Engaged to the Ruthless Billionaire
Eliana Rivera is the firstborn daughter of business tycoon Cassian Rivera. When her father's company falls into debt, he marries her off to the arrogant and ruthless billionaire, Alexander Grayson, as part of a business contract and under the threat of blackmail.
Alexander, the billionaire CEO, never planned to marry, but the pressure of blackmail forces him into a union with a woman he barely knows. Although Eliana doesn't see Alexander as her ideal partner, she agrees to the marriage out of a sense of duty.
Once engaged, however, he barely acknowledges her presence and harbours disdain for her because of her father's actions and their relationship. But as they navigate their newfound relationship, the unexpected desire for each other's touch ignites-a twist neither of them planned, leading them toward an unforeseen love.
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Chapter 2
My father had never been an affectionate man, but tonight his silence filled the dining room like fog-thick, inescapable, impossible to see through.
"Where's Serena?" I asked, adjusting the hem of my dress as I lowered myself onto one of the chairs. The house still smelled faintly of my mother's perfume, even three years after her funeral. Or maybe that was my imagination, clinging to ghosts.
"She's upstairs. Homework," my father said, his voice clipped. "Eliana, we need to talk."
Of course we did. That was why I'd been summoned home from New York on a Wednesday night with no explanation beyond a text: Dinner. Come home. No excuses.
I knew that tone. It wasn't. How are you? Or I miss you. It was I've made a decision, and you're going to follow it. I'd been trained to read his voice the way some children learned piano.
"You're not sick, are you?" I tried to keep the edge of panic from creeping in. "Or Serena-"
"No one's sick," he said quickly, impatient. "This is about the future."
His future. Our family's future. Never mine.
He poured a glass of wine but didn't offer me one. Just sat across from me in his usual chair, beneath the portrait of my mother, smiling down at us like she wasn't the reason everything had started to unravel.
"You're almost thirty," my father stated. "You're not getting any younger, and you have to start thinking about marriage and kids. Your future."
"I am thinking about it. But it's also not something I need to work on right now. I'm dating. Exploring my prospects. There are plenty of single men in New York, I just have to find the right one."
I left out the prospect that the pool of single, straight, non-douchey, non-flaky, non disturbingly eccentric men was much smaller.
My last date tried to rope me into a seance to contact his dead mother so she could" meet me and give her approval." Needless to say, I never saw him again.
"I've given you plenty of time to find a proper match these past two years." My father sounded unimpressed by my spiel. "You haven't had a single serious boyfriend since your last....relationship. It's clear you don't feel the same urgency I do, which is why I took matters into my own hands."
My blood iced.
" Meaning?"
I thought the important news he'd alluded to had to do with my sister or the company. But what if.....
No. It can't be.
"Meaning I've secured a suitable match for you. It took quite a bit of work on my end, but the engagement has been finalized."
The words hit with the quiet force of a wrecking ball. Not shouted. No drama. Just a clinical statement, like he'd confirmed the weather or the price of gold.
Arranged marriages were common practice in our world of big business and power plays, where marriages weren't love matches; they were alliances.
I was expected to enter a lifetime contract after "quite a bit of work" on my father's end.
"I've let you drag your feet too long, and this match will be enormously beneficial for us," my father continued. "I'm sure you'll agree once you meet him at dinner."
I blinked.
"Dinner? As in, tonight's dinner?" My voice sounded distant and strange, as if I was hearing it in a bad dream. "Why didn't you tell me earlier? You don't just get to trade me for better positioning."
He looked at me then, really looked. And for the briefest second, I didn't see the steel-eyed patriarch, but the man who'd once kissed my scraped knees and carried me through midnight storms.
"Everything I've built," he said slowly, "everything I've fought for, bled for-it has to go somewhere. To someone. Serena's still in high school. You're the eldest. It's your turn to carry it forward."
"You mean sacrifice myself for it."
"No." He set the glass down with a soft clink. "I mean protect it."
Being ambushed with news of an arranged marriage match was bad enough. Meeting my future fiancé with zero preparation was a hundred times worse.
