Bound to the Bastard Alpha
They gave Fiona to the crippled bastard as a cruel joke-the adopted daughter married off to the wheelchair-bound outcast nobody wanted.
Her real crime? Existing when the true heiress returned. Her mate rejected her for her manipulative sister. Her family cast her aside. And her forced husband? He's cold, cruel, and makes it clear he despises this arrangement as much as she does.
But something's not adding up. The man in the wheelchair spends money like he owns the world. He stands up for her when no one else will. And there's something disturbingly familiar about his voice, his touch, the way he looks at her.
Then one night, he stands up from that wheelchair, and Fiona realizes she's been played.
Her husband isn't a helpless outcast. He's the most powerful Alpha in the country, and he's been hiding in plain sight.
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Chapter 5
Fiona's POV
I glanced around at our family members and realized none of them had noticed him ignoring me. Maybe he hadn't meant to be rude, or maybe he just didn't see me trying to help him on our wedding day.
I quickened my pace to catch up with him as he wheeled himself further into the venue. When I finally reached him, I approached with what I hoped was a friendly smile.
Our eyes met and my breath caught in my throat.
Up close, he was even more devastating than I'd thought. His attractiveness surpassed any man I'd ever encountered in my entire life. This wasn't fair at all.
He was nothing like what they'd told me. I'd braced myself for someone hideous, someone whose appearance would be difficult to look at. Yet the man before me looked like he'd been personally crafted by the moon goddess herself.
How could a man confined to a wheelchair still command such authority? He looked confident, powerful even, with this incredibly masculine and attractive aura radiating from him.
"Do you realize you're in my way?" His voice cut through my thoughts and his brows were raised in annoyance.
"Oh! I'm sorry." I apologized quickly, realizing I'd been staring like an idiot. "Let me help you."
I reached for his wheelchair but he jerked away from my touch.
"No! I wheeled myself up to this point. Isn't that enough to show you I'm fine on my own?" He snapped the words at me while squeezing his face like I'd just stepped on his foot.
Then he wheeled himself past me once again and I was left standing there speechless, hurt, and completely embarrassed.
Holding my dad's hand, I entered the wedding auditorium and took in the decorations. They were decent enough with a touch of something old-fashioned that didn't really bother me much. My focus wasn't on the decor anyway.
It was on my groom.
I was amazed by how handsome he looked even in that wheelchair. Despite his disability, he had this captivating presence with piercing blue eyes and chiseled features that could make angels weep. There was something familiar about those eyes though I couldn't place where I'd seen them before.
Gathering every ounce of courage I had, I approached him and soon we stood facing each other at the altar.
The priest instructed us to look into each other's eyes but my groom completely ignored the request.
"Adam?" the priest called out gently. "You may face your bride."
I glanced at him timidly and watched him roll his eyes hard before turning toward me with the meanest expression I'd ever seen on a human face. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment and I looked away quickly, but when I dared to peek back his condescending gaze was still fixed on me.
It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks.
He was being forced into this marriage just like I was.
I kept my gaze lowered and avoided his piercing glares as the ceremony dragged on like some kind of torture.
"Now," the priest announced cheerfully, "Adam, please hold your bride's hand."
Silence.
Adam remained completely still and said nothing. I felt heat flood my cheeks as I waited and anticipated his touch, but all I received was pure disdain from the man who was supposed to be my husband.
"Adam?" the priest called out again with concern creeping into his voice.
I dared to look up and found him glaring at me like I was something disgusting he'd stepped in. My face burned even hotter as he finally turned his attention to the priest.
"Can we just get this farce of a marriage over with?" he snapped, his tone dripping with contempt. He seemed eager to be literally anywhere but here participating in what he clearly considered a complete sham.
"But you need to hold your bride's hand for the ceremony to proceed," the priest insisted gently.
I glanced around nervously and avoided Adam's accusing gaze. I felt like I was the one begging to be married here.
I caught Serena's eye across the room and noticed a sinister smile playing on her lips. She was clearly finding endless amusement in my predicament and viewing my entire life as some kind of comedy show.
"You know I don't approve of this wedding, priest," Adam said condescendingly. Despite his meanness, his voice was smooth and strangely enticing. I could almost forget his physical issues or even the part about him being an illegitimate bastard and imagine him as the perfect groom, if only he weren't so incredibly mean and arrogant.
"I'm only doing this for my father, so why don't we just get it over with?" he added while glancing around dismissively.
I felt a pang of relief when I realized only the priest and I had heard him. My heart sank with self-pity anyway. Despite his disability, he was doing an excellent job of making me feel absolutely zero sympathy toward him.
