Arranged Marriage To The Infamous Billionaire Playboy
Born into luxury, Hermione Watson-Pierce has always felt like merely a pawn in her parents' ruthless game of power. She learned to suppress her emotions, earning herself the title of the "Ice Queen."
Just then, Aiden Mendes bursts into her life-a charming playboy known for his reckless reputation. Aiden chooses to cope with his inner turmoil through a lavish lifestyle, using his charisma and striking looks to keep others at bay.
A looming threat forces them to face a contracted marriage or risk losing their inheritance. When they first meet, Aiden is struck by an unexpected attraction, as if it were love at first sight. Yet, his notorious reputation precedes him, and Hermione makes no effort to hide her disdain.
As their contractual marriage evolves into a battle of wills, Aiden must work to melt Hermione's icy heart, proving that he is more than what meets the eye. But can he persuade her to rise above her prejudices and bravely pursue love?
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Chapter 2
HERMIONE
"Let's get started. Anesthesia, are we ready?" I inquire, getting into position. I flex my wrists briefly, both of my hands raised.
"Yes, Professor. Patient is under general anesthesia and stable."
I glance at the surgical team, which comprises Doctor May, my mentee and first assistant in today's surgery, Doctor Charles, a junior resident assisting as well, Dr. Smith, the anesthesiologist, Ms. Johnson, the perfusionist, and finally, Mrs. Rodriguez, the scrub nurse.
"Let's begin," I say, looking at the patient's exposed body on the OR table.
The patient, Chairman Bernard Gonzalez, a 65-year-old man, requires an emergency heart transplant. His current heart is failing, and the mechanical assist device is nearing its expiration date, so he needs a new transplant. Today's procedure is an open-heart surgery aimed at replacing his failing heart with a donor heart.
"We'll start with the median sternotomy," I announce, stretching out my hand. "Scalpel."
Dr. Charles hands the scalpel to me, and I get to work with Dr. May. As I make the incision, the scalpel glides smoothly through the skin, revealing the gleaming white of the sternum.
"We will dissect the pericardium; be careful not to damage the phrenic nerve," I say.
"Yes, Professor," Dr. May murmurs, focused on the task at hand. We carefully dissect the pericardium, exposing the heart.
"Retractor," I call, and I feel its weight on my hand, using it to pull back the tissue. "Suction.... Now, let's cannulate the aorta... Clamp." We work in a coordinated silence, our hands moving in tandem.
"Let's initiate cardiopulmonary bypass and get the patient on pump," I instruct.
"On it, Prof," Ms. Johnson responds, activating the machine. The CPB machine hums as it pulses to life, settling into a rhythmic whoosh-whoosh, and taking over the patient's circulation and oxygenation.
"Starting bypass now," Ms. Johnson says.
"Suction," I demand. "Remove the blood from the surgical site."
Dr. May steps forward with the suction tubing, washing the site thoroughly. The water spurts out, cleaning off fluid and blood, revealing the grayish-pink flesh underneath.
I request the aortic cross-clamp, extending my hand sideways. After the blood flow to the heart is stopped, I instruct, "Induce cardiac arrest."
The patient's heart stops pumping blood, and the cardiac monitor flatlines. The ECG monitor flatlines too as the heart stops generating electrical activity.
This is the most critical part of the procedure. "We must complete the implantation quickly to minimize potential complications," I emphasize. "Focus," I order. "We will remove the dysfunctional heart now. Ensure you don't damage the surrounding tissues."
"Yes, Prof."
"Please prepare the donor heart," I instruct. The team quickly moves to carry out my order in the dimly lit operating room. We carefully remove the dysfunctional heart and replace it with the donor heart.
"Prolene 5-0," I request. "Suture... Cut... Suture..." I provide brief instructions, my fingers moving skillfully with Dr. May's assistance.
After the donor's heart has been sown in place, I direct, "Let's complete the anastomosis." This connects the donor heart to the patient's circulation.
"Wean off CPB," I instruct, and Ms. Johnson promptly acts upon it.
The OR falls silent as we wait for the donor heart to begin beating. The air is thick with tension, not because my team doubts my skills, but because Mr. Gonzalez is a crucial VIP member of the hospital's foundation; that's why his surgery was assigned to me.
I operate mainly on VIP patients, most of whose health conditions often entail complex surgical procedures like Mr. Gonzalez's.
Becoming a professor at 25 is no easy feat. I worked hard to get to where I am today. Precisely, I was pressured into giving my best until I reached this spot. Nobody can deny that my position is partly due to my standing as the future heiress of the foundation. My skills prove to the world that my title is fully deserved.
I narrow my gaze, my confidence never faltering, as I check for the slightest indication of a pulse. I massage the heart gently, prompting it to yield. And then, suddenly, it does – a strong, steady rhythm that elicits a relieved exhale from the team.
"We've got a heartbeat!" Dr. Smith announces with glee, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
I remain expressionless, giving the next instructions. "Let's close the chest incision. Suture... Cut..." I dictate intermittently as we work until the suturing is neatly accomplished.
