Reborn Heiress: Breaking The Toxic Engagement

Candice Luna thought her marriage to Julius Hansen was a lifeline to save her father's struggling company. She didn't know it was a death sentence until Julius coldly slid divorce papers across his mahogany desk. His true love, Amina Rowe, was nestled in his arms with a triumphant, mocking smile. The "merger" Julius promised had been a brutal, hostile takeover designed to bleed the Luna Group dry from the inside. Bankrupted and utterly broken, Candice's father stepped off the roof of their corporate tower. Meanwhile, Candice was publicly humiliated, stripped of her dignity, and mocked by all of Wall Street as a discarded stepping stone. She died in a car accident, her final moments consumed by an agonizing, feral scream. She hated herself for letting her blind devotion destroy the father who had always believed in her. But when Candice opened her eyes to the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room, she realized she wasn't dead. She was twenty-two again. Three years before the wedding. Three years before her father's suicide. When Julius's assistant walked in holding a bouquet of blue roses to discuss the preliminary merger, he expected a docile, desperate heiress. Instead, Candice grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and flung it directly into his smug face. "Tell Julius Hansen to never, ever send his dogs to my door again." This time, there would be no engagement. This time, the Hansen family would choke on her family's legacy.

Chapters

Chapter 8

Etta pressed a flute of champagne into Candice's hand. "So, spill. Are you and the Ice King of Wall Street really over?"

Candice took a sip, the bubbles fizzing on her tongue. "We were never 'on,' Etta. It was a business deal. And now, the deal is off. Permanently."

Etta's perfectly sculpted eyebrows shot up. "Seriously? But the whole city has a betting pool on your wedding date."

"Let them lose their money," Candice said, setting the glass down. "My life isn't a wager."

Etta leaned in again, her eyes sparkling with fresh gossip. "Is it because of that 'soulmate' of his? Amina Rowe?"

The name made Candice's hand clench. The image of Amina's smug face was seared into her memory.

Seeing her friend's reaction, Etta rushed to comfort her. "Oh, honey, don't worry about her. She's just some political advisor. The Hansens would never let a social-climbing nobody like that into the family."

Candice let out a bitter, silent laugh. If only you knew.

"Where did you hear about her?" Candice asked, forcing a casual tone. She needed to know how far along their timeline was.

"My father mentioned her," Etta said, waving a dismissive hand. "She's working for some senator, apparently. Been seen at a few galas with Julius. Probably just using him for his connections."

The pieces were clicking into place. It was all happening again, just as she remembered.

The horn sounded, signaling the end of the first half of the match. Preston trotted his horse over to the sidelines, his face flushed and beaded with sweat. He dismounted, his eyes immediately finding Candice.

He strode toward them, his riding boots sinking slightly into the soft turf. "Candice. I'm glad you could make it." He handed her a spare polo mallet. "Care to take a swing?"

Before she could refuse, Etta was pushing her forward. "Go on! It's fun!"

Trapped, Candice took the mallet and walked stiffly to the practice area. Preston came up behind her, placing his hands over hers on the shaft of the mallet to guide her swing.

"Keep your arms straight," he murmured, his voice close to her ear. His body was pressed against her back, warm and solid.

The proximity was suffocating. It felt like a cage closing around her. The memory of his possessiveness, his anger when she couldn't return his feelings, made her skin crawl.

She wrenched herself away from him. "Don't touch me."

The movement was so abrupt she stumbled, nearly losing her balance.

Preston looked stunned, his hands frozen in mid-air. "I was just trying to help."

"I don't need your help," she snapped, her voice colder than she intended.

The hurt in his eyes was plain to see. He looked from her to his sister, embarrassed and confused. Etta rushed over, shooting Candice a look. "What is wrong with you?" she whispered, pulling her friend away.

Candice watched Preston walk away, his shoulders slumped. A pang of guilt hit her, but she pushed it down. It was better this way. A clean break. No misunderstandings.

