The Tycoon's Awakening: Losing My Wife
Camelia Drake had only four months left on her prenuptial agreement with billionaire Duke Morrow, living as a glorified maid for his wealthy family.
The nightmare escalated when Duke's mistress, Christabel, intentionally threw herself down the marble stairs and later slashed her own arm with a fruit knife, screaming in fake terror that Camelia was trying to kill her.
Duke didn't even glance at Camelia's bleeding knee or her bruised spine.
He rammed into his wife, cradled the sobbing mistress against his chest, and pointed a furious finger at Camelia's face.
"Apologize right now, or I will ruin your career and make sure you leave this marriage with absolutely nothing."
The entire family mocked her. When Duke's grandmother secretly drugged his wine to force them together, Duke pinned Camelia to the wall, violently accusing her of being a desperate gold-digger.
The second the mistress called with a fake ache, Duke shoved Camelia to the floor and sprinted out into the night.
Sitting alone on the freezing floor, Camelia's heart finally shattered and turned to ice.
She couldn't understand how a man could be so ruthlessly blind, treating his legal wife worse than a stray dog while worshipping a manipulative liar.
The next morning, the mistress texted a victorious selfie from Duke's bed.
Camelia didn't shed a single tear. She calmly called back, telling the mistress to make sure Duke got a full STD test.
Then, she pulled out her suitcase, looked at her furious, hickey-covered husband with dead eyes, and prepared to walk away from this toxic prison forever.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 8
Duke's chest heaved against Camelia's. His breath was scorching hot, panting heavily against the sensitive skin of her neck.
He buried his face in the curve of her shoulder. He opened his mouth and bit down gently on her collarbone, his teeth scraping against her skin.
The chemical fire in Camelia's blood destroyed her defenses. A soft, involuntary gasp escaped her lips.
Duke's large hand slid down her waist. He grabbed her hip bone and forcefully pulled her pelvis flush against his.
There was no space left between them. Camelia could feel the hard, undeniable evidence of his physical arousal pressing into her stomach.
The drug was melting her brain. Her struggles turned into a weak, trembling grip on his shirt fabric.
Camelia squeezed her eyes shut. In the darkness of her mind, she forced herself to imagine the man holding her was Joseph. She needed it to be Joseph.
Duke lifted his head. He crashed his mouth down onto hers. It was a brutal, invasive, and deeply hungry kiss.
Driven by pure physiological instinct and the drug pumping through her heart, Camelia's lips parted. She kissed him back.
They were seconds away from crossing the point of no return.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Violent pounding on the bedroom door shattered the heavy, lust-filled air in the room.
"Duke!" Karly Morrow's shrill voice screamed through the thick wood. "Duke, open up!"
Karly kept banging. "Christabel just called! She's crying! She says her kidney is in agonizing pain!"
Duke's massive body froze instantly. It was as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.
He ripped his mouth away from Camelia's. He took a sharp step back, gasping for air.
The lust and drug-induced haze vanished from his eyes. It was replaced instantly by pure panic and crushing guilt.
Duke looked down at Camelia. Her face was flushed red, her lips swollen, her silk shirt wrinkled and pulled off her shoulder.
In the span of one second, the look in Duke's eyes shifted from burning desire to absolute, stomach-churning disgust.
He reached out and shoved her chest. It was a rough, dismissive push.
Camelia stumbled backward, her shoulder blades hitting the closet door again.
Duke turned his back to her. He roared at the door, "Karly! Go find the butler and get the master key right now!"
Ten seconds later, the metallic click of a key turning sounded in the lock. The door swung open.
Duke rapidly buttoned his shirt collar. His hands didn't shake at all.
He didn't look back. He didn't spare a single glance at the woman shivering in the corner of the room.
Duke sprinted out the door, his heavy footsteps chasing after Karly down the hallway until the sound completely disappeared.
Camelia's legs gave out. She slid slowly down the smooth wood of the closet door until she hit the floor.
She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs.
The drug was still burning in her veins, making her skin hot and sweaty. But inside her chest, a massive block of ice was forming.
She stared at the empty, open doorway. The physical ache in her heart stopped. It just went completely numb.