It seemed like he was actively trying to make me hate him already, and frankly he was succeeding spectacularly.
The priest sighed heavily and shook his head but continued with the ceremony anyway. "Fiona Larson, do you take this man, Adam Blackwood, to be your lawfully wedded husband, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, until eternity?"
"I do," I replied quickly, realizing I'd been holding my breath the entire time.
I just wanted it all to be over as fast as possible. Adam narrowed his eyes at me before rolling them dramatically and looking away with obvious disgust.
Oh no, I thought miserably.
The priest nodded and turned to Adam. "Adam Blackwood, do you take this woman, Fiona Larson, to be your lawfully wedded wife, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, until eternity?"
The auditorium fell completely silent.
Adam remained stoic and stared at me with those piercing blue eyes. I felt like I was personally responsible for every single problem in his entire life as I blushed crimson with shame.
"Adam Blackwood?" the priest called again nervously.
But Adam remained completely unmoving like a statue.
I was too embarrassed to turn around and look at the guests, but I could sense their growing unease. Murmurs filled the room and I wished desperately that the ground would just swallow me whole. I closed my eyes for a moment and prayed for this nightmare to end.
Finally, after what felt like an absolute eternity, Adam spoke.
"I do," he muttered grudgingly with his eyes still fixed on me in what looked like barely concealed hatred.
The priest smiled with obvious relief and beamed at us as if everything was going perfectly according to plan. "Now, by the power vested in me as the priest over this union, I pronounce you husband and wife."
He paused dramatically. "You may kiss your bride."
Everyone watched us expectantly and the tension was suffocating.
I didn't know what to do. Should I go to him for the kiss? Or was he supposed to wheel himself toward me? What was the protocol here?
My confusion turned to absolute shock when Adam expressed his annoyance directly to the priest in front of everyone.
"Oh please! Why would I even do that?" he asked with clear annoyance ringing in his tone. "I'd rather kiss a frog."
I heard gasps of surprise ripple through the guests and my stomach dropped to the floor.
They'd all heard him too.
I was beyond mortified. I wanted to die right there on the spot.
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8.9
Debora went to prison to protect the man she loved, only to end up a paroled convict living under the roof of her abusive foster parents.
When they found her positive pregnancy test from a one-night stand, they threatened to kick her out and send her straight back to a cell.
Just as they were about to report her, the stranger from that dark hotel room suddenly appeared.
He paid her foster parents one million dollars to marry her and take her away.
Debora thought she was finally safe.
But the moment they were alone, he looked at her with pure, venomous hatred.
He didn't want a wife; he wanted a prisoner.
He believed Debora was the ruthless murderer who had destroyed his life in a car crash, and he planned to make her suffocate in her own despair.
He didn't know she was just a scapegoat.
To survive and protect her baby, Debora found a job at a bridal shop, only to run into the real culprit—the man who actually drove the car and framed her.
He was now happily engaged to a wealthy heiress.
They deliberately ruined a priceless wedding gown and blamed it on her.
"Kneel on this floor and apologize, or I'm calling the police to revoke your parole!"
Why did she have to rot in hell for his sins, while the man she married wanted to destroy her?
Just as her trembling knees were about to touch the cold marble floor, the heavy glass doors were violently shoved open.
Her billionaire husband strode in like a force of nature, his eyes locked onto the wealthy couple with a terrifying, destructive rage.
8.7
For three years, I played the perfect, submissive housewife to billionaire Julian Harrison.
But right after an intimate night together, he coldly threw a divorce agreement onto the bed.
"Scarlett landed an hour ago. I need my single status restored to welcome her back."
That same night, I ended up in the emergency room and discovered I was pregnant with twins.
When Julian found out, he didn't show a shred of joy. Instead, he stormed into my hospital room, threw a blank check directly at my face, and ordered me to get rid of them.
He accused me of using the babies as a sick game to trap his assets.
Then, his ruthless lawyer kicked me out of our penthouse, confiscating the jewelry he gifted me and tossing my worn-out notebook onto the floor like garbage.
Standing in the freezing rain, my heart completely died.
I had swallowed my pride, managed his life, and cooked his meals to his exact standards for three years, only to be thrown away the second his first love returned.
But he didn't know that the notebook his lawyer discarded contained the secret formulas of Aura Beauty, a billion-dollar empire I built in the shadows.
I tore his check into pieces, blocked his number, and left in a Maybach sent by my associate.
Logging into my global CEO database, I looked at his company's fragile stock chart with a predatory smile.
The docile Mrs. Harrison died in the rain. It was time to crush his empire.
8.3
Lucas Vane was my ruin. My first love, my greatest regret, and the man who shattered my life before disappearing into the shadows. I thought I had finally escaped his reach, until a desperate debt forced me into a cold, clinical contract with the one man I should have feared more.
