The Unwanted Wife Is A Zillionaire Heiress
On the anniversary of her son's death, Audrey stood in the freezing cemetery for two hours, waiting for her husband.
Instead, his best friend showed up, claiming her husband was tied up with their daughter's emergency. But on her way home, Audrey caught sight of her husband, their daughter Willow, and another woman walking together.
She followed them to a luxury apartment that perfectly replicated her and her husband's humble first home.
Through a crack in the door, she watched her husband passionately kiss the woman.
She watched his best friend hand the mistress expensive gifts.
And she watched her own daughter happily eat cake and say, "Thank you, Mommy Kelsey."
When Audrey returned to her empty mansion, her daughter threw a massive tantrum, screaming that she wished Kelsey was her real mom.
The cruelest part was realizing the mistress was using Audrey's joint credit card to buy Willow's affection.
Her husband, her daughter, and her trusted friend had formed a flawless circle of betrayal. They were playing a happy family while she mourned her dead child alone. She had signed a brutal prenuptial agreement giving up everything for love, only to be treated like a pathetic joke.
But they didn't know the quiet, accommodating housewife was actually the hidden heir to the thirty-billion-dollar Carlisle empire.
Audrey left her diamond ring on the counter alongside a divorce settlement, activated her inheritance, and walked out.
"First step," she told her proxy. "We bleed his stock dry, and we dismantle his legacy piece by piece."
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Chapter 1
The wind whipped through the rows of granite headstones, carrying a sharp bite that settled deep into Audrey Bishop's bones.
She pulled the collar of her black trench coat tighter against her neck. Her fingers were stiff, the skin pale and numb from the November chill. She stood completely still, her boots sinking slightly into the damp, freezing earth of the private Long Island cemetery.
She leaned down. Her knees popped in the quiet air.
She placed a bouquet of pure white roses against the cold base of the headstone. Her bare fingertips traced the carved letters of the name.
Cole Christian.
Her chest tightened. A familiar, suffocating pressure built behind her ribs, making it hard to pull oxygen into her lungs. She swallowed hard, forcing the lump in her throat down.
She straightened her back and lifted her left wrist. The metal of her watch was like ice against her skin.
Three o'clock.
Two full hours had passed since the time they had agreed upon. Two hours of standing in the freezing wind, staring at her dead son's name.
Audrey reached into her deep coat pocket and pulled out her phone. The screen lit up, illuminating her pale face. There were no missed calls. There were no text messages. The notification center was completely blank.
She took a shallow breath, her chest aching, and dialed Colton Christian's private number.
She held the phone to her ear. The plastic was freezing.
One ring. Two rings. Three. Four. Five.
The line clicked, and the mechanical, heartless voice of the automated voicemail system filled her ear.
"I am waiting for you."
She spoke the words mechanically, her voice rough and dry. She pressed the end button and dropped the phone back into her pocket.
A dead, brown leaf blew across the grass and landed directly on the pristine petals of the white roses. Audrey knelt again and brushed it away. Her hand lingered over the flowers for a second longer.
Then, she heard it.
The distinct, rhythmic crunch of tires rolling over the gravel path behind her.
Audrey's heart slammed against her ribs. A sudden rush of heat flooded her frozen veins. She spun around, her eyes wide, searching the long, winding road leading to the burial site.
A black car pulled up and shifted into park.
Audrey's shoulders instantly dropped. The heat drained from her body, leaving her colder than before. It wasn't Colton's silver Aston Martin. It was a black Mercedes sedan.
The driver's side door opened. A man stepped out into the freezing wind. He was wearing a dark, custom-tailored suit. He popped open a large black umbrella and began walking toward her.
Jerry Barrera.
Audrey's stomach sank. Jerry was Colton's closest friend, his right-hand man in the social circles, and supposedly, one of the few people Audrey could tolerate in her husband's world. But seeing him here, right now, made a sour taste rise in the back of her throat.
Jerry walked up the gravel path, his expensive leather shoes crunching loudly. He stepped right up to Audrey and tilted the large umbrella, shielding her from the biting wind.
He held out a paper cup. Steam rose from the small opening in the plastic lid.
"Drink this, Audrey," Jerry said. His voice was thick with what sounded like sympathy. "You look like you're going to freeze to death."
Audrey took the cup. The heat burned her numb palms, but she gripped it tightly. Her knuckles turned stark white.
"Why isn't Colton here?" she asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it cut through the wind.
