Fake Vows, Real Love: The CEO's Wife
For three years, I hid my identity as a billionaire heiress to build a life with the man I loved. I gave up everything to support Ben's career, believing we were creating a future together from the ground up.
The day before our engagement, I overheard him with his boss, Haylie. He called me a "stepping stone," a poor, simple girl he was using to climb the corporate ladder and get closer to her.
He laughed about our "humble" life and mocked the silver ring on my finger, calling it a necessary prop. He was sleeping with her, taking credit for the multi-million dollar deal I secretly engineered, and saw my love as a naive distraction.
The man I sacrificed my entire world for saw me as less than nothing. My love didn't just die; it turned into ice-cold rage.
So I walked out of his life and straight into the arms of my family's biggest rival.
He offered me a deal I couldn't refuse.
"Marry me," Jaxson Banks said with a smirk. "And together, we'll burn their world to the ground."
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Chapter 3
Isolde POV
The next morning, I moved like a ghost through the apartment, gathering my few belongings. My "poor girl" persona meant I didn't have much to pack. A small suitcase held my clothes, a backpack my laptop and a few sentimental items. The silver engagement ring remained on my finger, a cold reminder of the lie. I would deal with it later. First, I had to sever all ties.
The corporate office building of Apex Corp, Haylie White' s domain, loomed large and imposing under a sky as gray as my mood. I stepped out of the cab, the cold wind whipping around me, but I felt nothing. My heart was a block of ice.
I walked directly to Human Resources, the marble floors echoing my footsteps. The scent of stale coffee and corporate ambition hung in the air. As I approached the HR desk, I saw her. Haylie White. She was leaning against the cubicle wall of a junior manager, her laughter echoing, overly loud and jarring in the otherwise hushed environment. She radiated power and arrogance, a shark in a designer suit.
Her eyes, sharp and calculating, landed on me. A smirk played on her lips. "Well, well, Isolde Park. Or should I say, 'Isabella Pierce,' our diligent junior analyst. What brings you to the hallowed halls of HR? Not thinking of abandoning ship so soon, are we?" Her tone was laced with mockery, her eyes glinting with malicious satisfaction. She knew. She knew about Ben. She was enjoying my pain.
"I need to resign," I stated, my voice steady, devoid of emotion. I pushed the signed resignation letter across the counter to the HR assistant, who looked up, wide-eyed, clearly uncomfortable with the tension in the room.
Haylie pushed off the wall, a predatory gleam in her eyes. "Resign? Already? But you were just about to get that big promotion, weren' t you? Ben was so proud of your 'contributions'." Her gaze swept over me, a condescending smirk on her face. "Though, honestly, I always wondered how someone with your 'background' managed to pull off such complex deals. Must have been a lot of late nights with Ben, hm?"
The HR assistant cleared her throat, clearly wanting to diffuse the situation. "Ms. Pierce, we usually require two weeks' notice. Is there anything we can do to change your mind?"
"No," I replied, my eyes fixed on Haylie. "I require my resignation to be processed immediately."
Haylie stepped closer, her expensive perfume, the same sickeningly sweet scent I' d detected on Ben, assaulting my senses. It was a suffocating cloud of betrayal. "Oh, Isolde. Don't be so dramatic. You' ll find another entry-level job somewhere. It' s not the end of the world." She lowered her voice, a venomous whisper. "Unless, of course, you're upset about Ben. He spent the night at my place again. Said he needed to celebrate his big win, without his 'poor, ambitionless girlfriend' holding him back."
She smirked, then leaned even closer, her hot breath against my ear. "He said you were getting in the way. Always asking too many questions. Always clinging to him. He preferred a woman who knew what she wanted, and wasn't afraid to take it." With a sly movement, she tugged at the lapel of her blazer, revealing a small, faint bruise on her collarbone. A love bite. A trophy. A confirmation of her disgusting conquest.
My nails dug into my palms, the sharp pain grounding me. My breath hitched, a silent scream trapped in my throat. I forced myself to meet her gaze, a cold, empty stare. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing me break. Not here. Not now.
Just then, the office door swung open, and Ben Carpenter stepped in, a triumphant grin on his face. He was holding a stack of files, his head held high. "Good morning, everyone! What a glorious day for Apex Corp, wouldn't you say, Haylie?" He paused, his gaze sweeping the room, then landed on me. His smile faltered. His eyes widened, a flicker of panic replacing his smugness.
He saw Haylie, close to me, the defiant smirk on her face. He saw me, standing impassively at the HR desk, my resignation letter in full view. His confident stride faltered. The stack of files in his hand shifted, almost tumbling to the floor.
"Isolde? What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice cracking, the bravado evaporating. He looked from me to Haylie, his eyes darting frantically, trying to gauge the situation.
"I'm resigning," I answered, my voice steady, betraying nothing. I watched his face crumple, the carefully constructed facade finally cracking.
"Resigning? Why?" he stammered, his eyes pleading, desperately trying to regain control.
I met his gaze, a cold, hard glint in my eyes. "I'm just following your advice, Ben. Moving on to bigger and better things. Leaving the 'stepping stones' behind." My words were a double-edged sword, cutting through his pretense, exposing his hypocrisy for all to see. His face flushed with shame, but it was too late. The damage was done. And this was just the beginning.
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7.4
I single-handedly saved my family's corporate empire from a hostile takeover, securing our market share for the next decade.
But my grandfather didn't see me as a hero. He saw me as a flawed piece of inventory.
