THE VALENTINE PROPOSAL
Liora Jovan's life shatters the moment she catches her boyfriend cheating, her Valentine proposal ruined. In a reckless act of humiliation and fury, she proposes to a stranger in the lobby... who turns out to be Everett Montague, her ex's billionaire boss. Amused and dangerously charming, Everett offers a fake three-month engagement to serve his own needs-and her revenge.
The rules are clear: no real feelings, separate lives, public affection only. When fake turns into something intoxicatingly real, a buried secret threatens to tear them apart.
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Chapter 4
Liora
This morning I had to meet up with Diella and knowing that she was my competition pushed me to dress my very best. The Cafe she chose was uptown, a very expensive diner, and I wasn't so sure I would be able to afford the coffee they served there.
Everett hasn't yet opened the account for me that he said he would.
When I walked into the cafe, Diella waved. My breath caught in my throat. She was absolutely stunning. I immediately wondered why Everett said he wasn't attracted to her. Taking a seat in front of her, I felt so small.
She smiled when she saw me. "Liora, how lovely to finally meet you."
I sat down across from her. "Thanks for inviting me."
"Of course," she signalled over to the waiter. " I wanted to meet the woman who captured Everett's attention, after my many failed attempts to."
The waiter came and Diella ordered some complicated coffee, I ordered black coffee, knowing I wouldn't even touch it. I don't drink black coffee, it was just the least expensive thing on the list.
"So," Diella started, landing her beautiful Hazel eyes on me. "Tell me about yourself. Where did you school at?"
"I went to State University. I had a marketing degree."
She clicked her teeth disapprovingly. "Well, I went to Yale and that's where I met Everett. His parents and mine were huge sponsors of the school so we became close."
I nodded my head, already seeing where all of this was going.
"Everett and I have such a special bond." She continued. "We share inside jokes, we have history and then Nuala is like a second mother to me. She calls me her daughter."
"That's nice."
"It is." She agreed. "So when this engagement came up, it was a surprise. He would have told me if he had a lover."
"Well, you're not exactly as close to Everett as you make it to be. He would have told you."
She stared at me, surprised I decided to be rude when she was civil. When she smiled again, it was evil. "Let me cut straight to the chase."
Better.
"Everett and I will end up together. Everyone expects it to happen, and if he is not willing, I will make it happen. This engagement of yours is only an obstacle but I would find ways to ruin it."
My jaw clenched. "You seem very confident."
"She nonchalantly shrugged. "You know that if his parents don't ship the engagement, it won't happen. All I need to do is just talk to them."
I laughed. "What do you mean it won't happen? It just happened. Besides I'm pretty sure that if Everett was easily swayed by his parents, he'd have been with you by now. Don't you think so?"
I grabbed my bag so I could stand up and leave, but then the waiter bustled over with a tray of our coffee.
"You'd have to pay for your drink, Liora."
"How much is it?" I asked the waiter as I opened my purse.
"50 dollars."
I spun my head up so fast, I thought my neck would break. " I saw five dollars on the menu." I grabbed the menu and the fifty dollars stared back at me ominously.
"If you stay behind and let us finish this conversation, I will pay for your bill." She said with an amused chuckle. I had no choice but to sit down.
She leaned forward. "I'm very interested as to how you met Everett. You both are worlds apart."
I thought about lying but what was the point? " In the lobby, and I proposed to him."
She was so shocked, she choked on her drink. " You proposed to him in public. Oh darling. He loves a good joke and must have humored you."
I gave her a cocky smile. "Yet here I am, with a ring in my finger. Whereas you, who have been pining him for years, have nothing to show for it."
Her smile turned cold. " Listen, I like you. You're feisty, I like a good sport, but for your safety, I'm giving you one last chance to break up with Everett gracefully. Tell him that you're not meant for his world. I'll make sure you get a generous settlement and everyone wins."
"I don't want to. You can't do anything to me, I'm under his protection."
"Then I'll have to make things very difficult. I don't want to but I will. Everett is mine." She stood up, smoothing her dress, then she slid a 50 dollar note over to me. "Think about it. You have until tonight's dinner."
She walked out, leaving me sitting there with my untouched coffee.
Everett's parents lived in a mansion in the suburbs. The house was huge with columns and a circular driveway. I felt sick looking at it.
"Relax," Everett said as we pulled up. "It's just dinner."
"With your parents who hate me and Diella who wants me dead."
"My mother doesn't hate you. She's just disappointed you're not Diella." He squeezed my hand. "Remember. We're in love. Madly, stupidly in love."
"Right. In love."
