The Billionaire Proposed
Penelope's wedding day should have been perfect-until she found her best friend in her fiancé's bed.
Running from the ruins of her future, she fell into one night with a stranger whose touch felt like safety. No names. No future. Just escape.
Until two pink lines changed everything.
Years later, Penelope returns with twins, a stronger heart, and no plans to fall in love again. But fate traps her in close quarters with a ruthless billionaire... who happens to be the man from that unforgettable night. He doesn't know she's the bride who disappeared. He doesn't know the children are his.
Old enemies want revenge. Old secrets refuse to stay buried.
And the man who swore he would never love... kneels.
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Chapter 4
Penelope woke up before the sun had fully risen, a thin line of dawn slipped through the heavy hotel curtains, washing the room in pale light.
For a moment, she lay still, her mind hazy-until the memories of the previous night came crashing back. Her chest tightened.
Carlton lay asleep beside her, his arms loosely draped across her waist, his breathing slow and steady. Carefully, she lifted his arm away and slid out of the bed.
Spotting a Louis Vuitton shopping bag resting on the dresser. Without hesitation, she pulled out a simple dress from it and slipped into it, then folded her wedding gown-the symbol of everything that had gone wrong-and gathered it into her arms.
The room felt unnaturally quiet, weighed down by reality.
Her heart pounded as she approached the door. She paused briefly when she noticed her car keys on the rack. Taking a deep breath, she glanced back at Carlton one last time. He remained asleep, peaceful in the dim light, unaware that this moment would be their only one.
She considered leaving him a note, but she stopped herself.
Some things are never meant to be explained. She grabbed the keys and slipped out quietly.
She hurried down the hallway, into the elevator, and out of the building.
The cool morning air hit her like a slap as she stepped out of the building. Relief washed over her as she saw her car parked in the valet stand. Looking slightly bruised but intact.
She climbed in and shut the door, exhaling shakily.
Her phone lay on the passenger seat, its screen glowing with missed calls and unread messages.
She picked it up and saw numerous missed calls and messages from her Dad, Hill, Geoffrey, and even Mrs. Oretha. Penelope's heart sank as she stared at the screen, but she didn't return any of the calls nor reply to the messages.
Each number represented a conversation she wasn't ready to have, a judgment she wasn't ready to face. With a clenched jaw, she tossed the phone back to the passenger seat, fired the engine, and drove off.
The city slowly woke around her, but Penelope felt detached from it all. A few streets away, she pulled over beside a public trash bin. Her hands trembled as she reached for the wedding dress.
For years, she had imagined walking down the aisle in it.
Now, without ceremony or tears, she shoved it into the bin and slammed the lid shut.
She didn't look back.
The drive home was blurry. By the time she arrived home, the house was already alive with noise.
Her father. Geoffrey. Hillary. Mrs. Oretha.
Everyone.
She parked and took a moment to steel herself. The moment she stepped inside, the tension thickened. Her father's face hardened when his eyes landed on her.
"What is this?" he demanded. "Are you out of your mind?" His face was burning with anger and fury.
The accusation hung in the air, Penelope stared at her father, and a cold emptiness settled in her stomach.
Before she could respond, Hillary rushed forward, arms outstretched. "Pen, please-"
Penelope stepped back, avoiding her touch. Geoffrey moved next, reaching for her hand, his voice strained with panic. "Penelope, thank goodness you're alright. Where were you? Talk to me.
She pulled away again, her face unreadable, her silence louder than any accusation. She walked past them into the house, Mrs Oretha waiting in the hallway.
"You could have taken your calls, you got us all worried," Mrs Oretha said, her tone gentle but firm.
"I will no longer be getting married to Geoffrey," Penelope announced, her voice steady and loud enough for everyone to hear.
A stunned silence fell over the room. Geoffrey's face turned pale, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. "What do you mean babe?" he finally managed to ask.
"You heard me correctly," Penelope replied, her voice unwavering. "I am not marrying you Geoffrey."
Her father's anger erupted. "You embarrassed me. You made me look like a fool in front of my friends, my family, and everyone. Penelope, you disgraced me."
"You were nowhere to be found at your wedding, guests left in disappointment, and you came home reeking of male cologne, and you said what?" her father's voice almost breaking through the hard walls.
Hillary stepped forward, her expression one of concern. "Penelope, what's wrong? Are you having cold feet?"
