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 7
"Mommy! Mommy! We can see everything from here!" Daphne exclaimed as they walked into their spacious, elegantly decorated room overlooking the city.
Penelope smiled, her heart swelling with love. "Yes, we can. It's a beautiful view." She said as she watched Daphne run to the window, pressing her nose against the glass.
The bellman set their luggage down and handed Penelope the room keys. "If you need anything, please don't hesitate to call the front desk."
"Thank you," Penelope replied, tipping him.
As he left, she turned to Grace. "You can drop Dahila, go freshen up and get some rest. I will take care of them. Tomorrow you'll have to watch them. I have a very important meeting tomorrow."
Grace nodded. "You don't have to worry about anything. We will be fine. We plan on exploring the playground tomorrow."
Penelope smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Grace. I don't know what I'd do without you," Penelope said as Grace walked away to her room.
"Dahila, I have a new friend," Daphne, who had been looking out the glass, rushed back excitedly to where Dahila sat, who was quietly scanning the room.
"Already?" Penelope asked, amused by Daphne's ability to befriend people so easily.
"Yes. His name is Carl, and he told me about the playground," Daphne said, and Dahila's face lit up, while their mother smiled.
"I see. Hopefully, you both will get to play with Carl at the playground tomorrow," Penelope smiled, assuming Carl was just another child staying at the hotel.
"Now, no more talking. Time to freshen up," Pen announced before Daphne could say anything else.
After settling the twins in for the night and making sure Grace was comfortable in the other room, Penelope took a moment to herself.
She stood by the window, looking out at the city she had once known so well.
The magazine she worked for had given her an important-almost impossible-task. One that was tied to her promotion.
She had been asked to convince the elusive billionaire CEO, Graham-Carlton Banks to agree to an interview.
This was a feat that no media house or reporter had been able to achieve, and she had to do it if she wanted to be promoted.
She had booked an appointment with Graham-Carlton Banks before traveling down, and the next morning, she would seize the opportunity that awaited her, but for now, she needed to rest and prepare her mind.
The next morning, after a quick breakfast, Penelope left the twin in Grace's care as she left the hotel for the Banks corp. As the cab drove through the city, navigating its way through the early morning traffic, Penelope looked through the window, feeling a wave of nostalgia wash over her.
The streets looked both familiar and strange at the same time, a reminder of how much time she had spent away from here.
Pushing away thoughts of the past, Pen focused on the challenges of the present. Since her waking hour, she has been trying to come up with different ways to convince Mr. Banks to have the interview with her and even as the cab rolled to a stop in front of the company, she still didn't have any idea how to go about convincing him.
What could she possibly say that would be different from everything he had heard over the years?
Even reporters far more experienced than she was had failed.
As she walked into the towering office building of Banks Corp, her nerves tightened.
Her mind was so focused on her meeting with Mr. Banks that she did not notice the familiar figure who she walked past until she heard her name.
"Penelope?"
She turned around when she heard the familiar voice and she saw him, Geoffrey. The man she had wasted years of her life on. The bastard who had tried to dupe her into marriage with him when he didn't love her.
He looked exactly as miserable as she could remember him, and the sight of him annoyed her even more now than it had several years ago. How did she ever fall for someone so disgusting?
How could she have forgotten that this was where he worked? In putting the past behind her, she had forgotten that Graham-Carlton was his cousin. Was Geoffrey going to be an obstacle?
She mused as she ignored him and turned to leave, but he grabbed her hand.
"Is this really you?" Geoffrey asked, his voice laced with disbelief. "What are you doing here after disappearing for years without even bothering to offer an apology or explanation as to why you called off the wedding?
Do you have any idea how much embarrassment you caused me and my family?" he demanded, and Pen's jaw tightened as she snatched her hand."
"If you do not want to cause a scene here, go on your way and act like you do not know me," she warned coldly, shocking Geoffrey. Before he could recover from his shock, she walked away and stepped into the elevator, hoping to avoid any further interaction with him.
The last thing she needed was a confrontation with Geoffrey, especially not now and definitely not here.
Geoffrey was confused and furious as he watched her leave. Without wasting any time, he whipped out his phone and dialed Hillary's number.
"You won't believe who I just ran into right now," he said the moment the call connected.
"Who?" Hill inquired, her voice curious. "Pen."
"Penelope? Are you sure?" Hill's voice spiked with surprise.
"Would I call you if I wasn't sure? I confronted her, but she totally ignored me," Geoffrey said, still feeling annoyed by her attitude.
"Where did you see her?" Hillary asked, a hint of skepticism in her voice.
"Right here at the company," he said,
wondering who she was there to see.
"I take it you don't know why she is there. Can you find out who she's there to meet and why?
And follow her when she leaves. I want to know where she's been hiding all these years. Hillary suggested.
"Sure. I will have to cancel my meeting first. I will call you later," Geoffrey said before hanging up.
While Geoffrey hurriedly headed for the elevator to see if he could catch up with Pen, she was being ushered into Carlton office by his secretary.
Taking a deep breath, Penelope pushed open the imposing office door, a tremor of nervousness running through her as she stepped into the office of the Elusive Graham-Carlton Banks.
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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.