Cheated On Me? I Married a Tycoon
I spent three years building my husband, Axel Farrell, into Silicon Valley's ultimate "family man." As his lead PR strategist, I carefully managed his public image, making sure the world saw him as a perfect, devoted husband while I worked in the shadows of our estate.
The illusion shattered when he came home one night smelling of sandalwood and roses, with three deep fingernail scratches carved into his back. When I tried to check his phone, the passcode we had used for years-our wedding anniversary-had been changed.
The betrayal got worse the next morning when his mother called me a "defective product" and tried to force me into a fertility clinic. Axel didn't defend me; instead, he shoved me against a marble bar at a public gala to protect his mistress in front of the world's elite. By the time I tried to leave, Axel had frozen my bank accounts and filed a forged legal petition to have me declared mentally incompetent.
He planned to have me legally kidnapped and locked in a private psychiatric ward just to stop me from filing for divorce. He even blocked every major law firm in the city from taking my case, leaving me with no money, no identity, and no one to turn to.
I couldn't understand how the man who "saved" me from the mud years ago could be the same monster now trying to legally erase my existence. Was our entire marriage just a grooming process to exploit my genius for his billion-dollar empire?
As the deadline for my forced commitment approached, I stopped crying and opened my laptop. I leaked the video of his affair to every tech journalist in the country, watching his stock price crash in real-time.
"Axel thinks starving me out will make me crawl back to him," I whispered as I walked into the headquarters of his biggest rival.
"But he forgot that the most valuable part of his company is in my head."
I was no longer the abandoned wife; I was the one who was going to take his throne and burn it to the ground.
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Chapter 7
Ayla forced her breathing to steady. She looked up into the man's terrifyingly calm eyes.
"I'm reading public SEC filings," Ayla said, her voice dripping with ice. "I'm not a hacker."
Cassius let out a low, rough chuckle. He opened his mouth to speak, but a loud crash at the entrance of the lounge cut him off.
Two massive bouncers were shoved violently aside.
Axel stormed into the speakeasy, radiating pure, unhinged rage. Kristal trailed closely behind him, a smug smile plastered on her face.
Axel's eyes swept the dark room and instantly locked onto Ayla sitting at the bar.
He'd been forced to fly to New York for an emergency board meeting about the impending PR disaster, and his security team, leveraging Farrell tech with the city's surveillance network, had flagged her face entering the building.
Axel marched across the room, his heavy footsteps echoing over the jazz music.
He lunged forward and grabbed Ayla's wrist. His fingers dug into her fragile bones with brutal, bruising force.
"Is this how low you've sunk?" Axel spat, his face inches from hers. "Begging for drinks from random men in a basement?"
Ayla gritted her teeth against the pain shooting up her arm. She tried to yank her hand back, but his grip was like iron.
"Let go of me," Ayla hissed. "Tracking my location is a felony."
Kristal stepped up next to Axel, crossing her arms. "We had to cancel three investor calls to hunt you down, Ayla," she sneered. "Cut off from the Farrell money for one day and you're already selling yourself for a glass of cheap liquor."
The surrounding patrons turned their heads, watching the drama unfold. But recognizing Axel Farrell, no one dared to intervene.
Axel reached into his jacket, pulled out a blank check, and slammed it onto the bar counter.
"Cash out whatever this guy paid for her," Axel barked at the bartender. "I don't want his dirty money touching my wife."
Standing just inches away in the shadows, Cassius's eyes went completely dead. The temperature around him seemed to drop ten degrees.
Axel didn't even notice him. He yanked Ayla's arm violently, trying to drag her off the barstool.
"You're coming with me to a psychiatric ward," Axel snarled. "You've completely lost your mind."
Ayla's wrist burned with pain. She looked at the glass of untouched bourbon sitting on the bar.
Without a second of hesitation, Ayla grabbed the glass with her free hand.
She twisted her body and threw the entire glass of hard liquor directly into Axel's face.
The alcohol splashed directly into his open eyes.
Axel let out a howl of agony. His hands flew to his face, instantly releasing Ayla's wrist.
Kristal shrieked, frantically digging into her purse for a tissue.
Axel's face was twisted in pure, blind fury. He wiped his eyes, raised his right hand high into the air, and swung it down with all his strength, aiming a brutal slap right at Ayla's face.