Penelope turned to her, a stranger hidden behind a mask of feigned sympathy. The betrayal echoed in her memory, clear as day. How could she have been so blind? She mused as she looked at Hill with a blank expression, feeling a surge of anger and betrayal.
'How did I never realize what a calculating bitch you are?' she thought, but didn't say anything.
Her father's voice broke through her thoughts. "If you are not marrying Geoffrey, then you are not setting foot in this house again."
The words landed hard.
Penelope's heart ached at her father's words. It hurt her that he cared more about the wedding than her well-being. She took a deep breath, standing tall. "I am not getting married. It was my choice to get married, and now I no longer want to get married. You can do whatever you want, Dad."
Her father's face twisted with rage. "Then you leave this house and never come back. I don't want to ever see your face again.
Penelope felt a pang of sadness but stood her ground. "Fine. I will leave," she declared, since she desperately needed time and space.
She needed space away from both Hillary and Geoffrey. She couldn't bear to look them in the face and she never wanted to let them see or know how they had hurt her.
The shock in the room was palpable as she turned and walked upstairs, and immediately, Mrs Oretha and Hillary hurried after her.
Before either of them could walk into her bedroom she slammed the door in their face and locked it.
She grabbed a suitcase and began to pack, her hands trembling slightly but her resolve firm. She picked up her passport and her essentials, tears streamed down hùer face, but she wiped them off immediately, and took one last look around her room, then headed back downstairs.
Downstairs, her father's voice continued to echo angrily, Mrs Oretha trying to calm him down, while Hillary and Geoffrey whispered to each other.
Penelope looked around the house, at the faces she once trusted, at the place she once called home-and felt nothing but resentment.
As she reached the bottom step, her father glared at her. "You really mean to leave?"
Penelope nodded without hesitation, her eyes meeting his. "Yes Sir"
Without another word, she walked past them all, out the front door, and into an unknown future that awaited her.
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7.2
I am a resident surgeon, secretly married to Dr. Barrett Walters, the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. It was a transactional marriage; he paid my mother's mounting medical bills, and I was his secret, obedient wife in the dark.
But at the hospital, he was a cold-blooded tyrant who deliberately made my life a living hell. During a major medical conference, he viciously tore apart my successful surgical repair, looking me dead in the eye as he called me incompetent in front of all my colleagues.
The humiliation didn't stop there. With his tacit approval, the senior residents bullied me, assigning me every brutal night shift. When his beautiful, wealthy heiress "girlfriend" visited the ward, he publicly mocked my background to make her smile.
"Some people get in through the back door. They're not fit for the front lines."
Even when I was forced to work as a secret banquet waitress to cover the medical copays he ignored, he found me, ruined the job out of pure possessive jealousy, and then fined my meager resident salary the very next morning just to show his absolute control.
I endured his punishing kisses and cruel rebukes, sacrificing my dignity just to keep my mother alive. But I couldn't understand why he had to destroy every shred of my peace. If he wanted the perfect heiress, why did he refuse to let me go?
Staring at his cold, controlling eyes in the stairwell, my exhaustion finally overpowered my fear. I was done being his victim, and it was time to tear up this contract.
9.6
Minutes before announcing her grand engagement, Darla caught her fiancé sleeping with her stepsister.
She publicly exposed them and canceled the wedding on the spot.
Furious, her adoptive mother demanded Darla marry a fifty-five-year-old predator to save their broken business deal.
"If you don't do exactly what I say, I'll let your father rot in prison for the rest of his life."
Desperate to escape her family's control, Darla grabbed a massive, intimidating hotel security guard she bumped into in the hallway.
She shoved all the cash in her purse at him—eight hundred dollars—and begged him to fake-marry her.
They signed the papers at City Hall that same day.
But the nightmare didn't end.
That evening, Darla received a cold phone call from the state penitentiary.
Her father had been found dead in his cell, and her company, owned by her ex-fiancé's family, fired her immediately.
They had taken everything from her, leaving her completely broken and sobbing on the floor of her tiny apartment.
She thought she had nothing left but a broke, fake husband to keep her company.
She had no idea that the "poor security guard" holding her in his arms was actually Anson Prince, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And he was already making the calls to tear her abusers' empires to the ground.
