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 3
HERMIONE
It remains a few hours before my shift is over. I don't have any surgery scheduled until the next two days. Mercifully.
As I step out into the hallway, my path is intercepted by Professor Patel.
He is one of the oldest doctors to have worked in the hospital, even though he attempts to appear young.
He never fails to dye his graying hairs into an obsidian black. He has that air of cheerfulness about him, which is a sharp contrast to my typical aloofness and icy personality.
Residents love to join his team rather than be under my mentorship.
"Impressive performance, as always, Professor Pierce," Doctor Patel says, clapping loudly.
My dad's name is Pierce - Jackson Pierce. My mom refuses to change her surname fully to his after marriage, hence the two surnames on my profile: Hermione Watson Pierce.
I introduce myself first as Hermione Pierce, before adding Watson as my other surname. Most of my colleagues are often baffled by this act of mine, wondering why I would hide my affiliation to the renowned Watson Foundation. If only they knew.
Sure, my family has loads of money - generational wealth; the luxury is secure and enviable. However, not all that glitters is gold. Beyond the glittering facade lies a darker reality.
"Mmn," I grunt low under my breath. "Did she request my audience?" I ask him.
"Don't be too rigid, Professor Pierce." He flattens his mouth into a semblance of a smile and draws a line across it with his finger. "Smile."
I ignore him, heading towards my mom's office.
"That insolent br..." I hear Professor Patel's strangled curse behind me, and a slow smile creeps onto my mouth.
Professor Patel is actually an interesting man. I could have gotten along with him and gleaned some knowledge from him; he's highly skilled in bypass surgery. However, he's too much of a sycophant, kissing up to anyone he regards as being in a prominent position.
That makes me wonder what his true nature is. I can't befriend a man whose true nature isn't apparent.
I knock on the door when I reach my mom's office.
"Come in!"
I turn the knob and push the door open, stepping inside. My mom is on a call, so I gently close the door behind me.
I sit on one of the couches set a few feet away from her desk, where she receives visitors. I recline into the plush chair, letting out a sigh.
My head whips toward my mom, and our eyes connect. The sigh was louder than I intended, and it catches her attention.
"Let's talk later, alright," she says, wrapping up her conversation. She sets her phone down on her desk and stands up, her desk chair rotating to the side.
Her heels click rhythmically against the polished marble flooring as she approaches me. She sits across from me, crossing her legs at the knee.
Her eyes are sharp as she assesses me. "Tea or coffee?"
I shake my head, unable to speak. My throat is dry, so I swallow and try again. "No, I'm good."
Her jaw twitches, but she holds back her comment. She rings for tea to be brought in for her.
I suspect I'm in for a lengthy and critical discussion, given that my mom is offering tea before opening her mouth.
My anxiety spikes, and tension builds in my bloodstream. I stiffen my legs and clasp my fingers over my thighs to hide my nervous reaction. I assume a leisurely pose, but my entire body is shaking with worry.
My mom's tea arrives, and the lady who brings it in sets it on the table and quickly exits the office. Mom doesn't appreciate the effort either. She raises the steaming cup of herbal tea to her mouth and sips.
The thick scent of chamomile with peppermint fills the air, and I struggle to hide my repulsion.
My mom is probably aware of my aversion to her choice of tea. It's either she prefers this torturous way of keeping me grounded, or she just doesn't care.
Right. I smack my lips, recollecting. In my mom's regard, I'm not a human being; I'm a mere robot. I have no feelings or thoughts of my own; I'm merely conditioned to act out her wishes.
I swallow the lump that forms in my throat. My stomach shifts under her intense scrutiny, and I wish earnestly for a reprieve.
"Are you feeling stressed?" Mom asks out of the blue.
My gaze snaps up to hers. "Pardon?" slips through my lips before I can help it.
A frown lines her forehead, and I immediately answer, "No." I hold my breath, searching for a fresh scent, but none can be found, not in Mom's office.
Mom inhales the steam from her tea, a smile of appreciation on her lips. I cringe inwardly, schooling my expression to maintain a mask of neutrality.
The cup clinks against its saucer when she sets it down. She produces a magazine from nowhere and flings it across the center table toward me.
I glance at the magazine, curiosity sparking. I don't reach out to pick it up, but I catch the headlines: "Alvin Dale Mendes: The Visionary Behind MD's Success."
I haven't heard of him. He's not the kind of news I'd follow, if I watched the news. I've always been too busy with research books and practicing late into the night to hone my surgical skills.
I meet my mom's gaze questioningly when she gestures for me to pick up the magazine.
"Acquaint yourself with every detail about that family," she says.
"Why?" I mutter, still trying to process the information.
"You will be getting married into that family soon," my mom states, her tone matter-of-fact.
"What?" I exclaim, squinting my eyes in shock. I glance down at the old man on the magazine. He looks to be around my dad's age, fifty-two, but appears much older.
I leap to my feet, a mix of disbelief and irritation sweeping through me. "This old man?" I seethe, flinging the magazine in my hand.
My mom's demeanor remains unchanged. "Calm yourself down. You will be getting married to his second son," she says with a finality to her tone. "He's around your age," she adds, as though that's something to rejoice about.
I feel a surge of anger and resentment. She's tying my future to some faceless man for her ambitions, and expects me to act the obedient child and say yes to this?
Hell, no. I can work myself to exhaustion, but I'm not settling for a loveless marriage.
"No," I breathe, facing my mom head-on. "I'm not getting married to anyone. That will be my choice to make. No," I say more firmly.
My mom doesn't react. Instead, she slowly folds her arms across her chest. Then, she begins to laugh – a dry, menacing cackle that has me withdrawing a step back.
When Ezra Watson Pierce laughs, it doesn't end well. It means someone's going to cry. And we both know who that person is in here: me.
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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.