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About this story:

He proposed to the wrong woman. His ex wants him back. And somebody’s been keeping a secret far more dangerous than a fake engagement.

⚠️ SNEAKREADER WARNING: LOVE ISN’T THE ONLY THING DANGEROUS HERE! 💍🌹

Welcome to Marry Me, where the engagement is fake, the attraction is real, and everybody has secrets they should’ve taken to the grave.

Reader discretion advised: This dark romantic suspense contains adult themes, sensual situations, strong language, emotional trauma, suicidal thoughts, childhood abandonment, references to childhood sexual abuse and pregnancy involving a minor, family betrayal, manipulation, and deception.

Some characters need therapy. Others need a lawyer. A few need both. 😈

Proceed with caution, protect your peace, and remember: just because he’s fine doesn’t mean he’s good for you.

— Your author, Sylvia Hubbard

Author’s Notes

Oh boy. This was hard. This chapter really took me down.

And even though Kam was feeling low, I still wanted to take her down a notch. Kam has a lot going on, and if she wasn’t going through what she was, I don’t think she would be at this low point.

But life happens.

And Kam’s going through a lot at this point.

And maybe I won’t take her down any more notches.

Maybe.

Let me know what you think, though. I’d love to hear what you think about Kam.

Don’t forget, after chapter 3, you’ll need a password.

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Companion novels.

• Her Name is Mine (WIP)
• Desire Me (WIP – Windfall Brother Series Book Three)

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Read as the Author Writes

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Chapter 2 – What is the Point?

The nurse did as promised and gave Kam a large duffle bag of medical supplies, a little disheartened that the bag wasn’t pink. Kam looked through the bag the brother had thrown at her, took the key out of the bag that was left at the bottom, and stuffed the rest in the duffle bag.

Had he left the key on purpose or by mistake? She briefly wondered.

She frowned in disgust when the nurse handed her the bag, her expression clear. Knowing she was probably getting under the nurse’s skin brought some sick joy despite the pain racking her body.

When she could focus, Kam knew she had less than a day to stay at the apartment and figure out what to do next.

First thing first, get out of there, she told herself. Despite the ache in her fingers, arms, and shoulders, she found her phone tucked into her makeup bag when she rummaged through her old items. She didn’t remember putting it there, and she was sure the brother would have taken it since it was on her fiancé’s account. Maybe the brother thought it was too damaged to take. Whoever had slipped it in there was a lifesaver. She briefly cut her eyes to the nurse to ask, but decided against it.

She had only ten percent battery, but it was enough to turn it on and discover the car service app was still active. Whatever card was connected to the account still worked, and she could schedule a car for three o’clock at the hospital’s entrance using the hospital’s WIFI.

She would need all that time because she couldn’t move without feeling like someone was stabbing her all over and her body was being slammed repeatedly by a Mack truck. That also didn’t include the white flash of hot lightning shooting through her eyes – clouding her vision- the pounding in her chest because she was sure something was fractured or on its way to be fractured if she tried to move normally or take a deep breath. Between her legs felt like someone had scraped her out with a chainsaw, and as she planted her feet on the floor for the first time in a week, she was sure her intestines were about to fall out of her body. The room spun, and she had to close her eyes for a moment because she wanted to throw up, but she fought that urge by taking slow, deep breaths.

Standing slowly from the bed, her one hundred ninety-pound voluptuous frame felt like three tons. Her chest had started to swell a little, even though she had only been six months pregnant. After being thrown around in the vehicle accident, her body was sore from head to toe.

Yet at least her face was scarless, and her hair was still done in a beautiful shoulder-length two-strand twist of her natural dark brown hair.

In the right light, some people thought she had blonde streaks. Her hair matched her eyes but contrasted with the creamy terracotta skin. In the summer, she loved how the sun baked her perfectly; in the winter, she turned a naturally cheerful rosy brown, but she always looked like she had a resting bitch face. People perceived it as irritable confidence, and she liked that.