7.8
Andrea was trapped in a suffocating marriage with billionaire Gregory Morse, forced to live as the pathetic substitute for his dead fiancée.
When armed intruders broke into their estate in the dead of night, she called her husband in pure terror.
"Stop playing these cheap, attention-seeking games," Gregory sneered with disgust, and hung up the phone.
She barely escaped with her life, but the cruelty only escalated. At the family mansion, his dead fiancée's sister deliberately scalded Andrea's hand with boiling tea. Instead of defending his wife, Gregory publicly humiliated her, ordering her to clean up the mess while calling her a stray dog.
That night, hiding in the dark wine cellar, Andrea overheard a chilling confession.
Gregory admitted to his brother that he knew Andrea was completely innocent of the car crash that killed his fiancée. He knew she had been framed.
Why did he marry her? Just to use her as a psychological punching bag to vent his twisted grief. He watched her suffer every single day, treating her like disposable trash, while violently threatening anyone who showed her an ounce of kindness.
He thought she was just a useless, helpless shadow who would quietly endure his torment forever.
He had no idea that behind her submissive facade, she was secretly Madame Lan, the apex predator of the global fashion world. And now, she was ready to burn his empire to the ground.
9.1
Isabella thought she had the perfect life as the wealthy Conrad family heiress, complete with a loving childhood sweetheart.
Until she woke up drugged in a hotel bed, blinded by paparazzi flashes, as her fiancé pointed a shaking finger at her, screaming that she had drugged and seduced him.
"She threatened to ruin Kaylie if I didn't sleep with her!" he yelled to the cameras.
Kaylie, the newly discovered biological daughter, stood in the doorway weeping perfectly.
Within hours, Isabella's adoptive father publicly severed all ties, froze her assets, and kicked her out into a violent thunderstorm.
Fleeing the city, her car's brakes suddenly failed.
As Isabella lay dying in the crushed metal of her Porsche, Kaylie strolled up with a pristine umbrella and a genuine smile.
"The mechanic was quite expensive, but cutting the brake lines was worth every penny," Kaylie laughed.
Isabella coughed up blood, her heart turning to ice. Her twenty years of family, love, and loyalty had been nothing but a cruel joke, destroyed by a calculated frame-up.
She died suffocating on absolute betrayal and unadulterated hatred.
Then, she gasped for air.
She wasn't dead. She was sitting in the driver's seat of her car, staring at her flawless reflection in the rearview mirror.
It was exactly four years ago—the day the real heiress first arrived.
A chilling smirk curled the corner of Isabella's mouth. This time, she was going to rip their lives apart from the inside out.
7.9
Ivy Bennett proposed to the wrong man.
He was supposed to be wearing green. He wasn't. But he said yes anyway.
Now she's married to a billionaire CEO she met five minutes ago, living in a penthouse she doesn't belong in, and trying very hard not to fall for the husband who was supposed to be temporary.
The contract says six months. No feelings. Clean exit.
But Adrian Vale has been looking for her for two years. And he's not letting go.
A mistake. A contract. The wrong man in blue.
7.6
Eloise was the adopted stray of the wealthy Foreman family, mocked daily for her tarot cards and dismissed as a mentally unstable burden.
When her adoptive father suddenly collapsed with thick, black veins pulsing up his neck, they didn't blame his corrupt real estate deals. They blamed her.
"She's a witch! She cursed me!" Mitch roared, ordering his doctor and armed guards to forcefully drain her blood to cure his supernatural toxin.
Her adoptive mother revoked her trust fund and threatened to drag her to a psych ward. Her spoiled sister threw a crumpled twenty-dollar bill at her feet, laughing as the security team cornered Eloise against the wall.
Eloise stared coldly at the family that had abused her for years. They had dug up a sacred burial ground to build condos, bringing this deadly curse upon themselves, yet they wanted to bleed her dry to survive.
Just as the guards lunged, the heavy oak doors were violently shoved open.
An aristocratic butler stepped through the freezing rain, flanked by elite operatives who snapped the guards' legs in seconds. He dropped a three-billion-dollar trust document onto the table as mere "compensation" for her shelter.
"Please, Miss Palmer," the butler bowed deeply, offering her pristine white gloves. "Do not dirty your hands in this place."
Leaving her adoptive father to his midnight death sentence, Eloise stepped into a waiting Rolls-Royce, ready to reclaim her place in a hidden global dynasty.