Victor Vane. The powerful, terrifying patriarch who doesn't know the girl he just bought was once his son's greatest obsession.
Now, I am trapped between two worlds. I am the wife of the father, bound by a signature and a ring, yet I am pursued by the son who is determined to reclaim what he lost. As the lines between hatred and desire blur, I find myself craving the touch of the man who owns me, and the man who broke me.
Secrets can only stay buried for so long. What happens when the King finds out his Queen belongs to the Prince?
9.0
To save her dying mother, Adaline walked into the Waldorf Astoria to deliver a shirt to her fiancé.
She didn't know her stepsister, June, had swapped her keycard. Adaline stumbled into a pitch-black suite and was brutally assaulted by a stranger in the dark.
The nightmare didn't end there. June paid off the only bone marrow donor for Adaline's mother to flee the city, and stole Adaline's fiancé. Bankrupt and desperate, Adaline was forced to sell herself into a loveless marriage with the ruthless billionaire Ferris Finch just to secure a medical team.
But when Ferris saw the dark, violent bruises covering her body, his eyes filled with absolute disgust.
"You make me sick. Pack up your cheap tricks."
He mocked her, calling her a filthy woman who couldn't even wash her lover's marks off before crawling into his house.
Adaline swallowed her pride and endured his cruel humiliation. When June publicly taunted her about the hotel assault, Adaline finally snapped, ending up handcuffed in a freezing police cell.
She thought she was completely out of moves, waiting to rot in prison while her new husband despised her.
But back at the estate, Ferris had just pulled the hotel's security footage.
Staring at the screen, the arrogant billionaire's face turned completely ashen.
He finally realized that the innocent woman he had destroyed in the dark that night, and the wife he was currently torturing, were the exact same person.
7.9
I went to the City Clerk's office for a routine copy of my marriage license to finalize a trust fund audit. I expected a simple piece of paper, but the clerk's pitying look told me my entire life was a lie.
"The license was never finalized, Ms. Oliver. In the eyes of the state, you are single."
The three-hundred-guest wedding at the Plaza and the Vogue features meant nothing. My husband, Gray Cooley, had intentionally filed the documents with a "procedural defect" so he could discard me without a legal divorce. Moments later, an iCloud invite titled "Our Little Secret" popped up on my screen. It was a photo of my best friend, Brylee, holding a positive pregnancy test at our Hamptons estate.
Gray's text to her was the final blow:
"Happy anniversary, babe. This baby is the best gift. Once the trust unlocks today, we're done with the charade."
I soon discovered they were even stealing my career, reassigning my architectural masterpiece to Brylee while preparing my eviction notice. Gray's mother called me a "barren mule" in a leaked recording, mocking the infertility I suffered after saving Gray's life in a construction accident. I wasn't a wife; I was a three-year placeholder used to secure his inheritance.
How could the man I bled for treat me like a disposable prop? How could my best friend carry his child while pretending to comfort me through my darkest moments? The betrayal burned until it turned into a cold, hard stone of fury.
I didn't cry. Instead, I walked into the penthouse of the Barretts, the Cooleys' most powerful rivals. I signed a marriage contract with Kane Barrett, the man the tabloids called the "Beast of Wall Street."
"I want a wedding," I told his father, my voice steady and lethal. "Bigger than the one I had with Gray."
If they wanted me gone, they would have to watch me become the woman who owns their world.
7.9
Erin woke up in her luxurious Fifth Avenue penthouse, three days after returning from the cold, sterile psychiatric hospital where her husband had locked her away.
On the night of their third anniversary, Crockett Winters came home smelling of his mistress's perfume, expecting his docile wife to serve him.
Instead of playing the obedient fool, Erin calmly exposed the million-dollar diamonds he had just bought for his lover.
Furious at her sudden defiance, Crockett tried to physically intimidate her, pinning her against a wall to reassert his dominance.
When his aggression failed, he threw a brutal divorce agreement on the table.
"Sign it, and you walk away with nothing. You can't survive without me, and you know it."
He sneered, convinced the ironclad prenup would terrify her. He thought her rebellion was just a pathetic, jealous tantrum, a desperate play for his attention while he continued to pamper his mistress.
He truly believed she was just a beautiful canary who would eventually crawl back to her gilded cage in tears.
But Erin didn't cry, and she didn't sign the papers.
Instead, she locked him out of the master suite and pulled out his unlimited Centurion card.
In a single night, she calmly spent ninety million dollars of his money to buy up prime real estate and hidden assets, taking the first step to build an empire that would completely destroy him.