Flash Marriage To My Mysterious Paralyzed Husband
I sat at a table for two in the center of Le Coucou, clutching a gift box that had cost me two months of savings. It was our three-year anniversary, and I was waiting for Gavin to finally ask the big question.
But when the heavy oak doors opened, Gavin didn't walk toward me with a ring. He walked in with a polished blonde heiress tucked under his arm, her hand resting protectively over a small baby bump.
"This is Tiffany Stone. My fiancée," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. He didn't apologize for being late or for the three years we'd spent together. Instead, he pulled out a checkbook, scribbled a number, and slid a ten-thousand-dollar check across the white tablecloth.
"Consider it severance for your time," he added, as Tiffany mocked my cheap drugstore dress. "Don't contact me again. Tiffany doesn't need the stress." I was the entertainment for the entire restaurant—the pathetic girl dumped for a better model. By the time I walked out into the rain, I had lost my boyfriend, my home, and the funding for my secret medical research project.
I was an orphan with no safety net, facing an eviction notice and a ruined career. I had given Gavin everything, and he had discarded me like a broken tool. The injustice burned in my chest, a hot, sharp rage that replaced my tears.
Desperate and freezing, I ducked into a coffee shop where I met Colton Bentley, a reclusive billionaire in a wheelchair. After I defended him from a cruel date, he offered me a contract: a marriage of convenience and a seven-figure payment to act as his shield. I signed the papers that night, ready to use his wealth to rebuild my life. But as I watched my new husband navigate his penthouse, I noticed his "paralyzed" legs tense with a strength that shouldn't exist.
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Chapter 6
The car crossed the bridge, leaving the glittering skyline of Manhattan behind for the equally glittering, but more secluded, towers of the Upper East Side.
A phone rang. Not Clarice's.
Colton reached into his jacket pocket. The screen lit up. Grandmother.
He answered, pressing the speaker button.
"Colton," an imperious voice barked. It sounded like old money and steel. "Where are you? The gala starts in an hour. You need to meet the oil heiress."
Clarice's eyes widened. She looked at Colton. This was the "unwelcome social obligation" she was hired to prevent.
"I'm not coming, Grandmother," Colton said. His tone was bored. "I'm married."
Silence. Then, a sound like a cane hitting a wooden floor. Hard.
"You did what? With who? Which family?"
Colton glanced at Clarice. "Her name is Clarice. She's a good girl. You'll like her."
"I will be the judge of that," the old woman snapped. "Bring her to me. Tonight. If I don't like her, the marriage is annulled before the ink is dry."
The line went dead.
Clarice felt a wave of anxiety. She looked at Colton and typed on her phone: Your grandmother... she sounds intense. Is this part of my job?
"She likes to think so," Colton said. "She's just loud. Our story is simple: we met, it was a whirlwind romance, we eloped. You are deeply in love with me. Your silence is due to you being shy and overwhelmed. If she thinks we are happy, she will back off."
Pretend we're in love, Clarice repeated in her head. She gave a short, sharp nod. Okay. I can act.
She typed again: But she said "tonight." We're going now?
Colton shook his head. "I called Sterling while you were changing. Grandmother's charity gala runs until midnight. We'll go tomorrow evening. It gives you time to prepare—and me time to make sure the guest list is properly vetted."
He paused, then added, "She won't like being kept waiting. But she'll dislike a poorly presented wife even more. Tonight, we eat. Tomorrow, we shop. Then we face the dragon."
Clarice nodded, relieved.
"Where does she live?" she typed.
"The Bentley Estate. Long Island."
Clarice exhaled. So much for the 'modest means' narrative.
In the front seat, Ford bit his lip to keep from laughing.
The car slowed, pulling into the private, circular driveway of a towering pre-war apartment building with a doorman who looked like a retired secret agent.
Colton caught her wide-eyed stare. "My grandmother believes I live in a rundown walk-up. This apartment is off the family's books. One of the few places I have any privacy."
He unbuckled his seatbelt. "We go up. You change. Then we face the dragon."
"They will eat you alive," Clarice thought, looking at her simple polyester dress.
"I'm not very tasty," Colton said dryly, as if reading her mind. He pushed a button, and the ramp deployed.
Clarice rushed to his side, standing by as he wheeled himself out.
"Just... don't listen to them," he murmured as they headed for the entrance.
She walked beside his chair into the marble-floored lobby.
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7.3
I found out my husband of three years had cheated on me and his mistress is the one who told me-because he didn't have the balls to do it himself.
I move out and get a new apartment, a job as a bartender, and try to move on with a broken heart. I wonder where it all went wrong, if I hadn't been enough for him, if I'd been stupid for marrying him in the first place.
