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 2
Colette swallowed the cold water. The freezing liquid slid down her dry throat, the chill helping to clear the thick fog in her mind.
She gripped the glass tightly, using the cold sensation to ground herself. She cleared her throat, desperately trying to pull the shattered pieces of her haughty socialite composure back together.
"Tell me exactly what I did at the bar last night," she demanded. Her voice was scratchy, but she forced her chin up.
Alex pulled up a velvet chair and sat beside her bed. He crossed his long legs, resting his large hands on his knees. It was a relaxed posture, yet it radiated a quiet, dominant authority.
"You tried to order a vintage Bordeaux for a stray cat outside the venue," he deadpans. Not a single muscle in his face twitched.
Colette closed her eyes. A flush of deep, agonizing embarrassment crept up her neck, burning her skin.
"Then," Alex continued, his voice perfectly level, "you stood on a chair in the VIP section. You demanded that everyone raise their glasses and toast to Julian Sterling's absence."
Colette groaned aloud. She shifted the water glass to one hand and hid her face behind the other. Utter defeat crushed her chest.
"My reputation in the Upper East Side is completely ruined," she muttered into her palm. "I'm a joke."
Alex leaned forward. The leather of his shoes creaked slightly. "I cleared the VIP room before you made a scene. No one saw anything. No one recorded anything."
Colette peeked through her fingers. She stared at him, genuinely shocked by his meticulous damage control. He had protected her dignity when she couldn't protect it herself.
She slowly lowered her hand. The heavy walls she built around herself cracked. A sudden, terrifying wave of vulnerability washed over her. She was sitting in a bed, wearing his shirt, exposed and raw in front of her father's COO.
"Why didn't Julian answer?" she whispered. The question slipped out before she could stop it. "Twelve calls, Alex. Twelve."
Alex's jaw tightened imperceptibly. A dark, violent shadow flickered in his eyes for a fraction of a second before he buried it.
"He might have been caught up in Wall Street meetings," Alex deflected smoothly. "The Asian markets were opening."
Colette bit her lower lip hard enough to taste copper. She looked down at her lap. She was twenty-four, wealthy, beautiful, and her fiancé couldn't be bothered to show up for her birthday.
"Did I look pathetic?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Crying over a man who forgot my birthday?"
Alex stared at her. He looked at her bruised ego, her slumped shoulders. His fingers twitched on his knees. He suppressed an intense, violent urge to pull her across the mattress and hide her against his chest.
"You are Colette Beaumont," he stated firmly. "You never look pathetic."
The absolute certainty in his voice hit her like a physical blow. Colette's heart skipped a strange, rapid beat. She looked into his dark eyes and saw no pity. Only an unwavering, intense gravity.
It unnerved her. She quickly looked away, her stomach fluttering with a sensation she refused to name.
Alex stood up smoothly. He reached up and buttoned his collar, instantly restoring his impenetrable professional facade.
"Mrs. Davies has prepared a hangover-friendly breakfast downstairs," he informed her, his tone back to business.
Colette nodded meekly. She pulled the oversized shirt tighter around her shoulders, suddenly hyper-aware of her bare legs beneath the blanket.
"Thank you," she said quietly. It was a rare moment of genuine gratitude from the spoiled heiress.
Alex paused at the bedroom door. His large hand rested on the brass handle. "Take the day off, Colette. Cancel your wedding planning duties."
Colette forced a tight, brittle smile. "I can't. I have a dress fitting today. I cannot miss it."
Alex nodded slowly. He masked his deep, visceral disdain for the wedding perfectly. He stepped out into the hallway and pulled the door shut with a soft click.
Colette fell back onto the pillows. She stared blankly at the ceiling. Her chest ached with an unsettling mix of dread for Julian's inevitable excuses, and a strange, lingering curiosity about the man who had just left her room.
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7.8
Alexis signed the divorce papers, leaving her with no assets, no alimony, and just the clothes on her back.
