A Fake Marriage With The Real Tycoon
Alayna was working a grueling catering shift in worn-out heels to support her broke college boyfriend, Caiden, who claimed to be studying at the library.
But through the crack of a VIP suite door, she saw him wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch, sipping expensive liquor.
"It's a little poverty role-play. Keeps things interesting."
He was laughing with his rich friends, mocking her as his clueless "charity case."
To make matters worse, she was forced into a humiliating mascot costume just in time to watch him passionately kiss his wealthy ex-girlfriend.
That same night, Alayna's mother collapsed with gastric cancer, requiring a half-million-dollar surgery.
When a desperate Alayna begged Caiden for help, he refused.
"Why don't you just apply for Medicaid? That's the path for people like you."
For two years, she had starved herself to buy his textbooks, his tickets, and his shoes.
He had stolen her sweat and her sacrifices, all for a cruel game.
The sheer audacity of his betrayal made her blood run cold.
When a billionaire stranger stepped in to pay her mother's medical bills in exchange for a one-year fake marriage, Alayna didn't hesitate to sign the contract.
She slipped the flawless diamond ring onto her finger, opened a spreadsheet, and sent Caiden an invoice for every single cent.
This time, she was going to dismantle his entire life.
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Chapter 7
Haskell Knight read Alayna's text on his office monitor, a hundred floors above the bustling streets of Manhattan. A small, almost imperceptible curve touched the corner of his mouth before vanishing.
"Sir," Jax's voice came from the doorway. "We've confirmed Caiden Ellis's financials. He has access to a discretionary fund of over two million dollars. His claims of poverty were, as you suspected, a complete fabrication."
Haskell's expression turned to ice. "Keep a watch on him. I don't want him getting anywhere near her or her mother. If he becomes a problem, handle it."
"Of course, sir."
Meanwhile, in Boston, Alayna was helping her mother with a short walk down the hospital corridor. Laura's strength was slowly returning, and with it, her curiosity.
"This man who's helping us," Laura said, her hand resting on Alayna's arm. "This friend. I'd like to meet him. I want to thank him."
Alayna's stomach tightened. "He's... very private, Mom. He prefers to remain anonymous."
"Still," Laura insisted gently. "A man who does something like this... he must be a good man."
Alayna escaped back into the hallway under the pretense of getting water, her heart pounding. She nearly collided with Eleonora, who was arriving with a bouquet of sunflowers so large it obscured her face.
"El!" Alayna gasped. "What are you doing here? I thought you were at your program in DC."
"I took the Amtrak up the second I heard the surgery was scheduled," Eleonora said, peering around the petals. "I'm not letting you go through this alone. My thesis advisor can survive without me for a few days."
"Whoa there," El said, peering around the petals. "You look like you've seen a ghost." She wiggled her eyebrows. "Or did your mysterious billionaire benefactor just propose?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Alayna snapped, her voice sharper than she intended. "It's a debt, El. A business arrangement. We signed an NDA. That's all."
Just then, her old phone, the one she kept for the sole purpose of dealing with Caiden, started ringing. A video call. His face filled the screen.
She walked to the end of the hall before answering.
He looked terrible. Dark circles under his eyes, his hair a mess. He was clearly in a dark room, a single lamp illuminating his face. A library, he claimed. The performance was laughable.
"Hey," he said, his voice a pathetic imitation of remorse. "I got your email. Look, Alayna, that bill... it's not fair. You can't just add things up like that. It hurts."
She played her part. She let her eyes well up with fake tears. "I know, I'm sorry. I'm just so stressed. My mom... I'm not thinking straight."
He immediately softened, taking the bait. "I get it, babe. I do. But a hundred and fifty grand... I just can't. It's impossible." He paused for dramatic effect. "But I scraped together what I could. I borrowed from a friend."
A notification popped up on her screen. Caiden Ellis has sent you $2,000.
Two thousand dollars. It was the most insulting thing he could have done. It was a pat on the head. A tip for the little poor girl. It was worse than nothing.
She forced a watery, grateful smile. "Caiden. Oh my god. You didn't have to. Thank you. Thank you so much. When this is all over, I'll make it up to you, I promise."
