Escaping The Grasp Of My Billionaire
Five years ago, I was the invisible scholarship charity case at an elite Manhattan prep school, trying to survive in a sea of trust-fund babies.
Arlo Hammond, the untouchable billionaire heir, made sure to completely dismantle my soul.
When his wealthy friends asked if he noticed me, his mocking laughter echoed down the hallway.
"Are you out of your mind? You seriously think I'd be interested in a boring little nerd like her?"
But the moment we were alone, he would corner me in dark alleys, pinning my wrists against brick walls with terrifying, possessive jealousy if my phone even buzzed. He played his twisted games until I was left standing in the rain with my shattered dignity.
Now, I am an Assistant District Attorney. I spent years burying those memories under mountains of legal files.
But tonight, he returned.
When we crossed paths at an exclusive club, he looked at me with the cool detachment he'd give a piece of furniture. In front of a crowd of elites, he coldly declared:
"We have absolutely nothing to do with each other anymore."
Then he walked away to pick up a supermodel, leaving me trembling from the sheer humiliation.
I didn't understand. If I was so worthless to him, why did he still have my birthday tattooed in dark ink on his wrist? Why did he look at me with such raw, painful vulnerability in the shadows?
I stared at my pale reflection in the mirror and made a silent vow.
I am not that pathetic seventeen-year-old anymore, and I will prove to him that I am completely, entirely over him.
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Chapter 4
The tension on the terrace was a physical, suffocating weight. Dawn and Arlo stood locked in a silent, vicious standoff. They were like two wounded animals circling each other in the dark, neither willing to expose their throat, both waiting for the other to strike the fatal blow.
Dawn's heart hammered against her ribs so violently she thought it might crack her sternum. Arlo's dark eyes bored into hers, searching for the weakness he knew was hiding just beneath her icy facade.
Suddenly, the heavy glass door leading back into the club was shoved open.
The loud, chaotic blast of jazz music and drunken laughter spilled out onto the quiet terrace, instantly shattering the heavy silence between them.
"I'm telling you, the market is going to crash before Q3!" a loud, slurred voice boomed.
Three men in expensive suits, their ties loosened and faces flushed with alcohol, stumbled onto the decking. They were old classmates, guys who worked on Wall Street and thought they owned the world.
The moment they spotted the two figures standing in the dark corner, their boisterous laughter died in their throats. The air was so thick with unresolved tension that even the drunkest among them could feel it.
Arlo reacted with terrifying speed.
The moment the door opened, the dangerous, predatory aura surrounding him vanished. He took a swift half-step back, instantly putting a socially acceptable distance between him and Dawn. He turned his head toward the intruders.
In the blink of an eye, the intense, brooding man was gone. In his place stood the flawless, untouchable heir to the Hammond empire. He pasted a polite, utterly fake smile onto his face-the kind of smile he used to charm investors and dismiss peasants.
One of the men, emboldened by the liquid courage in his veins, pointed a finger at them. "Hey, Arlo! Catching up with old classmates in the dark?" he slurred, a teasing grin on his face.
Arlo didn't even glance back at Dawn. His expression remained smooth, carved from marble. His voice, when he spoke, was so cold it could have frozen the Hudson River.
"I'm not catching up," Arlo said smoothly, his tone dismissive and flat. "We have absolutely nothing to do with each other anymore."
The words were spoken casually, but they hit Dawn like a rusty, serrated blade dragging across her bare skin.
We have absolutely nothing to do with each other anymore.
All the blood drained from Dawn's face in an instant. Her skin turned an ashen, sickly white. The brutal public dismissal, the casual way he erased their entire history in front of an audience, was a level of cruelty she hadn't prepared for.
But she was an Assistant District Attorney. She dealt with hostile witnesses and aggressive defense lawyers every day. She knew how to hold her ground. She locked her knees, forcing her spine to remain perfectly straight. She stared straight ahead, refusing to let the men see the devastating impact his words had on her.
Arlo casually lifted his left arm, checking the heavy, diamond-encrusted Patek Philippe watch on his exposed wrist. It was a timepiece that cost more than the apartment Dawn grew up in.
He tapped the face of the watch with his index finger. He gave the three men a brief, dismissive nod. "Excuse me, gentlemen."
He turned to walk away. But as he passed by Dawn, his shoulder brushing dangerously close to hers, he deliberately raised his voice just enough to ensure the entire terrace could hear his next words.
"I have to go downstairs. I'm picking up Anabel Ferrell, and she hates being kept waiting."
The name dropped like a bomb.
The three men gasped audibly. "Anabel Ferrell? The Victoria's Secret model?" one of them choked out, his eyes wide with disbelief and envy.