We walked inside. A woman rushed forward immediately. She had auburn hair and green eyes and looked like she'd never had a bad day in her life.
"Everett, darling." She hugged him. Then she turned to me. "And you must be Liora. How wonderful to finally meet you."
"Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Montague."
"Call me Nuala, please." She looked me over, her smile tight. "What a surprise this engagement was. It was so sudden."
"When you know, you know," Everett said.
A man appeared behind Nuala. He was tall, had gray hair, and same cold eyes as his son. Zyler Montague. He looked at me like I was something stuck to his shoe.
"So this is her," he spat.
"Dad. Be nice."
"I'm always nice." Zyler walked past us toward the dining room. "Let's eat. I have a conference call at nine."
We followed him. The dining room was bigger than my apartment. It had a long table with twelve chairs. Only five were set.
"I hope you don't mind," Nuala said. "I invited Diella. She's practically family."
Diella walked in right on cue. She'd changed into a black dress that hugged every curve. She smiled at Everett. "Hello, darling."
She sat next to him. I sat on his other side. Nuala sat at the head of the table. Zyler at the other end.
Dinner started. Nuala asked questions about how we met. Everett lied smoothly. Diella kept touching his arm, laughing too loud at things he said. She wanted to be noticed by him, she was getting the attention. Zyler said nothing, he just watched me with those cold eyes.
Under the table, Everett grabbed my hand and squeezed. His thumb stroked my palm in small circles that made my breath catch.
As Diella noticed our joined hands, her smile froze.
"So tell us, Liora," Zyler said, his voice sharp. "What exactly do you do at my son's company?"
Before I could answer, Diella laughed. "Oh, didn't you hear? She was dating Flynn West, Everett's assistant. Until she caught him cheating and proposed to Everett in the lobby. It was quite the spectacle."
The table went silent. Nuala's eyes widened. Zyler's face darkened.
"Is this true?" he demanded, looking at Everett.
Everett's grip on my hand tightened. "Yes," he said calmly. "And I said yes because I wanted to."
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8.3
I was the long-lost Donovan heiress, finally brought home after a childhood in foster care. My parents adored me, my husband cherished me, and the woman who tried to ruin my life, Kiera Reese, was locked away in a mental facility. I was safe. I was loved.
On my birthday, I decided to surprise my husband, Ivan, at his office. But he wasn't there.
I found him at a private art gallery across town. He was with Kiera.
She wasn't in a facility. She was radiant, laughing as she stood beside my husband and their five-year-old son. I watched through the glass as Ivan kissed her, a familiar, loving gesture he’d used with me just that morning.
I crept closer and overheard them. My birthday wish to go to the amusement park had been denied because he’d already promised the entire park to their son—whose birthday was the same day as mine.
"She’s so grateful to have a family, she’d believe anything we tell her," Ivan said, his voice laced with a cruelty that stole my breath. "It's almost sad."
My entire reality—my loving parents who funded this secret life, my devoted husband—was a five-year lie. I was just the fool they kept on stage.
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Ivan, sent while he stood with his real family.
"Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you."
The casual lie was the final blow. They thought I was a pathetic, grateful orphan they could control.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were.
7.8
Elie Joyce’s entire life was controlled by Ebert Ewing, a ruthless billionaire who held her sick grandmother's survival and her family's freedom in his hands.
But on a freezing, stormy night, he forced her into a scandalous scrap of red silk and handed her over to a notorious, disgusting predator.
"You aren't an escort. You're just a free gift."
Ebert mocked her, using her as a disposable bargaining chip to secure a corporate funding round.
When the predator humiliated her, forced high-proof vodka down her throat, and violently pinned her to the floor, Ebert simply watched with dead eyes.
And when Ebert finally intervened to brutally beat the man, it wasn't out of mercy.
"She is my property. Even if she is trash that I threw away, a filthy pig like you doesn't get to touch her."
Afterward, he dragged her battered, barefoot body into his car, only to kick her out into the torrential rain, leaving her on the dark streets to die.
Standing in the storm, shivering and bleeding from broken glass, the last shred of Elie's hope shattered.
She had sacrificed her dignity and soul, enduring his violent bites and cruel control, just to keep her family alive.
Why did she have to suffer this endless, twisted humiliation for a psychopath who only saw her as trash?
But she didn't break.
Tearing a strip of his expensive shirt to bandage her bleeding foot, Elie gripped her broken stiletto like a knife.
With her eyes turning cold and calculating, she limped out of the shadows.
She was going to survive, and Ebert Ewing would soon realize she was no longer his obedient prey.
