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 8
Evangelina arrived at the Avery Lifestyle building at 7:15 AM, her coffee cup steaming in her hand, her expression carefully constructed for combat.
Her executive assistant, Phoebe Mercer, met her at the elevator bank. The younger woman's face was flushed, her usual efficiency disrupted by agitation.
"Ms. Vazquez. Mr. Avery's father has been calling every five minutes, and the legal department is in an uproar. They're saying your email constitutes a 'catastrophic corporate event.' And- there's someone-he's been waiting. In your office. He wouldn't leave."
"Security?"
"He's... very polite. Very insistent. He said you'd want to see him." Phoebe lowered her voice. "He's from Per Se. The restaurant. He has a delivery."
Evangelina's stomach tightened. She walked faster, her heels clicking against the marble floor, and pushed open her office door.
The man who rose to greet her was in his fifties, impeccably dressed in a morning coat that suggested European service traditions. He bowed, a gesture so formal it bordered on theatrical.
"Mrs. Watson. Marcus Bell, general manager of Per Se. I apologize for the intrusion."
Evangelina's eyes dropped to the table behind him. A thermal container, large enough for multiple courses. Beside it, a black velvet box, the size of a jewelry case.
"I don't understand," she said.
"Last night, Mrs. Watson, you became our ten-thousandth guest." Marcus Bell's smile was professional, unwavering. "A milestone we celebrate with particular enthusiasm. Our shareholders believe in recognizing fortune's favorites."
Evangelina's professional skepticism activated automatically. "Per Se doesn't have ten thousand guests. It's been open since-"
"Ten thousandth guest of the quarter," Marcus amended smoothly. "Our fiscal calendar, you understand. Unique to our corporate structure."
He opened the thermal container. The scent of white truffle filled the office, rich and earthy and impossibly expensive. Scrambled eggs, she saw. Croissants. Fresh berries arranged in a pattern that suggested deliberate artistry.
"And this." He presented the velvet box with both hands. "Our shareholders' additional gesture. A small token of appreciation."
Evangelina didn't touch it. "Mr. Bell. I appreciate the performance. But I don't believe in coincidence, and I don't accept gifts from strangers. Who sent you?"
Marcus Bell's composure cracked, just slightly. A bead of sweat appeared at his temple. "I assure you, Mrs. Watson, this is entirely-"
"Is it Darrien?" She moved closer, her voice dropping to a threat. "Is this his idea of apology? Or is it my father, trying to buy back my compliance?"
"Neither, I promise-"
"Take it back." Evangelina gestured toward the door. "All of it. I'm not for sale, and I'm not-"
Marcus Bell reached into his breast pocket. He withdrew a second envelope, heavy cream paper, sealed with red wax. The impression in the wax was unmistakable: the Metropolitan Museum of Art's logo.
"Perhaps," he said, his voice carefully neutral, "you might consider this as well. Before deciding."
Evangelina's eyes fixed on the envelope. She knew that seal. She knew what it meant, what it represented, what doors it opened.
The Met Gala. The invitation she had coveted for three years, the access she needed to launch her own brand, to escape Avery Lifestyle's shadow, to become something independent and real.
Her hand moved before her mind caught up. Her fingers closed on the envelope.
"I'll accept this," she said. "Under protest. And if I discover that your 'shareholder' expects anything in return-anything at all-I'll involve law enforcement. Do you understand?"
Marcus Bell's exhale was audible. "Perfectly, Mrs. Watson. Absolutely."
He gathered his thermal container, his composure restored, and departed with the speed of a man who had narrowly escaped disaster.
Evangelina stood alone in her office. The black velvet box sat on her desk. The envelope burned in her hand.
She opened her phone. Found Barrett's contact. Typed: You'll never believe what happened this morning.
Deleted it.
He was a consultant. A convenient stranger. He wouldn't understand the politics of restaurant shareholders and fashion industry access. She would only embarrass them both by sharing.
She locked the envelope and the velvet box in her office safe. She sat at her desk. She opened her computer and found the file Phoebe had mentioned yesterday-the internal memo about Watson Holdings' acquisition strategy. Phoebe had added a note: "The firm is Watson Holdings, but the word is the family behind it is incredibly private. No one has ever seen the new CEO. Some on Wall Street even have a conspiracy theory that the 'Watson' is a deliberately common name, chosen to make them harder to track."
The new owner was coming. A mystery, a shadow, a name whispered in boardrooms with equal parts fear and fascination. Evangelina read the analysis of his previous acquisitions, his ruthless efficiency, his habit of replacing entire management teams within weeks of takeover.
She felt something wake in her chest. Not fear. Challenge.
"Phoebe," she called through the open door. "Schedule an emergency meeting. Creative directors, finance, legal. I want everyone who reported to Darrien's faction in that room in one hour."
"Ms. Vazquez?"
"We're cleaning house." Evangelina's smile was sharp, predatory, alive. "Before the new owner arrives. I want him to see a company worth investing in, not a family feud in corporate form."
She did not know that the man she was preparing to impress was the same man who had watched her sign a check with steady hands, who had walked her to the subway in the October dark, who had arranged for white truffle and museum access before she'd even reached her office.
She did not know that she was already his.
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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.