The Unwanted Wife's Spectacular Design Comeback
I gave up my future as a top design graduate to play the perfect trophy wife for Wall Street billionaire Dominick Carrillo.
But at a high-profile gala, he suddenly returned from his overseas trip three days early, parading a Hollywood actress on his arm.
He dropped a million dollars on her charity necklace in front of the entire Manhattan elite, publicly humiliating me.
When I confronted him with proof of his lies back at our penthouse, he threw his limitless black card at me like I was a high-priced escort.
To punish my defiance, he violently pinned me down, forcing himself on me to assert his absolute control.
The next morning, he caught me fixing the terrible architectural sketches for his new boutique hotel project.
He coldly locked my designs away in his briefcase without a second glance.
"The business world doesn't care about sketches. Just be a good Mrs. Carrillo and max out your credit cards."
I stared at the empty room as he left for a hotel, my phone buzzing with mocking texts from other socialites.
For three years, I had locked my talent in a golden cage for this marriage, only to be treated like a brainless canary and a disposable line item on his balance sheet.
The rules of this marriage were done.
I opened my laptop, found a national design competition sponsored by his biggest corporate rival, and hit submit.
I didn't apply as Mrs. Carrillo. I applied as Aubrey Middleton.
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Chapter 2
The PR directors ushered the guests toward the main dining hall. The room smelled of expensive perfume and roasted truffles.
Aubrey walked toward the head table with Sloane by her side. Her steps were perfectly measured, but her spine was stiff as a board.
She found her name card on the right side of the long table. Dominick's name card sat diagonally across from hers.
Dominick guided Veronica to her seat. He pulled the heavy chair out for her with smooth, practiced ease.
The socialites at the neighboring tables immediately started whispering behind their hands. Portia Vaughn caught Aubrey's eye and let out a cold, mocking smirk.
Aubrey sat down. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, pretending the stares didn't feel like needles pricking her skin.
Sloane reached under the table and squeezed Aubrey's cold hand.
"I just got promoted to editorial director," Sloane whispered, desperately trying to change the subject.
Aubrey raised her glass. "Congratulations, Sloane," she said, forcing a genuine smile onto her face.
But a media executive sitting across from them instantly dragged the conversation back to the elephant in the room.
"Dominick!" a Vanity Fair editor called out loudly. "What brings you back to New York so suddenly?"
Dominick looked up. His face was a blank mask. "Annual evaluations for the Carrillo Group."
Veronica leaned in, her shoulder brushing his. "He's really here to support my new charity initiative," she giggled.
Aubrey pressed her knife into her truffle steak. The metal blade scraped against the porcelain plate with a sharp, high-pitched screech.
Dominick's eyes snapped to her hands. He caught the sound instantly. His gaze dragged up to her face.
Aubrey looked right back at him. Her eyes were entirely dead, filled with nothing but pure mockery.
Dominick's brow furrowed. A muscle twitched in his jaw. He clearly didn't like the coldness radiating from her.
A waiter stepped forward to pour Dominick more wine. Dominick lifted his left hand to move his glass.
The platinum Patek Philippe watch caught the light of the crystal chandeliers. It gleamed with a cold, hard shine.
Aubrey stared at the watch. The three days of lies dug into her pride like a rusted blade.
Veronica suddenly leaned closer to Dominick. She whispered something directly into his ear.
Dominick didn't pull away. He nodded slightly, his posture relaxed and intimate.
Camera flashes erupted from the press pit nearby. They had just captured the perfect scandalous shot.
Bile rose in the back of Aubrey's throat. She dropped her knife and fork and grabbed her water glass, gripping it with both hands to hide her shaking.
Sloane kicked Aubrey's shin under the table. It was a silent demand to fight back.
Aubrey took a deep breath. The air filled her lungs. She turned to a Wall Street investor sitting to her left.
She pitched her voice perfectly-loud enough for the table, loud enough for Dominick. "The recent tech acquisitions have been an aesthetic disaster."
