The Marriage Portrait

I was a sketch artist acting for the police. On a secret mission, I was discovered by a murderer. My eyes were gouged out, and my body was dismembered, unceremoniously dumped in a garbage bin. On the brink of death, I called my boyfriend, a criminal investigator. However, he hung up on me because he was busy accompanying his first love to a prenatal checkup. A few days later, he received a painting that was a vital clue to finding the murderer, but he thought I was playing tricks on him. In his anger, he tore that portrait to shreds. After he found out the truth, he spent the whole night searching through the garbage to piece it back together.

My mother was the best portrait artist in the police station. She had a strong sense of justice and brooked no evil. However, all I got was a sharp retort when I called her to save me. "You know it's your sister's coming-of-age celebration today, and you're cursing her? Kidnapped, are you? Fine, the kidnappers can kill you for all I care." She assumed it was a prank call. So, she refused to go to the police station and do her job. I wasn't saved in time and was tortured to death. When the DNA report came out, she came to the scene all wobbly. She drew a portrait of me with my bones as reference, her hand trembling all the way. "Jessica? It can't be her. This is a mistake!" She tried again and again. Yet, it didn't matter how many times she redid it as the portrait showed my face. My mother, who had hated me my whole life, teared up.

Jessica’s fairytale love story comes to a tragic end when her husband and first love cheats on her with his ex-girlfriend. Jessica is forced to leave the marriage which has become a cold and loveless one. She leaves and has a surprise pregnancy 1 month later which she decides to keep secret. Fate gives her a second chance at love when she saves the life of a billionaire and ends up falling for his charm and sophistication. It wasn’t without obstacles however. Her ex-husband returns when he learns he has a child with her. Out of jealousy, he kidnaps the child and peddles lies against Jessica to the billionaire. In a twist of events, Jessica gets to know that her ex-husband’s lover, Gwen, is connected to the  organization that tried to kill the billionaire. Jessica has two options: to give up on another chance of finding true love or fight for love against the opposition. 

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗻𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁. 𝗙𝗶𝗳𝘁𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗱𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗿𝘀. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗳𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗜 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 I’𝗱 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻. ——— ꧁ Marisella ꧂ – “Stop protecting me from a life I’ve already been living… without you.” 𖤓 Alexei 𖤓 – “I didn’t survive the Bratva just to let you destroy yourself.” ——— Marisella is drowning. To save her dying mother, she takes a desperate gamble—one night as a high-end escort. She expected a faceless stranger, but she found a monster. Alexei left as a sickly boy and returned a lethal Bratva assassin—hardened, wealthy, and dangerous. When he accepts a "replacement" for the night, the last person he expects to see in red spandex is the girl he was supposed to protect. His stepsister. The discovery ignites a firestorm of fury and forbidden desire. But as the Bratva’s debts come due, the lines between protector and predator blur. Alexei is determined to keep his hands off her to save his soul, but Marisella is no longer a child. She’s found the only thing more dangerous than the men hunting them: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗯𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝘂𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗿. 🔥 ——— Tags / Themes: • Forbidden Romance • Dark Romance / Mafia-lite • Guardian / Protector • Secret Provider • Forced Proximity #Stepbrother #Mafia #BDSM #Possessive #HiddenIdentity 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️ 🌶️

My name is Mara Park, and I am a twenty-three-year-old fresh graduate taking up business administration from a public school in my province.  I don't know that when you graduate from a public school, especially when your school is unknown to anyone in a big city, even though you have a diploma, it is hard to find a job, most of all when you don't have any work experience. I am an orphan and living alone. No one will provide for my needs if I don't find a job. I know no one in this place. No, I have one. I smiled, Jared. He has been my boyfriend for almost four years now. I didn't tell him I followed him after my graduation. I wanted to surprise him after I found a decent job. The last time I talked to him, he told me he was working at a big company as a finance manager, and I'm so proud of him. So here I am, struggling to find a job. I disregarded my diploma and applied as a waitress in a diner near the Fernandez Corporation building, hoping one day I could snatch a job in that company, even if it was just as a receptionist. It would be a huge achievement for me. I'd been working in the restaurant for a month when I saw an older man pass out near my workplace. He begged me to bring him home because he had forgotten where he lived and his name. I couldn't bear to leave him alone in the middle of the night, so I brought him home, and my life turned upside down after that when I found that he was the grandfather of the owner of Fernandez Corporation. That led me to find out my real identity.

Our marriage is falling apart and there's need to spice it up. An open marriage for 2 weeks can help, right? But let's not forget the rules, after all not everything is open in an open marriage.