He beamed, his ego visibly inflating. "Anything for you, babe. Just hang in there. And keep me updated."
He blew a kiss at the camera and hung up.
The smile on Alayna's face vanished. A wave of nausea rolled through her. She leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths.
Eleonora had watched the whole exchange from a distance. "I am going to vomit. That was the most disgusting performance I have ever witnessed. And I'm including his."
"It's working," Alayna said, her voice flat. "He thinks I'm still his pathetic little project."
Her new phone vibrated. A text from Haskell.
Are you free this evening? I think we should discuss the terms of our arrangement going forward.
This was it. The bill was coming due.
"I have to go," she told Eleonora. "Can you stay with my mom for a bit?"
She went back to the room and kissed her mother's forehead. "A friend is taking me to dinner. I'll be back late."
"Be careful, honey," Laura said, her eyes full of a mother's intuition. "An act of kindness is one thing. A debt is another. Don't promise more than you can give."
The words echoed in Alayna's mind as she walked out of the hospital into the cool evening air.
The black Maybach was waiting at the curb, a silent, dark promise. She had no idea what she could possibly give a man who had everything. But she knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that he was about to tell her.
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7.6
After an exhausting fourteen-hour flight, Katia returned to her Upper East Side penthouse, expecting the quiet comfort of the life she had built.
Instead, she found a pair of familiar red stilettos in the foyer and her fiancé, Caleb, tangled in their bedsheets with his twenty-two-year-old assistant.
She didn't scream or cry. She simply took off her three-carat engagement ring, threw it at his bare chest, and demanded he buy out her half of the penthouse by Friday.
Seeking to numb the sickening disgust, she got blackout drunk and crashed at a luxury hotel, accidentally stumbling into the wrong suite.
Thinking the imposing man inside was a high-end escort hired by her friend, she threw him over her shoulder and spent a wild night with him.
The next morning, she left five thousand dollars on his nightstand with a lipstick-stained note.
"Good Job."
For six years, she had funded Caleb's dreams and built his startup from the ground up, only to be treated like a lifeless ATM.
With ruthless precision, she spent the next two months systematically bankrupting his company, cutting off his venture capital, and erasing his life's work.
She felt no heartbreak, only a cold, calculating need to cleanse herself of his betrayal.
But when Katia finally returned to corporate headquarters to co-lead a massive merger, she literally crashed into the new Vice President.
Strong arms caught her waist, and the sharp scent of cedarwood and whiskey hit her like a freight train.
"You came back," Jackson whispered, his eyes burning as he stared at the woman who had treated him like a cheap gigolo.
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.
8.9
I was tossed into a dark alley like rotting garbage, bleeding and grieving the child I had just lost.
When I was finally brought back to my fiancé Angelo's penthouse, instead of comfort, I was met with absolute disgust.
His family declared me "unclean" after the kidnapping. Angelo coldly announced he was burying the scandal by marrying my sweet, innocent cousin, Carissa.
When we were alone, Carissa stood over my bed, her voice dripping with venomous delight.
"My father arranged the kidnapping. And now, Angelo and I can finally be together."
Before I could react, she forced a silver letter opener into my hand, deliberately stabbed her own shoulder, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Angelo stormed in, struck me across the face, and gathered a sobbing Carissa into his arms, looking at me with absolute revulsion.
The family matriarch appeared at the door, her cold eyes sweeping over the scene before she gave a chilling order to the maids.
"Clean this up."
They pinned me down and brutally drove the blade directly into my chest.
I choked on my own blood, staring at the man who had promised me the world as he turned his back, calling my murder a "mercy."
As my heart beat its final agonizing rhythm, I made a silent vow to the shadows that if there was a next life, I would have my vendetta.
When I opened my eyes again, there was no blood, only the soft silk of my nightgown.
I had returned to the day before my eighteenth birthday.
This time, I wouldn't play the desperate victim. I was going to ally with the Devil of Chicago and burn them all to the ground.
8.9
For three years, Alana acted as the sole tactical brain for the Dawnbreaker squad, keeping them alive despite being labeled a useless "Dud" Conduit.