Jerry let out a long, heavy sigh. He adjusted his grip on the umbrella handle, his eyes shifting away from hers for a fraction of a second.
"There was an emergency at the kindergarten," Jerry said. "Willow had a massive meltdown. Colton had to rush over there. You know how he is when it comes to her. He couldn't get away."
Audrey's fingers clamped down on the paper cup. The cardboard buckled under her grip, forming a deep dent. Hot coffee sloshed against the lid.
Her vision blurred for a second. The suffocating pressure in her chest turned into a sharp, stabbing pain.
"An emergency," Audrey repeated. She bit down on her lower lip so hard she tasted copper. "So, a living daughter throwing a tantrum is more important than a dead son?"
Jerry reached out with his free hand and patted her shoulder. The weight of his hand felt heavy and wrong.
"Audrey, seeing you like this truly breaks my heart," Jerry said, his voice dropping into a register of profound, practiced empathy. "Colton... he's under an immense amount of pressure lately. The corporate merger, Willow's behavioral issues... sometimes he handles his emotions like a fool. Maybe... maybe you two just need a little space to breathe."
Jerry reached into the inner pocket of his tailored suit jacket. He pulled out a crisp, white rectangular card and held it out to her.
"I know a phenomenal family relationship counselor in Manhattan," Jerry lied smoothly, his eyes conveying a sickeningly fake warmth. "Call him. Talk it out. Figure out what's best for your own mental health before this destroys you."
Audrey stared at the business card. The black ink seemed to blur against the white background. A wave of pure nausea rolled through her stomach.
She didn't reach for it.
Jerry didn't wait for her to accept it. He grabbed the edge of her trench coat and shoved the thick card deep into her pocket.
"Just take the help and go, Audrey," he muttered.
Audrey took a sudden, sharp step backward. She jerked her shoulder away, breaking physical contact with him. Her eyes, usually soft and accommodating, turned entirely cold.
She turned her back to Jerry and looked down at the granite headstone one last time.
"Mommy will come see you tomorrow," she whispered to the cold stone.
She didn't look at Jerry again. She walked past him, stepping out from under the shelter of the black umbrella, and headed straight into the freezing wind toward the parking lot. Her old Volvo was parked a quarter-mile away.
Jerry stood perfectly still next to the grave. He watched her retreating figure until she was just a dark speck against the gray sky.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and typed a quick text message. A cold, satisfied smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.
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7.1
I waited a year for my mate, Alpha Justin, to return from the border war. While he was gone, I used my ten-million-dollar dowry to keep his crumbling pack afloat and buy life-saving elixirs for his mother.
But when he finally walked through the door, he reeked of another female's scent.
He brought back Gamma Brenna and a Royal Decree, coldly announcing she would be his "Co-Luna."
His family, who survived entirely on my wealth, immediately turned on me. They mocked me for being a wolfless orphan since my father and brothers were slaughtered defending the kingdom.
"You're just a fragile woman who belongs hidden away," Justin told me.
They demanded I accept this humiliation, step aside for his new warrior mate, and continue funding their luxurious lifestyle. Justin even arrogantly offered to sleep with me just once to give me a pup as a "consolation prize," declaring his heart and body belonged entirely to Brenna.
They thought my ruined pack meant I had no backing. They thought I was a pathetic victim who would cling to their scraps and accept a polluted mate-bond just to avoid being cast out into the woods as a Rogue.
They had no idea I had already visited the Alpha King.
I wasn't going to cry, and I certainly wasn't going to share my mate. I packed up every last cent of my ten million dollars, secured a Royal Severance Decree, and prepared to watch their arrogant pack starve to death.
7.2
Elmore Thomas rushed into the emergency room, clutching his feverish seven-year-old son, Buddy, tightly to his chest.
When the privacy curtain was pulled back, the air in Elmore's lungs vanished. The attending physician standing under the harsh lights was his wife, Kendal—the woman everyone believed had burned to death eight years ago.
But there was no tearful reunion. Kendal looked at him, and her eyes froze into impenetrable ice. She treated him like a biohazard, strictly referring to him as the family member.
Worse, she didn't recognize Buddy. She comforted their crying son with the same gentle warmth she used to reserve for Elmore, completely unaware she was soothing the baby she thought had died.
Days later, Elmore watched from the shadows as she picked up another boy outside a prep school, her left hand flashing a massive diamond engagement ring.
When his butler accidentally recognized her, Kendal shielded her new stepson with pure disgust in her eyes.
"Tell that psychopath to sign the divorce papers immediately. I have a new family now."
