My Ex Dumped Me For A Millionaire Heiress — Now I’m The Duchess Of Blackwood

Part 2

I turned to look at the man I had just married, the man who had promised me nothing but honesty, and realized I didn’t know him at all.

He sat perfectly still in the dim carriage as we rolled steadily toward the massive, towering gates.

He finally confessed that his real name was David Reed, Duke of Blackwood, one of the wealthiest and most incredibly powerful men in the entire country.

He admitted he had deliberately hidden his identity because his first wife had married him solely for his title, and the ensuing misery had nearly destroyed him.

He desperately wanted someone who would look at the man himself, not the blinding fortune attached to him.

I stared at him, feeling my blood run entirely cold.

He had built his entire, elaborate proposal on being the one honest man in a dishonest world, and it was all a massive, unforgivable lie.

He offered to let me return to my aunt immediately with a generous financial settlement, freely acknowledging he had entirely wronged me.

I looked at the sprawling, intimidating palace drawing nearer and felt my deep, innate stubbornness flare to life.

I told him I was far too tired to go back and be pitied by my entire hometown all over again.

I had made a very specific bargain with the grave, honest man in the drawing room, and I fully intended to hold him to it.

I warned him, my voice shaking with barely suppressed rage, that he would spend a very long time earning back the honesty he had so casually shattered.

He agreed immediately, looking at me with a strange, fierce respect that I hadn’t anticipated.

The long, bitter winter at Blackwood passed like a painfully slow thaw.

I refused to treat the massive estate like some glittering fairy tale.

I treated it exactly like a house, systematically learning the servants’ names, balancing the severely neglected accounting books, and reopening the dusty, forgotten library.

David watched me work from a careful distance.

Gradually, we began spending our evenings together in the sprawling library, arguing passionately over local politics and estate management.

I absolutely never treated him with the terrified, fawning deference everyone else gave him.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the icy silence between us began to crack, replaced by intense late-night conversations and sudden, surprising bursts of shared laughter.

I was absolutely terrified to realize I was falling deeply in love with my own husband, but I was far too proud to ever admit it out loud.

Spring finally arrived, and the shocking news of my high-profile marriage eventually reached my distant hometown.

The entire county suddenly realized the jilted, discarded, and pitied girl was now a phenomenally wealthy Duchess.

David and I attended a grand, exclusive society assembly in the north to mark the season.

The ballroom was glittering, packed tightly with the most influential and powerful people in the country.

I felt a sudden, sickening chill as a familiar, arrogant face pushed through the dense crowd.

It was Tyler Dawson.

He had successfully married his wealthy heiress, and now he was walking straight toward us, flashing that exact same oily, self-forgiving smile.

He clearly didn’t know who David actually was.

He only saw a golden chance to rub shoulders with a Duke and publicly mock his former fiancé in the exact same breath.

My heart pounded violently against my ribs as he confidently closed the distance.

What would my husband do when the man who broke my heart tried to humiliate me in front of the entire room?