Bound To My Ex: The Billionaire's Trap
Eight years ago, Alaina forced herself to say the most vicious, heartless things to break up with her fiercely loyal college boyfriend, protecting him from his billionaire family's wrath.
Now, she is a top maxillofacial surgeon, and Jarred Mcknight has returned as the ruthless CEO of Wall Street's most powerful corporation.
Their worlds collide in the ER, but Jarred isn't alone. He is accompanying his rumored heiress fiancée.
His eyes are pure ice. He treats Alaina with a suffocating, clinical detachment, fiercely protecting the heiress from Alaina's medical examination. The professional slap in the face shatters Alaina's heart all over again.
Later, at an exclusive restaurant, Jarred catches Alaina on a miserable, forced blind date. Still believing she left him for money and status, he publicly mocks her for working herself to the bone just to climb the ladder.
Her sleazy date, humiliated by the billionaire's sheer dominance, turns his bruised ego on Alaina. On the dark street outside, the lawyer aggressively grabs her arm, trying to force himself on her.
Alaina thought Jarred despised her. She thought he had completely moved on, leaving her to drown in the memories of the future they never had.
But why did Jarred suddenly explode from the shadows like a lethal predator, brutally snapping the lawyer's wrist just for touching her?
Pinning her trapped against the cold brick wall, Jarred's dark eyes burn with a terrifying, unhinged possessiveness.
"Is this the kind of garbage you date now?"
The eight years of separation mean nothing. The billionaire hasn't let her go, and this time, there is no escape.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 3
Alaina pressed her gloved fingers gently against the red, swollen edge of Chelsey's jaw.
Chelsey flinched violently. A sharp gasp escaped her lips, and tears instantly welled up in her eyes.
Jarred moved instantly. He took a long stride forward, closing the distance to the hospital bed.
He raised his large hand and hovered it just above Chelsey's shoulder, a stark, physical display of protection.
"Is there not a less aggressive way to examine her?" Jarred demanded. His voice was hard, cutting through the sterile air.
Alaina's fingers froze mid-air.
Seeing him so fiercely protective of another woman ripped open the scab on a wound she thought had healed.
She pulled her hand back. She stripped off the latex gloves and threw them into the biohazard bin.
"It is a necessary palpation to check for bone displacement," Alaina said. Her voice was rigid and cold.
She picked up the clipboard and quickly scribbled down her assessment. "You have a mandibular fracture. It requires immediate surgery."
Chelsey's face drained of color. Panic set in. She looked up at Jarred, her eyes begging for comfort.
Jarred softened his posture. He lowered his voice. "Don't be afraid. I will get you the best medical team available."
That soft Don't be afraid hit Alaina like a sledgehammer to the chest.
Alaina lowered her eyelashes. She stared hard at the black ink on the chart until the letters blurred together.
The beeping of the heart monitor faded into the background. Her mind was violently yanked back to a torrential, rain-soaked night eight years ago.
She saw a younger Jarred standing in the pouring rain. His clothes were soaked through, sticking to his skin. His eyes were bloodshot as he gripped her hands.
She remembered the raw desperation in his voice as he begged her not to give up on them.
She remembered the crushing weight of his family's absolute disapproval, the impossible chasm between their worlds, and the terrible choice she was forced to make. She remembered forcing herself to say the most vicious, heartless things to push Jarred away, to protect him from his own family's wrath.
She remembered the exact moment he finally let go of her hands. She remembered the broken, defeated line of his back as he turned and walked away into the storm.
A loud crash from a metal cart rolling past the ER door snapped Alaina back to the present.
She blinked hard, forcing the burning moisture back down her tear ducts.
When she lifted her head, her face was a flawless mask of medical authority.
She handed the signed clipboard to Leah, who was standing quietly in the corner.
"NPO starting now. No food or water. Prep her for anesthesia," Alaina instructed Chelsey in a flat, monotone voice.
Jarred narrowed his eyes. His sharp gaze caught the slight tremor in Alaina's fingertips as she handed over the board.
A complex emotion flashed in his dark eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a microscopic, mocking smirk.
Alaina turned her body toward the door. She couldn't stay in this room for another second.
"If you experience any breathing difficulties, press the call button for the nurse," Alaina said to the room.
She walked fast. She pushed open the heavy metal door of the ER and stepped out into the hallway.
The door slowly swung shut behind her, finally cutting off the heavy, suffocating weight of Jarred's stare.
Alaina walked to the corner of the corridor. She leaned her back against the cold, tiled wall and gasped for air.
You may also like
9.1
For three years, June played the perfect, submissive wife to billionaire Augustus Pruitt, hoping a child would finally warm his cold heart and secure their marriage.
But when she cautiously suggested they have a baby, he looked at her with pure, unfiltered disgust.
"A woman who schemes her way into a marriage doesn't get to carry my blood."
He sneered, leaving immediately to lavish his mistress with diamonds. The nightmare only escalated from there. Augustus bought the one painting June desperately wanted—a piece she had secretly created herself—just to gift it to his mistress. He publicly outbid June at the gallery, mocking her lack of wealth, and left her to collapse in the freezing rain. When the storm gave her a severe 104-degree fever and she nearly died on their staircase, he didn't even stay by her hospital bed. Instead, he sent an assistant with a box of jewelry to buy her silence, then forced her to attend a family dinner where his mother and sister viciously mocked her barren womb and background.