The words 'new family' echoed in Elmore's skull, tearing him apart. For eight years, he had lived in a hell of guilt and madness, raising their son in the shadow of her ghost. How could she just erase their past? How could she give her tender smiles to a stranger and look at him with absolute revulsion?
Standing in a luxury ballroom, Elmore squeezed his hand until his crystal champagne flute shattered, thick blood dripping onto the rug. The murderous obsession in his dark eyes returned as he called his lawyer.
"Freeze her divorce application. Use every dirty trick in the book. She isn't leaving."
7.6
I am the illegitimate, mute daughter of the wealthy Owen family, kept hidden in the attic like a shameful secret.
To save his failing company, my father decided to sell me off to a repulsive, predatory investor named Grossman.
At the family dinner, Grossman's sweaty hands roamed my bare legs while my half-sister Kaleigh intentionally spilled red wine on my dress, laughing as she watched me suffer.
When I grabbed a steak knife to defend myself, my father slammed his fist on the table.
"Sit down, or I will cut off the maintenance payments for your mother's grave."
My stepmother and sister sneered, treating me like a piece of meat meant to be sacrificed for their luxury. I was starved, locked away, and treated worse than a stray dog, all while my family paraded their high-society status to the world.
I couldn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or who really ordered the hit that killed my mother twenty years ago. The police reports were buried, and I was entirely powerless, trapped in a house of monsters.
But they didn't know that the night before, I had accidentally stumbled into the secret life of Burleigh Livingston—the ruthless, supposedly paralyzed billionaire who was faking his madness.
When Burleigh suddenly crashed our family dinner and threw a limitless Black Card on the table to outbid Grossman and buy me for the night, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, accepted his twisted deal, and prepared to use the devil himself to tear my family apart.
8.7
I was trapped in a greasy diner by my own mother.
She was forcing me to marry my abusive cousin because he had paid her twenty thousand dollars.
To escape, I used a contract marriage app and begged a complete stranger to marry me at City Hall that very day.
Ethan drove a cheap Ford and wore a plain suit. I thought he was just an ordinary guy needing a fake wife.
When my mother found out, she brought thugs to destroy my flower shop—my only home and livelihood.
To protect Ethan from her endless extortion, I shielded him and screamed that he was bankrupt and drowning in credit card debt.
My mother fled in disgust, and Ethan took me into his apartment for the night.
But out of trauma and habit, I locked my bedroom door, muttering that he must be old and desperate.
He stormed out into the freezing night, leaving me terrified that I had ruined my only lifeline.
I didn't understand why he was so furiously offended, completely unaware that my "broke" husband was actually the most ruthless billionaire in New York, and I had just trampled his massive ego.
The next morning, his face was a mask of ice as he dragged me back to City Hall to annul the marriage and get rid of me.
"Annulment. Now," he demanded.
But the clerk just popped her gum and slid a pink paper across the counter.
"State law changed. Mandatory thirty-day cooling-off period."
8.6
To save my father's failing workshop from ruthless loan sharks, I sold one year of my life.
I signed a fake marriage contract with Cameron Fox, an icy billionaire who needed a wife to pacify his sick grandmother. The rules were strict: it was purely a commercial transaction, with absolutely no physical contact and no emotional attachments.
Soon after, that cold hearted man seemed different to me. Wait, is he pursuing me?
9.5
I joined a brutal wilderness survival reality show, playing the perfect role of a pathetic, uneducated girl from a trailer park.
I needed the five million dollar prize to fund my revenge against the wealthy family that drove my father to his death.
I played everyone flawlessly. I outsmarted the arrogant contestants, ruined a corrupt restaurant owner, and secured enough food to guarantee my absolute victory.
But just as I was dominating the game, a massive black helicopter landed in our camp.
The show's new billionaire sponsor had arrived, and he immediately ordered his tactical guards to confiscate every ounce of food I had earned.
My hard-won advantage was wiped out in seconds. The other contestants cheered, pointing at my empty hands.
"Take that, you greedy bitch!"
But the real nightmare wasn't the stolen food or the sudden rule change. It was the man who stepped out of the chopper.
Glenn Ryan. The ruthless CEO from my past life as an elite heiress.
He took off his sunglasses, his dark eyes locking onto my muddy shoes and frayed flannel shirt with a terrifying, obsessive smirk.
Why was he here? Why did he instantly target me the moment I started winning?
He didn't just know my true identity.
He had bought this entire game just to hunt me down.