Flash Marriage To The Secret Chairman
To escape my toxic ex-fiancé and the father who froze my assets, I entered a contract marriage with Barrett, a cold but protective corporate consultant.
I thought he was my safe harbor. I even confided my secret, ruthless strategy to take back control of my company from my ex.
But at the most critical board meeting, a mysterious new chairman dialed in.
The synthesized voice coming through the speakerphone systematically dismantled the board and took over the company, using the exact, word-for-word strategy I had only ever whispered to my husband in the dead of night.
My ex-fiancé turned pale with panic. The board members were stunned into silence.
And I sat there, my blood running completely cold.
The man who had held my hand in the hospital, who had slept in my bed, and who had promised to protect me, had just committed the ultimate corporate espionage.
Every tender touch, every late-night confession—was it all just a calculated move to steal my life's work? How could the only person who made me feel safe use my deepest vulnerabilities to orchestrate my ruin?
I packed up my files, walked straight out of that boardroom, and prepared to disappear from his life forever.
But when I fled to my best friend's apartment to hide, I looked out the window.
The ruthless mastermind who had just stolen my empire was standing completely still in the freezing downpour, waiting for me to come down.
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Chapter 3
The document felt heavy in Evangelina's hand as she followed Barrett back through the revolving door. He moved with the ease of someone who had memorized this building's floor plan, bypassing the main queue with a nod toward a side corridor marked Express Services.
"How do you know this route?" she asked.
"I've had occasion to study municipal efficiency." Barrett glanced back, a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes. "My work involves considerable regulatory navigation."
The silver-haired clerk at the express window looked up as they approached. Her eyes, magnified behind thick lenses, moved between them with the practiced skepticism of someone who had witnessed every possible permutation of human commitment.
"Identification," she said. "And your license application, if you have it."
Barrett produced two driver's licenses and the freshly couriered prenuptial agreement, which they had both signed after a tense, silent review on a marble bench. The clerk's eyebrows rose at the latter document, but she said nothing, merely entering data with mechanical precision.
"New York State requires me to ask," she said, looking directly at Evangelina. "Are you entering this marriage of your own free will?"
Evangelina's throat constricted. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Somewhere behind her, a couple was laughing, the sound bright and alien.
Barrett's hand covered hers on the counter.
His palm was warm. Callused in unexpected places, the ridge of his thumb pressing against her knuckles. She turned her head and found his eyes waiting-steady, certain, offering something she couldn't name but suddenly needed.
"We've been waiting for this," Barrett said to the clerk. His voice carried a tenderness that sounded almost real. "Both of us."
Evangelina forced her lips into shape. "Yes. I'm certain."
The clerk's expression softened. She stamped the approval with a satisfying thud. "Through the door, please. Judge Morrison will administer the oath."
The ceremony room was smaller than she'd expected. Plastic roses in foam containers. A faint chemical scent from the air freshener plugged into the wall outlet. The judge stood behind a lectern that looked like it had been borrowed from a high school debate tournament.
"Face each other, please. Hold hands."
Evangelina turned. Barrett was close now, close enough that she could smell his cologne-something with cedar, something that reminded her of winter forests and old libraries. He took her hands without hesitation, his fingers interlacing with hers, his grip firm enough to ground her.
The judge began the familiar words. Sickness and health. Richer and poorer. The phrases floated past Evangelina's ears, abstract and enormous, completely disconnected from the reality of this stranger's pulse against her palms.
"Do you have rings?"
Silence.
Evangelina felt heat rise to her cheeks. Of course they didn't have rings. This wasn't-
Barrett released one of her hands. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a small velvet box.
The hinge creaked as he opened it. The diamond caught the overhead light, throwing prisms against the judge's robes. It was an elegant, vintage-inspired piece with a flawless, but not ostentatious, diamond. The setting was what made it remarkable-intricate, bespoke, a work of art that spoke of taste more than sheer wealth.
Evangelina's professional assessment happened automatically. The value was significant, but it was the craftsmanship that was staggering. This was not a ring purchased on impulse at a Midtown jeweler.
"It was a family piece," Barrett murmured, so quietly she almost missed it. "Intended for... a different circumstance. The sentiment is gone, but the object remains. Please consider it a tool for this arrangement, nothing more."
The explanation was thin. The timing was impossible. But the judge was waiting, and Barrett was sliding the ring onto her finger, and somehow-impossibly-it fit.
The metal cooled her skin. Barrett's thumb brushed her knuckle as he adjusted the setting, and Evangelina felt her heart accelerate, a trapped bird against her ribs.
"I'll forgo the exchange," Barrett said to the judge, his tone easy, conversational. "We'll handle the reciprocal symbolism privately."
The judge smiled. "By the power vested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride."
Evangelina's body went rigid. She hadn't considered this. Hadn't prepared for the physical reality of-
Barrett's hand settled at her waist. His head bent. His nose grazed her cheekbone, a whisper of contact, and then his lips pressed against her forehead.
Chaste. Brief. The pressure of a seal rather than a claim.
He stepped back. Evangelina's lungs remembered how to function.
The judge handed them each a certificate. Cream paper, embossed seal, their names printed side by side in formal script. Evangelina stared at the document, at the impossible permanence of Barrett Watson and Evangelina Vazquez joined by law.
"Cooperation established, Mrs. Watson." Barrett folded his certificate into his breast pocket. "Shall we discuss operational parameters?"
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7.8
Alexis signed the divorce papers, leaving her with no assets, no alimony, and just the clothes on her back.
To forget her abusive husband Carlos, she got drunk and bought a high-end gigolo for the night with her last 800 dollars.
But the man she slept with wasn't an escort. He was Jarrett Hughes, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And while she was gone, her ex-husband was busy destroying her entire life.