"I didn't tell you earlier because he didn't confirm until today due to...scheduling complications." My father smoothed a hand over his shirt. "You'll have to meet him eventually. It didn't matter whether it's tonight, a week, or a month from now."
My retort simmered on low, destined never to reach a full boil.
"We want to move things along as quickly as possible. It takes time to plan a proper wedding, and your fiancé is, er, particular about the details."
Funny how he was already calling him my fiancé when I hadn't met the man yet.
"Mode De Vie named him one of the world's most eligible bachelors under forty last year. Rich, handsome, powerful. You should be happy I paired you with someone like him," My father stated, feeling proud of himself.
Happy?
" That's...great." My smile wobbled from the effort of keeping itself intact.
I took a deep breath and willed my mind not to spiral down any negative path.
Get it together, Eli.
As upset as I was at my father for springing this on me, I could freak out later, after I got through the evening. It wasn't like I could say no to the match. If I did, my father would disown me.
Plus, my future husband- my stomach lurched again- would be here any minute, and I couldn't make a scene. I wiped my palm against my thigh and clung to the mask I always wore at home. Cool. Calm. Respectable.
"So." I forced a light tone. "Does Mr. Perfect have a name, or is he only known by his net worth?"
"Net worth by strangers. Name by select friends and family."
My spine stiffened at the deep, unexpected voice behind me. It was so close I could feel the rumble of words against my back. They slid over me like sun-warmed honey, rich and sensual and made every nerve ending tingle with pleasure.
Heat slipped beneath my skin.
"Ah, there you are." My father rose, a strangely triumphant gleam in his eyes. "Thank you for coming on such short notice."
"How could I pass up the opportunity to meet your lovely daughter?"
A hint of mockery tainted the word lovely and instantly washed away any budding attraction I had to his voice, of all things.
So much for Mr. Perfect.
"Eliana, say hello to our guest." My father gestured to the man still standing behind me. I finally summoned the courage to stand and turn.
And all the air whooshed out of my lungs.
Thick black hair. Olive skin. A slightly crooked nose enhanced his ruggedly masculine charm.
His presence was so powerful and compelling that it swallowed every molecule of oxygen in the room like a black hole consuming a newborn star.
Unlike his voice, his face was eminently recognisable. My heart sank beneath the weight of my shock.
Impossible. There was no way he was my arranged fiancé. This had to be a joke.
"Eliana." My father snapped.
Right. Dinner. Fiance. Meeting.
I shook myself out of my stupor and summoned a strained but polite smile. "Eliana Rivera. It's a pleasure to meet you."
I held out my hand.
A beat passed before he took it. Warm strength engulfed my palm and sent a jolt of electricity up my arm.
"Alexander Grayson. The pleasure is all mine."
There was the mockery again, subtle but cutting.
Alexander Grayson, the CEO of Grayson Group, Fortune 500 legend, and the man who created a buzz at the Wildlife Trust gala three nights ago. He wasn't just an eligible bachelor; he was the bachelor. The elusive billionaire every woman wanted and no one could get.
He was thirty-six years old, famously married to his work, and up until now, showed no intention of giving up his bachelor lifestyle. Why, then, would Alexander Grayson of all people agree to an arranged marriage?
"I would introduce myself by my net worth," he said. "But it would be impolite to categorize you as a stranger, given the purpose of tonight's dinner."
His smile didn't contain an ounce of warmth.
"That's very considerate of you." My cool reply masked my embarrassment. "Don't worry, Mr. Grayson. If I wanted to know your net worth, I could Google it. I'm sure the information is as readily available as the tales of your legendary charm."
A glint sparked in his eyes, but he didn't take my bait.
Instead, our gazes held for a charged moment before he slid his palm out of mine and swept a clinical, detached gaze over my body.
I stiffened again beneath Alexander's scrutiny, suddenly hyperaware of my tweed skirt suit, pearl studs, and low-heeled pumps.
This was my standard uniform for visiting my father, and judging by the way Alexander's lips thinned, he was less than impressed.
A mix of unease and irritation twisted my stomach when those dark, unforgiving eyes found mine again.