Ayla didn't blink. She stood her ground, ready to take the hit to secure assault charges.
The slap never landed.
Axel's wrist stopped dead in mid-air.
A massive hand clamped around Axel's forearm like a steel vice.
Cassius stepped out of the shadows, his towering frame completely shielding Ayla from Axel.
Cassius squeezed his hand. The sickening sound of bone grinding against bone echoed in the quiet bar.
Axel gasped, his knees buckling slightly as cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
Cassius looked down at Axel with the absolute boredom of a god looking at an insect.
"In this lounge," Cassius said, his voice a lethal, quiet rasp, "no one touches a lady on my tab."
"Who the fuck are you?!" Axel screamed, his face pale with pain. "Do you know who I am? I'll destroy you!"
Behind Cassius, two men in tailored black suits stepped forward. As they moved, their jackets shifted, revealing the distinct, bulky outlines of military-grade tactical holsters strapped to their ribs.
Axel's bodyguards, who had just rushed in, froze instantly. They recognized the hardware. This wasn't corporate security. This was a death squad.
Cassius released Axel's arm with a flick of his wrist, as if discarding a piece of trash.
Cassius reached into his pocket, pulled out a pristine white silk handkerchief, and slowly wiped his fingers. He dropped the silk onto the floor right at Axel's feet.
"Scram," Cassius ordered. One word. Absolute dominance.
Axel clutched his bruised wrist. He looked at the armed men, then at Cassius. The humiliation burned his face red, but the primal fear in his gut forced him to step back.
He grabbed Kristal's arm and practically ran out of the lounge.
Ayla stood frozen, staring at the broad, muscular back of the man who had just humiliated the most powerful tech CEO in California. Her heart was beating frantically against her ribs.
Cassius turned around. He looked down at the angry red handprint blooming on Ayla's wrist.
His dark eyes flicked up to meet hers.
"Your taste in men," Cassius murmured, his lips curling into a mocking smirk, "is truly tragic."
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9.7
Luna Elena Frost was never chosen, only assigned.
Bound to Alpha Alaric Ashbourne through a cold contractual marriage, she endures three years as a Luna in name only. He never comes home, never defends her, and never looks at her, while his heart belongs to another woman.
At his grandmother's funeral, Alaric publicly dissolves their marriage, humiliating Elena before the entire pack. In that moment, she finally understands the truth. She was never wanted.
But the Moon has not abandoned her.
A forgotten night resurfaces. Her long-silent wolf begins to awaken. And secrets buried within her bloodline start to surface, drawing danger from every direction.
Cast out by the pack that once used her, Elena must flee, survive, and uncover her true power.
Only then does the Alpha realize his mistake.
By the time he turns back in regret, the Luna he rejected may already be gone forever.
8.9
Sienna Jones only wanted a one week escape in Miami but woke up one morning legally married to a stranger who happens to be Eric Macmillan, a British Billionaire heir.
Before Sienna can process the disaster she accidentally signed up for, the internet has crowned her the mystery wife of a billionaire.
Now, stuck navigating lawyers, paparazzi, angry parents, and a marriage they never meant to happen, can Sienna and Eric keep things civil until they quietly annul it?
7.6
I spent three years as the hidden mistress of Wall Street tyrant Damon Vaughn. Our no-strings arrangement meant I was his to command, a secret he kept locked away in the dark.
Then I saw the Instagram post. It was Damon, raising a champagne glass with his perfect high-society fiancée, the caption hinting that wedding bells were just around the corner.
I ended it that night, leaving his black card on his nightstand and blocking his number for good. But a man like Damon doesn't accept being told no. He retaliated by buying the entire building my tech startup was in. He cornered me on the street, slamming his fist into my car's hood, his face a mask of terrifying rage.
He was a possessive monster, planning his perfect marriage while refusing to release me from my cage. The humiliation of being his disposable secret burned hotter than my anger.
To finally break him, I lied about having a blind date. But the lie became a terrifying reality when my mother forced me into that exact date. Now, Damon has kidnapped me, and as he shoves me out of his car in front of the restaurant, his voice is a low, dangerous whisper meant only for me.
