Bound To The Monster Who Ruined Me
Ayleen Avery was just a struggling hotel worker trying to survive her shift. But during a sudden blackout, she accidentally stumbled into the pitch-black VIP suite of a ruthless billionaire driven mad by chronic insomnia.
Calmed only by her unique natural scent of roses and rain, the terrifying man attacked her from the shadows and forced himself on her. Terrified and broken, Ayleen fled at dawn, unknowingly leaving behind her late mother's antique rose necklace in his bed.
Her greedy coworker found the necklace, claimed to be the woman from that night, and was instantly swept into a life of luxury. Meanwhile, Ayleen was blackmailed into a forced marriage with her attacker—Cassius Doyle—to save her adoptive father from prison. Deceived by the stolen necklace, Cassius believed Ayleen was a manipulative spy. He brought the coworker into their home and paraded her around the master bedroom.
"In this house, you are lower than the dirt on my shoes."
He choked Ayleen, forced her to sleep in a damp storage room, and treated her with violent disgust while pampering the thief.
Ayleen was suffocating in absolute despair. She had lost her innocence, her freedom, and her mother's only relic to a vicious liar. She couldn't understand how this all-powerful man could be so completely blind. Why couldn't he recognize the very scent that had cured his agonizing madness?
Staring at the dark bruises he had just left on her neck, Ayleen wiped the blood from her lip. She would endure this three-month marriage to secure her family's safety, but once the contract ended, she would expose the truth and tear down the fake savior he cherished so much.
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Chapter 4
Ayleen pushed open the heavy iron doors of the Doyle estate. She walked out like a corpse whose soul had been ripped away.
She stepped onto the Manhattan pavement just as the sky ripped open. Freezing rain battered her pale face. She didn't have an umbrella. She didn't care. Muddy water soaked the hem of her skirt as she dragged her feet forward.
A black, armored SUV tore around the street corner. Its massive tires hit a deep puddle, sending a violent wave of dirty water straight at Ayleen.
She tried to jump back, but her wet shoes slipped on the asphalt. She crashed hard onto the rough street. The skin on her palms tore open, bleeding into the rain.
The SUV's brakes shrieked. The tires skidded on the wet road, stopping mere inches from Ayleen's legs.
The driver, Arthur, threw his door open. He popped a black umbrella and rushed over to her.
Ayleen gritted her teeth and tried to stand. Pain shot up her right leg. Her ankle was swollen to the size of a baseball. She collapsed back into the freezing puddle.
Arthur hesitated. He walked to the rear window of the SUV and tapped respectfully on the tinted glass.
The window glided down an inch.
Cassius Doyle leaned his head against the leather headrest. His eyes were closed. His fingers rubbed his temples violently, trying to fight off a blinding migraine.
He didn't even open his eyes. "Put her in the car. Take her to a hospital. Don't leave a mess," he ordered, his voice laced with pure irritation.
Arthur nodded. He walked back, hauled Ayleen's shivering body up, and shoved her into the back seat.
The heavy door slammed shut. The cabin fell dead silent.
Ayleen pressed herself into the furthest corner of the leather seat. She kept her head down. The car was pitch black inside, illuminated only by the brief flashes of streetlights. All she could see were the razor-sharp creases of the man's suit pants next to her.
The AC blasted cold air. Ayleen's wet clothes clung to her skin. A violent shiver racked her body, and she let out a sharp, ragged gasp.
The sound echoed in the quiet car. Cassius's jaw ticked. He hated noise. He opened his mouth to tell her to shut up.
But then, the AC vents circulated the air.
A faint, delicate scent of roses mixed with rain drifted directly into Cassius's nose.
His entire body went rigid.
It was the scent. The exact same scent that had put him to sleep in the club.
His eyes snapped open. He whipped his head toward the corner, his gaze trying to pierce through the darkness.
Ayleen flinched at his sudden, aggressive movement. She shrank back, her wet hair falling forward to cover her face.
Cassius narrowed his eyes, trying to see her features. Just then, a massive bolt of lightning flashed outside. The blinding white light hit Cassius's eyes, causing a temporary blind spot.
When his vision cleared, Ayleen had buried her face deep into her arms. All he saw was her thin, trembling back.
The rage in Cassius's chest vanished. The scent wrapped around his brain, instantly killing his headache.
