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 7
The next morning, Kelsi woke up in Gisele's guest bed with a pounding headache. The hangover was brutal, but the crushing weight of her breakup felt slightly lighter in the harsh light of day.
Gisele kicked the door open, carrying two mugs of black coffee and a bottle of Advil.
"Drink. Swallow. Wake up," Gisele ordered, shoving a mug into Kelsi's hands.
Gisele sat on the edge of the bed, aggressively scrolling through her phone. Suddenly, she gasped loudly.
"Look at this!" Gisele shoved the phone screen into Kelsi's face.
Kelsi squinted. It was a digital news article. The headline read: Russo Family Foundation Annual Charity Gala Invitations Dispatched.
"The Russo Gala," Gisele breathed reverently. "It is the most exclusive event in New York. Billionaires, politicians, A-list celebrities. It's the ultimate playground."
Kelsi rubbed her temples. "Okay. And?"
"And," Gisele waved her hands, "this is the perfect place for you to make your grand reappearance! You walk in there looking like a goddess, completely unbothered. It will drive Jeb insane when he sees the photos."
"Gisele, I don't want to go to a billionaire's party," Kelsi sighed. "And we don't even have invitations."
Gisele smirked. "Leave that to me. The lawyer I'm currently dating? His boss is the legal counsel for the Russo Group. I can absolutely pull some strings and get us on the guest list."
Kelsi wanted to say no, but Gisele's relentless enthusiasm was hard to fight. She finally nodded, agreeing to think about it.
As she sipped her coffee, a random thought crossed her mind. She thought about Yannis. An artist struggling to pay rent would never even see the outside of a party like the Russo Gala. She felt a sudden, sharp stab of guilt for her own privilege.
Ten miles away, in the towering glass monolith of the Russo Group headquarters, Augustus Russo stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window. The entire city of Manhattan was spread out beneath his feet.
He held his phone to his ear.
"I got the intel," Chase Cabrera's voice crackled through the speaker, sounding entirely too excited. "I texted Gisele last night. Played it cool."
"Talk," Augustus said, his voice flat and commanding.
"The breakup is real. Kelsi dumped him," Chase reported. "The reason is insane. Jeb ditched her while she was trying on her wedding dress to go comfort his sister-in-law. Then, Kelsi had an emergency appendectomy that same night, and Jeb ignored her calls because he was at a party with the sister-in-law."
Augustus's grip on his phone tightened. His knuckles turned white. A cold, lethal fury settled in his gut.
He knew Jeb Harrington was a weak, entitled fool, but he hadn't realized the extent of his cruelty.
"Kelsi moved out of his penthouse," Chase continued. "She's staying in Gisele's guest room in SoHo right now. Oh, and Gisele was fishing around, trying to see if I could get them tickets to your charity gala. She wants to use it as Kelsi's 'coming out' party."
A slow, dark smile curved Augustus's lips.
It was almost too easy.
"Call the foundation directors," Augustus ordered. "Have them courier two VIP invitations to Gisele Vazquez's apartment. Send them from the foundation's executive office and use the chairman's official seal."
Chase choked on his spit. "The chairman's seal? Augustus, you never authorize that level of access for public events."
"Just do it," Augustus snapped. "And Chase? Find out if there are any luxury apartments available for lease or purchase in Gisele's building. Or the building directly next door."
Silence hung on the line for three seconds.
"You want to be her neighbor?" Chase asked, his voice full of disbelief. "Augustus, are you playing a game here, or are you actually insane?"
Augustus hung up the phone without answering.
He turned around as his executive assistant, A. J. Finch, walked into the office. Finch placed a thick manila folder on the massive mahogany desk.
"The complete background file on Kelsi Owens, sir, as requested," Finch said professionally.
Augustus sat down and opened the file. He read through the pages meticulously. He read about her parents dying in a car crash when she was eight. He read about her moving in with her aunt and uncle, the Crowleys, in Queens.
His eyes stopped on a legal flag near the back of the file. Ten years ago, Declan Crowley had attempted to forge documents to transfer Kelsi's trust fund into his own business account. The attempt had failed, but it was buried in the legal records.
Augustus closed the folder. His jaw ticked.
She had been surrounded by parasites her entire life.
He picked up his pen. He knew exactly what his next move was.
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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.