She dissected the exact user interface failures and brand positioning flaws in the Carrillo Group's latest Asia-Pacific tech merger. She used precise, brutal design critiques to point out how the outdated visual identity was actively tanking the merger's market valuation.
Dominick's hand froze around his wine glass. His dark eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
He finally spoke. His voice cut across the table, heavy and demanding. "Aubrey Middleton. When did you suddenly develop an interest in Wall Street?"
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7.6
Isolde Mitchell knew her wealthy husband was cheating on her, but the true nightmare began when her mother-in-law summoned her.
The older woman coldly announced that the mistress was pregnant with a boy and would be moving into their estate.
Because Isolde's family had gone bankrupt and she had only given birth to a frail daughter, she was deemed completely worthless.
When Isolde packed her bags and demanded a divorce, her husband Clark just laughed.
He threatened to use their ironclad prenup to leave her penniless and take full custody of her daughter just to torture her.
To make matters worse, he forced Isolde to secure a failing business deal with the ruthless billionaire Jacques Valdez, essentially ordering her to sell her body to get the signature.
"If you fail, you will never see Bria again."
He even sent his goons to snatch the little girl from her preschool to prove his point.
Isolde was completely cornered, trembling with a mix of rage and absolute despair.
How could the man she married be such a monster? She would rather die than let them destroy her daughter, but how could a bankrupt mother fight a powerful dynasty with absolutely nothing?
Out of options, she looked at the private business card the terrifying billionaire Jacques had unexpectedly given her daughter.
Swallowing her pride, she decided to make a deal with the devil himself, ready to use his power to tear her husband's family apart.
8.8
I was the despised adopted daughter of the Sanders family, hiding behind heavy gothic makeup and enduring their daily disgust.
The day my adoptive father died in a severe car crash, my adoptive mother and stepsister didn't even bother to call me.
Instead, while his body was still warm, my mother filed a multi-million dollar life insurance claim.
"I am not feeding a useless freak for another day. Pack your trash and get out."
She kicked me out into the freezing rain, but that wasn't the worst of it.
My stepsister Cornelia stole my greatest secret. Five years ago, I saved the life of Fidel Vaughan, a ruthless billionaire heir, from a burning estate.
Cornelia claimed my identity, accepted a million-dollar reward, and secured a marriage proposal from him, burning my only proof to ashes.
They thought I was just a helpless, pathetic high schooler they could discard and replace.
But when I hacked the police files, I discovered my father's crash wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit, and the Vaughan Group had hijacked the traffic cameras to cover it up.
I washed off the ugly black makeup, shedding the disguise of a pathetic outcast.
I am Spectre, the world's most elusive hacker and underground doctor.
I intercepted the billionaire heir's heavily armed convoy in the dead of night. They thought they could steal my life and murder my father, but now, I hold the needle that controls Fidel Vaughan's sanity, and I will make them all pay.
8.9
At my million-dollar wedding to the Hoffman heir, the priest was interrupted by a ringing phone.
My groom, Elijah, didn't silence it. He answered it right at the altar, yanked his arm from my grasp, and walked out because his "true love" Jalyn needed him.
I was left standing alone in front of three hundred elite guests, blinded by mocking camera flashes. My own mother rolled her eyes in disgust, later threatening to freeze my trust fund and sell me to a notorious playboy to recoup her losses. Elijah even had the nerve to call me, demanding I take the blame for the canceled wedding to save his PR, while live news feeds showed him cradling a fragile Jalyn in the hospital.
I had spent two years bending over backward to be his perfect bride, only to be discarded like trash. What made it sicker was finding out that Jalyn's sudden "medical emergency" was actually a ruptured cyst caused by having vigorous sex with Elijah right before he walked down the aisle.
I refused to let them destroy me.
Kicking off my six-inch heels, I stepped down from the altar and walked straight to the back row where Cristian Lowe sat. He was the ruthless iceberg of Wall Street and Elijah's most terrifying rival.
I looked up at his sharp jawline and asked the craziest question of my life.
"Will you marry me?"
He stood up, his dark eyes locking onto mine.
"As you wish."
7.1
The night before her wedding to Wall Street billionaire Everette Baird, Deliah Quinn stood happily in her haute couture gown.