But right before the crucial Ascension Trials, squad leader Cash handed her a corporate sponsorship contract. The condition? She had to become the "private companion" to a greasy corporate heir just so the squad could get high-tier gear.
When she refused, the teammates she had bled for unanimously voted to kick her out.
"You're just window dressing, a liability."
They revoked her safehouse access, burned her belongings, and the academy advisor even tried to force her into a state-sanctioned breeding program. They left her to freeze in the slums, betting she would desperately crawl into the rich man's bed.
What they didn't know was that her inability to summon an Eidolon wasn't a lack of talent. Her teammate Dallin had been secretly sabotaging her rituals for years, crippling her potential just to keep her chained as their free tactician.
Stripped of everything and pushed to the absolute brink, Alana's despair morphed into a deadly resolve.
Using a million-credit black market loan and a forbidden blood matrix, she forcibly anchored an Apex-Tier cosmic wolf disguised as a harmless silver pup.
When her ex-squad tried to publicly humiliate her and burn her new "pet" alive in the cafeteria, a flash of silver light severed Dallin's hand instantly.
Looking at her screaming former teammates, Alana finally smiled.
9.0
Grace's engagement to Dillan Hayes was nothing but a cold business transaction to secure funding for her family's company.
But when Dillan violently shoved her into a marble bar over his ex-girlfriend, leaving her bleeding, Grace didn't hesitate.
She called 911, had her fiancé arrested on the spot, and broke off the engagement.
Returning to the Albert estate, she expected chaos, but not absolute betrayal.
Her family didn't care that she had just been physically assaulted.
They were in a sheer panic because her cousin Ashly had just fled the country, abandoning a terrifying arranged marriage.
The groom was Hudson Turner, a man known across Manhattan as a disgraced, violent psychopath, paralyzed from the waist down in a severe crash.
To save themselves from the Turner family's wrath and financial ruin, Grace's aunt and father ordered her to take Ashly's place.
"You eat from this family, you live in this house! It is time you paid us back!"
Her father even threatened to freeze her bank accounts and faked a heart attack to force her compliance.
For three years, Grace had single-handedly kept the family business afloat while they squandered the profits.
Now, they were throwing her to a monster without a second thought, expecting her to rot as a crippled man's miserable nursemaid.
But they picked the wrong sacrifice.
Grace ruthlessly extorted a legal severance from her family, taking her shares and cutting all ties forever.
She walked straight into Hudson Turner's private gallery to propose a mutually beneficial, cutthroat business marriage.
However, when the prenuptial was signed, the "paralyzed" billionaire placed his hands on his wheelchair.
Slowly, deliberately, Hudson stood up to his full, imposing height of six-foot-three.
"The wheelchair is a necessary illusion for my enemies," Hudson stated calmly. "But it will never be an illusion between you and me."
9.2
I was a broke freelance copywriter, tortured for three sleepless nights by an impossible corporate client.
Needing to vent, I typed out a wild, highly inappropriate rant mocking the brand's stiff heritage.
But in my exhausted, sleep-deprived blur, I accidentally sent the massive block of text to the wrong chat.
The recipient wasn't my friend. It was Emerson Beard, the elite, ruthless brand consultant I was supposed to desperately network with.
I waited for the professional execution, terrified of the massive five-figure penalty fee hanging over my head.
Instead, he didn't block me. He critiqued my unhinged draft.
He saved my career through late-night, encrypted phone calls, his deep, commanding voice becoming my only lifeline.
But when I heard a woman with a sultry French accent knocking on his hotel door during our call, my ugly jealousy flared.
I yelled at him and hung up, completely humiliating myself.
I thought I was just a pathetic, annoying workaholic interrupting his romantic getaway.
But he texted back to clarify he was entirely single, and in the process, realized I was actually twenty-five, not a fresh-out-of-school teenager like he had assumed.
The cold, distant mentor instantly vanished.
In his place was a man radiating a raw, aggressive, and predatory energy that bled right through the screen.
"Texting is too inefficient. The full integration requires face-to-face communication."
He dropped a location pin for an ultra-exclusive Manhattan club, demanding I meet him to save my contract.
Wearing a desperately bought emerald silk dress, I pushed open the heavy oak door, stepping right into the trap of a man who had just taken off his leash.