A Contract Marriage With My Nemesis
My fiancé always told me he loved me. But not long after our engagement, I woke up suffocating in the dark.
He was pressing a pillow over my face, his eyes cold and dead, while my half-sister stood by watching with fake pity.
They had orchestrated everything just to steal my trust fund.
It all started with a massive hotel scandal. They had drugged me, thrown a cheap escort into my bed, and brought a mob of paparazzi to ruin my reputation.
When my fiancé broke through the crowd, playing the heartbroken victim, he knelt down with a massive diamond ring.
"I know things have been hard, but I love you. If you come home with me, I will forgive all of this."
In my past life, I cried tears of gratitude and let him slide that ring onto my finger.
That ring sealed my death warrant. I lost my company, my dignity, and eventually, my life.
Until my lungs burned and my heart stopped, I didn't understand.
How could the people I trusted most plot my murder so ruthlessly?
Why did they have to tear my entire life apart?
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the morning of the hotel scandal, exactly one year ago.
But the man lying bare-backed in my bed wasn't a random escort.
It was Johnathan Chase, my family's biggest corporate rival and the most ruthless predator on Wall Street.
Listening to the paparazzi pounding on the door, I smiled coldly.
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Chapter 3
The chaotic room fell into a dead, heavy silence. The only sound was the hum of the air conditioning.
Darron forced the panic out of his eyes. He took a deep breath, his chest expanding as he shifted his expression into one of painful, agonizing tolerance.
He reached into the inner pocket of his tailored suit jacket and pulled out a dark blue velvet box.
Without breaking eye contact with Elena, Darron dropped down onto one knee right in the middle of the messy carpet.
He flipped the box open. Resting on the black satin cushion was a massive, custom-made pear-cut diamond engagement ring. The facets caught the harsh light of the camera flashes, throwing sharp prisms across the walls.
"Elena," Darron said, his voice thick with fake emotion. "I know things have been hard. But I love you. If you are willing to come home with me right now, I will forgive all of this. We can move past it."
Haylee stood to the side, pressing a hand over her heart. A single, perfect tear rolled down her cheek. She was feeding the reporters exactly what they wanted.
The paparazzi went wild. Shutters clicked furiously, desperate to capture the "forgiveness of the century" for tomorrow's front pages.
Johnathan stood a few feet behind Elena. He crossed his arms over his chest. His jaw was clenched tight, and a dark, violent shadow crossed his eyes as he stared at the man kneeling on the floor.
Elena stared down at the ring. In her past life, this was the exact moment she had broken down in tears of gratitude. She had let him slide that ring onto her finger, sealing her own death warrant.
Now, looking at the diamond, she felt nothing but a sickening churn in her gut.
Her right arm moved before Darron could say another word.
She swung her hand hard. Her palm connected with the velvet box with a loud, violent smack.
The box flew out of Darron’s hand. It sailed through the air and slammed hard against the far wall. The impact popped the ring loose. The massive diamond hit the thick carpet and rolled away into a dark corner.
A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room. The camera flashes stopped dead.
Darron remained frozen on one knee, his hand still suspended in the air. The blood completely drained from his face, leaving him looking like a corpse.
Elena looked down at him, her eyes burning with cold fire.
“The engagement is over,” she said, her voice ringing out in clear, perfectly enunciated English.
“You didn‘t bring the press here to save our relationship, Darron. You brought them here to blackmail me.”
Haylee let out a high-pitched scream. She lunged forward, her hands reaching out to grab Elena’s arm. “Are you crazy?! What are you saying?!”
Elena moved faster. Instead of a slap, she raised her hand and pinched Haylee‘s wrist between two fingers with an expression of absolute, sickening revulsion, pushing it away as if handling a diseased rat.
“Don’t touch me,” Elena hissed, her voice dropping to a lethal whisper. She calmly reached into the hidden pocket sewn into the waistband of her dress, pulled out a sterile antibacterial wipe, and began to meticulously scrub the exact spot on her skin where Haylee had just made contact. “You make me sick.”
