Bound By Blood: His Unwanted Contract Bride
Four years ago, I was drugged on a luxury yacht and ended up pregnant with twins.
I raised them in secret, enduring my stepfamily's daily abuse, until the billionaire West family patriarch cornered us at the airport.
He instantly recognized my son's face—an exact replica of his ruthless grandson, Bernardo West.
My malicious stepmother and stepsister immediately leaked to the press that I was a delusional gold-digger using fake kids to trap a billionaire.
They wanted the West family to destroy me to save their own social standing.
Bernardo himself looked at me with pure disgust, demanding a DNA test.
"If you ever lie to me, I will take the children, and I will make you wish you were never born."
I didn't want his money. I was a victim of that night too, left with a crescent-shaped bite mark on my collarbone and zero memory of who set us up.
Why did someone drug us? And how could I protect my babies from a corporate predator who could crush me with a snap of his fingers?
But when the DNA test came back 99.9999% positive, I didn't cower.
I showed him the scar he left on me, looked the most dangerous man in the country right in the eye, and made my demand.
"If you want to claim your heirs, you have to marry me."
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Chapter 6
Bernardo walked toward them. His stride was long, purposeful, eating up the distance between them. He stopped a foot away from Darleen.
He was huge. She had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. The scent of his cologne-sandalwood and something darker-washed over her.
His eyes traveled down her face, cold and assessing. He looked at her like she was a bug on his shoe.
"So," Bernardo said, his voice a low, rough rumble. "You're the woman who thinks I owe her a wedding."
Darleen didn't step back. She met his stare head-on, her chin lifted.
"Your grandfather seemed to think so," she replied.
Bernardo let out a humorless laugh. His gaze shifted from her face to the children standing beside her.
He looked at Julian. The boy stared back, his expression blank. Bernardo's eyes narrowed. He saw the dark hair, the sharp jawline. It was like looking into a mirror from twenty years ago.
A muscle jumped in Bernardo's jaw. He looked away, breaking the connection.
"Inside," Thurston barked from the porch. "We didn't fly across the country to stand in the heat."
Bernardo turned and walked inside. Darleen followed, holding the kids' hands.
The living room was massive. White couches, white rugs, glass tables. A team of people in lab coats stood near the dining table, a metal case open on the surface. Two lawyers in dark suits stood behind them, their faces blank.
Bernardo sat on a white leather chair, crossing one ankle over his knee. He looked completely in control.
"Do it," he ordered, waving a hand at the doctors. "Get it over with."
A doctor in a white coat stepped forward, pulling out a small tray of needles and vials. He smiled at Julian and Aria.
"Hi there," the doctor said. "I just need to take a little bit of blood from your arm."
Aria saw the needle. Her eyes went wide. She let out a shriek and dove behind Darleen's legs, burying her face in the green velvet.
Darleen moved instantly. She stepped in front of the children, her body a shield between them and the doctors.
"You're scaring them," she said, her voice sharp.
Bernardo sighed, rolling his eyes. "It's a needle, not a guillotine. Stop coddling them."
"You don't get to tell me how to raise my children," Darleen shot back. "They are not lab rats. You want blood? You wait until I say it's okay."
Bernardo leaned forward, his eyes flashing with irritation. "I don't have time for your maternal theatrics."
"Then make time," Darleen said.
She turned around and knelt in front of Aria. She cupped her daughter's face, wiping away a tear with her thumb.
"It's just a tiny pinch, baby," Darleen murmured. "Like a mosquito bite. You have to be brave for Mommy, okay?"
Aria sniffled, nodding slowly.
Julian stepped up. He pulled up his sleeve without a word. He stuck his arm out toward the doctor, his face stoic.
"Make it quick," Julian said.
The doctor blinked, surprised by the boy's intensity. He swabbed Julian's arm and inserted the needle. Julian didn't even flinch. He just stared at Bernardo the whole time.
Aria was next. She squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered, but she held still. Darleen kissed the top of her head.
When it was over, Bernardo stood up. He walked over to the table, rolled up his own sleeve, and sat down.
"Take mine," he told the doctor.
The doctor quickly drew a vial of dark red blood from Bernardo's arm. Bernardo didn't watch. His eyes were fixed on Darleen.
She was holding Aria, kissing her cheek. The light from the window caught the side of her face.
Bernardo's breath caught. A flash of memory-soft skin under his mouth, the taste of salt and tears. He blinked, and the image was gone.
Thurston cleared his throat. "The results will take twenty-four hours. Darleen and the children will stay in the guest wing."
"Like hell they will," Bernardo said, standing up. "This is my house. They can wait in a hotel."
"Then I'm leaving," Darleen said, her voice flat. "And you can wait for the results by yourself."
She turned and headed for the door.
"Wait," Bernardo said.
The word was sharp, commanding. Darleen stopped. She didn't turn around. She waited, her back straight, her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
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9.3
Alyssa Gregory slept with Benton Steele, a recently disgraced and bankrupt heir, just to humiliate him.
She threw a massive check at his bare chest, treating the former prince of Wall Street like a cheap escort.
But Benton didn't take the charity.
Instead, he manipulated her anger, tricking her into signing an ironclad contract that surrendered absolute control of her entire trust fund to him.
When her abusive mother found out she had funded a penniless outcast, she slapped Alyssa across the face.
Her mother froze all her bank accounts, locked her inside her bedroom, and arranged to sell her off to a degenerate politician.
Desperate to escape, Alyssa climbed down her balcony, falling fifteen feet and shattering her ankle on the stones below.
Stripped of her money and freedom, she dragged her broken body to a VIP club just to publicly declare that Benton belonged to her.