We'd exchanged only a handful of words, yet I already knew two things with gut certainty.
One, Alexander was going to be my fiancé whether I wanted it or not.
Two, we both don't want this engagement or anything to do with each other.
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9.2
Averie spent hours preparing a perfect third-anniversary dinner for her billionaire husband, Jarett Sharp.
Instead of celebrating, she received an anonymous photo of him intimately holding another woman.
When Jarett finally arrived, he didn't even look guilty.
"Candida. It's okay. Don't be scared. I'm on my way."
He simply took a call from his mistress, shoved Averie aside, and walked right back out the door.
That same night, Averie's father suffered a massive heart attack.
The hospital demanded a half-million-dollar deposit before they would operate.
But when Averie frantically tried to use the emergency medical trust card Jarett had given her, it was declined.
Jarett had deliberately frozen her access to the funds just hours earlier.
While she begged his assistant on the phone, Jarett refused to be disturbed, busy wrapping his expensive coat around his mistress in the hospital garden.
Averie collapsed in the hallway, realizing the man she loved was deliberately letting her father die.
In the end, a childhood friend stepped in to pay the bill and save her father's life, while her billionaire husband later pinned her to their bed, throwing a check at her and reminding her he had bought her for three million dollars.
Averie didn't shed a single tear.
She slowly ripped his check into pieces, left her massive diamond ring on the dresser, and walked out into the cold New York night with nothing but her old suitcase.
She pulled out her phone and dialed her old ballet professor.
She wasn't just going to leave Jarett Sharp. She was going to destroy him.
8.7
Emerson worked grueling twelve-hour shifts just to keep her five-year-old son, Leo, alive. Her only lifeline was her partner Alden, who was willing to give up his wealthy family to protect them.
But when Leo's bone marrow completely failed, the doctor delivered a death sentence. The only way to save him was a two-million-dollar treatment, or having another child with his biological father.
That father was Finnegan Mcconnell, the ruthless billionaire who had accused Emerson of faking her pregnancy and abandoned her five years ago.
Desperate for the medical fees, Emerson submitted her designs to Finnegan's company.
Instead of advancing the money, Finnegan tore her portfolio to shreds and trapped her as a prisoner in his estate.
To force her complete submission, he systematically destroyed her reality. He framed Alden with federal charges, leaving him facing twenty years in prison.
Alden's mother stormed into the pediatric ICU, violently strangling Emerson against the wall.
"Beg Finnegan to let my son go! You are a curse!"
Even Emerson's own adoptive mother showed up at the hospital, just to publicly mock her dying child.
Emerson was suffocating in despair. Finnegan already had a beautiful new wife and a five-year-old daughter—absolute proof he had been cheating while she was pregnant and alone.
He had his perfect family. Why did he have to hunt her down and sever every lifeline she had left, just to watch her drown?
With her son's heart monitor fading and Alden locked in a cell, her pride finally shattered.
Emerson walked into the top-floor executive office and dropped to her knees at the devil's feet, but the desperate mother looking up at him was preparing for a devastating revenge.
8.0
Eloise Ferguson was the legitimate daughter of a powerful Senator, yet she was treated like a hysterical burden by her own family.
In her past life, her parents forced her to marry a sadistic billionaire for political funding.
When she resisted, they locked her in a psychiatric facility, drugged her, and left her to die in restraints while her "fragile" cousin Jaylene stole her life.
She never understood why her mother hated her so fiercely.
Why did her mother treat her brother Cortez and her cousin Jaylene like absolute royalty, while throwing her own flesh and blood to the wolves?
Opening her eyes again, Eloise found herself back at age twenty-two, trapped in a restroom at a charity gala.
Escaping her abuser, she used her awakened mystic abilities to look at her family's life forces.
What she saw made her blood run cold.
Thick, red biological cords connected her mother directly to both Cortez and Jaylene, intertwining in a perfect symbiotic bond.
They weren't cousins. They were illegitimate twins born from her mother's secret affair.
Eloise was the only true outsider in her own home.
The realization hit her like a physical blow. Her entire life of abuse was just a cover-up for a nest of parasites stealing her father's name and her inheritance.
