The Jilted Heiress And Her Spectacular Rebirth
Kelsi Owens stood in front of the mirror in a six-figure gown, ready to marry into the wealthy Harrington family.
But her fiancé, Jeb, didn't even look at her. He abandoned her right in the middle of the fitting because his widowed sister-in-law, Seraphina, called crying.
That same night, Kelsi collapsed on her apartment floor with a ruptured appendix. Sweating and in blinding agony, she called Jeb for help.
Instead of concern, she heard Seraphina laughing and party music blaring in the background. Jeb just snapped at her.
"Stop being dramatic. Seraphina is the guest of honor tonight. I can't leave."
He hung up, leaving her to call her own ambulance. Kelsi woke up from emergency surgery completely alone, only to receive a cold text from Jeb calling her fragile.
To make matters worse, her toxic adoptive family didn't care that she almost died. They demanded she crawl back and apologize to Jeb just so they could keep leeching off her connections and trust fund.
Lying in that cold hospital bed, the illusion finally shattered. For three years, she had always been the one left waiting. She realized she meant absolutely nothing to the people she loved.
Kelsi didn't cry, and she didn't beg.
She calmly texted Jeb to call off the engagement, blocked his number, and cut ties with her greedy relatives forever.
She was finally walking away. What she didn't know was that the city's most ruthless billionaire had been watching her, and he was already weaving a golden net to claim her for himself.
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Chapter 5
The music in Valhalla was loud, a heavy bass that vibrated through the floorboards.
Gisele stood up from the leather booth, grabbing their empty glasses. "I'm going to the bar to get us another round. Don't move."
Kelsi nodded, leaning back against the cushions. She pressed her hand against her stomach. The pain medication was working, but the loud environment was starting to make her feel slightly claustrophobic.
She needed some air.
She stood up and navigated her way through the crowded room, heading toward a narrow, dimly lit hallway that led to an outdoor smoking terrace.
At the exact same moment, Augustus Russo reached the bottom of the staircase. His dark eyes instantly tracked Kelsi's movement. He saw her slip into the hallway.
He adjusted the cuffs of his vintage leather jacket and followed her, his strides long and deliberate. He kept a few paces behind her, watching the way the black silk dress clung to her figure.
The hallway was dark, illuminated only by small wall sconces.
Kelsi was looking at her phone, trying to lower the screen brightness, when the heel of her shoe caught on a thick fold in the vintage rug.
She gasped as her ankle twisted. She pitched forward, bracing herself for the hard impact of the floor.
It never came.
A strong, muscular arm wrapped firmly around her waist, pulling her flush against a solid chest.
"Careful," a deep, resonant voice murmured right next to her ear. The breath ghosted over her skin, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine.
Kelsi's heart hammered against her ribs. She braced her hands against his chest to steady herself and looked up.
She crashed into a pair of eyes that were as dark and endless as a midnight sky.
The man was tall, towering over her even in her heels. His jawline was sharp enough to cut glass, covered in a light shadow of stubble. He exuded an intense, quiet power that made the air around them feel thick.
Kelsi blinked, her mind racing. She stared at his face. There was something incredibly familiar about the slope of his nose, the intense way he was looking at her.
"Have we met?" Kelsi asked, her voice slightly breathless.
The man's lips curved into a slow, devastating smile. He didn't let go of her waist immediately.
"We have," he said smoothly. "A gallery opening in London. About a year ago."
The memory clicked into place. Kelsi remembered. She had accompanied Jeb on a business trip to London. She had wandered into an independent art gallery while Jeb was in meetings.
She remembered this man. He had been one of the featured artists. They had spoken for maybe ten minutes about a particularly aggressive abstract painting.
"It's you," Kelsi said, her eyes widening in surprise. She took a small step back, and his arm finally dropped from her waist. "I remember your work. It was very... visceral."
Augustus let out a low chuckle. "Thank you. I didn't expect to run into you here, Kelsi Owens."
Kelsi was taken aback. "You remember my name?"
Augustus's gaze swept over her face slowly, taking in the slight paleness of her cheeks. "I have a good memory. Besides, you and your fiancé, Jeb Harrington, are frequently in the society pages."
At the mention of Jeb's name, Kelsi's body went rigid. The light in her eyes instantly died out.
Augustus didn't miss the micro-expression. He tracked the way her fingers curled inward.
"That's in the past," Kelsi said quietly, looking away.
Augustus raised a dark eyebrow, but he didn't push. He simply shifted the conversation. "Did you just get back from Europe?"
"No," Kelsi shook her head. "Did you?"
Augustus nodded, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. "Yeah. The opportunities in London dried up. Figured I'd come back to New York and see if I could make something happen."
He delivered the lie flawlessly. His tone was casual, but laced with just enough self-deprecation to sound authentic.
Kelsi's mind immediately filled in the blanks. Opportunities dried up. He was struggling. He couldn't sell his art in London, so he had to move back to the States to try and survive.
Before Kelsi could offer a sympathetic response, the sharp clacking of heels echoed down the hallway.
"Kelsi! I've been looking everywhere for you!"
Gisele appeared, holding two fresh cocktails. She stopped dead when she saw the man standing next to Kelsi. Gisele's eyes widened, scanning him from head to toe with blatant appreciation.