Carlos framed her with fake photos of her cheating to justify the penniless divorce.
Then came the real nightmare.
Carlos and her own aunt secretly drained her family's corporate accounts, driving her father to jump off a building.
At the hospital, her grieving mother blamed her for the tragedy, violently attacking her in the ER.
To top it off, her cousin Josie—who was secretly sleeping with Carlos—held her father's ashes hostage.
"Crawl on your knees and pick it up, or the ashes go in the river," Josie sneered, throwing cash into the freezing slush.
Stripped of her marriage, her father, and her dignity, Alexis sat bleeding in the snow.
She couldn't understand why the people she loved most had coordinated such a brutal slaughter against her.
But Carlos and Josie made one fatal mistake.
They didn't know the "gigolo" Alexis had accidentally bought was the most powerful man in New York.
Alexis looked at the towering billionaire standing behind her, a vengeful fire burning in her eyes.
"I need you to get my father's ashes back," she said, pulling him into a kiss right in front of her ex-husband. "I don't care what it takes."
8.2
I spent three years playing the role of a submissive, small-town wife for Evertt Baker, trading my true identity for a quiet life in a Manhattan penthouse. I thought my devotion would be enough to build a real home, but I was just a placeholder in his grand design.
The illusion shattered at 2 AM when Evertt walked in smelling of Chanel No. 5-the signature scent of his mistress, Adda. Without a word of apology, he dropped divorce papers on the table, demanding I sign them immediately so he could finally be with the woman he truly loved.
He looked at me with pure disgust, flicking a five-million-dollar check toward me as if he were paying off an incompetent employee. He told me it was more money than anyone from my "trailer park" background would ever see and ordered me to hurry because Adda was waiting in the car downstairs. He didn't care that I had spent years nursing him through illness and tolerating his family's insults; he only cared about his own convenience.
The sheer arrogance of his payout and the blatant disrespect of bringing his mistress to our home was the final blow. I realized that the man I loved never actually saw me, only the submissive shadow I had forced myself to become.
I signed the papers with a fluid scrawl he didn't bother to check, then I fed his millions into the office shredder. I pulled a hidden, encrypted device from a kitchen drawer and dialed a number I hadn't called in three years.
"Brother," I said, my voice finally steady. "Come get me. The game is over."
Evertt thought he was discarding a penniless nobody, but he was about to find out that he had just declared war on the Stafford empire.
9.2
Averie spent hours preparing a perfect third-anniversary dinner for her billionaire husband, Jarett Sharp.
Instead of celebrating, she received an anonymous photo of him intimately holding another woman.
When Jarett finally arrived, he didn't even look guilty.
"Candida. It's okay. Don't be scared. I'm on my way."
He simply took a call from his mistress, shoved Averie aside, and walked right back out the door.
That same night, Averie's father suffered a massive heart attack.
The hospital demanded a half-million-dollar deposit before they would operate.
But when Averie frantically tried to use the emergency medical trust card Jarett had given her, it was declined.
Jarett had deliberately frozen her access to the funds just hours earlier.
While she begged his assistant on the phone, Jarett refused to be disturbed, busy wrapping his expensive coat around his mistress in the hospital garden.
Averie collapsed in the hallway, realizing the man she loved was deliberately letting her father die.
In the end, a childhood friend stepped in to pay the bill and save her father's life, while her billionaire husband later pinned her to their bed, throwing a check at her and reminding her he had bought her for three million dollars.
Averie didn't shed a single tear.
She slowly ripped his check into pieces, left her massive diamond ring on the dresser, and walked out into the cold New York night with nothing but her old suitcase.
She pulled out her phone and dialed her old ballet professor.
She wasn't just going to leave Jarett Sharp. She was going to destroy him.
9.2
After his father passes away, Darnell becomes the new heir to King Hotels. But his grandfather-who owns shares of the hotels-wants Darnell to marry to earn his (Grandfather's) shares before his death.
After her father's death, Sasha and her family are left to deal with the burden he leaves behind-a huge debt owed to loan sharks.
Darnell approaches Sasha with a two-month marriage contract for five million dollars-enough to pay off her father's debt and be free from her traditional mother. She accepts.
Things are complicated when grandfather doesn't die after two months, and Sasha is being extorted by loan sharks. She and Darnell must stay married for their benefit, despite their lack of affection for each other. Eventually, they fall in love.
But drama unfolds when family secrets are exposed, old lovers resurface, and unknown families appear. Darnell and Sasha must decide if their love is worth it all.
7.0
"Sign the divorce papers, Olivia... or I'll make sure you never wake up again."
I thought marriage meant love, loyalty, and forever. But the night I overheard my husband plotting my downfall with my sister-in-law, my world shattered. The man I had sacrificed everything for was only after my family's wealth and worse, he wanted me dead.
Drugged. Betrayed. Left bleeding while he ran to the arms of his ex. That was Marcus Thompson, the man everyone believed was the perfect billionaire husband.
But I won't go down quietly. With enemies in my own family and assassins at my doorstep, I must fight back. And when David, the man who risked his life to save mine, steps in, I begin to see what true love really feels like.
Now, I'm trapped between a husband who would rather bury me than let me go, and a man willing to risk everything to protect me.
In a world built on lies, betrayal, and deadly secrets... who can I trust when even love could be a weapon?
8.6
Desperation is one of the world's worst vices. It can control the lives of people, including the poor, the middle class, and surprisingly, the wealthy.
Elena Parker is the only child of Mr and Mrs Desmond Parker,the well known billionaires in the city ranked among the top three richest men in the world.
Her relentless search for a partner to produce an heir to the riches seemed to no avail until one faithful day which forever changed her life.