To forget her abusive husband Carlos, she got drunk and bought a high-end gigolo for the night with her last 800 dollars.
But the man she slept with wasn't an escort. He was Jarrett Hughes, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And while she was gone, her ex-husband was busy destroying her entire life.
Carlos framed her with fake photos of her cheating to justify the penniless divorce.
Then came the real nightmare.
Carlos and her own aunt secretly drained her family's corporate accounts, driving her father to jump off a building.
At the hospital, her grieving mother blamed her for the tragedy, violently attacking her in the ER.
To top it off, her cousin Josie—who was secretly sleeping with Carlos—held her father's ashes hostage.
"Crawl on your knees and pick it up, or the ashes go in the river," Josie sneered, throwing cash into the freezing slush.
Stripped of her marriage, her father, and her dignity, Alexis sat bleeding in the snow.
She couldn't understand why the people she loved most had coordinated such a brutal slaughter against her.
But Carlos and Josie made one fatal mistake.
They didn't know the "gigolo" Alexis had accidentally bought was the most powerful man in New York.
Alexis looked at the towering billionaire standing behind her, a vengeful fire burning in her eyes.
"I need you to get my father's ashes back," she said, pulling him into a kiss right in front of her ex-husband. "I don't care what it takes."
9.7
I ran through the freezing rain, desperate to escape the Pennington estate. My adoptive family had raised me for one purpose: to be sold off as a bargaining chip in a wealthy arranged marriage.
But before I could reach the highway, I was cornered. Not just by my family's cruel guards, but by Hollis Wall—a terrifying, ruthless billionaire who snapped my tormentor's wrist and dragged me into his car. He didn't want a ransom. He threw a prenuptial agreement in my lap.
I thought he was insane until he took a scalpel to his own arm, and a burning agony ripped across my flawless skin. Because of a near-drowning accident three years ago, our nervous systems were linked. Every time I bled, he felt the agony. He locked me in his fortress to keep me safe, but when I finally escaped back to my adoptive parents, they didn't protect me. Instead, my adoptive father smiled and showed me a live video of my biological father on life support, a guard's hand hovering over the plug.
"You will marry Douglas Cherry tomorrow, or your father dies," he sneered.
My own family was willing to murder my only real flesh and blood just to secure their wealth. I collapsed onto the cold marble floor, my heart crushed in a vice of absolute, suffocating despair.
"I'll marry him," I sobbed, surrendering to the darkness.
But miles away, in his dark study, the ruthless Hollis Wall violently collapsed to the floor, gasping for air as my severe panic attack bled directly into his chest. Our twisted bond was killing him, and I knew he would tear the city apart to find me.
8.9
I returned to New York for my welcome-home party, expecting a warm embrace from Edwin, my devoted fiancé of twenty years.
Instead, his first words to me were a cold, public warning to stay away from his new girlfriend, Kacy.
He stood in my family's hotel, shielding a girl I had never even met, and painted me as a vicious, jealous bully.
"She is very sensitive, Kaitlyn. Her background is tough. Please, be gentle with her. Don't upset her."
He humiliated me in front of our entire elite circle, allowing them to mock me as the aggressive, discarded ex while he carried her away like a fragile princess.
For twenty years, I had been his loyal shadow, fixing his mistakes and loving him unconditionally.
I couldn't understand how decades of deep devotion could be instantly erased by a few crocodile tears and a manipulative damsel act.
He was absolutely certain I would throw a tantrum, cry, and eventually crawl back to beg for his attention.
But he was wrong.
He didn't know that Everett Rowe, a billionaire tech mogul, had been patiently waiting five years to marry me.
He also didn't know that during my three years abroad, I wasn't just studying art—I became "K.B.", the ruthless Wall Street predator who could swallow his family's empire whole.
I calmly pulled out my phone, ignored the mocking whispers around me, and typed a single message to Everett.
