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.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 6
Gus Petrovic threw his phone.
It bounced off the Persian carpet in his Upper East Side study, the screen cracking along a diagonal. He turned to his wife, his face purple with rage.
"She hung up on me. That ungrateful-"
"Gus." Fannie Hobbs set down her nail file, her silk robe whispering as she rose. "You'll give yourself a stroke." She placed her hands on his shoulders, her touch practiced, soothing. "Evangelina has always been difficult. Headstrong. We knew this."
"She's useless. Worse than useless-she's actively destructive." Gus collapsed into his leather chair. "Costello wants his pound of flesh. If we don't deliver-"
Footsteps on the stairs. Jenelle appeared in the doorway, her pink loungewear immaculate, her eyes red-rimmed and carefully mascaraed.
"Daddy?" The word emerged trembling. "Is it my fault? Should I go to him? I will. I'll do whatever-"
"Absolutely not." Fannie moved to her daughter, gathering her close. "You're a child. You're innocent. This is grown-up business."
"She's twenty-four," Gus muttered.
"She's delicate." Fannie's eyes met her husband's over Jenelle's head, communicating volumes. "Unlike some people, she feels things deeply. She can't simply... perform on command."
Gus's jaw tightened. He thought of his first wife, the cold ambition that had driven her to an early grave. He thought of Evangelina, her mother's daughter in every way that mattered.
"Evangelina was supposed to marry Darrien Avery," Fannie continued, her voice dropping to a confiding murmur. "That was the plan. That was your plan, Gus. Secure the Avery connection, merge the brands, create something lasting." She paused. "But Darrien didn't go to the municipal building today, did he? He went to the hospital. For Jenelle."
Gus looked at his stepdaughter. Jenelle met his eyes with perfect vulnerability, her lower lip trembling.
"He loves her," Fannie said simply. "Truly. Not as a business arrangement. As a man loves a woman. And she loves him. Anyone can see it."
"Fannie-"
"Let Evangelina go." The suggestion emerged soft, reasonable, inevitable. "She's made her position clear. She doesn't value family. She doesn't value your guidance. But Jenelle..." Fannie smiled, maternal pride radiating. "Jenelle understands loyalty. She understands gratitude. And with her beauty, her charm-imagine what she could achieve as Mrs. Darrien Avery."
Gus was silent. The arithmetic assembled itself. Evangelina: difficult, expensive, uncontrollable. Jenelle: compliant, grateful, manageable. And Darrien's obvious preference-
"She'd need a proper education," he said slowly. "Presentation. She can't embarrass us."
"Of course." Fannie beamed. "I'll handle everything. And Gus?" She moved to his desk, picking up his phone with delicate fingers. "Evangelina should learn that choices have consequences. Don't you think?"
She dialed a number from memory. The American Express concierge.
"This is Fannie Hobbs," she said, her voice smooth as cream. "I'm calling on behalf of my husband, Gus Petrovic's, account. Specifically, the authorized user status for Evangelina Vazquez..."
At Per Se, Evangelina returned from the restroom to find Barrett examining the dessert menu with apparent fascination.
"Everything alright?" he asked.
"Fine." She seated herself, smoothing her napkin. She would not think about the frozen credit card notification she'd seen on her banking app. She would not think about the rent due next week, the project funding she was negotiating, the safety net she'd believed she had.
She would think about solutions. About leverage. About survival.
"Shall I?" She reached for the check folder, her smile fixed in place.
Barrett's eyebrows rose. "You're certain?"
"You rescued me from municipal humiliation. The least I can offer is dinner."
He leaned back, gesturing surrender. "As you wish."
The check arrived on a silver tray. Evangelina opened the leather folder, her expression professionally pleasant, and felt her stomach drop through the floor.
The total exceeded her monthly mortgage payment. By a factor of three.
Her personal account could cover it. Barely. It would decimate her liquid savings, leave her vulnerable, exposed-
She reached for her Chase Sapphire Reserve. Her hand was steady. Her smile didn't waver.
"Thank you for an excellent evening," she told the server, sliding the card into the folder.
Barrett watched her. His expression was neutral, attentive, perfectly polite. But his eyes-his eyes noted everything. The slight tightening around her mouth. The extra second she held the folder before releasing it.
The server departed. Evangelina drank her water, the ice clinking against the glass, and calculated how many meals she could prepare at home to compensate for this extravagance.
She did not see Barrett's small, satisfied smile.
You may also like
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.