Looking at Augustus, who sat there casually cutting his steak while his family tore her apart, the last flicker of hope in June's chest sputtered and died.
She finally understood that her three years of bleeding devotion were nothing but a pathetic joke to them.
She dropped her silverware, the sharp clatter silencing the entire room. She wasn't going to be their punching bag anymore. It was time to finalize the divorce papers, reclaim her hidden identity as the world-renowned artist 'mr.sun', and make them all regret it.
7.2
For ten years, Aurora was abandoned by her wealthy family to rot in the countryside.
When she finally returned, there was no warm welcome. The Lott family only brought her back to replace her adopted sister in an arranged marriage with Damian Yates, a notoriously violent, crippled billionaire, just to save their bankrupt company.
Her grandmother mocked her as uneducated trash. Her fake sister feigned disgust at her very presence.
When her biological father desperately tried to stop them from sending his daughter to her death, the family turned on him.
Her grandmother struck her father across the face, kicked the three of them out of the manor into the freezing rain, and arrogantly declared they would starve on the streets by nightfall.
They thought Aurora was just a helpless, pathetic hillbilly who would quietly accept being sold as livestock.
They had no idea that over the past decade, she had survived the darkest corners of the world, becoming a lethal operative with unimaginable power.
Standing in the cold rain, Aurora didn't shed a single tear.
She calmly pulled out her encrypted phone, personally canceled the billionaire's marriage contract, and ordered her hacker to completely freeze the Lott family's accounts.
"Total financial annihilation. Burn them to the ground."
But as she watched her abusers' legacy crumble, a classified file arrived on her phone, revealing that the very billionaire she just rejected was tied to her mother's unsolved murder.
The real hunt was just beginning.
7.5
I spent ten years blindly devoted to my husband, Kyler, building a perfect life together.
When I went into premature labor, he held my hand and promised everything would be fine.
But the moment I woke up in the VIP delivery room, the doctor coldly declared my newborn daughter dead.
Kyler rushed in, his face a mask of grief, insisting on taking her body away immediately to handle the arrangements.
If I hadn't heard my supposedly dead baby's telepathic voice echoing in my head, I would have handed her over.
She told me Kyler had poisoned my prenatal vitamins to induce early labor.
He bribed the medical team to fake her death so he could harvest her rare stem cells to save his sick mistress.
And worse, he had pulled the security detail from our eight-year-old son's school.
He was letting cartel kidnappers take my boy just to force me to sign over my family's billionaire trust fund.
The man I kissed every morning was a monster wearing my husband's skin.
How could he smile at me while planning to murder our children and drain my family's wealth?
The sheer terror and betrayal tore my heart into a thousand jagged pieces.
But I didn't scream or confront him.
Instead, I faked a hysterical breakdown, clutched my baby tight, and quietly contacted my family's private mercenary team.
"File the injunctions. I want him destroyed by morning."
7.6
Cassie was sold to a terrifying billionaire as a substitute bride.
To protect herself, she glued a grotesque, fake burn scar to her face.
Her adoptive family and her ex-fiancé had stolen her massive trust fund, locked her in an asylum for years, and finally threw her to the wolves. They expected the ruthless Dane Frederick to torture and kill her the moment he saw her ruined face.
At her ex's grand engagement party, her family publicly humiliated her. They mocked her cheap clothes, laughed at her scarred cheek, and even raised their hands to beat her, fully believing she was a helpless freak with no one to rely on.
"Get on your knees and apologize, and I'll write you a check so you don't starve on the streets."
But they didn't expect the billionaire to kick down the doors, wrap his coat around her, and bankrupt their entire bloodline overnight.
Yet, as Cassie stood in the dark and peeled off her fake silicone scar to reveal her flawless face, a deeper terror gripped her.
Tracing her stolen funds, she uncovered a name that made her blood run cold: The Syndicate.
It was the exact nightmare organization that had locked her in the asylum. Why were they controlling her family? And why did the billionaire look at her with such desperate, hidden nostalgia?
Cassie opened her encrypted laptop and dropped into the Dark Web.
She wasn't just a discarded bride. She was the legendary hacker "Nyx," and she was going to burn them all to the ground.
9.8
For two years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to wealthy heir Grady Maddox.
Then I found a hidden compartment in his study desk. Inside were dozens of explicit polaroids of his adopted sister, Jasmine, and a worn leather diary.
The diary revealed the sickening truth.
"Kaya is the perfect shield. As long as I have a wife, no one will ever look too closely at me and my little Yue."
When Jasmine deliberately knocked a bowl of boiling soup onto my hand, Grady didn't even glance at my blistering skin.
He frantically checked Jasmine for nonexistent scratches and yelled at me.
"Why weren't you paying attention? Look at the mess you've made! You scared her."
He then kicked me out to our empty penthouse as punishment, only to move Jasmine in the very next day, letting her parade around in his dress shirts and giving her my favorite custom furniture.
Looking at the husband I had devoted my life to fawning over the sister he was secretly sleeping with, I didn't feel heartbroken. I just felt a deep, suffocating disgust.
I was nothing but a paper wall meant to hide their twisted affair.
I didn't cry, and I didn't beg for his love.
I simply locked him out of the bedroom, gathered my financial records, and called Manhattan's most ruthless divorce attorney.
I was securing my escape, completely unaware that Grady's estranged, terrifyingly powerful older brother had been waiting ten years for this exact moment.
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.