"Vital signs are stable," Dr. Smith announces.
I nod briefly in acknowledgment. "Let's get the patient stable and into recovery. Reverse anesthesia."
"Okay, Prof," Dr. Smith responds.
After the last process has been undertaken, I step back from the patient, my bloodied hands held upward. "Good job, everyone," I commend my team, my voice muffled through my nose cover, and I step out of the OR.
I catch sight of my mom through the screen connecting the OR to the observation gallery as I walk out of the parting doors.
She's the current director of the hospital foundation. There are a few older professors who came to watch, as they often describe it – my outstanding surgical performance.
I avert my gaze as soon as our eyes meet for the briefest moment. My mouth flatlines at the sight of her, and an uneasy sensation pools at the center of my stomach. She rarely watches me operate on patients. I'm sure her presence has nothing to do with the fact that the patient is a VIP and key figure in the hospital's foundation. She's here for a reason, and I have a bad feeling about it.
Ezra Watson Pierce only seeks my attention when I'm needed for a purpose. Questions filter through my mind about what task she has for me this time.
That's the relationship I've had with my mother through the years growing up. I have never felt an emotional connection or bond with her since I was a child; she isn't bothered either.
It took me years of yearning for her acknowledgment and attention before I accepted the painful reality: I was only a tool at my mom's disposal, like everyone else's.
And since then, I have also guarded my heart. I have stopped expecting frivolities like love and attention from others. I merely follow orders to the letter, living in the shadows of myself.
Although I received accolades from my peers and everyone, I didn't depend on those for my validation.
I have adopted an ascetic lifestyle, depriving myself of leisure to groom myself into perfection. This is the lady my mother conditioned me to be.
Despite all I have accomplished, she has never uttered a word about her pride in me. I doubt she is. I don't care if she is. Her opinions no longer define me. Nobody's does.
I hit the shower, scrubbing the stains off my hands first in the basin, before taking a full-body shower.
Exhaustion rolls off my body as the water runs down my head. The surgery lasted for eight hours. Eight hours of intense concentration will take a toll on the average human's body, no matter how agile and fit the person is.
Although there is satisfaction that comes with saving lives, I would have preferred to be a ballerina or a dancer. But when it comes to my family, my desires don't matter.
Mama knows best! I huff, turning off the tap. I change back into my clothes and drape my lab coat over it. I apply a faint spray of perfume and check my reflection in the room. Satisfied with my look, I step out to check on my patients.
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9.0
Ashlyn was supposed to be just a fragile college student, selling her rare blood to a vicious crime syndicate enforcer to keep his dying sister alive.
But the dynamic shattered when Alex returned from a two-month disappearance. He stepped into the penthouse covered in dirt and blood, sporting a horrific, jagged knife wound slashed completely across his face.
Knowing exactly how to exploit his insecurities, Ashlyn played the role of the terrified victim to perfection. She screamed, pushed against his chest, and called him a terrifying monster. Humiliated and enraged by her blatant disgust, Alex violently smashed a marble table and kicked her out. He forced her out into a freezing, torrential rainstorm without a coat, vowing to kill her if she ever showed her face again.
What the ruthless enforcer didn't know was that her pathetic, trembling tears were a flawless, calculated lie. She wasn't a helpless, greedy girl. She was a cold-blooded corporate mastermind hiding from a family of elite assassins. She desperately needed his impenetrable penthouse fortress to stay alive, and she knew the only way to secure her place wasn't to ask for it, but to make him beg for her return.
Three days later, his sister's organs began to fail, and the hospital's blood bank ran dry.
"I'll pay you whatever you want. Just get here."
Listening to the desperate, broken voice of the monster over her burner phone, Ashlyn smiled coldly in the dark. The trap had snapped shut, and he had just handed her all the power.
9.4
Six years ago, Breanna was shoved into a pitch-black hotel suite by her own uncle.
She was forced to endure a brutal night with a drugged stranger just to keep her grandmother's ventilator running.
Nine months later, she gave birth in a cold underground clinic.
But her uncle immediately snatched the crying newborn from her trembling hands, coldly announcing the baby had died.
For six years, Breanna lived in agonizing grief, working as a lowly hotel cleaner just to survive.
But a cruel setup threw her directly into the path of Elliot Finch, the arrogant billionaire from that dark night.
He did not recognize the woman whose life he had completely ruined.
Instead, he looked at her like she was rotting garbage, had his guards drag her into a wet alley, and mercilessly got her fired.
"If I ever see your face again, I will make sure you cannot get a job cleaning toilets."
Breanna was suffocating from the injustice, stripped of her dignity and her family's only lifeline.
Yet, when she instinctively protected a traumatized little boy from bullies, she discovered he was Elliot's son.
The boy clung to her neck, crying and desperately begging his father to let her stay.
But Elliot just threw a massive check at her chest, violently accusing her of brainwashing a sick child for a meal ticket.
Looking at the toxic disgust in his eyes, something inside Breanna finally broke.
She picked up the check, ripped the millions into tiny shreds, and let them rain down on his expensive shoes.
