When My Ex Stole the Manhattan Heir's Canary

Nora Bennett was pregnant and carried a homemade lunch to Alexander Shaw's office, ready to tell him he would be a father. At the door, she heard Alexander showing colleagues private videos of her. His words made the three years behind her collapse: "I made her wear Sophia's favorite dress, shoved her face into the pillow, and sent the footage straight to Ethan." Alexander had filmed hundreds of videos. Nora stood outside with the pregnancy report she had meant as a surprise, then folded it away and left without telling him.

Three years earlier, Ethan Grant ended things with Nora out of the blue. He later got together with Sophia Reed, the girlfriend of Manhattan's wealthiest heir, Alexander Shaw. A month later, Alexander tracked Nora down with a five-million-dollar check and offered a contract: he would help her get over Ethan, and she would help him get over Sophia. Nora took the check. She believed they were both broken in the same way.

Inside the Shaw family manor, the arrangement stayed simple at first. During the day they were strangers under one roof; at night they drank and lost themselves in each other, neither willing to catch feelings first. When Nora accidentally called Ethan's name, Alexander stopped and stayed out of her room for two weeks. He later had the master bedroom redone to her taste and promised he would not be Ethan's replacement or ask her to be Sophia's. Nora let Ethan go. Alexander made her honey ginger tea, held her hair back, finished a book she recommended. She packed his lunches, got him to take time off by saying she wanted to see the Northern Lights, and after her end-stage kidney failure, accepted one of his kidneys. She fell in love.

The office reveal changed the meaning of every gesture. Alexander had used Nora to humiliate Ethan, the man he hated most. He dismissed her in front of his friends as nothing more than a habit. Nora kept the pregnancy to herself and decided to leave. That night Alexander took a call, went pale, muttered about work, and rushed out. Ten minutes later, a news alert reported that F1 champion Ethan Grant had died in a fatal crash, and Sophia Reed was hospitalized from grief. By the next morning, Sophia was already in the Shaw manor, giving orders as if she were the lady of the house. When the housekeeper asked whether Sophia would move back into the master bedroom, Alexander ordered it cleared. Because Sophia hated blue, he had paintings and decorations removed, including Nora's Miami seascape, a painting that took 99 days and a framed memory he had sworn to treasure. Alexander's only explanation was that Sophia had been hit hard by Ethan's death and could stay in the master bedroom for now. Nora nodded and moved into the basement.

Nora had agreed to the dating contract because of Ethan. They grew up in a small southern town, where her family tried to marry her off to a wealthy businessman twice her age to cover debts and her younger brother's wedding and down payment. Ethan emptied his savings to free her. After high school, both got into Columbia University, but Ethan gave up his spot, rented a tiny apartment, worked in the campus cafeteria, DJed at bars, and raced on underground tracks to put her through college. Right before graduation, he ended it with the claim that he had gotten bored with her and dumped her. She gave Alexander a chance hoping to make Ethan change his mind. She lost them both.

While unpacking in the basement, Nora found the contract from three years ago. Only one week remained. She remembered Alexander's kidney and chose not to cause a scene, but she also decided that in seven days she would be out of his life for good. Both men left her on a mountain road as a storm closed in. The next day came word that a mudslide had killed her. After that, Ethan seized the Shaw family business as payback. Alexander, stripped of everything, hunted for any sign of Nora. Nora had survived—rescued by someone unnamed—and rebuilt herself as Ivy Lewis, with an ordinary life and someone new.