He didn't ask questions. He picked up a dry towel from the center console and held it out to her.
Ayleen saw the towel. She hesitated, then reached out.
Her freezing fingertips brushed against his knuckles.
An electric shock ripped through both of them. Cassius yanked his hand back as if he had been burned. His chest tightened.
"Thank you," Ayleen whispered.
Because of the fever and the crying, her voice was a harsh, broken rasp. It sounded absolutely nothing like the soft whimpers from that night.
Cassius heard the ugly voice. His brows furrowed deeply in the darkness. The scent was absolutely perfect, but the voice was entirely wrong. He didn't press her further, but a sharp seed of doubt had been planted firmly in his mind. He silently decided he would have Adrian run a full background check on this woman.
He leaned back, closed his eyes, and simply breathed in the scent.
The SUV pulled up to a subway station. Arthur opened the door. Ayleen clutched the towel and scrambled out of the car, limping heavily on her bad foot.
She stood under the station awning, her heart hammering against her ribs. The man in that car had terrified her.
Inside the SUV, Cassius watched her disappear. The scent in the cabin faded quickly. The sharp pain in his temples immediately flared up again.
He ripped his tie loose. "Drive to the office," he snapped at Arthur. A sudden, intense wave of disgust for Haleigh Delaney washed over him.
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9.3
They say you can't have it all. I'm about to prove them wrong-or destroy myself trying.
When my struggling mother married billionaire Richard Stone, I thought I was gaining a family. Instead, I found three stepbrothers who became my obsession, my downfall, and my salvation.
Dominic, the eldest, cold and commanding, who kisses me like he's claiming his kingdom and looks at me like I'm the only thing he can't control.
Julian, the charming playboy who hides a vulnerable soul beneath his perfect smile, making me feel like I'm the only woman he's ever truly seen.
Asher, the brooding artist who paints me like I'm his muse and touches me like I'm his masterpiece, seeing parts of my soul I didn't know existed.
They're forbidden. They're dangerous. They're everything I shouldn't want.
But when I discover my father didn't die by suicide that he was murdered by the very man who now calls himself my stepfather, these three powerful men becomes my unlikely allies.
First it was a forbidden attraction, now it's an arrangement that defies every rule.
The rules are simple:
I'll give each of them a chance.
I'll take everything they offer.
And in the end, I'll have to make the hardest decision of my life:
Choose one of them. Choose all of them. Or choose myself.
7.4
I was a broke clinic doctor drowning in debt, so I took a confidential job to evaluate a billionaire heir's fertility.
I marched into the VIP ICU, pinned the struggling patient down, and injected a sedative. I finished the extraction and loudly declared to the family lawyer that the Holt heir was completely sterile.
But then, a chilling laugh echoed from the doorway.
The real heir, Jarrod Holt, the tyrant of Wall Street, stepped in. I had just sterilized his younger brother right in front of him.
Facing a decade in federal prison, I was completely at his mercy. To make things worse, my arrogant ex-boyfriend tried to publicly humiliate me, and my greedy uncle threatened to burn my dead mother's belongings for ransom. I was pushed to the absolute brink of ruin.
But instead of destroying me, Jarrod offered a terrifying lifeline. He bought out a Manhattan high-rise in five minutes just to ruin my ex, then handed me a marriage contract.
I was terrified and deeply confused. Why would this ruthless billionaire force a nobody into a fake marriage? He knew details about my past that no one should know. Did he discover my hidden identity as 'E', the underground surgeon the entire medical world was hunting for?
With my back against the wall, I signed the prenuptial agreement.
"I do," I whispered at City Hall.
He shoved his heavy, antique family ring onto my finger. It was supposed to be strictly business with absolutely no physical contact, but when his lips crashed violently onto mine, I knew I had just sold my soul to the devil.
7.6
The harsh glare of the spotlight hit Harper's custom wedding dress as she smiled at her groom.
But a single phone call from his mistress, Lila, made Chase violently shove his way down the aisle and sprint out of the hotel.
He left Harper to face the flashing cameras and the mockery of hundreds of guests.
Her mother-in-law dragged her into a hallway and slapped her hard across the face.
"You cannot even keep your own man in the room. You are making a mockery of this family."
