From Jilted Wife To The Tycoon's Queen
The harsh glare of the spotlight hit Harper's custom wedding dress as she smiled at her groom.
But a single phone call from his mistress, Lila, made Chase violently shove his way down the aisle and sprint out of the hotel.
He left Harper to face the flashing cameras and the mockery of hundreds of guests.
Her mother-in-law dragged her into a hallway and slapped her hard across the face.
"You cannot even keep your own man in the room. You are making a mockery of this family."
When Harper rushed to the hospital, Chase blamed her for Lila's theatrical, fake miscarriage.
He threatened to pull every cent of capital from Harper's investment firm if she dared to walk away.
The Young family then used the media to frame Harper, turning her into a public pariah who viciously "killed" an unborn child.
Mobbed by ruthless paparazzi, Harper was pushed into the freezing rain, her knees bleeding on the concrete.
She couldn't accept that her entire life and career were being destroyed by a mistress's pathetic lie.
When Chase later tried to buy her silence with a pink diamond—the exact same one he had just gifted Lila—her remaining love turned to absolute ice.
But fate intervened when she was rescued from the mob by Antoni Donovan, the most ruthless billionaire on Wall Street and her biggest corporate rival.
Discovering that Antoni was actually her best friend's older brother, a dangerous smile spread across Harper's face.
She picked up his gold-lettered business card.
She was done being the victim; she was going to use the wolf of Wall Street to crush her ex-husband.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 3
Chase looked down at the business card resting against his shirt. He let out a loud, mocking laugh. He reached up and yanked his tie even looser.
"Ryan Investments is nothing without the funding of the Young family," Chase said, looking down his nose at her. "You step out that door, and I will pull every cent of our capital. You will have zero."
Harper did not argue. She reached out and grabbed the handle of her suitcase. The metal clicked loudly in the quiet bedroom.
Chase saw she was not stopping. He stepped sideways, blocking the bedroom door. His eyes turned dark. "If you walk out right now, do not ever think about coming back."
Harper lifted her chin. Her eyes were completely dead. "Move. Or I will call the police and press charges for false imprisonment."
The coldness in her voice made Chase freeze. His body reacted before his brain did. He stepped back. He watched Harper walk past him without a single hesitation.
The heavy front door of the penthouse slammed shut. The loud noise made Chase's heart physically jump in his chest. A sudden, cold panic gripped his stomach.
Harper walked from the penthouse lobby to the underground parking garage. She opened the trunk of the Porsche she had bought with her own money before the engagement. She threw the suitcase inside.
She got into the driver's seat and merged into the heavy morning traffic. She put her Bluetooth earpiece in. She spoke rapidly, giving her assistant Chloe a list of demands.
Harper drove downtown and walked into the lobby of Ryan Investments on Wall Street. Her high heels clicked sharply against the marble floor.
The receptionist and the analysts walking by stopped and stared. They looked at her black suit and the bruise on her forehead. She was supposed to be on her honeymoon.
Harper ignored them. She walked straight to her glass-walled office, pushed the door open, and slammed her bag onto the desk.
Chloe ran into the office holding a massive stack of folders. Her hands were shaking so badly she almost knocked over Harper's coffee mug.
"Harper, the CGI Studio acquisition," Chloe stuttered, her face pale. "Everything went wrong yesterday while you were gone."
Harper frowned. She snatched the financial reports from Chloe's hands. Her eyes scanned the numbers rapidly. She saw the massive gap in the funding chain.
Marcus Bell, the lead project manager, walked into the office. He looked sick. "The target studio was bought out yesterday. We lost it."
Harper slammed her hands flat on the desk and stood up. "Who has the capital to eat a deal that size overnight?"
Marcus wiped the sweat off his forehead. He spoke the name that made everyone on Wall Street nervous. "Antoni Donovan."
Harper dropped back into her leather chair. The glare from her computer monitor highlighted the tight clench of her jaw. Antoni Donovan. Her biggest rival.
She pulled up the latest acquisition records for Donovan Group. The screen filled with red profit margins. The numbers burned her eyes.
"Antoni bought the whole thing," Chloe whispered. "He is taking all the core engineers."
Harper took a deep breath. Her stomach cramped with the stress, but she forced her brain to focus. She scrolled through the contract clauses.
She stopped. She found a gray area in the intellectual property management section. A spark of adrenaline hit her blood.
