Beyond The Billionaire's Cruel Obsession

For five years, I was married to a man the world adored. I told myself he wasn't a monster, just incapable of love.

I learned the truth when his men dragged me from a hospital bed to bake a cake for the spoiled lover he cherished more than life.

He let that man, Cinnamon, carve a painting into my back with a needle. He had me thrown into a walk-in freezer when I refused to cook.

He even made me crawl through a swimming pool filled with broken glass, all to appease Cinnamon's cruel whims.

I finally understood. My husband wasn't incapable of love; he was just incapable of loving me. He was a monster, but only for him.

The day I walked out of that pool, bleeding and broken, my love for him was dead. The next morning, I finalized our divorce and bought every billboard in the city with my last dollar.

My message was simple: "I, Adelaide Atkinson, am officially divorced from Alonzo Taylor. Best wishes for his future with Mr. Cinnamon Webster."

Chapter 1

Adelaide POV:

For five years, I was married to a man the world adored. A man who, I came to realize, was not incapable of love. He was simply incapable of loving me. I learned this the day his men dragged me from a hospital bed, my body shattered and bleeding, to bake a cake for the spoiled mistress he cherished more than life itself.

That man was Alonzo Taylor, the ruthless billionaire CEO whose face graced the cover of every major business magazine. To the public, he was a visionary, a titan of industry, a man whose logic was as sharp and cold as a surgeon's scalpel. To me, he was the husband who had saved my family's company from bankruptcy five years ago, in exchange for my hand in a marriage of convenience.

I had been grateful. I had even been in love.

But gratitude and love have their limits.

I learned that on our first anniversary, when he forgot our dinner reservations because of a last-minute board meeting.

I learned it again on my birthday, when he sent his assistant with a Cartier bracelet but never showed up himself.

I learned it through a thousand lonely nights in our sprawling, minimalist mansion that felt more like a museum than a home. He was always working, always traveling, always just out of reach. His apologies, when they came, were brief and perfunctory, delivered via text messages that felt like they were dictated to his secretary.

For a long time, I made excuses for him. He's a genius, I'd tell myself. His mind operates on a different plane. His work is his passion, and I should be a supportive wife. This marriage was a transaction, after all. I shouldn't expect the fairy tale.

But a heart, no matter how resilient, can only take so much neglect before it starts to crack.

The first real crack appeared when the whispers started. Rumors