Along with her round eyes, pudgy nose, and heart-shaped lips that her fiancé and his brother always thought were kissable, Kam knew whoever created her put together a very nice package.

Pulling her strands into a low ponytail, Kam took several deep breaths to push through the pain, move around, and gather everything. Stubbornly, she refused to ask the nurse for any help, and the nurse didn’t offer.

The woman gathered all the machines and left, only to return thirty minutes before three with a wheelchair, some over-the-counter pain drugs, sanitary napkins and extra underwear, plus a list of medicine Kam could get to help if there was an infection and what to do if her milk supply came and wouldn’t dry up.

“It was only six months,” Kam snipped.

With remorse, the nurse said, “It was still a part of you. You can request-“

Cutting her off, she said, “It was barely there. And I didn’t want it in the first place. It was just a device to get what I wanted.”

The nurse winced, then gritted her teeth as if she had more to say, but decided against it. “Then we’ll deliver it with your fiancé to his family,” she muttered, then started pushing the wheelchair down the hall with a relieved look, eager to get rid of this patient.

Kam knew if she had been a little nicer, the nurse probably would’ve helped her a lot more, but Kam was too proud to apologize for her harsh words.

Perhaps this nurse knew more about her parentage?

Why should you care after all this time? You’ve messed up enough lives. You were tossed away.

That lone feeling of never being wanted in this world hit her hard. At least her baby got away before it suffered through life like her.

Hurt people; Hurt people.

And she had hurt a lot of people. Most innocent, but at the time she didn’t care. Now… it was as if the pain increased even more. Their pain coming back tenfold. She deserved this – all of this.

You were hurting the wrong people all along, Kamryn, she told herself.

The outside fall air of Detroit hit her, bringing her briefly out of her misery and back into reality.

As soon as Kam painfully got out of the wheelchair, the nurse rushed back into the hospital without another look.

What did it matter? For now, things were going her way. And the car service was waiting outside the hospital, as she had instructed, on time. Walking to it hurt. Each step was like lugging twenty tons, as pain in areas she didn’t know could hurt racked her body.

Sitting in the back seat, glad she didn’t have to say anything to the driver, Kam closed her eyes to focus on what needed to be done.

If Kam could get into the apartment, she could grab some things she knew her fiancé had left, sell them, or use them to get some money. All her things had been at the new house, which had burned down, leaving her with nothing.

Yet her fiancé wanted to spend more time planning the wedding instead of moving his stuff.

Kam became excited about the possibility of getting something out of his junk.

The trophies, medals, at least three televisions, game consoles with accessories, shoes, jewelry, and some more tech he no longer used, even an electric scooter. Some early wedding gifts had even come to their apartment and been left there, and she excitedly looked to sell all that off as well, without an ounce of regret.

“We’re here,” the driver said, pulling up to the condo.

Moving hurt down to the bone, but Kam managed with her two bags and the old brown tweed coat the nurse had gotten her from lost and found.

Kam hated the rough fabric rubbing under her chin and on her arms. She fully intended to throw it in the garbage as soon as she got inside. There were old coats from her dead fiancé in the apartment that felt better against her than this used piece of crap.

A walk up to the door that usually took seconds took Kam ten minutes. The car took off the moment she got out, and she reminded herself to give the driver one star.

Usually she would scan a card, but they’d all been cut up. To her relief, someone was walking out, and she got inside, collapsing on the nearest bench by the mailboxes. Pain, exhaustion, and misery went through every vein and muscle in her body. Almost an hour later, she made it to the elevator. The code to access the apartment floor was still valid, and she finally arrived.

To her relief, the key fit, and that click was like angels singing. All the lights were out, and she needed to use the last of her phone battery to see. Clicking the switches by the door, nothing turned on. With it being dark outside, she knew she needed something, because the worry of falling and not being able to get back up kept her up.