But this time, she refused to be their victim.
Armed with an unchallengeable executive order she blackmailed out of the United States President, Eloise crushed the hidden microphone in her bedroom.
"Game on, Mother."
9.1
Eleonora woke up in the hospital, still feeling the terrifying weightlessness of her own suicide.
She realized her chilling nightmare was actually a prophecy: she was destined to be the tragic, disposable villain, while her adopted sister Addisyn was the beloved protagonist.
On the day of her discharge, her father abandoned her to celebrate Addisyn's eighteenth birthday.
When Eleonora dragged her recovering body back to her family estate, she found her biometric access wiped and her home turned into a chaotic nightclub.
Addisyn had taken over the master bedroom and was wearing Eleonora's late mother's priceless sapphire necklace.
When Eleonora coldly demanded her property back, Addisyn squeezed out fake tears and played the pitiful victim.
Instantly, Eleonora's childhood fiancé and lifelong friends stepped up to shield Addisyn.
They scolded Eleonora for being cruel and classless, demanding she sleep in the guest room so she wouldn't ruin the party.
Downstairs, the elite guests mocked her as a crazy, jealous freak who was bullying her sweet sister.
In her nightmare, their blind devotion to this manipulative parasite had driven Eleonora to jump off a skyscraper.
She was the sole legal heir to the Carlisle estate, yet they expected her to quietly hand over her home, her mother's legacy, and her life to a thief.
But Eleonora was no longer a victim.
She pulled out the irrevocable trust documents, proving her absolute ownership, and looked at her loyal butler.
"Cut the power," she ordered coldly. "Throw every single trespasser out the gates."
8.3
I went to the Vera Wang flagship store to surprise my billionaire husband for our third wedding anniversary.
Instead, I caught him in the VIP fitting room, sleeping with the twenty-two-year-old intern I had personally helped him hire.
Through the crack in the door, I recorded him kissing her neck and calling me a "boring decoration." Later, when I ruined her fitting, he grabbed my arm in the middle of Fifth Avenue and called me a hysterical bitch.
"You are nothing without my family's trust fund!"
He roared the words in front of a crowd, completely convinced that I was just a helpless canary living in his golden cage. He thought he owned my credit cards, my dignity, and my life.
That same night, while my grandmother was flatlining in the hospital, he ignored my desperate phone calls just to take a shower with his mistress.
He really believed I would swallow the humiliation and come crawling back to his penthouse, begging for my allowance.
He had no idea that I had spent my entire twenties building a massive digital empire in the shadows.
I calmly tricked him into signing a post-nuptial asset separation agreement and threw all his custom designer suits down a rotting trash compactor.
Then, I put on a blood-red haute couture gown and headed to the most exclusive charity auction in Manhattan.
It was time to use my own hidden fortune to destroy him.
8.4
For five years, Casey played the perfect, obedient contract wife to the billionaire Bartholomew Hendricks. On their fifth anniversary, she waited five hours in front of a cold dinner, only to be called to pick him up from a club.
When she arrived, she found him in a VIP room, looking softly at his assistant, Halie. Around Halie's neck was the massive blue sapphire necklace Casey thought was her anniversary gift.
The crowd of elites openly mocked her, calling her the pathetic little contract wife. Halie shrank back into Bartholomew's arms and squeezed out fake tears. Instead of defending his wife, Bartholomew's eyes turned to solid ice.
"Why are you interrupting my friends?"
He ordered her to stop throwing a tantrum and drive him home. The humiliation peaked when his aunt violently slapped Casey across the face in a crowded hospital corridor during a family emergency. Bartholomew just watched her bleed, only caring about the family's reputation in the tabloids.
Standing there with a bruised cheek and a bleeding lip, Casey looked at the man she had loved. There was no anger left, no sadness, only a freezing, absolute emptiness. She finally realized her humanity meant nothing to him.
She took off her five-carat diamond ring, packed only the cheap clothes she came with, and handed him a net-zero divorce settlement. Bartholomew thought she would starve and come crawling back, completely unaware that she was secretly a multi-millionaire author who was about to turn his world upside down.