"Remember who you belong to."
7.8
I was Grayson Warren’s "broken doll," a disgraced socialite kept on a short leash to pay off my family’s debts. To the world, I was a fragile liability; to Grayson, I was a pet he could humiliate for sport, forcing me to play the role of a mentally unstable girl while I secretly gathered evidence against his empire.
The cruelty peaked when Grayson forced me to break three years of sobriety in front of his investors, mocking my struggle before making me kneel on a golf course to scrub his shoes. He treated my life like a game, literally betting my sanity against a corporate board seat while he soft-launched a new relationship with a high-profile PR queen.
When the pressure triggered a massive panic attack, Grayson abandoned me in a private clinic just so he wouldn't miss a dinner reservation. Even my own mother turned against me, threatening to leak my psychiatric records and brand me a "violent delusional" if I didn't beg for Grayson’s forgiveness. I was trapped between a man who owned my debt and a mother who valued her estate over my daughter’s life.
I realized then that they would never let me go; they would only break me until there was nothing left. They thought they had erased my soul, but they forgot I was the only witness to the night my true love, Felix, was murdered. I was done being the victim.
I faked a suicide jump off the Queensboro Bridge to go off the grid, then crashed Grayson’s elite gala in a dress that signaled his downfall. Just as Grayson tried to physically crush me one last time, the room went silent. Felix Law, the man the world thought was dead for three years, walked out of the shadows with a federal warrant in his hand.
"Take your hands off her, Warren."
The game didn't just change; it ended. Felix was back from the dead, and this time, we were burning the empire to the ground together.
7.2
For three years, I was imprisoned by Anderson Hopper, the monster who forced me to watch my fiancé, Kendall, plummet into a freezing river.
But when I saw the morning news, I realized Kendall wasn't dead. He had returned as Eben Gill, a ruthless tech billionaire.
I risked my life to escape and find him, only to be met with eyes full of absolute hatred.
He publicly humiliated me, dragged me to the exact bridge where he "died," and sneered at the C-section scar on my stomach.
"Anderson Hopper's bastard," he spat, completely unaware that the baby was actually his—the very child Anderson had murdered in the operating room to break me.
To make matters worse, Anderson used Kendall's dying mother as a hostage to force me back into my cage.
I knelt on the freezing asphalt, begging the man I loved to just visit his mother, while he coldly ordered his driver to run me over.
I had lost my baby, my freedom, and my dignity, all to protect him from Anderson's blackmail. Why was I the one being tortured and treated like a traitor?
"Don't think your little kneeling stunt earned you my forgiveness."
He whispered those cruel words before walking away without looking back.
Staring at his cold, retreating figure, the last shred of my love finally turned to ash.
That night, under the cover of a torrential storm, I bypassed the estate's laser grids and walked out into the dark.
7.2
Elmore Thomas rushed into the emergency room, clutching his feverish seven-year-old son, Buddy, tightly to his chest.
When the privacy curtain was pulled back, the air in Elmore's lungs vanished. The attending physician standing under the harsh lights was his wife, Kendal—the woman everyone believed had burned to death eight years ago.
But there was no tearful reunion. Kendal looked at him, and her eyes froze into impenetrable ice. She treated him like a biohazard, strictly referring to him as the family member.
Worse, she didn't recognize Buddy. She comforted their crying son with the same gentle warmth she used to reserve for Elmore, completely unaware she was soothing the baby she thought had died.
Days later, Elmore watched from the shadows as she picked up another boy outside a prep school, her left hand flashing a massive diamond engagement ring.
When his butler accidentally recognized her, Kendal shielded her new stepson with pure disgust in her eyes.
"Tell that psychopath to sign the divorce papers immediately. I have a new family now."
The words 'new family' echoed in Elmore's skull, tearing him apart. For eight years, he had lived in a hell of guilt and madness, raising their son in the shadow of her ghost. How could she just erase their past? How could she give her tender smiles to a stranger and look at him with absolute revulsion?
Standing in a luxury ballroom, Elmore squeezed his hand until his crystal champagne flute shattered, thick blood dripping onto the rug. The murderous obsession in his dark eyes returned as he called his lawyer.
"Freeze her divorce application. Use every dirty trick in the book. She isn't leaving."