The Jilted Heiress And Her Protector
I am the sole heir to the Beaumont empire, engaged to Julian for three years to secure our families' alliance.
But on the night of my 24th birthday, he left me waiting at a crowded bar for three hours. I called him twelve times, and he ignored every single one.
The next day, he claimed he was busy saving his ex-girlfriend, Abby, from an eviction. He promised to make it up to me at my wedding dress fitting. Yet, right before I stepped out in my gown, he ran off again. He even outsourced accompanying me to buy our wedding rings to my father's imposing Chief Operating Officer, Alex.
When my friend sent me a live video from a nightclub, I realized the humiliating truth. Julian had abandoned me at the bridal shop to get into a bloody street brawl over Abby. Even after I rushed to the club and used my family name to save him from being arrested, he still hesitated when his ex-girlfriend grabbed his arm.
"Julian, please don't leave me."
Hearing Abby's manufactured cries, he chose to stay by her side instead of following me. I stared at his bloody knuckles in pure, unfiltered disgust. Why was I ruining my pride for a man who constantly put another woman first?
Without looking back, I walked out of the club and got straight into Alex's waiting car. This time, I am canceling the wedding.
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Chapter 10
Colette took a deep, shuddering breath. She stepped away from the comforting heat of Alex's chest and walked directly into the center of the brawl.
The sharp clicking of her designer heels cut through the noise of the shouting crowd.
"Julian!" Colette called out loudly. Her voice dripped with absolute, icy aristocratic authority.
Julian froze mid-punch. He dropped his fist, his head snapping up. His eyes widened in sheer terror when he saw his furious fiancée standing over him.
Mr. Russo took the momentary distraction to violently shove Julian off his chest. Russo stumbled backward, straightening his ruined, bloody suit jacket.
Abby looked up from the floor. Her tear-streaked face paled significantly when she saw Colette's cold, unforgiving stare.
"Colette, wait," Julian stammers, holding his hands up defensively. "I can explain. Russo was harassing Abby while she was working. I had to step in."
Colette cut him off with a sharp, dismissive wave of her hand. She refused to hear another pathetic excuse fall from his lips.
Suddenly, the flashing red and blue lights of police cruisers illuminated the club's massive windows.
Four heavily armed NYPD officers stormed up the VIP stairs, shouting for everyone to freeze and put their hands up.
The lead officer zeroed in on the blood and broken glass. He approached Julian and Russo, pulling out a pair of heavy metal handcuffs.
Julian looked terrified. The color drained completely from his face. He realized instantly that a public arrest for a bar brawl would destroy the Sterling fund's pristine reputation overnight.
Colette's mind raced. A scandal of this magnitude wouldn't just ruin Julian; it would drag the Beaumont family name through the mud in tomorrow's papers.
She stepped directly between Julian and the police officer, physically blocking the handcuffs.
"Officer," Colette said. She introduced herself as Harrison Beaumont's daughter. Her tone was calm, impeccably polite, and deeply intimidating.
She lied smoothly to the officer, her face a mask of perfect composure. "There is no need for arrests. This was merely a private misunderstanding between business associates. Things got slightly out of hand."
The officer hesitated. He lowered the handcuffs slightly, clearly recognizing the immense power and legal threat behind the Beaumont family name.
Colette turned her sharp gaze to Russo. "Mr. Russo, I assume you would rather accept a generous, quiet settlement for your ruined suit than endure a messy, public trial against Beaumont lawyers?"
Russo sneered, wiping blood from his lip. But he nodded sharply, intimidated by Colette's icy composure and the very real threat to his own finances.
The lead officer sighed, agreeing to stand down. He ordered the crowd to disperse immediately.
Julian sagged with massive relief. He reached out, his hand trembling, trying to grab Colette's hand in gratitude.
Colette violently flinches away from his touch. She looked at his bloody knuckles with pure, unfiltered disgust.
She turned her back on him, maintaining her perfect, rigid posture as she walked toward the exit.
