BAD REPUTATION
It was her hair that fascinated him. The reddish-brown mass was parted high to one side, windswept almost. And then there was her make-up, neutral save for the liner around her eyes and the bold lip colour... was that purple?
His gaze narrowed over it and she must have sensed his attention, her eyes flickering in his direction. "You know, it's rude to stare."
Her voice was husky, a crisp edge that rasped along his spine and sealed her appeal. Derek was hooked. Her eyes were back on the doors, her lack of interest obvious.
He should've taken it as a sign, but since when had he backed off from anything he fancied?
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Chapter 2
Did he have to be heading to the same floor?
Olivia had had enough of arrogant assholes in her life and now she was stuck in a lift with a self-professed one. She couldn't deny he'd amused her with his honesty and self-deprecating introduction though.
But he was trouble. She didn't have to be told. She just knew it.
He wasn't like Jack. He wasn't smooth and perfect, clean-shaven and pristine. No, this man was all about the stubble and the bedhead hair. Like a sun-kissed surfer plucked from the ocean, jazzed up and dumped in the city. The jeans and sweatshirt hugging his imposing frame looked laid-back but they screamed designer from top to toe. And the way he had her pulse tripping over itself, he was just as dangerous. On every level.
"Now that you know so much about me," he suddenly said, his voice thick and exciting her far more than was fair, "how about you let me take you for a drink?"
Olivia almost swallowed her tongue, the portfolio digging into her side as she turned rigid. "No, thank you. I'm busy." she replied.
"Not right this second," he said, his eyes twinkling with mischief and amusement and holding her own. "But at a mutually agreeable time, of course?"
Of course. She mentally rolled her eyes. Would he just get the hint?
Her resolve was good, but she wasn't immune. She could feel the temptation well enough and the sooner she got free of it, the better. She was in a relationship for God's sake and she sure as hell wasn't a cheater. She dragged her eyes away, forcing them on the intricate pattern twisting through the gold lift door ahead. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Care to tell me why?"
Because I'm not a fool, Olivia thought, but aloud, she said, "I know you."
The lift announced the arrival of their floor and he spoke over it. "You do?"
"Obviously not you exactly," she said, relief sweeping through her as the lift doors opened and she stepped out.
Purposeful, she turned left towards Isabella's and hoped he would take the hint or a different direction at least. He didn't.
"Obviously," he reaffirmed, falling into step behind her. "I'd definitely remember if I'd met you before."
Her tummy gave an annoying flutter and she squashed it. She was going to have to be more specific. Brutal even... "What I mean is, I know your type."
"My type?"
"Hell, yeah, great in the sack, perfect bedroom material..." she sent him a scathing look "...but beyond that...well, we don't go there, do we?"
His step faltered. "Wow, hung, drawn and quartered."
She could hear his surprise, feel his unease, and victory surged warm in her veins. Her harsh assessment had hit its mark, hopefully enough to send him running. And if that didn't, the hint of her being the relationship kind should do it.
"You have quite the opinion of men." He added.
She gave a derisive laugh and turned a bend, the sanctity of Isabella's hotel room now only a few strides away.
"So, you're either an anti-male lesbian-" it was her turn to falter mid-step "-or you've been burned before. Which is it to be?"
A lesbian... She laughed with reignited vigour. It wasn't the first time she'd been mistaken as such. She found it quite flattering actually, but she wasn't going to tell him that.
"Typical arrogant male-just because I'm not interested in you per se, I have to be a lesbian." She'd arrived at Isabella's door and to emphasise her point, she faced it and rapped against it. "Now, if you don't mind, I have work to do."
He wasn't moving away. If anything, he was settling in right alongside her-what the fuck? She didn't have time to ask what he was playing at; the door swung open to reveal her rather disgruntled-looking friend and client.
"I'm so sorry I'm late, Izzy." Olivia said.
Izzy frowned, "You should be," she said, shrugging a tan leather jacket over a white T and looking from Olivia to her unwanted companion. "The pair of you."
Pair of us?
Olivia looked at him and he gave her a bemused shrug. "Seems you can't get away from me that easily."
"Oh, good God, Derek, don't tell me you've hit on my estate agent and friend already?" Isabella's eyes flashed furiously, and Olivia observed that their colour was strikingly similar to his.
"I wouldn't call it hitting on, exactly," he said, with another one of those annoyingly casual shrugs. "We were actually just discussing sexual tendencies."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Isabella looked at Olivia, cheeks flushing, eyes bright. "Seems I owe you an apology,"
"You do?" Olivia's voice sounded faint, her brain rapidly piecing the situation together.
