Serial · ongoing
The Picked Husband
Adrian Hale, the ruthless young heir to the Hale Group, has long built his life around his career, his trusted friend Emmett Rusk, and his long-time lover Julian Crane. That carefully ordered world collapses when he is lured into a deadly ambush engineered by the very two people he trusts most. In the bloodshed that follows, the last person Adrian expects to step between him and a bullet is Milo Ellery: the quiet, gentle young man his grandfather pressured him into marrying, the husband he has treated with cold indifference from the day they wed. Milo dies protecting him, leaving only a half-spoken confession and a lifetime of regret burned into Adrian’s heart. When he next opens his eyes, Adrian finds himself reborn, transported back to the early months of his arranged marriage. With full foreknowledge of every betrayal lying ahead, he finally sees what he once refused to see: Julian’s performative tenderness, Emmett’s simmering resentment, and the silent, unshakable devotion Milo has carried for him for years. Determined to rewrite his fate, Adrian vows to shield Milo from harm and settle old scores with his betrayers, as what starts as a debt of gratitude slowly deepens into a soft, all-consuming love he never thought possible.
Chapter 1: The Husband Grandpa Picked
The room took up the whole corner of the eighth floor, above the river, and it had been built to seat sixty people for dinner. Tonight it he…
Chapter 2: Because
The pen was still where he had put it. Adrian gave it one more second. Then he came up off the sofa low and fast. He put his foot through th…
Chapter 3: I Would Never Have Said Yes
I Would Never Have Said Yes He woke with a sound still half in his mouth and lay in the dark with it. Not a word. It had been something, and…
Chapter 4: Him
Him The bathroom door opened and let the steam out into the bedroom. Adrian came through it with his hair still wet and a white robe knotted…
Chapter 5: I'll Go
I'll Go The suitcase was still on the floor between Walter and Milo, and both of them still had a hand on it. Milo looked up fast — not the…
Chapter 6: Ten Past Eleven
The gap between the two curtains let the sun through and laid a warm stripe across the foot of the bed. The clock on the nightstand ticked o…
Chapter 7: Not Him
“Nothing,” Milo said. “It’s nothing.” He was already moving when he said it, off the last step and down the drive, because standing there un…
Chapter 8: Eat Something
Eat Something Adrian didn't ask. He got out of the car and came up the drive behind him, and Milo heard all of it — the door, the gravel, th…
Chapter 9: Just for Show
Sunday had been this way his whole life: the long table, the good linen, the staff moving around the outside of the room, his grandfather at…
Chapter 10: Maybe I Shouldn't Have Asked
He had the keys out before he reached the car. The footsteps on the gravel had stopped once, halfway across the drive, long enough that he'd…
Chapter 11: You Might Like Him Eventually
You Might Like Him Eventually The engine was still running, and his mother had not gone back inside. He could have left. She had come out to…
Chapter 12: No Music This Time
The radio stayed off. Milo noticed before they were out of the gate. Going the other way that morning there had been music — low, nothing he…
Chapter 13: I'll Be Home for Dinner
They had been kind to him at the house, and he still didn't know what to do with it. Kind wasn't what he'd dressed for. He'd dressed for the…
Chapter 14: On Purpose
He had told Milo he would be home for dinner. The folder under his hand was the last one in the pile, and it had been open long enough that…