Julian took a step to follow her. "Colette, please-"
Suddenly, Abby grabbed Julian's arm. "Julian, please don't leave me," she cried out, her voice trembling with manufactured fear. "I'm scared."
Julian hesitated. He stopped walking. He looked torn between chasing his furious fiancée and comforting his terrified ex-girlfriend.
That single second of hesitation was the final nail in the coffin for Colette's breaking heart.
She didn't look back. She walked out of the club, the cool night air hitting her tear-stained cheeks.
Alex was already waiting by the curb. He was holding the passenger door of the black car open for her.
Colette walked straight past Julian's parked Porsche. She headed directly for Alex.
She got into the car. As she ducked her head, Alex gently raised his hand, shielding her head from the doorframe-a stark, gentle contrast to the violence she had just witnessed from Julian.
Alex slammed the door shut. He turned and shot one final, murderous glare at the club entrance before walking to the driver's side.
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7.8
Alayna was working a grueling catering shift in worn-out heels to support her broke college boyfriend, Caiden, who claimed to be studying at the library.
But through the crack of a VIP suite door, she saw him wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch, sipping expensive liquor.
"It's a little poverty role-play. Keeps things interesting."
He was laughing with his rich friends, mocking her as his clueless "charity case."
To make matters worse, she was forced into a humiliating mascot costume just in time to watch him passionately kiss his wealthy ex-girlfriend.
That same night, Alayna's mother collapsed with gastric cancer, requiring a half-million-dollar surgery.
When a desperate Alayna begged Caiden for help, he refused.
"Why don't you just apply for Medicaid? That's the path for people like you."
For two years, she had starved herself to buy his textbooks, his tickets, and his shoes.
He had stolen her sweat and her sacrifices, all for a cruel game.
The sheer audacity of his betrayal made her blood run cold.
When a billionaire stranger stepped in to pay her mother's medical bills in exchange for a one-year fake marriage, Alayna didn't hesitate to sign the contract.
She slipped the flawless diamond ring onto her finger, opened a spreadsheet, and sent Caiden an invoice for every single cent.
This time, she was going to dismantle his entire life.
8.2
A week before my wedding, I went to the airport parking garage to surprise my fiancé with a luxury watch.
Instead, I caught him having sex in his car with my best friend and maid of honor.
Devastated and desperate to forget, I went to an exclusive club and blew my $50,000 trust fund to buy a one-night stand with a gorgeous stranger.
But the nightmare was just beginning.
At work, my cheating best friend stole my hard-earned promotion, and my ex shamelessly defended her.
Worse, the escort I had paid for sex turned out to be the ruthless new CEO of my airline.
He tormented me on a flight to Paris. When I was robbed of my passport and wallet on the freezing streets, he forced me to be his gala date just to get my life back.
But the ultimate trap was waiting for me in New York.
A secretly taken photo of me leaving the CEO's penthouse leaked on the company forum.
"I knew she got that Paris trip for a reason."
My ex and my former best friend led the charge in the comments, framing me as a shameless gold digger who slept her way to the top.
I was stripped of my flying credentials, suspended from the job I loved, and publicly humiliated.
I didn't understand why the CEO was playing these cruel games, or who had orchestrated this perfect trap to ruin my life.
Standing outside the airport with my career in ashes, I realized crying wouldn't save me.
I wiped my tears, accepted my mother's invitation to a high-society mixer, and prepared to make everyone who set me up pay the price.
9.1
Elise thought her life was finally falling into place. She turned down her father's company to work as executive assistant to Marcus Grey-the boy she's loved since childhood, now the powerful CEO she's devoted her life to.
But when Marcus proposes to another woman, Elise's world crumbles. Enter Sebastian Deluca-Marcus's tattooed, ruthless, long-estranged brother. He's everything Marcus isn't: dangerous, magnetic, and determined to take back his place in New York.
But, there's something odd about him.
Something changed since he arrived.
Bound by family secrets and a mutual desire to expose Marcus's fiancée, Elise and Sebastian form an uneasy alliance. But as sparks ignite between them, Elise must choose: remain loyal to the boy she thought she loved, or risk everything for the man who sees her as more than a shadow.
