Flash Marriage To The Coldhearted Billionaire Uncle
My mother was dying and desperately needed a half-million-dollar deposit for an experimental heart surgery by tomorrow.
I swallowed my pride and begged my wealthy husband, Garrick, to save her life.
Instead of helping, he laughed coldly and threw a thick stack of divorce papers right in my face.
"A hen that can't lay eggs gets slaughtered," he sneered, ruthlessly poking my flat stomach.
He revealed that his secretary, my supposed friend Lacey, was already pregnant with his heir.
To him, our three years of marriage was just a business transaction, and now that my family was bankrupt, I was nothing but damaged goods.
He flicked a humiliating five-thousand-dollar check at me as his final act of charity, then locked me out of our townhouse into the freezing, pouring rain.
I had spent years enduring agonizing hormone treatments for a fertility issue that wasn't even my fault, only to be discarded like trash when I needed him the most.
Was my dignity, my absolute devotion, and my mother's life really worth nothing to him?
Driven by pure, reckless desperation, I threw myself directly into the path of a moving Rolls-Royce Phantom on Fifth Avenue.
It belonged to Holden Tillman, the ruthless patriarch of the Tillman empire—and the uncle Garrick lived in absolute terror of.
I thought I was walking into my death, but instead, I became his fiancée, ready to make Garrick and Lacey pay for every tear I shed.
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Chapter 2
Ariel walked down Fifth Avenue like a ghost.
The rain was freezing, plastering her expensive silk blouse to her skin, but she felt nothing. The numbness had spread from her chest to her extremities, protecting her from the reality of her situation.
A yellow cab sped by, hitting a puddle. A wave of dirty water splashed across her legs, the cold shock finally snapping her back to reality.
She had to do something. Her mother was lying in a hospital bed, dying. She couldn't just stand here and let it happen.
Ariel stepped to the curb, raising her hand to hail a cab. One passed. Then another. None of them stopped. In this rain, in this part of town, nobody wanted a soaking wet, frantic woman in their backseat.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket to call another hospital, another doctor, anyone. The screen flickered. 1% battery. Then, it went black. Dead.
The last thread connecting her to the world snapped.
Ariel stood there, the rain washing over her, washing away her hope. She was alone. She had no money, no phone, no husband, and soon, no mother.
Headlights cut through the rain. A motorcade was moving slowly down the avenue. Three sleek, black SUVs flanked a long, black car in the center.
A Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Ariel's breath caught in her throat as her eyes locked onto the license plate of the Phantom.
TILLMAN-1.
She knew that car. Everyone in New York knew that car. It didn't belong to Garrick. It belonged to the real king of the Tillman empire. Garrick's uncle. Holden Tillman.
A crazy, desperate thought flashed through her mind. Holden. The man they called the Saint. Cold, aloof, and utterly ruthless. Garrick lived in terror of him. Everything Garrick had-the house, the job, the trust fund-existed only because Holden allowed it.
It was a suicide mission. Asking him for help would probably be more humiliating than dying in the street. But then she saw her mother's face in her mind, pale and gasping on a hospital bed.
It gave her the only thing she had left: reckless courage.
Before her brain could register the danger, her body moved. She lunged off the curb, arms spread wide, directly into the path of the moving Rolls-Royce.
Tires screeched. The smell of burning rubber mixed with the rain. The massive car came to a halt mere inches from her knees.
The doors of the trailing SUVs flew open. Four men in black suits jumped out, hands hovering near their waists, eyes scanning the threat. They closed in on her.
The tinted window of the Phantom rolled down slowly.
Ariel stared into the car. The interior was dim, but the face illuminated by the dashboard lights was unforgettable. Sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw, and eyes so dark and cold they looked like chips of black ice.
Holden Tillman. She had only ever seen him from across a crowded ballroom, surrounded by people who treated him like royalty. Up close, his gaze was a physical force, pinning her to the wet pavement.
The front passenger door opened. A tall man with a military buzzcut stepped out, his eyes hard and alert. K. Holloway, Holden's chief of security.
"Ma'am, step away from the vehicle," Holloway ordered, his voice cutting through the rain.
"No!" Ariel shouted, the word tearing from her throat. She looked past Holloway, directly into Holden's icy eyes. "Mr. Tillman! I'm Ariel Melton! Garrick's wife! I need your help!"
Holden didn't move. His expression didn't change. He just looked at her, his gaze slowly traveling from her soaked hair to her trembling shoulders.
"It's about my mother!" Ariel yelled, her voice breaking. "It's life or death! Please!"
The rain streamed down her face. She couldn't tell if the hot drops rolling down her cheeks were rain or tears.
Holloway took a step toward her, ready to physically remove her from the street.
"Stand down."
The voice from the car was low, quiet, but it carried the weight of absolute authority. Holloway froze instantly.
Holden's eyes stayed locked on Ariel. The silence stretched, filled only by the drumming of the rain on the car's roof.
"Get in."
Two words. No emotion. But to Ariel, they sounded like a lifeline thrown into a raging sea.
Holloway stepped back and pulled the rear door open. Ariel didn't hesitate. She scrambled into the warm, dry interior, collapsing onto the buttery leather seat.
The door shut, sealing out the storm. The silence inside the car was deafening. The only sound was Ariel's ragged breathing and the chattering of her teeth.
Holden sat across from her, his posture perfect. He reached into a compartment and pulled out a soft, gray cashmere blanket. He handed it to her, his gaze fixed on her pale, shivering face.
"Long Island," Holden said to the driver. "Serenity Estate."
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9.5
The disgraced daughter of the Patton family is back from the countryside.At the news, everyone spurned her with contempt!
A good-for-nothing young lady, a crude village wench, a vicious devil...
