Fake Marriage To The Undercover Boss
Emaline Finley was drowning in massive debt to keep her dying father alive, even enduring a humiliating blind date with an arrogant man just to find a financial lifeline.
But the fatal blow came from her former best friend, Kitty. Kitty, who was already engaged to Emaline's ex-boyfriend, deliberately told Emaline's father that his expensive treatments were bleeding his daughter dry.
Out of extreme guilt, her father threw away his life-saving medication and checked himself out of the hospital to die at home. When Emaline found him, he was coughing up pools of bright red blood, his lungs rapidly collapsing. As the paramedics rushed him away, Kitty called to gloat, mocking Emaline's poverty and telling her to go watch her father die.
Emaline was completely shattered, suffocating under the sheer injustice of it all. She had been betrayed, stripped of her dignity, and was now forced to watch her only parent slip away because of a cruel, spiteful lie.
Just as her world went dark, a wildly wealthy stranger stepped in. Cullen Preston, the mysterious man who had witnessed her humiliating date, paid the astronomical medical bills and brought in the city's top surgeon to pull her father back from death. But his salvation wasn't charity.
"Consider it a dowry."
He bought her father's life, and in exchange, he demanded Emaline as his wife.
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Chapter 5
The doorbell rang at exactly eight in the morning.
Emaline jerked awake on the sofa. She rubbed her gritty eyes, smoothed down her wrinkled shirt, and hurried to the door.
She pulled it open.
A middle-aged man in a pristine white coat stood in the hallway. A younger nurse stood behind him, carrying a heavy silver medical case.
"Ms. Finley?" the man asked. "I am Dr. Miles Ramsey from New York-Presbyterian. I was asked to come evaluate your father."
Emaline's jaw dropped. New York-Presbyterian was one of the top hospitals in the country. They did not do house calls in rundown Brooklyn apartments.
"Please, come in," Emaline said, stepping aside.
Dr. Ramsey walked into the cramped bedroom. He spent forty-five minutes examining Walter, listening to his lungs, and drawing blood. When he finally stepped back into the living room, his face was grim.
"His lungs are failing rapidly," Dr. Ramsey told Emaline in a low voice. "He needs to be admitted immediately for aggressive intravenous therapy. If he stays here, he will not survive the week."
Emaline felt the floor drop out from under her. "How much will the admission cost?"
Dr. Ramsey opened his briefcase and pulled out a clipboard. He handed it to her.
"The initial costs have been covered," Dr. Ramsey said. "He has been enrolled in a specialized clinical trial program. It covers full hospitalization."
Emaline stared at the paperwork. The words 'Fully Funded' were stamped across the top. Her hands began to shake.
She knew there was no clinical trial. This was Cullen.
After Dr. Ramsey and the nurse left to arrange the transport, Emaline pulled out her phone and dialed Cullen's number.
"Who exactly are you?" Emaline demanded the second he answered. "How did you get a doctor from Presbyterian to lie to my face?"
"I told you I have resources," Cullen's voice was smooth, unbothered. "The only thing that matters is whether you are going to accept the help."
Emaline looked through the bedroom door. Walter was sleeping peacefully, the pain lines on his face smoothed out by the medication Dr. Ramsey had given him.
She swallowed her pride. It tasted bitter.
"I need thirty thousand dollars," Emaline said, her voice trembling. "To cover his past debts at the other hospital so they will release his records to Presbyterian."
Silence stretched over the line.
"Done," Cullen said. "But it is a loan. You will sign a promissory note."
Emaline blinked. The demand for an IOU shocked her, but it also grounded her. It made this a transaction. It made it real.
"Fine," Emaline said.
"I am transferring the funds now," Cullen said. "My car is downstairs. Come down. We are going to the hospital."
Emaline pulled the phone away from her ear. A notification popped up on her screen.
Incoming wire transfer: $30,000.00.
Her breath hitched. She walked to the window and looked down at the street.
The dark sedan was parked illegally by the fire hydrant. Cullen was leaning against the rear door, wearing a charcoal gray overcoat. He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto her window. He gave a single nod.
Emaline grabbed her coat. She told Leo to pack a bag for Walter and ran downstairs.
When she pushed through the front doors of the building, Cullen opened the car door for her. He held out his hand.