"Draft a joint-management proposal right now," Harper ordered Chloe. "We are going to use this as leverage."
Marcus shook his head. "That is suicide. Antoni is ruthless. He will never give up a single share."
Harper let out a cold laugh. "There are no permanent enemies on Wall Street. Only permanent interests. I need to see him."
She picked up her desk phone. She dialed the direct line to the Donovan Group executive office. The phone rang five times.
A man answered. His voice was smooth and completely professional. "Alex Reed, executive assistant to Mr. Donovan."
"This is Harper Ryan. I need ten minutes with Antoni today," Harper said, pushing authority into her voice.
Alex Reed let out a soft chuckle. "Mr. Donovan has no interest in speaking with the losing side, Ms. Ryan."
The line went dead.
Harper sat in her office, staring at the phone in her hand.
You may also like
7.2
I am a resident surgeon, secretly married to Dr. Barrett Walters, the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. It was a transactional marriage; he paid my mother's mounting medical bills, and I was his secret, obedient wife in the dark.
But at the hospital, he was a cold-blooded tyrant who deliberately made my life a living hell. During a major medical conference, he viciously tore apart my successful surgical repair, looking me dead in the eye as he called me incompetent in front of all my colleagues.
The humiliation didn't stop there. With his tacit approval, the senior residents bullied me, assigning me every brutal night shift. When his beautiful, wealthy heiress "girlfriend" visited the ward, he publicly mocked my background to make her smile.
"Some people get in through the back door. They're not fit for the front lines."
Even when I was forced to work as a secret banquet waitress to cover the medical copays he ignored, he found me, ruined the job out of pure possessive jealousy, and then fined my meager resident salary the very next morning just to show his absolute control.
I endured his punishing kisses and cruel rebukes, sacrificing my dignity just to keep my mother alive. But I couldn't understand why he had to destroy every shred of my peace. If he wanted the perfect heiress, why did he refuse to let me go?
Staring at his cold, controlling eyes in the stairwell, my exhaustion finally overpowered my fear. I was done being his victim, and it was time to tear up this contract.
9.3
Marissa was the perfect wife. She traded her high powered corporate ladder for home cooked meals and a designer sanctuary, all to support her husband, Ethan.
But when Ethan confesses to a four month affair not out of guilt, but because his mistress is extorting him for $300 million...Marissa's world turns to ash.Ethan's solution is as twisted as his heart.
"Cheat back. Get even. Stay married."Driven by a cocktail of rage and Revenge, Marissa decides to take him up on his offer. She heads into the night looking for a single moment of rebellion to wash away the scent of Ethan's lies.
She finds it in the arms of a cold, devastatingly masked handsome stranger who makes her forget everything.Broken and fueled by the betrayal, Marissa decides to take the ultimate risk. She slips into an exclusive, members only masquerade club...a place where names don't exist and only desires matter.
Behind a lace mask, she meets him....a man who smells of expensive bourbon and cold command.He is the first person in years to see the fire in her, not just the wife she became.They share a night of scorched....earth passion that leaves Marissa breathless and "even." She leaves before the sun rises, intending for the stranger to remain a ghost of her revenge.
But some ghosts have a name.When the masks come off and the corporate world demands her return, Marissa comes face to face with the man from the club. He isn't just anyone. He is Xavier Sterling....the ruthless billionaire CEO she once worked for, and the man Ethan calls his "best friend."Xavier knows her scent. He knows her touch. And most dangerously, he knows exactly what Ethan did to her.
Now, Marissa has to navigate a world where her husband wants her to stay, the mistress wants her dead, and the CEO wants to own the one woman he was never supposed to touch.
Now, Marissa is caught in a lethal triangle. Xavier wants to own her, Ethan wants to keep her to save his reputation, and the $300 million debt is threatening to drown them all. In a world of billionaire power plays, Marissa is about to learn that revenge is a dish best served... in the CEO's bed.
9.7
For three years, I was the dutiful wife of billionaire Ervin Valdez.
On our third wedding anniversary, he came home smelling of his mistress's perfume, pinned me down, and brutally mocked me.
His mistress, Sylvia, had even sent me a fake ultrasound report to force me out of the picture.
In Ervin's eyes, I was just a vicious, calculating liar who used a pregnancy to trap him into marriage.
He didn't care that I had actually lost that baby, nor did he know the trauma of my gambling father selling me to a dark club where I was assaulted by a stranger.
