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 6
Darron's body began to tremble. The anger in his eyes was entirely eclipsed by a raw, suffocating terror. He couldn't meet Elena's gaze, his eyes darting wildly around the room as if looking for an escape route.
Elena walked around the edge of the desk, stopping just inches from him. She looked down at him, her posture radiating absolute authority.
"Here are my terms," Elena said, her voice dropping to a deadly, quiet register. "You are going to take the fall for everything. Every single piece of this PR disaster is going to land on your shoulders."
She pointed a finger at his chest. "You have two hours to call a press conference. You will stand in front of the cameras and confess that you were the one who cheated first."
"No!" Haylee yelled, stepping forward. "That will destroy his reputation on Wall Street! He'll be ruined!"
Elena snapped her head toward Haylee. The sheer violence in Elena's eyes hit Haylee like a physical blow, forcing the younger woman to snap her mouth shut and take a step back.
Elena turned back to Darron. "What's it going to be, Darron? A ruined reputation, or ten years making license plates in a federal penitentiary?"
Darron's jaw locked. His hands curled into tight fists at his sides. The veins on the back of his hands bulged against the skin as he fought a losing battle inside his head.
"Let's just say it was a mutual split," he begged, his voice cracking, sounding pathetic and small. "Irreconcilable differences."
Elena didn't argue. She simply reached across the desk, picked up her smartphone, and tapped the screen, bringing up the dial pad. She typed in the first three digits of the SEC tip line.
Darron broke. He lunged forward, his sweaty hands grabbing her wrist to stop her from pressing call. "Okay! Okay, I'll do it!" he rasped, his voice tearing.
Elena looked at his hands on her skin. A wave of intense physical nausea hit her. She ripped her arm out of his grip with a violent jerk.
She pulled a sterile wet wipe from a dispenser on her desk and slowly, deliberately scrubbed the skin where he had touched her, treating him like a disease.
She walked over to the door, unlocked it, and pressed the intercom button. "Thea, bring the documents in."
The heavy doors opened immediately. Thea walked in quickly, clutching a thick stack of papers. She eyed Darron and Haylee with deep suspicion.
Elena took the papers and threw them onto the desk right in front of Darron. "Memorize this. Word for word."
Darron looked down at the paper. The statement painted him as a morally bankrupt, cheating liar. The edges of his vision blurred with angry tears, his eyes turning bloodshot.
But he had no leverage. His hands shook violently as he picked up a pen and signed his name at the bottom of the confession, effectively signing away his entire career.
Haylee watched him sign it. Her face twisted. For a split second, the mask slipped, and Elena saw pure, unadulterated disgust in Haylee's eyes directed at Darron for being so weak. Then, Haylee's eyes flicked to Elena, filled with genuine, deep-rooted fear.
Elena caught the look. She smiled a cold, hollow smile.
She pressed the intercom again. "Security. I need an escort in my office."
Two massive, broad-shouldered security guards walked into the room. They flanked Darron immediately, grabbing him by the upper arms.
Darron didn't fight them. His shoulders slumped forward, his head hanging low like a defeated animal. The guards marched him out of the office.
Haylee glared at Elena, her eyes full of venom, before she turned and practically ran out the door, her heels clicking frantically against the floor.
The heavy doors clicked shut. The room was finally empty.
Elena walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows. She looked down at the street below, watching the media vans swarming like ants around the building's entrance.
The tight, agonizing knot in her chest finally loosened. She let out a long, heavy exhale, her shoulders dropping an inch.
Thea walked up behind her. "How did you get those account numbers?" she asked, her voice hushed with awe.
Elena turned around. She looked at Thea. She remembered the sight of Thea's lifeless body in her past life, the girl who had taken a bullet meant for her. The coldness in Elena's eyes melted away, replaced by a fierce, protective warmth.
She didn't answer the question. Instead, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Thea, pulling her into a bone-crushing hug.
Thea stiffened in surprise for a second, but then slowly wrapped her arms around Elena's back.
Elena buried her face in Thea's shoulder. "I promise you," she whispered fiercely. "No one will ever hurt us again."
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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.