Some loves are safe. Others are consuming. Which one will she survive?
8.0
My abusive step-family isolated me completely, holding my mother's medical funds hostage to control my every move.
Yesterday, they finalized my sale.
"You will marry Rudy Petrov next month. He is fifty, wealthy, and willing to overlook your lack of pedigree."
Pushed to the absolute edge, I did the insane. I posted an ad online offering my life savings of $50,000 for a contract husband. A stranger named Brennan agreed.
But my family wouldn't let me go. They forced me back for a dinner by threatening my mother's life-saving prescriptions.
At the table, they relentlessly mocked my new "poor IT guy" husband and intentionally burned my hand with boiling tea.
Worse, the housekeeper locked me in a guest room and forced drugs down my throat so Rudy could come in and assault me.
I lay there paralyzed on the floor, bleeding from Rudy's slap, utterly terrified. I couldn't understand why my own family would throw me to the wolves, and I felt a crushing guilt for dragging an innocent, ordinary guy into my nightmare.
Until a pitch-black Maybach smashed through the estate's wrought-iron gates at eighty miles an hour.
My "poor" husband kicked the solid oak doors off their hinges, beat Rudy half to death, and carried me out into the rain.
I didn't know it yet, but the ordinary man I hired to save me was a ruthless billionaire, and he was about to erase my family's entire empire by morning.
9.8
Adeline's stepmother had secretly drugged her for years, turning a child genius into a drooling, mentally disabled laughingstock just so her stepsister could steal her life.
But when her greedy father sold her off to Griffin Herring—a violent, untouchable billionaire psychopath—to save his company, things took a deadly turn.
Before the wedding, Griffin attacked her in a dark alley, nearly snapping her neck before stealing her grandfather's silver necklace.
That necklace held a micro-drive with her family's deepest secrets, and without it, she had nothing.
Back at the estate, her situation only worsened. Her stepsister Damaris paraded around in the Herring family's diamond engagement gifts, trying to force-feed Adeline wet dog food on an Instagram live stream.
When Adeline's calculated "clumsiness" ruined the video, her furious father locked her in a damp, rusted basement.
"Give her to the psycho," her stepmother hissed through the door. "Let him lock her away forever."
Listening from the shadows, Adeline's fists clenched until her palms bled.
Her supposed mental fog wasn't a tragedy—it was a calculated assassination of her mind. They had destroyed her childhood and were now throwing her to a monster just to keep the billions.
The dull, empty look in Adeline's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a razor-sharp, chilling clarity.
She pulled a thin surgical needle from her messy bun and picked the heavy iron padlock in ten seconds. It was time to break into the billionaire's penthouse, take back her necklace, and tear them all apart.
8.6
For years, Elvera lived as the despised charity case in the cramped Wright household.
When she caught her foster sister Donita straddling her fiancé, they didn't even panic. Instead, they loudly framed Elvera for stealing a diamond necklace to justify kicking her out.
Her foster parents immediately sided with the cheaters, screaming at her to pack her trash and starve in the gutters. Only her dying foster brother tried to sneak her his medical savings, but the family violently shoved him away, mocking him as a walking corpse.
Standing in the freezing Brooklyn wind, Donita and Crockett followed her outside just to laugh. They waved a crisp twenty-dollar bill in her face, mocking her biological family as a bunch of unemployed street thugs.
They really thought she was going to freeze to death on the pavement with nothing but a faded backpack.
But then a roaring, matte-black supercar pulled up.
The man who stepped out wasn't a street thug; he was her real brother, an FBI task force commander.
He effortlessly snapped Crockett's shoulder out of its socket, put Elvera in the passenger seat, and drove her straight to a sprawling billionaire estate in the Hamptons.
Sitting by the fire in her biological parents' palace, watching them casually display an eight-million-dollar sculpture she had secretly designed, the head butler suddenly walked in.
"Sir, the fake heiress has returned from Europe."
Elvera took a slow sip of her coffee. The real game was finally about to begin.