To calm the board and fix the reputation I supposedly ruined, he forced me into an arranged marriage, auctioning me off to the highest bidder.
Desperate, I turned to my childhood friend, Egnacio, the only person who ever promised to protect me.
But instead of saving me, he publicly humiliated me. He used my desperation as a networking opportunity, pitching my arranged marriage as a business deal to a ruthless private equity king named Dexter Mathews.
Later that night, I caught Egnacio holding my cruel cousin in his arms.
"What man wants to be with a woman who looks at you like she's planning a hostile takeover?"
Hearing him mock my pain shattered the last bit of hope I had.
I realized I was never family to them. I was just a sharp knife, used to cut down their enemies and then traded for cash before I got dull.
The heartbreak vanished, replaced by a cold, violent rage.
I didn't break, and I didn't run.
Instead, I got into the back of Dexter Mathews's car. He had watched my family tear me apart, but he didn't see a broken pawn. He saw a queen.
And together, we were going to burn their entire empire to the ground.
7.9
Elena Crane wakes up in a hospital bed after barely surviving a resort fire, only to discover the devastating truth. The kidney she donated to her husband Leo three days ago wasn't for him. It was for his mistress, Lydia. Worse, she overhears Leo instructing a doctor to kill her within five days and make it look like surgical complications so he can collect two hundred million dollars in life insurance. Their entire five year marriage was an elaborate scheme to steal her organs and murder her for money.
What Leo and Lydia don't know is that Elena is actually Roberta Alfred, the legendary jewelry designer and billionaire heiress who abandoned her empire for love. After enduring multiple murder attempts, including being locked in a morgue and losing her uterus to forced hysterectomy, Elena escapes. She divorces Leo, claims the insurance money herself, and returns home to reclaim her identity and her family's billion dollar empire.
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.
8.7
For three years, I played the perfect, submissive housewife to billionaire Julian Harrison.
But right after an intimate night together, he coldly threw a divorce agreement onto the bed.
"Scarlett landed an hour ago. I need my single status restored to welcome her back."
That same night, I ended up in the emergency room and discovered I was pregnant with twins.
When Julian found out, he didn't show a shred of joy. Instead, he stormed into my hospital room, threw a blank check directly at my face, and ordered me to get rid of them.
He accused me of using the babies as a sick game to trap his assets.
Then, his ruthless lawyer kicked me out of our penthouse, confiscating the jewelry he gifted me and tossing my worn-out notebook onto the floor like garbage.
Standing in the freezing rain, my heart completely died.
I had swallowed my pride, managed his life, and cooked his meals to his exact standards for three years, only to be thrown away the second his first love returned.
But he didn't know that the notebook his lawyer discarded contained the secret formulas of Aura Beauty, a billion-dollar empire I built in the shadows.
I tore his check into pieces, blocked his number, and left in a Maybach sent by my associate.
Logging into my global CEO database, I looked at his company's fragile stock chart with a predatory smile.
The docile Mrs. Harrison died in the rain. It was time to crush his empire.
7.2
For ten years, Aurora was abandoned by her wealthy family to rot in the countryside.
When she finally returned, there was no warm welcome. The Lott family only brought her back to replace her adopted sister in an arranged marriage with Damian Yates, a notoriously violent, crippled billionaire, just to save their bankrupt company.
Her grandmother mocked her as uneducated trash. Her fake sister feigned disgust at her very presence.
When her biological father desperately tried to stop them from sending his daughter to her death, the family turned on him.
Her grandmother struck her father across the face, kicked the three of them out of the manor into the freezing rain, and arrogantly declared they would starve on the streets by nightfall.
They thought Aurora was just a helpless, pathetic hillbilly who would quietly accept being sold as livestock.
They had no idea that over the past decade, she had survived the darkest corners of the world, becoming a lethal operative with unimaginable power.
Standing in the cold rain, Aurora didn't shed a single tear.
She calmly pulled out her encrypted phone, personally canceled the billionaire's marriage contract, and ordered her hacker to completely freeze the Lott family's accounts.
"Total financial annihilation. Burn them to the ground."
But as she watched her abusers' legacy crumble, a classified file arrived on her phone, revealing that the very billionaire she just rejected was tied to her mother's unsolved murder.
The real hunt was just beginning.
8.1
My billionaire husband, Cooper, was thirty minutes late to my father's funeral.
When the heavy cathedral doors finally opened, he wasn't there to comfort me. He was tightly shielding his mistress, Celeste, under his umbrella, treating her like a fragile lily while I stood alone in my black mourning dress.
The whispers in the pews were deafening, but they were nothing compared to the truth I soon uncovered.
Cooper hadn't just humiliated me—he had secretly taken my father's life-saving spot in a medical clinical trial and given it to Celeste's family. My father died gasping for air because of him.
Days later, while I was shivering in the ER with a 103-degree fever, I saw Cooper sneaking into the VIP maternity ward. He was holding Celeste, his face glowing with the ecstatic joy of a man about to become a father.
For three years, I swallowed my pride to be his perfect, obedient wife, only to let his elite friends openly mock me to my face.
"You were just keeping the seat warm until the real queen came back."
He let my father die, hid all our marital assets in offshore trusts, and made me take birth control every single morning, claiming he wasn't ready for kids.
I didn't scream, and I didn't let him see me break.
Instead, I hired Manhattan's most ruthless divorce lawyer, smiled sweetly as I handed Cooper his coat at home, and began secretly gathering the evidence to burn his entire empire to the ground.