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 9
The boutique on Fifth Avenue was quiet the next day. It smelled like money-vanilla and new leather.
Clarice walked in, pushed by Sterling in a tasteful transport chair while Colton followed in his own, feeling like she was going to break something just by breathing.
The manager rushed over. She was a tall woman with severe glasses. She looked at Colton, then at Clarice.
She didn't sneer. She smiled warmly.
"Mr. Bentley! So good to see you."
"Hi," Colton said. He gestured with his head toward Clarice. "We need a wardrobe. For my wife."
The manager nodded. She knew the code. Wife meant a full seasonal collection. Mr. Bentley meant put it on the family account but send the receipts to his private office.
"Right this way," the manager said to Clarice. "We have a private suite ready for you."
She led Clarice to a room filled with stunning clothes. Clarice touched a pale blue silk dress. It felt like water.
She looked at the price tag hidden in the seam. Her heart stopped. It was more than her annual salary at her old job.
She looked at the manager and shook her head, then pointed at a simple, much less expensive-looking rack of blouses.
"Nonsense," the manager said kindly but firmly. "Mr. Bentley's instructions were clear. The best of everything."
She went into the changing room.
Colton sat on a velvet sofa. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The moment they were off, his eyes were sharp, missing nothing as he watched the reflection of the changing room door in a nearby mirror.
Clarice stepped out.
The dress fit her like a second skin. It hugged her waist and flowed to her knees. The blue made her eyes look huge.
She stood in front of the mirror. She had never looked like this. She looked... powerful.
She turned to Colton, a questioning look on her face.
He put his glasses back on before turning his head toward her. "I know you can't see it," she typed on her phone, her tone self-deprecating. "But... I feel ridiculous."
Colton wheeled his chair over to her.
He stopped inches from her. He reached out, his hands hovering for a second before settling on her shoulders. His thumbs brushed her collarbone.
"I can feel it," he said. His voice dropped an octave. "You are beautiful."
Clarice's breath hitched. His hands were warm. The heat seeped through the silk.
Colton reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small, foil-wrapped caramel. He had swiped it from the reception desk.
He peeled it. "Open."
Clarice parted her lips. He placed the candy on her tongue.
"Reward," he said. "For surviving the day."
The sugar melted on her tongue, sweet and rich. Clarice felt a tear slide down her cheek. It was the first kind thing that had happened to her in a nightmare of a day.
She quickly wiped it away and typed: Thank you.
At the register, Clarice watched as the bill climbed into the six figures. She felt sick.
"It's handled," Sterling said, materializing at her side and tapping his card.
"Points?" Clarice typed to Colton as they left the store. "You shop for women's clothes often?"
Colton put his glasses back on. "Ex-girlfriends," he said.
Clarice felt a sharp pinch in her chest. Jealousy. She pushed it down. She had no right to be jealous. This was a contract.
But as she walked down Fifth Avenue, next to the wheelchair of her stranger husband, she felt a strange, unwelcome sense of possession.
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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.