She needed some air. "I'm just going to get some water," she told Etta, and walked away from the crowds, toward the relative quiet of the stables.

The smell of hay and horses was calming. She leaned against a white fence, finally able to breathe.

She was standing near a magnificent black stallion, tethered to a post. As she watched, a stable hand accidentally dropped a metal bucket nearby. The loud clang startled the horse.

It reared up, its eyes wide with panic, front hooves flailing in the air. It let out a terrified whinny and, in its frenzy, its powerful body swung around, directly toward her.

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Kaylee's family was drowning in debt, and her stepmother locked her inside a freezing bedroom. To save their bankrupt company, they decided to sell her off to a sixty-five-year-old man with a disgusting reputation. They cut off her allowance and confiscated the only precious keepsake her dead mother had ever left her. "Put on the engagement dress, or I will smash your mother's crystal box into a million pieces." Terrified of the old man, Kaylee risked her life by jumping out of the second-story window into a violent storm. She hit the muddy ground hard, twisting her ankle and tearing her skin on rusted iron gates as she escaped into the pitch-black night. Dragging her bleeding bare feet across the cold sand, her lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass. She didn't understand why she had to be the sacrifice for their endless greed, or how they could be so cruel as to hold her dead mother's memory hostage. She had absolutely nowhere to go, and the old man's cars were already pulling into the estate to claim her. Cornered by the blinding headlights of a motorcade on the beach, she threw herself at the feet of Ernest Blackwell, the most ruthless billionaire in New York. "Marry me! You need a wife, and I need a husband right now!" To buy her freedom and crush the family that sold her, she chose to sign a twenty-million-dollar fake marriage contract with the devil himself.

Billionaire Modern Romance

8.5

Married a Billionaire, My True Heiress Identity Revealed

8.5

Alexandrea woke up with a splitting headache in a strange hotel bed, terrified to find a brutally handsome, half-naked stranger beside her. Before she could even scream, the door burst open. Her adoptive mother, Ivette, stormed in with a swarm of reporters and flashing cameras. "How could you disgrace our family name like this?" Ivette sobbed, putting on a theatrical performance of a heartbroken mother. It was a setup to completely ruin Alexandrea's reputation in front of New York's elite. For ten years, Alexandrea had lived in a house of horrors. Her back and arms were covered in silvery scars and puckered cigarette burns left by Ivette's vicious abuse. Yet to the public, Ivette had carefully crafted Alexandrea's image as a wild, ungrateful, and manipulative liar. Trapped under the duvet, Alexandrea was drowning in shame, her voice lost in the storm of accusations. She didn't understand why her adoptive family hated her so much, treating her worse than a stray dog while using her brother's future to keep her chained. But what she understood even less was the stranger beside her. Instead of panicking, the man slowly sat up, his presence alone silencing the frantic room. He was Ace Griffith, the billionaire heir who owned half of Manhattan. He wrapped his suit jacket around her trembling shoulders, looked Ivette dead in the eye, and dropped a bomb. "I will be marrying her." Then, he carried Alexandrea away from her ten-year prison, ordering his men to dig up the Terry family's darkest secrets and her true identity.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.3

My Second Husband Was An Untouchable Tycoon?!

9.3

For years, Gabriela believed the man beside her would be the one she grew old with. They had loved each other since they were young, but in the end, all those years meant nothing beside a younger woman's smile. Returning from a business trip, she uncovered his betrayal with brutal clarity. Still, she did not cry or beg. She took out her phone, recorded every damning second, and filed for divorce the moment she could. Afterward, she rebuilt her life into something brighter, richer, and stronger, even marrying a powerful tycoon. As for her ex and his shameless mistress, they could rot together.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.5