Then, her younger sister Arvilla walked in, handed her a drugged glass of champagne, and slammed an ultrasound on the vanity.
"I'm pregnant with Everette's child," Arvilla sneered.
Before Deliah's paralyzed body could react, Arvilla dragged in a canister of industrial gasoline, soaked the bridal suite, tossed a lighter, and locked the heavy oak doors from the outside.
To escape the roaring inferno, Deliah smashed the glass balcony and threw herself into the freezing, violent waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
For five agonizing years, everyone believed the Quinn heiress was dead.
Deliah returned to New York entirely reborn—a top architectural designer and a single mother, having scrubbed her past clean and forgotten the people who destroyed her.
She only wanted a peaceful life with her five-year-old genius son, Leo.
But she had no idea her son was secretly hacking airport security cameras to find himself a wealthy stepdad.
Leo deliberately bumped into a terrifying, cold-blooded tycoon, spilling scalding coffee on his custom suit to get his attention.
When Deliah frantically rushed over to protect her son and apologize, the air in the terminal vanished.
Everette Baird stared at the exact face he had obsessively mourned for five years, his eyes turning pitch black as he crushed his phone in his bare hand.
7.4
Alaya woke up in the sterile hospital room to a devastating reality: her six-month-old baby was gone, lost in a horrific car crash.
But as the memories crashed into her, she realized she had been reborn. She was back three years before her ultimate death, back to the moment she remembered lying bleeding on the asphalt while her husband, Hardy, shielded his mistress from the freezing rain.
When Hardy finally showed up at the ward, he coldly dismissed the crash as a mere accident and immediately left to comfort his young lover. To make matters worse, Alaya secretly checked her medical files and found a terrifying detail: someone had intentionally slipped beta-blockers into her system, a lethal drug for her transplanted heart. And Hardy didn't care about her dead baby or her irreversible infertility. He only coldly confirmed with the doctor that her heart was still viable.
A horrifying suspicion made Alaya's blood run cold. Why was her husband so obsessed with protecting her transplanted heart while treating her like garbage? And why was his perfectly healthy mistress secretly racking up massive bills at an advanced cardiac hospital?
Realizing she was nothing but a vessel in a twisted, deadly game, Alaya didn't shed another tear.
She packed her belongings, left her flawless diamond wedding ring on the cold marble table, and vanished from their penthouse.
When Hardy finally tracked her down, she threw a thick stack of documents onto the table.
"Sign the divorce papers," she said, her eyes completely dead.
9.4
I was the Thornton Pack's brilliant but "wolfless" assistant, a defect they treated like a charity case.
After years of letting the Alpha, Caleb, control me to prove my worth, he publicly humiliated and discarded me for a pure-blooded pack princess.
Heartbroken and drunk at a bar, I accidentally bit and marked a terrifying stranger who saved me from two creeps.
I woke up to find out I had drunkenly claimed Damien Blackwood—a ruthless billionaire and the apex Lycan King of the werewolf world.
To prevent a pack war over the claiming mark, Damien trapped me in a two-year contract marriage, treating me like a convenient political tool.
Right after we signed the papers, I got a call from the police.
My little brother, Jamison, had been arrested for punching Caleb, who was bragging about ruining my dignity.
At the precinct, Caleb sneered at my misery, threatening to destroy my brother's future.
Seeing the fresh bite mark on my neck, Jamison exploded in handcuffs, screaming that Damien had blackmailed me into his bed to get him out of jail.
I begged Damien to step outside so I could explain this horrific misunderstanding, feeling like I had sold my soul to a cold-blooded predator.
But Damien ignored my pleas. He pulled me behind him, his suffocating Lycan aura crushing everyone in the room.
"Yes, she was with me last night, because she is my wife."
Before anyone could process the shock, his eyes darkened with a terrifying, unhinged possessiveness.
"And I didn't marry her to solve a problem. I married her because I've been in love with her for ten years."
I stared at his broad back, my blood running cold as I realized I had no idea what kind of monster I had just bound my life to.