Anabel Ferrell. The current 'It Girl' of the fashion world. A woman whose face was plastered on billboards across Times Square. A woman who represented the absolute pinnacle of beauty, wealth, and status. She was everything Dawn was not.
Arlo didn't offer a single word of confirmation. He didn't need to. He didn't spare Dawn a single backward glance. He simply walked past her, his long strides carrying him toward the glass door. He pulled it open and disappeared into the blinding lights and deafening noise of the club, leaving her behind in the dark.
The moment the door clicked shut, severing him from her sight, the adrenaline that had been keeping Dawn upright completely evaporated.
Her body gave out.
The stress, the humiliation, and the sheer emotional trauma of the last ten minutes culminated in a violent physical rebellion. Her stomach, which had been tight with anxiety all night, cramped with an agonizing, tearing pain.
It felt as though someone had reached inside her abdomen and twisted her organs into a tight knot.
Dawn gasped, a choked, wet sound escaping her lips. She couldn't maintain her posture anymore. She bent double, her arms wrapping tightly around her midsection as she squeezed her eyes shut against the blinding pain. Her right hand shot out blindly, her fingers wrapping around the freezing metal railing in a desperate attempt to keep herself from collapsing onto the wooden floor.
A cold, clammy sweat broke out across her forehead. The fine hairs at her temples stuck to her skin. She couldn't breathe. The pain was all-consuming.
"Dawn!"
The glass door flew open again. Allyson came rushing out, her heels clicking frantically against the wood. She had been looking for Dawn inside and had seen Arlo leave the terrace alone.
Allyson took one look at Dawn's hunched, trembling form and sprinted forward. She threw her arms around Dawn's shoulders, taking the brunt of her weight just as Dawn's knees began to buckle.
"Oh my god, Dawn. Is it your stomach? Is it the nervous cramps again?" Allyson asked, her voice shrill with panic. "Do we need to go to the ER?"
Dawn couldn't speak. The pain robbed her of her voice. She could only manage a weak, jerky shake of her head, her forehead resting against Allyson's designer shoulder.
"Okay, okay. Lean on me," Allyson instructed, her arm wrapping firmly around Dawn's waist. She began to guide her away from the railing, steering her toward a side door that led to the club's private areas. "I'm getting you out of here. We're going to the VIP lounge. I'll get them to make you a hot peppermint tea. Just breathe, Dawn. Just breathe."
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7.1
For six years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to billionaire Hartwell Ware, enduring his coldness because I thought my love could eventually thaw his heart.
Then, my friend sent me a photo. Hartwell was at the airport, tenderly holding the waist of his first love, Eveline Craig.
He came home smelling of her synthetic rose perfume, accused me of stalking him, and coldly demanded a divorce.
His lawyer handed me a thick settlement agreement. It offered astronomical alimony and luxury properties, but it came with a humiliating ten-page non-disclosure agreement.
He wanted to buy my silence. He wanted to strip me of my rights to our son and gag me permanently, just so he could parade his new life with Eveline without any PR backlash.
Even now, he still thought I was a gold digger who had orchestrated a media scandal to trap him into marriage.
I stared at the man I had worshipped for two thousand days. My six years of desperate devotion had been nothing but a humiliating, one-sided delusion.
Hope was finally dead, and with it, my tears had completely dried up.
He expected me to cry, to beg, to negotiate for more millions.
Instead, I snatched the pen, crossed out the massive alimony, and signed my name on the dotted line.
"I am taking the basic child support, and not a single red cent more."
Leaving my five-carat diamond ring on the marble table, I walked out the door with nothing but my old suitcase.
9.6
I was only three and a half years old, living in a damp basement and beaten daily by Enoch Pruitt with a heavy leather whip.
"Get up, you useless waste of space!"
He always told me I was a stray he had picked out of the garbage.
But during one brutal beating that nearly stopped my heart, time froze, and a glowing figure called The Chronicler appeared.
"You are not an abandoned orphan, Clare. You carry the blood of the highest gods."
He revealed that I was the stolen daughter of the ultra-wealthy Barrett family.
Then, he showed me the horrific ending of my previous life.
I had died right here on this bloody dirt floor.
My real parents and three brothers went completely insane with grief, turning into ruthless monsters who destroyed themselves and the entire world to avenge me.
Meanwhile, the Pruitt family kept torturing me, locking me in a woodshed and feeding me moldy bread.
The memory of my bones breaking and my real mother's agonizing screams crushed my chest.
Why did I have to suffer like an animal while my true family tore the world apart looking for me?
This time, I refused to die in the mud.