Until one day--The world-famous life-saving medical sovereign is her.The enigmatic top forensic specialist is her.The grandmaster hacker hunted across the globe is also her.
One hidden identity of the young miss came to light after another.Shocked and dumbfounded, the crowd fell to their knees to beg for forgiveness.
In an instant, Evie was cornered by the mysterious powerhouse.Hartwell's voice lured and mesmerized:"Darling, you have countless secret identities. Would you mind taking on one more, being my wife!"
9.3
On her wedding night at The Plaza Hotel, Clara went looking for her husband.
Instead, she found him in the dimly lit parking garage, passionately pinning down her bridesmaid.
She couldn't even scream or expose them. Just hours before the ceremony, Julian had tricked her into signing away her twenty percent shares of their co-founded company, leaving her completely penniless and unable to pay her grandmother's life-saving medical bills.
Fleeing in absolute despair, a sudden hotel blackout plunged her into a second nightmare. She was dragged into a pitch-black room and brutally violated by a heavily drugged stranger.
When a shattered Clara returned to the office to audit the books and reclaim her power, Julian demoted her to a dusty desk by the trash cans.
He flaunted his mistress in the executive suite and deliberately sent Clara into a horrifying trap. He arranged for vicious clients to drug and assault her, demanding high-definition blackmail photos so he could divorce her with absolutely nothing.
"Since you want to play rough, you can service Mr. Petrocelli tonight," the thug sneered, locking the VIP room door.
Clara was pushed to the brink of hell. Why was the man she devoted three years of her life to trying to destroy her so completely? And why did the freezing cedarwood scent of the stranger who ruined her in the dark perfectly match Conrad Vance, the ruthless CEO and Julian's untouchable uncle?
Rather than let Julian win, Clara smashed a glass bottle, held the jagged edge to her own throat to force the men back, and threw herself off the second-floor balcony into the freezing night.
But the bone-crushing impact never came. A massive figure shot out from the shadows and caught her, and her brutal counterattack finally began.
9.0
Once a pampered princess, Alaina now clutched a deactivated American Express card, staring out at Central Park. Her family’s fortune was gone, her life, over.
Her family's Hamptons estate, a four-generation legacy, was seized by Dyer Capital. The name hit her: Hardin Dyer, the poor boy she’d once scorned, had returned.
Hardin marched in, serving a divorce agreement. He'd orchestrated her family's downfall for revenge, giving her 24 hours to vacate his property. Penniless, her father faced prison, needing $50 million. Her mother forced her to beg Hardin, who sneered, offering the money for her body. Alaina ripped up the contract.
Hours later, her father had a heart attack. Desperate, she became "Lexi," a club girl enduring humiliation. In the Viper Room, Hardin's lackeys demanded she lick whiskey off his shoe for $10,000. Hardin watched. Outside, her brother Ashton's hand was threatened for a $3 million debt. Spirit shattered, Alaina returned, knelt on broken glass, offering to sign. But Hardin declared her family "dead," offering $10 million for her body, commanding her to use her mouth.
In a furious act of defiance, Alaina threw whiskey in his face, snatched the check, and fled. Yet, when he finally took her, a searing, foreign pain and blood on the sheets revealed a shocking truth: he had never touched her three years ago. Why had he let her believe such a monstrous lie?
8.7
Emerson worked grueling twelve-hour shifts just to keep her five-year-old son, Leo, alive. Her only lifeline was her partner Alden, who was willing to give up his wealthy family to protect them.
But when Leo's bone marrow completely failed, the doctor delivered a death sentence. The only way to save him was a two-million-dollar treatment, or having another child with his biological father.
That father was Finnegan Mcconnell, the ruthless billionaire who had accused Emerson of faking her pregnancy and abandoned her five years ago.
Desperate for the medical fees, Emerson submitted her designs to Finnegan's company.
Instead of advancing the money, Finnegan tore her portfolio to shreds and trapped her as a prisoner in his estate.
To force her complete submission, he systematically destroyed her reality. He framed Alden with federal charges, leaving him facing twenty years in prison.
Alden's mother stormed into the pediatric ICU, violently strangling Emerson against the wall.
"Beg Finnegan to let my son go! You are a curse!"
Even Emerson's own adoptive mother showed up at the hospital, just to publicly mock her dying child.
Emerson was suffocating in despair. Finnegan already had a beautiful new wife and a five-year-old daughter—absolute proof he had been cheating while she was pregnant and alone.
He had his perfect family. Why did he have to hunt her down and sever every lifeline she had left, just to watch her drown?
With her son's heart monitor fading and Alden locked in a cell, her pride finally shattered.
Emerson walked into the top-floor executive office and dropped to her knees at the devil's feet, but the desperate mother looking up at him was preparing for a devastating revenge.
7.7
I trusted the wrong people in my past life.
My supposed lover and my sweet sister conspired against me, locking me inside a burning warehouse to die.
But the man I had spent my life hating, my ruthless captor Damien Sterling, rushed straight into that inferno and burned alive just to try and save me.
In my past life, I was utterly blind. I believed Julian's forged documents and Scarlett's fake affection. I even tried to assassinate Damien with a silver dagger they provided, breaking the heart of the only man who truly loved me. I died choking on thick ash, realizing too late who the real monsters were.
Why was I so incredibly foolish? Why did I let their vicious manipulation turn me into a weapon against the one person who would sacrifice absolutely everything for me?
Opening my eyes again, the phantom smell of smoke vanished.
I was sitting in the bloody water of Damien's bathtub, right after my staged suicide attempt.
When my sister sneaked into my penthouse suite and handed me the dagger to kill him again, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed her hand tightly and plunged the sharp blade directly into my own shoulder.
"Please don't kill me, Scarlett!"
This time, I will ruthlessly ruin them both, and I will never let Damien go.