HER BILLIONAIRE'S SECOND CHANCE.
Nadia escaped her cold marriage to billionaire Julian Ashford, but when his grandmother's will leaves everything to his firstborn child, he discovers she's seven months pregnant.
Suddenly, the husband who ignored her for six years wants her back, but Nadia has changed, and she's no longer the woman who waited for his attention.
As secrets unravel and empires collapse, she must decide if some love stories deserve a second chance, or if they need to be destroyed first.
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Chapter 3
I slammed the door in his face.
My hands shook as I leaned against it, heart hammering. How did he know? I'd been so careful. Used my maiden name at the doctor's office, paid cash for everything, and avoided anywhere he might see me.
"Nadia, open the door." Julian's voice was calm, controlled. The same tone he used in board meetings.
"Go away."
"We need to talk about this."
"There's nothing to talk about." I pressed my hand to my stomach, feeling the baby kick. She always kicked when I was stressed, like she could sense my anxiety. "The divorce is almost final. You made it very clear you wanted nothing to do with me."
"That was before I knew you were carrying my child."
Of course. The baby changed everything for him, didn't it? Not because he cared about being a father, but because Julian Ashford never left loose ends. A child was a liability, something that needed to be managed, controlled.
"Please," he said, and the word sounded foreign in his mouth. Julian didn't say please. "Just give me five minutes."
I closed my eyes. I could call the police and have him removed. But that would only delay the inevitable. He knew now, and he wouldn't stop until he got what he wanted. He never did.
I opened the door.
He stood in my tiny hallway, looking completely out of place in his three-piece suit. His eyes went immediately to my stomach, and something flickered across his face. Shock, maybe. Or calculation.
"Come in," I said, stepping back. "But make it quick. I have a doctor's appointment in an hour."
He followed me into the apartment, and I watched him take in the space. The cramped living room with furniture from IKEA, the kitchenette barely big enough for one person, the single window overlooking a brick wall. This was my home now, and I wasn't ashamed of it.
"When's the due date?" he asked.
"March fifteenth. Eight weeks." I sat in the armchair, the only comfortable spot in the apartment. I wasn't offering him anything. Not tea, not a seat, not courtesy.
Julian remained standing. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why would I?" The question came out harder than I intended. "You signed our divorce papers during a conference call, Julian. You couldn't even put down your phone long enough to end our marriage. What exactly did you think would happen if I told you I was pregnant?"
"I had a right to know."
"You had a right to be a husband first." I felt tears threaten and blinked them away. I'd cried enough over Julian Ashford. "You don't get to show up now and demand rights. Not after everything."
He was silent for a moment, and I could see him thinking, strategizing. This was what he did best. Find the angle, exploit the weakness, win.
"What do you want?" he finally asked.
"I want you to leave."
"I mean long-term. Child support? Medical expenses covered? I'll set up a trust fund, ensure the child has everything."
"I don't want your money." The same words I'd said eight months ago. "I have a job. I can take care of my baby."
"Our baby," he corrected. "Legally, this child is mine too."
There it was. The real Julian, emerging from behind the careful facade. Everything was about legal rights, ownership, and control.
"Is that why you're here?" I asked. "You want to claim ownership of another asset?"
His jaw tightened. "That's not fair."
"Fair?" I laughed. "You want to talk about fair? I spent six years trying to build a life with you. I cooked dinners you never ate. I planned trips you never took. I tried so hard to matter to you, Julian, and you couldn't even pretend to care. So no, I don't think fair is a word you get to use."
"I know I wasn't a good husband."
"You weren't a husband at all. You were a stranger who occasionally slept in the same house." I stood, my anger giving me strength. "And now you want to be what? A father? You can't even commit to a dinner reservation."
"My grandmother died," he said abruptly.
The change in topic threw me. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"She left me nothing." His voice was flat. "The controlling shares of Ashford Industries go to my firstborn child. Not to me. To our baby."
And there it was. The real reason for his visit.
"So that's what this is about," I said quietly. "The company."
"It's more complicated than that."
"No, it's really not." I felt something break inside me, the last small hope I'd been carrying without realizing it. The hope that maybe, somehow, he was here because he wanted to be a father. Because he cared. "You're here because of business. Just like our marriage was business. Just like everything with you is always about business."
"Nadia."
"How much is it worth?" I interrupted. "The company. If our baby inherits controlling shares, what's the dollar amount? Because I want to know exactly how much my child is worth to you."
"That's not what this is about."
"Then what is it about, Julian? Tell me." I stepped closer to him, close enough to see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. "Tell me one reason you're here that isn't about money or power or control."
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Couldn't find the words because they didn't exist.
"That's what I thought," I said. "Get out."
"I want shared custody," he said instead. "Fifty-fifty. And I want a paternity test to make it official."
"Absolutely not."
"Then I'll file for it. My lawyers can have papers drawn up by tomorrow." His voice went cold, the businessman returning. "You can fight it, but you'll lose. I have resources you can't match. I'll bury you in legal fees until you have nothing left."
I stared at him, this man I'd married, and felt nothing but emptiness.
"Is that a threat?" I asked.
"It's a fact." He pulled out a business card and set it on my coffee table. "Call me when you're ready to be reasonable. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, Nadia. Your choice."
He walked to the door, then paused.
"For what it's worth," he said without turning around, "I am sorry. For all of it."
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8.6
As the eldest daughter of the Sharp family, I was treated worse than a stray dog, while my younger sister Seraphina was their precious princess.
When the family needed someone to marry a dying billionaire heir, they naturally chose me to take her place.