Reborn Embrace: Taming the Possessive Tycoon

9.5

I woke up gasping from a nightmare of flames devouring Chandler Finch's estate, my body wrapped in burning curtains as I died alone. But my eyes opened to silk sheets in his penthouse master bedroom. He was alive beside me, his cedarwood scent real. This was my second chance—I'd been reborn. His phone buzzed: Eugenia Stewart's "emergency." Her security detail reported her refusing meals, unstable. Chandler bolted without a glance, rushing to her side. I signed the brutal cohabitation contract binding me to him, but Temperance had planted birth control pills in the trash—a trap to frame me. Chandler found them, exploded in jealous rage, crushing the pills to dust. "No child unless it's mine," he growled, possessive fire in his eyes. Brett, Eugenia's lapdog, stormed in later, accusing me of manipulation. I fired back: Chandler demanded my womb for his heir. Brett paled, fled to tattle. Then the storm hit—power outage, locked on the terrace in pouring rain, freezing as Eugenia faked an asthma attack on Chandler's line, stealing his focus again. I hung up, huddled with a stray puppy, nearly dying from hypothermia. He'd never believed me before—Eugenia's lies always won, dooming me to isolation and fire. Why did her every whimper trump my screams? How could he be so blind? This time, reborn weeks before the inferno, I wouldn't beg. I'd play his game, shatter Eugenia's web, and make Chandler mine—before the flames returned.

Billionaire Fantasy Romance

7.9

Reborn To Ruin My Cheating Tycoon Husband

7.9

Erin woke up in her luxurious Fifth Avenue penthouse, three days after returning from the cold, sterile psychiatric hospital where her husband had locked her away. On the night of their third anniversary, Crockett Winters came home smelling of his mistress's perfume, expecting his docile wife to serve him. Instead of playing the obedient fool, Erin calmly exposed the million-dollar diamonds he had just bought for his lover. Furious at her sudden defiance, Crockett tried to physically intimidate her, pinning her against a wall to reassert his dominance. When his aggression failed, he threw a brutal divorce agreement on the table. "Sign it, and you walk away with nothing. You can't survive without me, and you know it." He sneered, convinced the ironclad prenup would terrify her. He thought her rebellion was just a pathetic, jealous tantrum, a desperate play for his attention while he continued to pamper his mistress. He truly believed she was just a beautiful canary who would eventually crawl back to her gilded cage in tears. But Erin didn't cry, and she didn't sign the papers. Instead, she locked him out of the master suite and pulled out his unlimited Centurion card. In a single night, she calmly spent ninety million dollars of his money to buy up prime real estate and hidden assets, taking the first step to build an empire that would completely destroy him.

Billionaire Modern Romance

7.2

Reclaiming Her Crown: The CEO's Sudden Bride

7.2

Stepping out of the women's correctional center, Karli took her first breath of freedom in three years. But the luxury SUV waiting for her didn't bring her home. Instead, her adoptive parents tossed a prenuptial agreement onto her lap. They demanded she marry a violently unhinged, disfigured man so their company could secure a massive commercial deal. When she refused, her adoptive mother slapped her hard across the face. The blow brought back the suffocating nightmare from three years ago—how they had drugged her, framed her for a crime she didn't commit, and sent her to prison just so her stepsister could steal her fiancé. Now, to break her again, her adoptive father ordered his bodyguards to drag her into the estate's freezing, pitch-black basement. "You can rot in the dark without food or water until you sign that paper!" Sitting on the damp cement, bleeding and shivering, a white-hot fury burned away Karli's panic. They had stolen her youth, her reputation, and her grandfather's inheritance. She would rather die than be their sacrificial lamb again. She smashed the basement window with a hammer, dragged her bleeding body through the shattered glass, and sprinted blindly into the stormy night. Under the flickering neon sign of a convenience store, she grabbed the sleeve of a terrifyingly cold stranger. "Are you single? Marry me right now." She just needed a legal marriage to escape her family, entirely unaware she had just proposed to the most ruthless billionaire in Chicago.

Billionaire Modern Romance

Reborn Heiress: Breaking The Toxic Engagement

Chapter 8

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