I'm at work one night when he walks inside-the most beautiful man I've ever seen. He sits at the bar and a forest fire burns between us. I was depressed the moment before he entered, but the second I look at his blue eyes, I forget the dumpster fire that my life has become. I invite him back to my place and it's the most passionate night of my life. I expect to never see him again.
I just want him as an anti-depressant-but he wants me all to himself. I just got my heart ripped out of my chest so I want something easy and no-strings-attached, but he wants all the strings because he's hooked.
I don't get much of a say in the matter, and that's not surprising when I learn why-because he's the Butcher. The crime lord of all crime lords, the boss that overshadows all of Paris, that makes everyone abide by his rules-or pay.
And now I'm his.
7.6
The heavy prison gates clanged shut, ending three years. I scanned the empty lot for Julian, my fiancé. Deserted.
Biting December wind my only welcome. Calls to Julian, father, mother: unanswered/disconnected.
Shivering, Julian's tracker showed an unfamiliar Long Island estate. A freezing cab left me penniless; I walked through the blizzard. Through a mansion window, I saw Julian, my stepsister Clara, a small boy—a perfect family. Julian, who hated children, doted on him, and Clara wore *my* engagement ring.
I overheard Julian's call: he, my father, conspired to frame me for Clara’s medical error, saving their company and future. My family hadn't just abandoned me; they plotted my destruction.
A delayed text from Julian popped up, lying about a "cross-border meeting," promising to pick me up tomorrow. Despair vanished, replaced by a cold, terrifying smile. Typing "Understood," I turned from their stolen life, walking into the blizzard, fueled by burning rage.
9.2
Nica caught her boyfriend, Chris, and her best friend, Ella, in a shocking betrayal. Chris was kissing Ella while caressing her close, and Ella only smirked at Nica as if she had won. Nica got pissed off and swore she would not let their betrayal go unpunished. What happens next? Read the story and find out for yourself.
8.3
Alena landed at JFK, eager to call her fiancé of three years.
But a sudden message from her best friend shattered her world: a high-resolution photo of Darrin passionately kissing another woman. The woman was Katrina, her older sister.
Alena rushed to the grand ballroom and confronted them in front of New York's elite. Instead of an apology, her own mother slapped her across the face.
"You jealous, spiteful girl. Trying to ruin your sister's happiness because you can't handle your own failures."
Darrin coldly wrapped a protective arm around Katrina. The nightmare worsened when they ambushed Alena at her apartment, demanding she sign an NDA to cover up the affair and save their family's failing business. If she refused, her father threatened to tell her frail grandfather the truth, knowing the shock would trigger a fatal heart attack.
Alena was suffocated by the sheer magnitude of the betrayal. Her family was weaponizing the only person who truly loved her, treating her like a disposable pawn to protect the sister who stole her life. How could her own flesh and blood be so sickeningly cruel?
Cornered and entirely out of options, Alena pulled a matte-black business card from her pocket.
It belonged to Andrew Spencer, the ruthless billionaire who had rescued her from the freezing rain, and the apex predator Darrin feared most. He had offered her a transactional marriage. If her family wanted to destroy her, she would become their worst nightmare. She picked up her phone and dialed his number.
8.0
My wedding was tomorrow. I was a crisis counselor who had finally found peace with my loving fiancé, Dexter, and my best friend, Barbara.
A late-night call about a forced marriage led me to a hotel penthouse, where I found them naked in bed together.
It was all a cruel, three-year "savior game." They were bored heirs, and I was their project. They destroyed my career, caused me to lose our baby, and put my mother in the hospital.
They forced me to be a bridesmaid at their wedding-the one that should have been mine.
In front of hundreds of guests, they exposed my traumatic past and then tried to marry me off to a drunken stranger as a joke.
As I stood there, broken, a text from Barbara arrived.
"Your mother saw the livestream. She had a heart attack. She's not going to make it."
With nothing left, I ran to the 20th-floor window and jumped. They thought they had erased me. But my death was just the beginning.
9.5
For nine years, I poured my soul into proving I was worthy of my wealthy boyfriend, Clayton Wright. I endured his endless, humiliating "tests," sacrificing everything for a place in his world.
But at our engagement party, the final test was revealed. He stood by as his ex-girlfriend, Anjelica, framed me for shattering a priceless family heirloom.
"You manipulative bitch!" he snarled, slapping me across the face. He then ordered his bodyguard to force me to my knees, grinding them into the sharp, broken fragments of the watch.
As I bled on the floor, he pulled out his phone and gave a single command: demolish my childhood home, the last piece I had of my deceased father.
He destroyed my past and my dignity, yet minutes later, my phone buzzed with a message from him.
"The engagement is just for show. I'll still marry you. You're my destiny."
That night, clutching the last of my father's life insurance, I booked a one-way ticket and vanished. He thought he had finally broken his little project, but he had just unleashed a woman with nothing left to lose.