When I finally handed him the signed divorce papers, giving up all assets, and left the penthouse with nothing but an old suitcase, he just sneered.
"She is playing a game of hard to get. She won't last three days before she comes crying back."
He froze all my bank accounts, let his mistress humiliate me in public, and waited coldly for me to starve and beg.
He thought my entire existence relied on his wealth, completely confident that I would inevitably surrender to his control.
But he was wrong.
I calmly opened my old laptop, bypassed the complex encryptions, and looked at the dozens of unread emails from top-tier global brands begging for my return.
I resurrected my hidden identity as the legendary jewelry designer "R," and walked straight into the top design firm in Manhattan.
"It is time to find myself again."
8.8
On the eve of my glamorous Waldorf Astoria wedding, I went to the penthouse to surprise my fiancé, Hugh, wearing my late mother's heirloom pearls.
Instead, I heard my stepsister's familiar laugh and caught them tangled together on the sofa.
Through the cracked door, I heard Hugh slur that he was only marrying me for my family's financial backing.
"As soon as I secure my inheritance, she's the first thing I'm getting rid of," he promised her.
Floy giggled and asked for my mother's pearl necklace, my only legacy. Hugh agreed without hesitation, mocking my dead mother's naivety and my desperate dreams of building a family.
Every sweet word he had ever said was a lie, a knife he had been patiently sliding between my ribs for years. They planned to strip me of everything the moment I signed the prenup.
I didn't cry or scream. The crushing weight of their betrayal hollowed me out, leaving behind a terrifying, absolute calm.
Why should I be the one to lose everything while they stole my future and insulted my mother's memory?
I calmly walked down the hall, set the prenuptial agreement on fire, and vanished into the rainy night.
If Hugh wanted to play dirty for the Maxwell empire, I would play for keeps.
Using a forgotten, century-old family covenant, I was going to marry Hugh's uncle-the comatose, paralyzed war hero, Fleet Maxwell.
I would return not as a naive bride, but as their worst nightmare: his aunt, and the new lady of the house.
9.5
As a highborn succubus, I somehow managed to starve myself to death-thanks to my obsessive cleanliness and ridiculously picky appetite.
When I opened my eyes again, I had transmigrated into Vivian Hartwell-the long-lost "real" daughter with a tragically cursed fate.
I had barely been taken back into the Hartwell family before they forced me to attend a so-called "death matchmaking" event in Kingsford-on behalf of Natalie Hartwell, the fake heiress-to meet Damian Blackwood, the infamous "living reaper."
Rumor had it Damian was brutal and bloodthirsty-every woman who'd ever been involved with him either ended up dead or driven insane.
At the event, over a hundred socialites were trembling on their knees, silently praying they wouldn't be the one chosen.
Just as Damian let out a cold smirk and reached to pick his unlucky victim, I took a deep breath from the back of the crowd.
The scent emanating from him was a rare, potent masculine essence-something encountered perhaps once in ten millennia.
For a painfully picky succubus like me, this was nothing short of salvation.
I kicked aside the girl blocking my way, my eyes practically glowing as I threw both hands up. "Pick me! Hurry, pick me!"
9.7
Giana woke up drugged and burning with fever in a luxurious hotel suite. Standing before her was Cornel Stark, the most ruthless billionaire in New York.
Memories of her past life stabbed into her brain. In that life, her adoptive family and her fiancé Gary had stolen her inheritance and left her to die a brutal, agonizing death.
She also remembered how fighting Cornel only made him more violent. So this time, she didn't scream.
She endured his brutal punishment, escaped the moment he let his guard down, and swallowed a Plan B pill on the freezing streets.
Returning to her adoptive family's mansion, she faced the people who had destroyed her. Her fiancé and her stepsister put on masks of fake concern, secretly mocking her.
Instead of throwing a useless tantrum like before, Giana deliberately threw herself down the steep wooden stairs.
She smashed her head against the marble floor, using her own blood to shatter their plans and win back her mother's trust.
She thought she had finally taken control. She was ready to crush the people who had betrayed her and live for herself.
But she didn't understand why the billionaire she had just escaped was suddenly turning her life upside down.
When she woke up in the hospital, her room wasn't filled with her family's fake tears, but an ocean of blood-red roses.
The heavy door swung open, and Cornel Stark walked in, his gray eyes locking onto her with a dark, predatory hunger.
"Remember this feeling, Giana. Every breath you take belongs to me now."