater club president had given her an Instagram handle to message for a rehearsal project.
She’d typed it in… but somehow, she must’ve entered it wrong. Instead of messaging the upperclassman she was supposed to work with, she’d ended up texting Elias.
She didn’t like adding strangers on chat apps.
But her conversations with James had felt almost magical.
Though they’d never met, it was like they were kindred spirits.
So even after realizing she had added the wrong person, she never deleted him. frs Com
That is-until over four years ago, when James vanished as if off the face of the earth. No matter how many messages she sent, he never replied.
She figured James just didn’t want to keep in touch. After all, they’d only ever known each other online. Who would genuinely treat an internet friend as a confidant?
Only her. Because there were so few people in her life who treated her kindly, she had truly come to cherish James as a friend.
Still, people have to move forward. Even if she felt a quiet emptiness from losing that friendship, she wouldn’t let herself stay trapped in the past.
Most people had switched to using WhatsApp and uninstalled Instagram.
But maybe because a small part of her still held onto hope, she never deleted Instagram. Even when she got a new phone, it was the first app she reinstalled.
She never imagined that after all these years, James-the friend she’d once considered her closest-would really reach out again.
And what she didn’t expect at all was that the first thing he said… was “I’m sorry.”
To be honest, when she first lost contact with James, she had blamed him.
Because during those three months they kept in touch, they’d called each other best friends-promised they’d be lifelong friends.
But when the Ginger family turned on her-every single one of them-hurting her, isolating her during her most painful and hopeless days, every message she sent him went unanswered.
Even when she called him, he never picked up.
She’d thought that after such a sudden disappearance, she’d resent him when he came back. That she wouldn’t want to talk to him.
But as she looked at his message now, all that resentment and blame seemed to dissolve in an instant- replaced by gratitude and relief.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.