"This animal," Isabella said, gesturing to him in mock disdain, "Is my brother. My older brother, to be exact. But seriously, Derek, what the hell?"
"Brother?" Olivia repeated, her eyes sweeping to the man himself, who she now knew as Derek, the realisation that she wasn't going to evade him any time soon setting off a troubling dance in her chest.
She recalled that Isabella had told her weeks ago that her brother was moving back into town after years of being away, but she hadn't mentioned that he was back already or that he would even be here with them today.... Or that he was so damn attractive and charming.
"In my defence," he said, a curious frown creasing his brow, "She brought it out in me."
"That's your excuse?" Isabella said incredulously, delivering a playful shove that barely moved him, his eyes remaining fixed on Olivia's every bit as curious and heated and very, very interested. "If I didn't value your opinion so much, I'd tell you to just go and leave us to it."
"Seems that makes two of you today," he said, his penetrating gaze reaching inside Olivia's mind and triggering a replay of all that she had said with embarrassing clarity. "It's a bloody good job my ego is big enough to take it."
"No one's ego can be as big as yours, weirdo," Isabella said. "It's just lucky your heart is also as big."
"And don't you forget it," he said, looking at his sister with open affection now, freeing Olivia at last, to breathe, to think, to get with it... "So, are we going to take this show on the road? Or are we going to stand here and do more Derek-bashing?"
Isabella gave a giggle and, God help her, Olivia smiled, the move easy. Too easy.
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8.4
I worked three double shifts at the garage just to buy a velvet-boxed cake for my wealthy girlfriend, Arleen.
But when I pushed open the VIP room door, I saw her lover kissing her bare leg.
She didn't push him away. Instead, she laughed and swirled her martini.
"I only forgot Finn because I knew he would stay. He is a poor boy from Queens who follows me around like a loyal dog."
Later that night, her lover intentionally crashed a Porsche to scare me, sending a piece of jagged metal into my skull.
Lying in a growing pool of my own blood, I watched Arleen crawl out of the wreckage.
She didn't even look at me. She threw herself at her uninjured lover, screaming for a medic.
"He just got scraped by a piece of plastic. He is faking it. Deal with Jaquez first!"
When I woke up, I wasn't free. Arleen had locked me in a private hospital wing with 24-hour security, planning to isolate me and keep me as her broken, captive toy forever.
My blind, pathetic devotion finally froze into absolute disgust.
I looked at the heart monitor next to my bed and grabbed an IV needle.
I severed the sensor wire to trigger a flatline, slipped out the fire stairs while the nurses panicked, and burned my identity to ashes.
This time, I was going to disappear to London, build my own empire, and watch hers burn.
7.6
When the Pollard family kicked Alyssa out into the freezing rain, Walter threw a ten-thousand-dollar check into a dirty puddle.
"Take it and get out. Don't ever come back," he sneered.
Her adoptive mother and stepsister stood on the mansion's porch, mocking her as a worthless country girl who tarnished their wealthy name. They laughed, claiming she wouldn't even be able to afford community college and would be begging on the streets in a week.
They looked at her cheap clothes and worn backpack with absolute disgust.
They were completely unaware that for the past five years, Alyssa was the secret mastermind who had built their failing gallery into a multi-million-dollar investment empire.
Every key investment, every fortune they made, came from the anonymous notes she had slipped into their unread books. They genuinely believed they were business geniuses, while treating the true architect of their wealth like a stray dog.
Looking at their smug, arrogant faces, Alyssa didn't feel a shred of sadness, only a cold, sharp irony.
They actually believed they had raised her.
She stepped close, whispered the master code to Walter's most secret offshore account, and watched the blood completely drain from his face.
"I raised you," she said, turning her back on the mansion without hesitation.
Walking into the storm, she pulled out a heavily encrypted phone and gave a single, cold order.
"Initiate a full hostile takeover of the Pollard Group."
It was time to end this little game and step into her true life—as the world's most elusive medical genius, and the long-lost billionaire heiress of the Summers dynasty.
8.0
I sat at a table for two in the center of Le Coucou, clutching a gift box that had cost me two months of savings. It was our three-year anniversary, and I was waiting for Gavin to finally ask the big question.
But when the heavy oak doors opened, Gavin didn't walk toward me with a ring. He walked in with a polished blonde heiress tucked under his arm, her hand resting protectively over a small baby bump.