I accepted my divine blood, my eyes glowing gold as I summoned a bolt of purple lightning to strike my abuser.
I just needed to survive the night.
Because my real father's heavily armed convoy was already tearing up the mountain, ready to burn this hell to the ground.
8.4
After being kidnapped for years and finally rescued, five-year-old Izzy thought she was going home to her wealthy biological family.
But when the social worker brought her to the freezing bus station, her biological father, Conrad, didn't even get out of his Mercedes. He took one look at her tangled hair and worn-out shoes, his lip curling in disgust.
"I have a real family now. I'm not disrupting my life for this."
He drove away, leaving her choking on his exhaust fumes. When her rough, grease-stained uncle Bryan forcefully brought her to the family mansion, things only got worse. Her biological mother refused to touch her, complaining that she smelled like a dumpster. Her half-sister Katelynn pushed her to the ground, making her bleed, and framed her for stealing. Instead of helping, Conrad roared at Izzy, calling her a wild animal and threatening to throw her back onto the streets.
Izzy stood there shivering in her oversized rags, watching them stand together in a perfect, unbroken circle. She didn't understand why her own blood looked at her like she was a monster, or why they were so eager to throw a traumatized child back into the dark.
But what her wealthy family didn't know was that Izzy had a secret: she could hear plants talking. And the greenhouse orchids were screaming at their cruelty. So, she climbed onto their expensive coffee table, pointed at her mechanic uncle, and made her choice.
"I don't want Conrad to be my daddy. I want Uncle Bryan."
She walked out of that loveless mansion forever, ready to follow the whispers of an old apple tree in her new backyard—a tree that was about to guide her to a buried fortune of gold.
8.8
I've always been the unwanted child-the invisible one. The rebel no one ever tried to understand.
And yet, I never resented my perfect, beloved sister. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy.
But one cruel twist of fate-and a devastating betrayal by someone I trusted-changed everything.
I woke up in a stranger's bed, losing the one thing I had guarded so carefully. Back then, I thought that was my greatest loss.
I was wrong.
Because not long after, my sister introduced me to her fiancé.
And the man standing in front of me... was the same stranger from that night.
Now he haunts me-day and night, in my dreams and in my waking hours. And just when I start to believe the nightmare might finally fade with the dawn, Alan walks back into my life.
This time, he has no intention of letting me forget.
Not the insult I dealt him.
...or that one unforgettable night.
9.3
I was the rightful heir to the Valenzuela estate, but my aunt and cousin treated me worse than a stray dog.
On a freezing rainy night, they forged documents to strip me of my trust fund and violently ordered their bodyguards to throw me out.
My cousin snatched the rosewood urn containing my mother's ashes. She smashed it onto the marble floor and maliciously ground the white powder under her stiletto heel.
When Aidan, the elderly butler who had protected me since I was a baby, tried to shield me from their assassins in the storm, he was stabbed in the back.
His hot blood poured over my hands as he died in the muddy puddle, while my aunt's men laughed and raised their blades to finish me off.
They thought I was just a nameless orphan they could easily erase.
The next day, they went to the press, branding me a degenerate thief who ran away, happily preparing to parade around at my grandfather's charity gala using my stolen wealth.
But they didn't know I was rescued from the rain by the most ruthless billionaire in New York, a man willing to burn the city down to protect me.
Staring at my pale reflection in the penthouse mirror, I took a pair of heavy silver scissors and chopped off my long hair.
"From today on, the weak girl is dead. I am Evelena Valenzuela, and I am going to make them bleed for every single thing they took."
8.9
I was married to billionaire Alessandro Dorsey for four years. The only person in his cold, elite family who truly cared for me was his grandfather.
But when his grandfather suddenly passed away, my husband dragged me to the freshly dug grave and threw a newspaper in my face. The headline blamed me for his death.
Before I could process the grief, Alessandro forced me to my knees in front of dozens of flashing cameras.
"Admit your negligence, or you will never see the sun rise in this city again."
He threatened to destroy my own family if I didn't publicly apologize for a crime I didn't commit. Back at the estate, his mother falsely accused me of stealing a priceless family heirloom. I begged my husband to believe me, but he just looked at me with disgust, froze all my personal bank accounts, and handed me a divorce agreement. Sign it, forfeit everything, and erase my identity, or go to prison.
I was stripped of my dignity, my money, and the man I loved. I fled New York with nothing, only to discover I was pregnant with his triplets. For years, the injustice burned in my chest. How could the man who once meant safety throw me to the wolves without a second thought?
Five years later, I stepped back into the city with my three children. This time, I wasn't the broken woman he discarded, but a powerful gemologist ready to tear down his empire.