She thought she was the boss, playing a rebellious game with a broken man.
But when Benton effortlessly carried her away from the club and locked her inside his rundown apartment, the terrifying calculation in his dark eyes shattered her illusion.
How could a man stripped of his entire empire still radiate such suffocating, violent power?
"You bought me," Benton whispered, his massive frame trapping her against the sofa. "That means I have to take care of you."
Physically trapped and completely broke, Alyssa stared into his consuming eyes, her mind racing to find a way to turn the tables.
7.4
I was a broke clinic doctor drowning in debt, so I took a confidential job to evaluate a billionaire heir's fertility.
I marched into the VIP ICU, pinned the struggling patient down, and injected a sedative. I finished the extraction and loudly declared to the family lawyer that the Holt heir was completely sterile.
But then, a chilling laugh echoed from the doorway.
The real heir, Jarrod Holt, the tyrant of Wall Street, stepped in. I had just sterilized his younger brother right in front of him.
Facing a decade in federal prison, I was completely at his mercy. To make things worse, my arrogant ex-boyfriend tried to publicly humiliate me, and my greedy uncle threatened to burn my dead mother's belongings for ransom. I was pushed to the absolute brink of ruin.
But instead of destroying me, Jarrod offered a terrifying lifeline. He bought out a Manhattan high-rise in five minutes just to ruin my ex, then handed me a marriage contract.
I was terrified and deeply confused. Why would this ruthless billionaire force a nobody into a fake marriage? He knew details about my past that no one should know. Did he discover my hidden identity as 'E', the underground surgeon the entire medical world was hunting for?
With my back against the wall, I signed the prenuptial agreement.
"I do," I whispered at City Hall.
He shoved his heavy, antique family ring onto my finger. It was supposed to be strictly business with absolutely no physical contact, but when his lips crashed violently onto mine, I knew I had just sold my soul to the devil.
7.1
I was the top commander of a black-ops military program. After slaughtering my way through a hellish mission, I reached the extraction helicopter, trusting my second-in-command to watch my back.
But the moment our hands locked, he didn't pull me up. Instead, he plunged a syringe of lethal neurotoxin directly into my neck.
He aimed his gun at my chest, coldly stating that I was too dangerous to live. My lungs stopped, and I died in a pool of my own blood. But the endless blackness suddenly shattered. My consciousness violently forced its way into a new, broken shell. I woke up in a freezing alley, soaked in muddy rain.
This body belonged to seventeen-year-old Eliza Wyatt. A massive wave of foreign memories crashed into my brain. Her own younger sister had just stood at the top of the stairs with a mocking smile, watching street thugs beat Eliza to death.
"Take good care of the Wyatt family's eldest daughter. Tonight is the night she finally disappears."
The endless humiliation, the cold stares of her family, and the brutal betrayal by her own blood flashed before my eyes. Why was this fragile girl treated like garbage and pushed to her death by the very people who should have protected her?
I looked down at my pale, trembling hands. The top commander was dead, but in this bleeding shell, Eliza Wyatt was very much alive. I picked up a switchblade from the bloody puddle and stood up in the storm. It was time to hunt.
9.2
Nica caught her boyfriend, Chris, and her best friend, Ella, in a shocking betrayal. Chris was kissing Ella while caressing her close, and Ella only smirked at Nica as if she had won. Nica got pissed off and swore she would not let their betrayal go unpunished. What happens next? Read the story and find out for yourself.
7.5
I am the biological daughter of the wealthy Fitzpatrick family, but I spent my childhood eating out of dumpsters.
When I was finally brought back to the estate at age seven, I thought I would experience my parents' love.
Instead, my biological parents looked at my dirty clothes with raw disgust. They only cared about Hallie, the fake daughter who lived like a princess.
The moment I walked in, Hallie hurled a heavy ceramic cup at my head, slicing my hand open.
"Get out of my house!"
My father didn't even look at the blood. He raised his hand to strike me, accusing me of bringing trailer park rules into his home.
In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged for their forgiveness. I endured their abuse, hoping they would eventually love me.
But they let the maids humiliate me, let Hallie steal my identity, and eventually threw me back onto the streets to die. Even my playboy Uncle Byron, the only person who ever showed me mercy, was driven to suicide by them.
I didn't understand why my own flesh and blood hated me so much, or why a vicious liar deserved everything while I was treated like a jinx.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the exact day I first returned to the estate.
As my father raised his hand to hit me, I didn't cower.
Instead, I looked at the family patriarch and pointed directly at my notorious, alcoholic uncle.
"I want him to be my new guardian."
9.5
Eda Roman clutched her father's diagnostic report, its sharp edge cutting her finger. His cancer had mutated, standard treatment failed, and a fifty thousand dollar deposit for experimental therapy was due by midnight. Fail to pay, and his hospital bed would be cleared.
Wife to Axel Foley, a multi-billion dollar CEO, Eda faced an impossible chasm. Her family trust, controlled by Keri Lane, offered a meager three hundred dollars.
An emergency fund request met a forty-eight-hour review—a death sentence. Keri's assistant denied expedite and blocked calls. Desperate, Eda called Axel, but his assistant dismissed her with lies, Axel's laughter echoing.
Humiliation and betrayal ignited cold fury. Wife to Seattle's wealthiest, yet begging on a hospital floor? Axel's indifference and Keri's games showed her: her father's life couldn't be left in their hands.
Wiping tears, the pleading girl vanished; her survival instinct roared. Red lipstick her war paint, Eda Roman marched to Foley Group Headquarters, ready to reclaim what was hers.