The implication of her extreme, almost clinical disgust hung in the air like a live grenade. The reporters smelled blood. A dozen camera lenses instantly pivoted away from Elena and zoomed straight into Haylee's face, capturing her pale, guilty expression.
Haylee's face turned paper-white. Her knees gave out slightly, and her entire body began to shake uncontrollably under the blinding lights.
Darron scrambled to his feet. His fake calm shattered. "Watch your mouth, Elena! Don't make up insane lies just because you got caught!" he roared, his face turning red.
Elena let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Lies? How about you explain the credit card charges at the luxury apartment on 5th Avenue last night?"
Darron's pupils shrank to tiny pinpricks. His breath hitched in his throat. He realized, with a sickening drop in his stomach, that she somehow knew about his secret safe house.
Johnathan watched Elena tear them apart. The tight line of his jaw relaxed, and the corner of his mouth twitched upward into a faint, almost invisible smirk.
Elena turned her back on Darron. She looked directly into the center cluster of camera lenses.
"Conway Media will be immediately re-evaluating all corporate partnerships with his family's firm," she announced.
She didn't wait for questions. She stepped forward, shoving her way through the wall of reporters.
Not a single paparazzi dared to block her path. The sheer force of her anger parted the crowd like the Red Sea.
Darron took a step forward, reaching out to grab her shoulder to stop her.
A solid wall of muscle stepped into his path. Johnathan blocked Darron completely, his broad shoulders shielding Elena's exit. Johnathan looked down at Darron, his eyes daring the smaller man to try and move him.
Elena didn't look back. She walked straight out the door, down the hallway, and stepped into the waiting elevator, leaving the wreckage of her past life behind her.
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8.0
"IS IT TRUE?" Grayson's voice thundered through the room.
"Yes!" Tessa said softly. "Yes it is!"
"So you've been cheating on me, haven't you?" He spat.
Her hands trembled. "No, I swear, it's not like that."
He grabbed her arm, his grip bruising her wrist as she squealed in pain.
"Then whose baby are you carrying, huh?" His voice was ice cold.
Tessa shivered, tears blurring her vision.
"I don't know."
**********
Pregnant with the powerful Roman Blackwood's child, while engaged to his unstable stepbrother - Tessa Quinn becomes the key to a ruthless inheritance war where love has no place.
As secrets unravel and danger closes in, Tessa must protect her unborn child while trapped between love, vengeance, and men who want to own her fate.
9.7
Sienna woke up in a hospital room, her body screaming from a severe car accident. Through the glass, a man paced with violent rage, a dark shadow she felt absolutely nothing for.
Her friend Julia burst in, eyes bloodshot, dropping a bomb: "He didn't even try to help you." Dante, Sienna's fiancé, had protected another woman, Valeria, in the crash, leaving Sienna to burn alive.
Her past life unspooled – seven years sacrificed, an architecture degree abandoned, all to serve Dante. Her phone was a shrine to him: his photos, his "taboos," and even "Valeria's preferences," with no trace of Sienna herself.
But amnesia brought no heartbreak, only a cold, calculating fury. She felt disgust for the "idiot" she'd been, stripped of dignity. The memory loss was a release, a blank slate.
With chilling resolve, Sienna deleted every trace of Dante. Ripping out her IV, she declared, "The wedding proceeds." Not for love, but as a weapon: "I need to take back everything that belongs to me before I disappear."
9.0
My ex-husband returned after a three-year bet, ready to reclaim me and the son he thought was his. He had no idea that I'd secretly aborted his child, divorced him, and remarried the day he left. His world was about to come crashing down.
His delusion turned deadly when he and his manipulative best friend, Haylee, kidnapped my son, Leo.
I found them at his family's mansion, with Leo suffocating from a severe allergic reaction to a dog they were forcing him to play with. Elliot physically restrained me, scolding me for overreacting while Haylee giggled as my son turned blue.
