Never Again Ex Novel by DorissGaydar _ Novel





Never Again Ex Chapter 01

Shannon Bradley stayed up all night on her birthday, waiting for her fiancé, Nicholas Hickman, but he never returned.
He'd gone to stop his one true love, Courtney Harvey, from marrying a notorious New York playboy—because to him, that marriage would be hell for her.
Shannon sat in the living room all night with swollen eyes. At dawn, her phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number.
"Shannon, marry me," the man said.
At that careless, offhand tone, Shannon immediately pictured his roguish, devil-may-care grin.
It was Benjamin Blevins, the man Courtney was supposed to marry today.
"Benjamin?"
"Your fiancé stole my bride," Benjamin said with a lazy laugh. "So I'll steal his future bride instead. Sounds fair, right?"
Shannon was silent for a moment, then nodded her head slightly. "Yeah."
On the other end, Benjamin raised an eyebrow, his tone firm and self-assured. "Good. The wedding is in fifteen days. Get your dress ready—I'll come get you."
The call ended.
Shannon stared at the cold dishes spread across the table, and suddenly her eyes welled up with tears.
She'd waited years for Nicholas to propose—only to accept another man's proposal and marry him.
Ten years ago, Shannon met Nicholas at freshman orientation and fell for him at first sight.
Introducing himself in the school's blue-and-white uniform, he looked effortlessly handsome at the time. Sunlight poured through the tall auditorium windows, casting a faint golden glow around his sharp profile. Girls in the crowd whispered excitedly, their faces flushed as they secretly snapped photos.
Shannon stood in the shadows at the very back of the hall, fingers clenched around the student ID she had just received.
Back then, Nicholas was the golden boy of the school.
Consistently ranked first in every exam and sweeping up gold at every Math Olympiad, he was the definition of brilliance.
He was just as skilled at sports, playing basketball with effortless finesse. Every move he made exuded the quiet, refined elegance of someone from old money.
She was merely a scholarship student, a girl from an ordinary world that stood in stark contrast to his.
Though every girl in school adored him, his eyes never rested on any of them.
They were always on Courtney, the girl he'd grown up with.
Shannon had seen him organizing notes for Courtney in the library and taking off his jacket to shield her from the rain. She had also seen him run all over the city just to find the limited-edition CD Courtney had casually mentioned.
Later, she heard their families were close and that their engagement had been decided long ago.
But everything changed that summer, right after the SAT, when the Hickman Group's sudden collapse dominated the financial headlines.
Nicholas' father, Frederick Hickman, who once drove a Rolls-Royce to school meetings, jumped from the company building. The next day, Courtney flew to the UK. Nicholas was left alone, buried under crushing debt, drifting from job to job, exhausted and broken.
That night, Shannon found him drunk outside a bar.
He looked like a total mess—his expensive shirt wrinkled and hanging loosely on him, his eyes bloodshot.
She crouched down to help him up, but he suddenly grabbed her wrist. The reek of alcohol mixed with blood hit her in the face as he slurred, "Who are you?"
"Shannon," she said softly. "We went to the same school, but you probably don't remember me..."
She was right—he didn't remember her. But he still let her take him home.
That night, Nicholas was completely out of control. He pinned her to the narrow bed in her tiny apartment and kissed her until her lips went numb.
Later, she found out that half an hour before she found him, Courtney had posted a photo online.
In it, she was kissing her new boyfriend under the Eiffel Tower.
The next morning, Nicholas promised to take care of Shannon.
He moved into her tiny apartment, barely twenty square meters. They got through the hardest days together, leaning on each other.
But Shannon knew that his heart had never belonged to her, even though they were in a relationship.
He was still in love with Courtney.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she would wake to see him staring at old photos of Courtney on his phone. She knew he'd live on frozen pizzas for three months just to save up for a plane ticket to Paris. On Shannon's birthday, when Courtney texted him, he rushed out without a second thought.
Still, Shannon refused to give up.
She stayed up late helping him perfect his résumé, accompanied him to submit applications at various companies, and stood by him when debt collectors came after them. During their hardest times, she secretly sold her emerald bracelet, the only keepsake from her mother, just to buy him a proper suit for job interviews.
Slowly, things began to change. He remembered that she liked two tablespoons of sugar in her coffee, reminded her to eat when she worked late, and draped a jacket over her shoulders when she fell asleep.
She thought she had finally won his heart.
And he made his comeback. Once again, he was the celebrated heir everyone wanted to be near.
And just as life seemed to be turning around, Courtney returned.
Everything reset.
Nicholas sped to the airport late at night to pick up Courtney and threw her a welcome party, as if the painful past, when she had left him, never existed. And when he heard she was getting married, he didn't hesitate for a second to try to stop it.
For the past seven years, Shannon had given him everything she had—only for him to run to Courtney the minute she returned.
She was exhausted; the well of her devotion had run dry.
Shannon stood up and began packing. She threw everything into trash bags.
The rumble of the garbage truck filled the air. She walked out and stood there, watching the men toss those bags into the back—throwing away seven years of her foolish devotion.
Not long after she went back in, the front door burst open.
"What did you throw out?" Nicholas asked behind her.
She didn't turn around. Her voice was calm as she said, "Some useless things."
Then, she looked back at him and continued, "I was just cleaning—getting rid of things I don't need.
Nicholas' expression changed instantly. He shoved past her and rushed inside.
"How dare you touch my things?"
He tore through the house, his face growing darker by the second.
When he couldn't find what he was looking for in the study, he bolted out the door.
As he moved past, he knocked Shannon to the side.
She stumbled, her forehead slamming into the doorframe. Blood streamed down immediately.
Worried she had really thrown out something important, she didn't even treat the wound before chasing after him.
Then she saw something she would never forget.
Nicholas, suffering from severe germophobia, was kneeling in the trash, frantically digging through it.
Guilt surged in her chest. She hurried to explain, "The trash has already been taken away. You'll have to go to the landfill to find it. I only threw out my own things. I might have mixed yours up by accident. I'm sorry."
Only then did Nicholas notice her injury.
He froze for a moment, reached out as if to touch her, then pulled his hand back. "I was in a hurry just now, so I didn't notice."
After they got into the car, Shannon finally couldn't hold it in anymore. "What did you lose? Is it important?"
Nicholas tightened his grip on the steering wheel. After a long pause, he told her it was an emerald pendant he had been having cleaned and maintained for years.
Shannon's heart jolted violently, tears rushing to her eyes.
The emerald pendant was a gift from Courtney at their engagement.
No wonder he had been so frantic.

READ FULL NOVEL HERE