To force my consent, my brothers held a peanut butter sandwich to my face—knowing it was a lethal allergy—while dangling my EpiPen just out of reach.
On speakerphone, my own mother sighed in annoyance.
"Let her die. It might be for the best."
I choked out an agreement just as my throat closed up. But the forced engagement broke my sacred mystical vow, causing me to violently cough up my own lifeblood.
Seeing the blood, Seraphina dramatically fainted. My brothers instantly carried her to the hospital, stepping over my dying body and leaving me to bleed out on the cold marble floor.
I had to use a forbidden blood rune, draining my last ounce of strength, just to survive the night.
Even the mystical Order I served offered no comfort, calling only to demand I secure ten billion dollars for them or forfeit my soul for eternity.
Abandoned by my blood family and my spiritual master, I was completely alone, left with nothing but a broken body and a ticking clock.
But they made one fatal mistake: they let me live.
I turned to the dying heir they forced me to marry, a man plagued by a dark curse only I could cure.
"I will be your wife, and I will save your life," I told him.
In exchange, I would use his unimaginable wealth and power to make everyone who threw me away pay the ultimate price.
7.7
It's common knowledge that Ethan married me only because I look like his first love.
Three years of marriage, and he never once slept with me, because he thought it would be a desecration of his first love.
On the surface, I was madly in love with him. In reality, I was blowing through his money like crazy and keeping a man on the side.
But now there's a problem.
The man I've been keeping… how does he look exactly like the richest man in New York? And even have the same name?
7.7
Isabella Moon walked away from her billionaire husband, Nolan Sinclair, with a broken heart and a secret growing inside her. She swore never to look back. For five years, she built a quiet life, raising her son in a small town, far from Nolan's cold world.
But secrets don't stay hidden forever.
When Nolan finds out he has a son, he stops at nothing to claim what's his. He wants to be a father. He wants Isabella back. But she refuses to let him break her heart again.
Now, he has to prove he's not the man she left behind. This time, he won't let her go.
But the past isn't done with them. Lies, jealousy, and the same woman who tore them apart once before are back to finish what they started.
Isabella and Nolan have a second chance at love. But will they take it before it's too late?
8.2
My son Leo had just died, and the silence in our cramped apartment felt like a physical weight crushing my chest.
Before I could even process the grief, my husband, Preston, kicked the door open and threw divorce papers onto the table.
Behind him stood Gloria, wearing a pristine cashmere coat and the diamond pendant Preston swore he had pawned to pay for Leo's hospital bills.
"Sign it," Preston said coldly. "You get nothing."
Gloria smirked, mocking me for failing to keep my sick child alive. When I tore up the papers in a blinding rage, Preston slapped me to the floor.
Then, my biological mother, Jerilyn, walked in. Instead of helping me, she pulled a serrated kitchen knife from her bag and plunged it deep into my stomach.
As I lay dying in a pool of my own blood, Jerilyn leaned in and whispered the devastating truth.
"I swapped you in the nursery. Gloria is my blood, and you belong in a Manhattan mansion. I can't let you ruin her life."
Until my lungs stopped working, I was consumed by a roaring, violent hatred. My own mother had traded my life of privilege for poverty, let my son die, and then murdered me to protect the fake.
Opening my eyes again, the dingy ceiling and the agonizing pain were gone.
I was sitting at a wooden desk, surrounded by the chatter of teenagers.
I was back in high school. And this time, I was going to make them pay.
9.4
Content Warning : This story contains mature themes and explicit content intended for adult audiences (18+) Reader's discretion is advised.
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An accidental act of heroism reshaped Sera's life entirely. She lost her sight saving the grandmother of a stranger. In return for her goodness, she was forced into marriage with the old woman's grandson, Lucian Vitale. He was a mysterious businessman with no interest in love, and as people whispered, colder than ice. Given her circumstances, Sera had no choice but to accept. She became his pretend wife, bound by contract. It was a kind of relationship she'd never imagined living.
Sera had never planned to fall for a man she'd never seen. But with every touch, every murmur from Lucian, she was slowly pulled under by longing and feelings that should never have taken root. In darkness, she learned to love-and to bleed.
Then came the day her vision returned. She heard a truth that shattered her world and tore at her heart. Frightened beyond reason, Sera ran and vanished. She carried a secret in her womb: the child of their passionate nights together.
Four years slipped by. A man stepped back into her life. Same voice, same scent, same way his hands found hers... but he did not know her. He had amnesia. Can Sera escape the man who once meant everything to her? Or is this fate's way of calling them back to settle what they began-in their beds, their hearts, and the secrets that still wait to be told?
Between lies, desire, and memories... will they choose each other still?
8.3
After four years of torture in a so-called “rehabilitation center,” I was finally released. My husband, Elliot, was waiting for me. He wasn’t there to save me; he was there to serve me divorce papers.
He and my adoptive family were convinced I was a liar. They believed my broken leg, my missing fingernails, and my scarred vocal cords were all part of an elaborate performance for attention.
"Still playing the cripple," he sneered, looking at my ruined body with disgust. He tossed a handkerchief at my bleeding hand so I wouldn’t stain the leather seats of his car.
Back home, my perfect adoptive sister, Elyse, confessed everything with a smile. She had paid the doctors to torture me, to break my bones, to destroy my voice.
When I lunged at her, my own mother called me an animal. My father prepared to sign me back into that hell permanently.
They saw my pain as a performance and her cruelty as innocence. When I was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and had months to live, Elliot tore up the medical report, calling it my most pathetic lie yet.