"Keep your dirty money."
She turned her back on the crying boy and the stunned billionaire, deciding she would no longer be their victim.
9.5
Bridget left the office early on her anniversary, her pocket heavy with a custom velvet ring box meant for her fiancé.
But when she pushed open the bedroom door, she found him tangled in their bed with her best friend, Chloe.
"Bridget! Wait, it's not what it looks like!" Jacob stammered, his eyes wide with panic.
"Evidence," Bridget stated coldly, snapping a photo of their naked bodies before fleeing into the freezing New York night.
Desperate to numb the betrayal, she got blackout drunk at an underground lounge and threw herself at a dark, terrifyingly handsome stranger.
She woke up in a penthouse suite alone, finding only a limitless black credit card left on the nightstand.
Humiliated and feeling like a cheap escort, she ran away, swearing to forget the nightmare.
But the nightmare had just begun. When she rushed into the office, she discovered the stranger was Jevon Rocha—the ruthless billionaire CEO of her company.
He didn't fire her. Instead, he trapped her in a twisted, obsessive power game, forcing her into his private life and demanding she report to his penthouse.
Bridget couldn't understand why a ruthless billionaire was so dangerously fixated on a low-level employee.
Until she stumbled upon his secret social media account and saw a crayon drawing of a little kid, captioned with a single word: "Finally."
A wave of absolute horror washed over her. He wasn't just playing games; he was hiding a secret child and a messy, high-stakes family drama.
She refused to be the naive collateral damage in a billionaire's twisted life.
Trembling, Bridget hit "Block" on his profile, determined to escape his dangerous web.
8.0
Eloise Ferguson was the legitimate daughter of a powerful Senator, yet she was treated like a hysterical burden by her own family.
In her past life, her parents forced her to marry a sadistic billionaire for political funding.
When she resisted, they locked her in a psychiatric facility, drugged her, and left her to die in restraints while her "fragile" cousin Jaylene stole her life.
She never understood why her mother hated her so fiercely.
Why did her mother treat her brother Cortez and her cousin Jaylene like absolute royalty, while throwing her own flesh and blood to the wolves?
Opening her eyes again, Eloise found herself back at age twenty-two, trapped in a restroom at a charity gala.
Escaping her abuser, she used her awakened mystic abilities to look at her family's life forces.
What she saw made her blood run cold.
Thick, red biological cords connected her mother directly to both Cortez and Jaylene, intertwining in a perfect symbiotic bond.
They weren't cousins. They were illegitimate twins born from her mother's secret affair.
Eloise was the only true outsider in her own home.
The realization hit her like a physical blow. Her entire life of abuse was just a cover-up for a nest of parasites stealing her father's name and her inheritance.
But this time, she refused to be their victim.
Armed with an unchallengeable executive order she blackmailed out of the United States President, Eloise crushed the hidden microphone in her bedroom.
"Game on, Mother."
8.2
She was the sacrifice-married off to the city's most ruthless billionaire to save a family that never loved her. But when she discovered his betrayal with her own sister, everything shattered.
Pregnant, penniless, and abandoned, Bella Hart disappeared into the night, vowing never to be powerless again.
Few years later, she returns as the CEO of an international empire, more powerful than anyone imagined possible. Her secret weapon? The little boy with piercing grey eyes who calls her "Mommy, he is the son of the man who destroyed her.
Caleb Black spent years drowning in regret, searching for the wife he threw away. Now she's back, untouchable and unforgiving. He'll do anything to reclaim what he lost his wife, his son, his chance at redemption.
But Bella didn't return to forgive, she returned to conquer.
With enemies circling, old wounds bleeding, and a passion that refuses to die, Bella must decide: Will she let the man who broke her back into her heart? Or will she destroy him the way he once destroyed her? In a world of billion-dollar deals and deadly secrets, love is the most dangerous gamble of all.
8.9
Harlow had endured three years of a loveless marriage, funding her husband Beck's life and secretly writing the AI code that saved his failing company.
But when she walked into her family's private memorial library, she found Beck having sex with his mistress, Fallon, right on top of her late father's antique desk.
Instead of showing guilt, Beck proudly announced that Fallon had given him a son and heir.
He demanded Harlow accept the bastard child and stay married just to maintain his perfect public image.
To make matters worse, Fallon was actually a corporate spy from a rival company, actively stealing Harlow's family legacy while Beck willingly handed over the company secrets.
When Harlow demanded an immediate divorce, Beck laughed in her face.
"I will never sign the divorce papers! I will drag this out in court until you bleed dry!"
Looking at her father's crushed pocket watch and the two parasites desecrating her sacred home, Harlow's shock turned into a freezing, absolute clarity.
How could she have spent three years supporting a selfish hypocrite who would so ruthlessly destroy her parents' legacy?
Harlow calmly packed her bags, threw his bespoke suits in the trash, and walked out the door.
She went straight to Fitzgerald Monroe, the most ruthless billionaire corporate lawyer in New York, ready to use her secret identity to make Beck lose everything.