Emaline hesitated. She looked at his large, clean hand, then placed her fingers in his palm. His grip was warm and firm. A jolt of electricity shot up her arm.
She slid into the leather seat. Cullen got in beside her. The scent of cedarwood and expensive cologne filled the small space.
Emaline pulled a folded piece of notebook paper from her pocket. She handed it to him.
"The IOU," she said. "I signed it."
Cullen took the paper. He did not unfold it. He did not even look at it. He just slid it into the inside pocket of his coat.
"I trust you," Cullen said softly.
The car pulled away from the curb. Emaline stared at his sharp profile.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "You could buy a wife. Why me?"
Cullen turned his head. His dark eyes swept over her face, lingering on her bitten lip.
"Because I want to see what a woman with a spine does when she is finally given a sword," Cullen said.
Emaline's heart slammed against her ribs. She looked away, staring out the window, unable to handle the heat in his gaze.
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9.0
Ashlyn was supposed to be just a fragile college student, selling her rare blood to a vicious crime syndicate enforcer to keep his dying sister alive.
But the dynamic shattered when Alex returned from a two-month disappearance. He stepped into the penthouse covered in dirt and blood, sporting a horrific, jagged knife wound slashed completely across his face.
Knowing exactly how to exploit his insecurities, Ashlyn played the role of the terrified victim to perfection. She screamed, pushed against his chest, and called him a terrifying monster. Humiliated and enraged by her blatant disgust, Alex violently smashed a marble table and kicked her out. He forced her out into a freezing, torrential rainstorm without a coat, vowing to kill her if she ever showed her face again.
What the ruthless enforcer didn't know was that her pathetic, trembling tears were a flawless, calculated lie. She wasn't a helpless, greedy girl. She was a cold-blooded corporate mastermind hiding from a family of elite assassins. She desperately needed his impenetrable penthouse fortress to stay alive, and she knew the only way to secure her place wasn't to ask for it, but to make him beg for her return.
Three days later, his sister's organs began to fail, and the hospital's blood bank ran dry.
"I'll pay you whatever you want. Just get here."
Listening to the desperate, broken voice of the monster over her burner phone, Ashlyn smiled coldly in the dark. The trap had snapped shut, and he had just handed her all the power.
7.6
Jocelyn Yang lived in the grand Turner Mansion, not as a guest, but as a prisoner. Ever since her father's death, the ruthless billionaire Elam Turner forced her to atone for sins her father never committed.
On her nineteenth birthday, a male classmate secretly sent her a diamond necklace. Elam, who had flown back from London overnight, flew into a psychotic, jealous rage at the sight of another man's gift.
He mercilessly crushed the delicate necklace into the marble floor with his custom leather shoe.
"Did you forget what you are?" Elam hissed, dragging her into a pitch-black storage room. "You take gifts from other men behind my back?"
He pinned her to the dusty floorboards and violently assaulted her. The next morning, a wire transfer of $500,000 hit her bank account. He had humiliated her, broken her spirit, and was now casually trying to buy her silence. Later, when a broken bike left her walking miles through a freezing rainstorm, he just shoved scalding tea into her bleeding hands.
"Look at you," he sneered. "You look like a stray dog ruining my floors."
Jocelyn curled up in the cold, her lips bleeding and her heart shattered. She couldn't understand his terrifying obsession. If he hated her so much, why did he refuse to let her go? Why did he look at her with such manic hunger while systematically destroying her life?
Staring at the massive sum of hush money on her phone, a desperate spark of vengeance flared in her chest. Jocelyn wired every single cent back to Elam's account. She picked up her charcoal pencil, vowing to win the upcoming art competition and buy her escape from this monster forever.
8.4
For twenty years, I lived as the adopted daughter of the wealthy Hill family.
But today, they forced me to sign a severance agreement and kicked me out so their precious biological daughter, Malia, could marry my fiancé.
To ruin me completely, they framed me for stealing Malia's engagement bracelet, threatening me with prison.
I calmly exposed the "sapphire" as cheap glass, then rolled up my sleeves to show the reporters my scarred, punctured arms.
For two decades, I wasn't a daughter. I was Malia's living blood and bone marrow bank.
They drained my health to keep her alive, even ordering doctors to ignore my failing organs just so she could attend a gala.
"Take this million dollars and shut your mouth," my adoptive father sneered, throwing a check at my feet.