"This is Tiffany Stone. My fiancée," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. He didn't apologize for being late or for the three years we'd spent together. Instead, he pulled out a checkbook, scribbled a number, and slid a ten-thousand-dollar check across the white tablecloth.
"Consider it severance for your time," he added, as Tiffany mocked my cheap drugstore dress. "Don't contact me again. Tiffany doesn't need the stress." I was the entertainment for the entire restaurant—the pathetic girl dumped for a better model. By the time I walked out into the rain, I had lost my boyfriend, my home, and the funding for my secret medical research project.
I was an orphan with no safety net, facing an eviction notice and a ruined career. I had given Gavin everything, and he had discarded me like a broken tool. The injustice burned in my chest, a hot, sharp rage that replaced my tears.
Desperate and freezing, I ducked into a coffee shop where I met Colton Bentley, a reclusive billionaire in a wheelchair. After I defended him from a cruel date, he offered me a contract: a marriage of convenience and a seven-figure payment to act as his shield. I signed the papers that night, ready to use his wealth to rebuild my life. But as I watched my new husband navigate his penthouse, I noticed his "paralyzed" legs tense with a strength that shouldn't exist.
7.4
For five years, Jodi was the perfect, compliant secret lover to billionaire CEO Armand Taylor.
Then, she woke up to a cold email and a seven-figure wire transfer. Armand was marrying European royalty. The money was a severance package to quietly warehouse her out of sight.
Refusing to be his dirty secret, Jodi invoked her contract's termination clause to leave for good. But Armand wouldn't let her go easily. He forced her to personally train her vicious new replacement, Selah.
Selah immediately tampered with a crucial financial file, framing Jodi for sabotaging Taylor Corp's multi-billion-dollar tech acquisition.
Without a second thought, Armand took the new girl's side. He cornered Jodi in the boardroom, his eyes dead and cold.
"You have three days to fix this. If you fail, I will personally see to it that you go to prison for corporate fraud."
He froze her bank accounts and stripped away her dignity, ready to destroy her life over a blatant lie.
He thought she was just a weak, discarded toy who would break under his threats.
What Armand didn't know was the terrifying secret Jodi had just discovered hidden at the bottom of her bathroom trash can.
Three positive pregnancy tests.
If the ruthless billionaire found out she was carrying his heir, he would never let her escape.
Wiping her tears, Jodi slipped into a severe black silk gown and crashed an exclusive Hamptons gala to intercept the tech CEO herself.
This time, she wasn't playing the obedient lover. She was going to clear her name and burn Armand's empire to the ground.
9.8
I was an unwanted foster kid taken in by the Goodwin family, about to marry into the wealthy Cantu family to secure my adoptive father's power.
But at my rehearsal dinner, my adoptive mother drugged my champagne, intending to have me assaulted and ruined.
The next morning, my fiancé and my sister burst into my hotel room with a swarm of reporters, pointing fingers in manufactured horror.
"You filthy whore! The engagement is over!"
My fiancé roared for the cameras, while my sister sobbed about my betrayal. They had brought the press to publicly slaughter me, justifying their own secret affair while my adoptive family cursed me as a disgusting stray.
For years, I had endured their toxic abuse, only to be thrown to the wolves so my sister could steal my life. They truly believed I was just a helpless pawn they could crush and discard.
But they didn't know I had anticipated their trap and deliberately walked into the bed of Dorian Underwood—the ruthless billionaire and the only man the Cantu family actually feared.
As I calmly hit 'send' to broadcast my fiancé's explicit sex tape to every reporter in the hallway, I met Dorian's dark, predatory gaze.
I wasn't just surviving anymore; I was going to tear both their empires to the ground.
9.4
Vera thought her life was over the moment she caught her fiancee cheating with his ex.
Broken and filled with pain, she is approached by a billionaire who presents a simple contract to her. Let's get married.
Sylas Gold is the man admired by the entire world. He is untouchable, powerful and incredibly controlled. Their marriage was supposed to be a contract. A performance. It was a way for both of them to win.
When Vera is kidnapped by a man who looks at her like she's already his, she learns the truth Sylas never told her, about his mafia empire, the blood, and the brother who was supposed to be gone.
Cassian Gold is the man who wants everything his brother has, including Vera.
Now caught between two brothers bound by hatred, power, and obsession, Vera must decide who to trust in a world where love is dangerous, loyalty is fragile, and desire might just be her downfall.