When Harper rushed to the hospital, Chase blamed her for Lila's theatrical, fake miscarriage.
He threatened to pull every cent of capital from Harper's investment firm if she dared to walk away.
The Young family then used the media to frame Harper, turning her into a public pariah who viciously "killed" an unborn child.
Mobbed by ruthless paparazzi, Harper was pushed into the freezing rain, her knees bleeding on the concrete.
She couldn't accept that her entire life and career were being destroyed by a mistress's pathetic lie.
When Chase later tried to buy her silence with a pink diamond—the exact same one he had just gifted Lila—her remaining love turned to absolute ice.
But fate intervened when she was rescued from the mob by Antoni Donovan, the most ruthless billionaire on Wall Street and her biggest corporate rival.
Discovering that Antoni was actually her best friend's older brother, a dangerous smile spread across Harper's face.
She picked up his gold-lettered business card.
She was done being the victim; she was going to use the wolf of Wall Street to crush her ex-husband.
7.5
I was tied to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, the heavy stench of gasoline suffocating me.
Ten steps away, a masked kidnapper slammed a loaded Glock onto a metal barrel and forced my husband, Alvie, to make a sick choice.
"The wife or the mistress. You only get to walk out of here with one."
Alvie didn't even blink.
He walked straight toward the dark corner where his mistress, Gail, was crying. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, shielding her, and guided her toward the exit.
He never looked back. He didn't cast a single glance over his shoulder. To him, I was already a corpse, just trash left on the pavement.
The kidnapper laughed and tossed a lighter onto the soaked concrete floor.
A wall of ghostly blue fire erupted instantly, swallowing me whole. The absolute agony of my skin blistering and melting shattered my sanity.
In my last moments, consumed by the inferno, I couldn't understand how the man I had loved and served so submissively could leave me to burn alive. My heartbreak quickly morphed into a hatred far deeper than the flames.
Then, I violently jerked awake.
I shot up from the bed, gasping for cold air, my hands frantically checking my perfectly smooth, unburned skin.
I looked at the desk clock. I had returned to exactly four years ago, the morning of the annual Gallagher family gathering.
The fragile, naive wife died in that warehouse. This time, I am going to destroy them both.
9.0
Eileen woke up in a trashed hotel room, her head pounding with the pathetic memories of a despised Hollywood actress.
Outside the window, paparazzi were already screaming about her manufactured cheating scandal, but the real nightmare was waiting at her door.
Her paralyzed, billionaire husband, Carlisle Vinson, looked at her with pure disgust while his butler shoved a divorce settlement at her chest.
"Mr. Vinson is offering a severance package of fifty million dollars, provided you sign immediately and vacate the premises."
The original owner had left her an absolute mess.
Her trusted assistant had sold her room number to the press to frame her, and a playboy had scammed her out of her entire two million dollar life savings.
If she signed those papers and lost the Vinson family's protection, the breach of contract fees and her enemies in the industry would swallow her alive in days.
Eileen felt a cold fury override the original owner's lingering panic.
Why should she take the fall and be thrown out on the streets while the parasites who set her up lived out their wealthy fantasies?
She had died once, and she wasn't about to waste her second chance playing the victim.
Eileen slammed the heavy divorce folder shut right against the butler's chest.
"I'm not signing," she said with a terrifying, absolute calm.
She stepped behind her husband's wheelchair, ready to shield him from the cameras, secretly cure his dead legs, and make everyone who betrayed her bleed.
7.8
For three years, Elena endured a husband who barely acknowledged her, a mother-in-law who treated her like hired help, and a sister-in-law who sneered that she was nothing but a golddigger. All the while, her husband, Damien, pined after his "perfect" ex, like his own wife didn't exist.
Until the day Elena had enough.
She signed the divorce papers, packed a single bag, and vanished.
Damien was certain she'd come crawling back within a week. But the woman they all dismissed? Turns out Elena is a billionaire heiress, the CEO of the very empire Damien has been desperate to partner with and the one now signing his paychecks.
Oops.
Now Damien is spiraling, realizing too late what he lost. But Elena has choices she never had before. Like her childhood best friend, an NFL star who's been in love with her all along.
So who will it be?
The ex-husband who finally woke up?
The best friend who never left?
Or has Elena finally decided she's done with men who don't deserve her?