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 6
Gisele practically shoved Kelsi back into their leather booth, slamming the cocktails onto the table.
"Spill it," Gisele demanded, leaning across the table. "Who the hell is that? He looks like he walked straight out of a GQ editorial shoot."
Kelsi took a sip of her drink, wincing slightly as the alcohol hit her stomach. "I met him in London a year ago. He's an artist. We only talked for a few minutes."
Gisele's eyes narrowed as her internal radar began to spin. She tapped her manicured fingernail against her chin.
"An artist," Gisele mused. "And his name is Yannis. Sounds Greek. Very exotic."
"He said he just moved back from London because the opportunities there dried up," Kelsi added, tracing the rim of her glass.
Gisele slammed her hand on the table again. "I knew it! Kelsi, I am a genius. He is the textbook definition of a struggling, repatriated artist."
Kelsi frowned. "What makes you say that?"
Gisele waved her hands emphatically, dissecting the man they had just left in the hallway. "Did you look at his clothes? That leather jacket was gorgeous. The cut was perfect. But did you see the cuffs? The leather was worn down at the edges. The collar was faded."
Kelsi thought back to the moment he had caught her. She had been close enough to smell the leather and cedarwood on him. Gisele was right; the jacket looked heavily worn.
"What does that mean?" Kelsi asked.
"It means he has incredible taste, but absolutely no money," Gisele declared triumphantly. "He bought one expensive jacket years ago and has to wear it every single day. It's called 'exquisite poverty'."
It sounded absurd, but Kelsi found herself nodding slowly.
"And think about what he said," Gisele continued, leaning in closer. "The opportunities dried up. Did you see his eyes when he said that? There was this flash of... defeat. He's probably incredibly talented, but the art world is brutal. He's back in New York trying to hustle, and I bet you anything he can barely afford his rent."
Kelsi stared at the melting ice in her glass. Gisele's theory fit perfectly. It explained the contradiction in him-the arrogant, powerful way he carried himself, mixed with the worn clothes and the quiet admission of failure.
A strange pang of sympathy tightened Kelsi's chest. He was so handsome, so clearly intelligent, yet he was struggling just to survive in a city that ate people alive.
"So," Gisele wiggled her eyebrows. "Are you going to go for it? A hot, tragic artist is the perfect rebound. And the way he was looking at you... trust me, he is interested."
Kelsi shook her head immediately. "Stop it. I literally broke off my engagement this morning. I am not looking for a rebound, especially not with someone who has his own problems to deal with."
Despite her words, the image of Yannis's dark eyes burned in her mind.
Across the club, in the dark corner of the VIP lounge, Augustus sat down on a velvet sofa.
Chase Cabrera, a notorious playboy and one of Augustus's oldest friends, handed him a fresh glass of whiskey.
"Where did you disappear to?" Chase asked, eyeing him curiously. "I saw you talking to Gisele Vazquez's friend down there."
Augustus took a slow sip of his drink. He didn't confirm or deny it.
Chase smirked, leaning back. "You interested in her? That's Kelsi Owens. She's engaged to Jeb Harrington. The wedding is supposed to be huge."
Augustus lowered his glass. His eyes performed a slow, calculating sweep of the room before locking onto Chase. His voice was dangerously quiet.
"They won't have a wedding."
Chase froze, his glass halfway to his mouth. "How do you know that?"
Augustus ignored the question. "How well do you know Gisele Vazquez?"
Chase shrugged, confused by the sudden shift. "Well enough. We run in the same circles. See her at parties. Why? You want me to pump her for information?"
"I need to know everything about Kelsi Owens," Augustus commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Specifically, I need to know exactly what happened between her and Jeb Harrington in the last twenty-four hours."
Chase let out a low whistle. "You're serious about this. Alright, consider it done. But I have to ask... careful, that's Jeb Harrington's fiancée. Are you planning on poaching her?"
Augustus looked through the glass partition, his eyes finding Kelsi in the booth below. He watched her laugh at something Gisele said. The possessiveness that flared in his chest was violent and absolute. His mind drifted back to that gallery in London a year ago. She had thought he was just a struggling artist featured in the exhibit. She didn't know he had bought the entire gallery a week before the show, filling it with works from artists he sponsored, just so he could put his alias on one piece and have an excuse to finally speak to her.
He didn't answer Chase. He didn't need to.
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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.