Camelia rested her chin on her knees. She closed her eyes, trying once again to summon Joseph's gentle smile to soothe the raw edges of her panic. But the image fractured. The lingering scent of Duke's cologne and the phantom pressure of his grip were too suffocating. The fantasy was failing her. In that cold, empty room, a crushing exhaustion washed over her. The painful illusion of using memories to survive the present was no longer working. The toll of enduring this toxic charade was finally outweighing the safety of her quiet compliance.
Keep Reading
The story is getting intense! Switch to App to
Unlock All Chapters
You may also like
7.9
One night of deception.
A lifetime of consequences.
A bond that cannot be broken.
Nadia Williams is an Omega living in the shadows of the pack she once called home.
Since her father's death, she and her mother, Estelle, have been treated as outcasts by her ruthless uncle, Alpha Edwards. When her mother is framed for theft, Nadia is forced into a deal with the devil.
To save her mother's life, she must become a virgin substitute for her cousin, Danielle.
Her aunt, Katerina, offers a devil's bargain to set her mother free: Nadia must spend one night in the bed of the most powerful man in the country, the billionaire; Alpha Conrad Bradley.
The catch?
She must swap places with her spiteful cousin.
Conrad demands a virgin bride to secure his royal bloodline, and Danielle, Nadia's cruel cousin, has already forfeited her purity.
What begins as a desperate night of passion in the dark spirals into a web of hidden identities and betrayal.
Nadia survives the night and disappears, hoping to bury the shame of the encounter forever.
But fate has a different plan.
Desperate for a fresh start away from her uncle's shadow, Nadia secures a high-level position at Bradley Group of Industries.
As Alpha Conrad unknowingly hires Nadia at his company, an undeniable connection sparks between them.
Conrad is haunted by the scent of the woman from that night-a scent that doesn't match his fiancée, Danielle, but seems to cling to his new, brilliant employee.
As they work side-by-side, Nadia finds an unexpected and beautiful second chance at a life she thought was lost.
Yet, buried secrets threaten to destroy everything.
When the Alpha discovers the woman he truly bonded with, the fallout will be legendary.
8.3
He laid me on the sheets, climbed over me, caged me with his arms. "Last chance to run," he said, voice low."I need the money," I whispered, feeling so tiny in his arms."You're soaking," he muttered. "Virgin or not, your pussy wants this."I moaned, looking away, couldn't help it,"Eyes on me, sweetheart," he pushed his tip in slowly."Fuck," he groaned. "So tight."He fucked me like he was claiming something. "Come for me," he whispered in my ears, moving faster."Damien," I cried out his name as I came."That's it," he growled. After a long minute he pulled out slowly. "One night," he said again, almost like a reminder....weeks later, I walked through the quiet hall of my school. A massive portrait stared back at me.Damien BlackwoodPrincipal Benefactor and OwnerColumbia University.Same man who'd just taken my virginity for money. My stomach dropped. "Oh fuck... what have I done?"
9.3
Grace finally decided to end her toxic, one-sided relationship with Adelbert, the arrogant heir to a global empire, by texting him to terminate their family trust.
His response was a single, freezing word: "Done."
When they accidentally bumped into each other in a law firm elevator, Adelbert looked right through her.
"I don't know her," he stated coldly to his frat brothers, treating her like invisible trash.
Humiliated and completely exhausted, Grace sought an escape in a brutal shooter game called PUBG.
But by a sick twist of fate, the random matchmaking threw her into a squad with Adelbert's frat brothers and a god-tier, toxic player named 'Ø'.
'Ø' relentlessly mocked her terrible skills, humiliating her and calling her a "pig" over the voice chat.
Yet, during the final shootout, this ruthless player suddenly threw his character in front of hers, taking a fatal barrage of bullets just to keep her alive.
Grace soon uncovered the terrifying truth: the top-ranked 'Ø' was actually Adelbert himself.
She was utterly confused and furious.
Why would the untouchable billionaire who ignored her legal texts and publicly humiliated her suddenly sacrifice himself for her in a cheap video game?