The apartment smelled like him, and for that, Kam wrinkled her nose in disgust. Why did she have to constantly be bombarded with memories of him? He was dead.

Most likely it’s all his junk; you’re going to find something valuable in. Bear it for now, and you’ll be at the pawn shop by morning with some money, she told herself.

She dropped the coat and bags at the door and trudged in, remembering the magnetic motion light in the hallway closet. It was still there, and she could use it as a flashlight until she found a charging cord for her phone.

Using the walls for support, she pretty much knew this apartment by heart, but when she reached the end of the entryway and found no table to bump into, she began to worry… a little. Had he moved it? He’d always hated that it was there, but she’d never found something smaller for that entryway, even though he’d repeatedly asked her for it. It was a very expensive table, and it made the area look expensive. And that mattered more than what he thought.

Stopping almost at the end of the entry, she looked to the other side, but there was nothing.

Had he moved his stuff to the house behind her back? He was so stupid!

Her heart quickened with worry.

As she proceeded farther into the condo, trying to look for anything familiar and checking each light switch she came to, with no success, Kam could feel her heartbeat become heavier and heavier as panic set in.

Finally reaching the closed door to the master bedroom, she saw lights under it. This was where all this junk was still in boxes; she remembered that.

“You’re just going to leave it here?” she had asked.

Her fiancé had given her a strange smile. “I don’t want to move our past into our new house, Kamryn. I want things to be different, and I want us to be different.”

At the time, she had shrugged nonchalantly because, as usual, talking to him about anything gave her a headache. “Whatever.”

Opening the door, to a battery-operated lamp to brighten the room, lighting… nothing, except a dark red handmade tulle mid-calf rehearsal dinner dress, a red breastless corset with stocking snaps, matching shoes, and a veil.

It was a seven-thousand-dollar dress she had custom-made in Italy as a pre-wedding gown.

Not only had her fiancé hated the dress because he and his mother hated the color red, but he’d also been angry about the price tag. She felt it was nothing because the wedding dress was ten grand… which had burned in the fire.

This red dress was the only thing in the room.

All of her fiancé’s boxes, electronics, and any other items were gone!

The dress had been spread out, showcasing all the beautiful stitching that brought out her thick but voluptuous figure. The veil was laid out on the floor around the dress, and the shoes were below.

This was the vindictive brother’s doing.

Had her fiancé cried to his brother about how much he hated the dress and about how his mother was going to go into a hissy fit seeing Kamryn flaunting around the wedding rehearsal?

Since he didn’t have his little perfect brother to torture, he was turning that evilness on her as if he wasn’t also the cause of why his weak-ass sibling was dead.

She scanned the room again, as if something was going to magically appear, or maybe her eyes were deceiving her from all the pain, but the fourth sweep confirmed there was nothing there except the dress.

Gathering what little strength she had, she walked the whole condo and found nothing there at all. It’d been cleaned out completely. The asshole had even taken the lightbulbs.

After grabbing the bags by the front door, she returned to the master bedroom to look at the dress with even more disgust. Sliding down the wall in the bedroom, exhausted all the way to her soul and in so much pain, inside and out, Kam was completely broken.

A well of emotions burst from her, and she turned her face against the wall to throw up. It was all water because she hadn’t eaten anything.

There was nothing.

And she had nothing left.

She’d thought herself out of horrible problems and situations before, but this was too much. There was too much pain, and too much happening, but the nothing hurt the most.

Nothing and no one.

You finally did it. You finally pushed the world away, and this horribleness was the consequence.

It would have been better to die in the accident than to have to go through this.

Death would have been a lot less pain.

Perhaps she should just finish the job.

___ *** ___

If any of these subjects are difficult for you, please take care of yourself and feel free to skip a chapter. Your well-being matters more than any fictional cliffhanger.

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Marry Me (c) 2026 Sylvia Hubbard. All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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