"Oh," Gisele purred, stepping closer. "And who is this?"
Kelsi suddenly realized she didn't actually know his name. "This is... I'm so sorry, I forgot your name."
Augustus pulled his right hand out of his pocket and extended it toward Gisele.
"Yannis," he said smoothly.
Gisele shook his hand, her eyes sparkling with gossip. "Nice to meet you, Yannis. I'm Gisele. But I have to steal my girl back now. Emergency girls' talk."
Gisele linked her arm through Kelsi's and began pulling her back toward the main bar.
Kelsi glanced over her shoulder. "Yannis" was still standing in the dim hallway, watching her walk away.
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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.
8.2
My ex-boyfriend of three years, Axel, married a perfect wealthy heiress.
I attended his wedding, not to mourn our relationship, but because he had spent the last three years bleeding me dry.
He left me with absolutely nothing but a final notice from the hospital for my dying brother's life support.
Instead of feeling guilty, Axel cornered me in the church hallway, crushing my wrist.
"I'll set you up with an apartment. You won't have to work another day in your life."
He thought he could buy my silence with spare change, while leaving my seventeen-year-old brother, Julian, to die when his treatments were cut off the very next day.
When I refused to be his dirty little secret, Axel used his power to utterly destroy my acting career.
He had my talent agency terminate my contract under a fake morals clause, publicly humiliated me on set, and blacklisted me across the entire industry.
I was shoved out into the freezing rain, left with a torn dress and absolutely no way to pay the five hundred thousand dollar medical bill.
He actually believed he could step on my brother's dying body to build his own fake empire.
He thought I was just a weak, pathetic victim who would eventually crawl back to him on my knees.
But he forgot about the one monster he was absolutely terrified of: his legitimate, ruthless billionaire half-brother, Jace Bauer.
Looking at the three positive pregnancy tests hidden in my drawer, I stepped right in front of Jace's armored Maybach.
"Marry me, and I'll give you the heir you need to secure your empire."
9.0
Eileen woke up in a trashed hotel room, her head pounding with the pathetic memories of a despised Hollywood actress.
Outside the window, paparazzi were already screaming about her manufactured cheating scandal, but the real nightmare was waiting at her door.
Her paralyzed, billionaire husband, Carlisle Vinson, looked at her with pure disgust while his butler shoved a divorce settlement at her chest.
"Mr. Vinson is offering a severance package of fifty million dollars, provided you sign immediately and vacate the premises."
The original owner had left her an absolute mess.
Her trusted assistant had sold her room number to the press to frame her, and a playboy had scammed her out of her entire two million dollar life savings.
If she signed those papers and lost the Vinson family's protection, the breach of contract fees and her enemies in the industry would swallow her alive in days.
Eileen felt a cold fury override the original owner's lingering panic.
Why should she take the fall and be thrown out on the streets while the parasites who set her up lived out their wealthy fantasies?
She had died once, and she wasn't about to waste her second chance playing the victim.
Eileen slammed the heavy divorce folder shut right against the butler's chest.
"I'm not signing," she said with a terrifying, absolute calm.
She stepped behind her husband's wheelchair, ready to shield him from the cameras, secretly cure his dead legs, and make everyone who betrayed her bleed.
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.
9.7
I died with blood pooling and betrayal.
My fiancé never loved me-he only wanted. My stepsister never saw me as family. And when I discovered I was carrying his child and tried to expose their affair, they shoved me into a shattered glass table and left me to bleed out alone.
But I woke up a year earlier, with my voice miraculously returned and a second chance burning in my chest.
This time, I refuse to be the silent, obedient sacrifice they used and discarded. This time, I'll make them pay. And when a ruthless billionaire offers me an impossible deal-a fake marriage to save his crumbling empire, I accept without hesitation.
They still see me as that broken, voiceless girl who couldn't fight back.
They have no idea I've already won.
9.7
Alya Harrell was the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Long Island family, treated worse than a stray dog in her own home. Tonight, her family finally found a use for her.
Her stepmother and half-sister, Chloe, forced her into a scandalous, plunging red dress. They were offering her as a bargaining chip to Warren Thorne, a ruthless, sleazy hedge fund manager known for collecting and discarding young girls.
Just to ensure her absolute humiliation, Chloe intentionally "tripped" and spilled a glass of red wine all over the silk dress.
"Now you'll have to wear that hideous little black thing you own," Chloe sneered, leaving Alya to face the high-society dinner looking like a beggar.
When Alya tried to escape Thorne's groping hands, her own father hunted her down. He grabbed a fistful of her hair, yanking her head back, and raised his hand to strike her for embarrassing the family.
She was nothing but a pawn to them, a cheap product to be sold and abused for their financial gain. Alya's heart turned cold as she realized her blood relatives would gladly destroy her just to secure a lucrative business deal.
But when she was sent to the cellar to fetch a $50,000 vintage wine for their billionaire VIP guest, Alya caught her perfect sister hooking up with a personal trainer next to the priceless bottle.
Quietly stealing the vintage wine and burying it in the garden dirt, Alya returned to the ballroom with a dangerous smile.
"I think I saw Chloe carrying a bottle down to the cellar," she told her furious father and the VIP, leading them straight toward the trap that would completely ruin her sister's perfect life.