Refusing to swallow her pride in both the real and digital worlds, Grace sent a direct challenge to his gaming profile.
"I'll prove I'm not a pig."
Across the city, Adelbert stared at the notification, a dark smirk curling his lips, and clicked accept.
8.8
Clara supported her boyfriend Leo for four years, paying his rent and buying his headshots while working dead-end extra gigs.
On his twenty-sixth birthday, she caught him in their bed with Veronica, a wealthy producer's daughter who constantly stole Clara's roles.
Leo mocked Clara as a "pathetic, poor stepping stone" who was just there until he got his foot in the door.
Veronica threatened to ruin Clara's career forever.
Clara dumped him, packed her bags, and impulsively entered a contract marriage with a cold stranger she met at City Hall.
But her nightmare wasn't over.
When her mother suddenly needed a $200,000 emergency brain surgery, Clara was forced to take a demeaning extra gig to survive.
There, Veronica and her starlet friend cornered Clara.
They mocked her cheap clothes, ridiculed her new wedding ring as fake glass, and intentionally poured scalding coffee on her feet.
"Well, maid, you better clean that up."
Veronica laughed, forcing Clara to her knees to wipe up the burning liquid while snapping photos.
Clara swallowed her burning humiliation, secretly recording their abuse on her phone.
She endured the pain, desperate for the $300 day rate to save her mother's life, feeling entirely crushed by their overwhelming wealth and power.
What she didn't know was that outside the soundstage, her new contract husband—the man she thought was just a struggling, broke tech worker—was sitting in a sleek black Maybach.
He watched his wife kneeling on the floor, and his dark eyes filled with a lethal, terrifying rage.
9.6
I was only three and a half years old, living in a damp basement and beaten daily by Enoch Pruitt with a heavy leather whip.
"Get up, you useless waste of space!"
He always told me I was a stray he had picked out of the garbage.
But during one brutal beating that nearly stopped my heart, time froze, and a glowing figure called The Chronicler appeared.
"You are not an abandoned orphan, Clare. You carry the blood of the highest gods."
He revealed that I was the stolen daughter of the ultra-wealthy Barrett family.
Then, he showed me the horrific ending of my previous life.
I had died right here on this bloody dirt floor.
My real parents and three brothers went completely insane with grief, turning into ruthless monsters who destroyed themselves and the entire world to avenge me.
Meanwhile, the Pruitt family kept torturing me, locking me in a woodshed and feeding me moldy bread.
The memory of my bones breaking and my real mother's agonizing screams crushed my chest.
Why did I have to suffer like an animal while my true family tore the world apart looking for me?
This time, I refused to die in the mud.
I accepted my divine blood, my eyes glowing gold as I summoned a bolt of purple lightning to strike my abuser.
I just needed to survive the night.
Because my real father's heavily armed convoy was already tearing up the mountain, ready to burn this hell to the ground.
9.3
Charlene was locked in a Swiss asylum by the wealthy Gay family, force-fed antipsychotics until her hands shook violently.
Her adoptive brother, Columbus, dragged her out of the psych ward merely to parade her as a prop for the paparazzi.
He had locked her up to get a psychiatric evaluation, ensuring she was declared legally insane and unable to claim her massive trust fund.
The moment she returned to the estate, the torment worsened.
Her other brother, Antwan, kicked her to the ground and shattered her wrist on the gravel.
"You lost your legal rights, you stupid bitch," he sneered, while the staff blindly ignored her agony.
Her childhood bedroom was completely gutted and given to a distant cousin.
Worse, she discovered Columbus was secretly sleeping with Isabela—the fake heiress who had framed Charlene in the first place.
Every trace of her existence in the family was being violently scrubbed away.
She had lost her dignity, her health, and the baby the doctors claimed had died in the delivery room.
She couldn't understand why the family she loved hated her so viciously, stripping away everything she had.
That was until she saw a little boy in the hospital hallway, a perfect, miniature replica of her own face.
Clutching the gold-crested cufflink he dropped, she realized the asylum's doctor had stolen him.
Her baby was alive.
With her heart turned to stone, Charlene made a silent vow to crawl out of hell and burn the Gay family to the ground.