9.6
Brenda Vincent thought her biggest nightmare was catching her boyfriend cheating with her roommate on her own sofa.
But her life truly derailed after a drunken night led her into the bed of Bryon Reeves, the ruthless billionaire CEO and older brother of the student she tutored.
Trying to pay off the most dangerous man in New York with a crumpled twenty-dollar bill was her first mistake.
Fleeing the hotel, she accidentally rear-ended his custom Maybach. Bryon used the massive repair bill to blackmail her into being his fake date, parading her at a gala just to make his sister-in-law jealous.
When Brenda finally snapped and fled the humiliation, only to be rescued by his biggest corporate rival, Bryon's twisted possessiveness turned completely destructive.
"If you feel kidnapped, call the police. But your teaching license will be permanently revoked."
He didn't just threaten her. He systematically dismantled her life, using his influence to force the university to freeze her tenure and suspend her without pay.
Brenda couldn't understand why this terrifying man was going to such extreme lengths to ruin a simple tutor who just wanted to be left alone.
Now, stripped of her career, her income, and her independence, she was forced into the sprawling Reeves Manor.
Hearing the heavy mahogany door lock from the outside in her signal-jammed bedroom, Brenda's panic slowly morphed into a cold, clinical rage.
She was trapped, but she refused to be his helpless pawn.
8.4
For twenty years, I lived as the adopted daughter of the wealthy Hill family.
But today, they forced me to sign a severance agreement and kicked me out so their precious biological daughter, Malia, could marry my fiancé.
To ruin me completely, they framed me for stealing Malia's engagement bracelet, threatening me with prison.
I calmly exposed the "sapphire" as cheap glass, then rolled up my sleeves to show the reporters my scarred, punctured arms.
For two decades, I wasn't a daughter. I was Malia's living blood and bone marrow bank.
They drained my health to keep her alive, even ordering doctors to ignore my failing organs just so she could attend a gala.
"Take this million dollars and shut your mouth," my adoptive father sneered, throwing a check at my feet.
My ex-fiancé looked at me with disgust, and Malia screamed that I was a crazy, vindictive liar.
They had stolen my life and my health, yet they still looked down on me like I was garbage.
I ripped the check into pieces and threw it in their faces.
Just as they ordered the butler to drag me out, a group of men in black suits shattered the chaos.
The heir of the untouchable Montgomery dynasty stepped through the door, ignoring the Hills' fawning, and handed me a DNA report.
I wasn't a disposable blood bag. I was the long-lost true heiress of old New York money.
And now, I was going to take back everything they stole from me.
8.1
Arnetta had been married to a wealthy man for three years, but she had never even seen his face.
After a wild night of drinking, she woke up in a hotel room next to a handsome, ruthless stranger.
He coldly kicked her out, mocking her as just another desperate woman trying to sleep her way to the top.
To her shock, she soon discovered the stranger was Brennan Kirkland—her firm's top-tier client and a legendary Wall Street billionaire.
Hiding her true identity as a corporate spy, she manipulated her way into becoming his executive assistant to steal his data.
During a business dinner, Arnetta received a humiliating text from her absent husband, demanding a divorce and calling her a greedy parasite.
"He is a deadbeat coward who thinks money solves everything," Arnetta spat in anger.
"A man who hides behind lawyers is weak," Brennan agreed coldly.
He had absolutely no idea he was insulting his own actions, nor did he realize the wild, gold-digging wife he despised was sitting right across from him.
The next day, her husband's legal team sent a brutal twenty-million-dollar settlement offer, threatening to ruin her if she didn't take the payoff and disappear.
Staring at the degrading ultimatum, Arnetta's hands shook with blinding rage.
She looked at Brennan, who was busy plotting to destroy his own wife, and a terrifyingly calm smile touched her lips.
She wasn't just going to take the money; she was going to completely destroy him.
8.9
I sold three years of my life to a billionaire to save my mother. I was his pretend fiancée, a stand-in for his ex, counting down the days until the contract ended and we could finally be free.
But just as we were about to escape, his real girlfriend returned and publicly accused me of faking a pregnancy to trap him.
My fiancé, Drake, didn't hesitate. He called me a disgusting gold-digger and threatened to pull my mother's medical funding to force me into an abortion.
The shock of his cruelty sent my mother into cardiac arrest. She died right there in the hospital.
They demanded I abort a child that could never exist, a lie built to destroy me.
But they didn't know my secret. After my mother' s death, I finally told him the truth that shattered his world: I was born without a uterus. And with her last letter in my hand, I walked away from him forever.