At the hospital, as Leo fought for his life, Elliot grabbed my arm, demanding to know who the man standing beside me was. He was convinced this was all a game to make him jealous.
That's when my real husband, billionaire Gregory Morton, stepped forward.
"Since when is this child yours, Elliot?"
8.1
On my wedding day, the wedding planner looked at me with pity in her eyes.
She told me the groom had called with a last-minute request. He wanted the name on the floral arch changed from "Elena" to "Sofia."
Five years of loyalty to Dante Romero, and I found out he was planning a "secret" ceremony with his mistress an hour before ours.
He claimed she was dying of cancer. He said it was her final wish to be a bride, and that as a good mafia wife, I should understand. He swore it was just charity.
But I had seen the texts where he called me "furniture."
I had watched him step over my body when I fell down the stairs at a club, just so he could leave with her.
And this morning, I watched Sofia walk into the hotel lobby wearing *my* custom French lace wedding dress, smirking as she clung to his arm.
Dante thinks I'm crying in the bridal suite.
He thinks I will sit in the front row of his "fake" wedding and wait for my turn like a dutiful puppet.
He is wrong.
I wiped my tears and picked up my phone. I didn't cancel the wedding date. I just changed the location to the ballroom next door.
And I changed the groom.
As Dante says his vows to his mistress, I am walking down the aisle to meet the only man the Romero family fears.
The Reaper.
8.9
My family's company went bankrupt, and my biological father was lying in the ICU, kept alive by machines that cost tens of thousands a day.
I thought it was just a tragic business failure, until I caught my mother in bed with my stepfather.
They had secretly transferred all our assets months ago, deliberately bankrupting the company and leaving my father to die.
To pay the hospital bills, my stepfather forced me to a private club, trying to sell me to a sleazy investor.
When I refused, he slapped me across the face, and my mother just looked at me with cold, dead eyes.
"Be realistic, Jaelynn. A woman's body is a tool. Use it to get what you need."
Later, right before my father's emergency surgery, my stepfather signed a Do Not Resuscitate order and froze the medical accounts.
"If you don't get on your knees and spread your legs for him, I will tell the hospital to pull your father's plug."
Standing in the freezing rain, covered in mud and blood, I stared at the astronomical hospital bill in my hand.
My own family had plotted to murder my father and sell me to the highest bidder. The betrayal shattered every ounce of sanity I had left.
I didn't cry or beg them anymore.
Instead, I pulled out a water-stained, gold-embossed business card.
It belonged to Dolph Valentine, the most ruthless billionaire in New York and my ex-fiancé's uncle.
If they wanted to destroy my life, I was going to sell my soul to the biggest monster of them all and drag them straight to hell.
9.8
Three women, three brothers, a single, crumpled dollar bill.
Alina's world shatters the moment she's auctioned off-and claimed by the powerful Hawthorne brothers.
Thrown into Adrian Hawthorne's cold, dangerous world, she becomes his to control... his to protect... and, terrifyingly, his to desire. He's ruthless, possessive, and hiding secrets that could destroy them both. But the deeper she falls into his world, the harder it becomes to tell if she's his prisoner-or something far more dangerous.
Because the Hawthorne brothers don't just take.
They keep.
Viviane has spent her life surviving, so when Julian Hawthorne "buys" her freedom, she knows better than to trust it. Men like him don't save people-they collect them. But Julian isn't as simple as he pretends to be, and the deeper she's pulled into his world, the more dangerous it becomes to walk away.
Especially when she realizes she might be the only thing he's ever been willing to fight for.
Lena doesn't belong to anyone-and she intends to keep it that way. Brilliant, guarded, and hiding more than anyone suspects, she enters Lucien Hawthorne's world on her own terms. But Lucien doesn't play fair, and he doesn't let go.
When her past comes crashing back, Lena is forced to face the one thing she's been running from: trusting someone who could destroy her... or save her.
Three women. Three choices.Stay. Fight.
Or burn it all down.
Because being sold was only the beginning.