"Yes. I'll marry you."
9.0
Colette stepped out of the federal prison, finally breathing the air of freedom after two agonizing years.
But instead of a bus home, a black armored SUV blocked her path. Ferris Vance's men kidnapped her right at the gates. He forced her to sign a marriage certificate, threatening to completely destroy her father's legacy if she refused.
The nightmare had only just begun. She soon learned her father had been driven to suicide anyway. Dragged into the Vance estate, Colette was beaten bloody by the family of Ellie, the girl she supposedly wronged. Ferris paraded her in a pure white gown for the cameras, playing the fiercely devoted husband. But the second the lenses turned away, he forced her into a coarse maid's uniform, making her scrub the freezing marble floors on her hands and knees.
"Your life isn't even worth the dirt on my shoes."
Ferris whispered those words as he threw his muddy boots at her bruised face. She was nothing but a piece of bleeding bait, a prop meant to lure his missing lover out of hiding. She was tortured and humiliated for a crime she had absolutely nothing to do with. The sheer injustice of paying the price for another woman's disappearance tore her soul apart.
When he cornered her in the bathroom, the last thread of Colette's sanity snapped. She hurled a bucket of filthy water right into his face, broke out of his grip, and threw herself out a window into a freezing storm. This time, she chose to escape, even if it meant death.
7.4
Evelina Barrett was the legitimate daughter, yet she was framed for a disgusting sex scandal, expelled from the Ivy League, and locked out of her late mother's massive trust fund.
While she was thrown out to rot on the streets with a jagged, hideous red scar covering half her face, her father and step-family were throwing a lavish charity gala to celebrate her total ruin.
They laughed as they officially published her disownment notice in the Times to cut her off forever.
"Without the school halo, that ugly freak will be begging on the streets by tomorrow," her sister Aspen sneered.
Her stepmother Annabella toasted to taking out the trash, perfectly happy to steal Evelina's inheritance while ignoring the fact that Evelina knew exactly how they had murdered her mother.
For years, Evelina had been locked in a dark basement, abused by bodyguards, and treated worse than a stray dog.
Why should she, the true heir, suffer in the gutter while the leeches who destroyed her life enjoyed the wealth that rightfully belonged to her?
She refused to be their victim anymore.
Washing away her fake scar to reveal her true, breathtaking face, Evelina blackmailed New York's most lethal billionaire into marriage to secure the ultimate shield.
Then, she put on a black mourning dress, ordered a dark web ghost crew, and climbed into a heavy semi-truck.
At exactly 6:00 PM, she smashed through the iron gates of her family's elegant gala, delivering three pure black coffins directly to the lawn.
9.1
June woke up transmigrated into the body of a ruthless billionaire's toxic, disposable wife.
Before she could even process the massive Beverly Hills mansion, a cold system voice announced she had exactly five minutes of lifespan remaining.
To survive, she was forced to bind with the system and strictly maintain the original owner's "brainless, abusive drama queen" persona to earn hours to live.
She was forced to violently slap hot coffee out of a terrified maid's hands and physically spank her manipulative five-year-old stepson.
When she tried to escape this nightmare by throwing divorce papers at her terrifying husband, Isaac Walton, he simply ripped them to shreds.
Every time she tried to be reasonable or show a hint of kindness, the system tortured her with agonizing cardiac pain, cementing her status as the most hated monster in the family.
The most absurd part happened when she threw a hysterical, system-mandated tantrum over a gossip magazine, and Isaac's icy demeanor suddenly melted.
He gently touched her hair, offering the one thing she desperately needed.
"Stop crying. I'll handle it."
Just as a spark of hope ignited in her chest, the system's critical death warning exploded in her skull: accepting his sympathy would instantly deduct thirty days of her life.
To stay alive, June had no choice but to violently slap away the only hand reaching out to save her, forcing herself to play the greedy villain while her husband's gaze turned dangerously dark.