My ex-fiancé looked at me with disgust, and Malia screamed that I was a crazy, vindictive liar.
They had stolen my life and my health, yet they still looked down on me like I was garbage.
I ripped the check into pieces and threw it in their faces.
Just as they ordered the butler to drag me out, a group of men in black suits shattered the chaos.
The heir of the untouchable Montgomery dynasty stepped through the door, ignoring the Hills' fawning, and handed me a DNA report.
I wasn't a disposable blood bag. I was the long-lost true heiress of old New York money.
And now, I was going to take back everything they stole from me.
9.6
For five years, I was Barron Santana's elite bodyguard and loyal shadow. I stood between him and bullets, giving him my youth and my entire heart.
But last night, the CEO announced his engagement to a flawless socialite on national television.
Heartbroken, I got blackout drunk and ended up crashing on the couch of Cassidy Gross, a billionaire tech CEO who saved me from a bar creep.
When I showed up late to work, Barron locked me in his freezing office. He pinned me against the glass, smelling Cassidy's cologne on my clothes.
"Are you already looking for your next meal ticket?"
He snarled the words, treating me like a cheap whore. When I defended myself, he pulled out a silk handkerchief and wiped his fingers, acting as if my very touch contaminated him.
Then, he coldly ordered his assistant to draft my termination papers.
Five years of risking my life for him, thrown away like garbage just because of his twisted ego.
Devastated, I ran out and collapsed in the hallway, sobbing uncontrollably until a kind coworker gently pulled me into his arms to comfort me.
I didn't know Barron had followed me out.
Seeing me clinging to another man, his legendary control completely shattered, replaced by a dark, violent possessiveness.
But it was too late. I was done playing his obedient dog, and it was time to take Cassidy up on his offer.
8.7
I woke up from a coma in the hospital, universally condemned as the vicious daughter who pushed the beloved fake heiress, Georgina, down the stairs.
My ruthless billionaire brother, Angelo, stood over my bed with cold eyes, ready to destroy me for hurting his precious sister.
But as I looked at him, a terrifying prophecy from my coma flooded my brain. Our entire family was doomed.
In the original timeline, Georgina would team up with corporate rivals to bankrupt the company, frame Angelo, and send him to federal prison, while our parents would abandon me to die miserably.
Lying there, I didn't dare speak. I just desperately cursed my idiot brother in my head.
"This stupid brother is still yelling at me for that fake heiress. He doesn't even know he's going to be framed and sent to prison next month!"
I just wanted to stay quiet, let them ruin themselves, and run away from this toxic family.
But strangely, Angelo didn't strangle me. Instead, his attitude took a shocking turn.
He abruptly fired the driver plotting to kill him, destroyed the abusive fiancé of a family ally, and publicly humiliated Georgina at a high-society gala.
He even shielded me from our abusive parents, declaring to the world that I was the only sister he would ever protect.
I was completely terrified and confused. Why was the tyrant brother suddenly acting like a protective beast?
It wasn't until he flawlessly crushed a massive corporate attack using the exact financial secrets I had just complained about in my mind that a horrifying realization hit me.
He could hear my inner thoughts!
7.1
After the one-night stand with a man who refused to tell her his name, Charlotte would figure out on TV that the man she had s*x with the previous night was the heir to a billionaire empire.
At the same time, Jace Norman-the infamous playboy heir-faces a public scandal that threatens his inheritance. To protect the family empire, his ruthless father forces him into an immediate contract marriage.
And just like that Charlotte would get married to the spoiled, reckless son of the most powerful billionaire in the city.
That One night, Room 55 and Five thousand dollars she desperately needed would change her life forever.
Weeks later, Charlotte discovers she's pregnant.
But before she can process the truth, her manipulative boyfriend claims the child is his and begins blackmailing her.
As their fake marriage becomes dangerously possessive, secrets begin to spiral. An ex-boyfriend demanding money. Jace's jealous college lover is determined to destroy Charlotte. Charlotte's sister is hiding betrayal behind sweet smiles. And a billionaire father who will eliminate anyone to protect the Norman name.
When a forged DNA test claims the baby isn't Jace's, the empire turns on Charlotte.
But the truth is far darker than any of them realize.
Because someone has been orchestrating every lie from the beginning.
And when Jace finally discovers the baby is his...
He will have to choose between his father's empire-
Or the woman carrying his heir.