His Loss, The Tycoon's Gain: The Lost Heiress Returns
When I called my husband while trapped in a kidnapper's warehouse, he laughed. "Stop faking," he said, "my delicate mistress needs her sleep." He hung up. I signed the divorce papers drenched in my own blood, giving up everything just to escape the monster I married.
His mother threw a broken umbrella at me in the rain. I had nothing—no money, no identity, no hope.
But the moment I turned away, eight black Escalades encircled the street. A man in a tailored suit stepped out of a Rolls-Royce, shielding me with an umbrella. In his hand was a DNA test—and twenty-three years of relentless search.
"Your last name isn't Smith," he said, wiping blood from my wrist with his handkerchief. "It's Wilder. The Wilder family. And the man who left you to die?" He smiled, icy. "He owes us nine billion dollars."
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Chapter 7
Silence hung heavy in the receiving room.
Ethan tapped his fingers rapidly against his thigh, calculating the risk. "Absolutely not," he muttered.
Hubert crossed his arms. "She needs to heal. She does not need to deal with a shark like you."
Daxton did not look at her brothers. His eyes stayed locked on her, waiting.
She felt the weight of his stare. Her mind flashed to Joaquin's arrogant face, to Julianne throwing the broken umbrella at her feet. Dating the most powerful man in New York would be the ultimate social death sentence for the Stafford family.
She lifted her chin and smiled coldly. "Deal."
Carter gasped loudly. Bennett nearly dropped his teacup.
A flash of dark satisfaction lit up Daxton's eyes. He closed the distance between them in two long strides. He reached out and took her hand.
He bowed his head and pressed his lips just above her knuckles. His mouth barely grazed her skin, but the heat of his breath sent a violent shiver up her arm.
She yanked her hand back. Her heart skipped a beat.
Daxton straightened up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black velvet box.
"This was meant as an apology gift for breaking the contract," Daxton said softly. "Now, it is just a hello."
She opened the box. Resting on the black silk was a flawless, unheated pigeon-blood ruby necklace.
Her gaze locked onto the heavy pendant, her professional instincts immediately taking over. She recognized the deep, unheated saturation and the distinct, meticulous facets of an antique 1920s European cut. It was an absolute masterpiece of historical jewelry making, entirely priceless.
Before she could say no, Daxton stepped behind her. He brushed her hair aside and fastened the heavy platinum clasp around her neck.
His warm fingertips dragged slowly across her bare nape. Her stomach tightened.
Declan marched over and shoved Daxton back by the shoulder. "Back off. Keep your distance."
Daxton raised his hands in mock surrender. He nodded to her parents. "I will pick Kinsley up tomorrow evening for dinner."
He turned and walked out, his presence leaving a heavy vacuum in the room.
The second the door closed, all four of her brothers surrounded her.
"Are you crazy?" Ethan yelled, pulling up Daxton's ruthless corporate takeover history on his phone. "He destroys people for fun!"
She touched the cold ruby resting against her collarbone. "Relax. I am just using him to ruin my ex-husband. I will not fall for him."
Upstairs, Amiyah stared at the glowing red jewel around Kinsley's neck.
Her chest heaved with toxic jealousy.
She retreated to her bedroom, locked the door, and pulled out a burner phone.
She dialed the number of a sleazy tabloid journalist. She was going to leak the story of Kinsley's pathetic foster background and her divorce.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan, Joaquin stood in his office at Stafford Holdings. He was sweating.
His assistant ran into the room, holding an iPad. "Sir, our stock is plummeting. A massive, untraceable fund is shorting us across the board."
Joaquin ripped his tie loose. "Which competitor is doing this?" he screamed. He had no idea the Wilder family was already crushing him.
Ember walked in carrying a cup of herbal tea. She leaned her fragile body against his chest. "Do not stress, baby. You are so smart, you will fix it."
Joaquin kissed her forehead. He thought of Kinsley, convinced she was currently starving in an alley. "I will crush whoever is doing this. Just like I crushed Kinsley."
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7.1
I sat alone at my long marble dining table, staring at a plate of cold truffle risotto. My husband, Jere, was late again, claiming he was stuck in a "war zone" of a board meeting for a multi-billion dollar merger.
A single Instagram notification shattered the silence. It was a photo of a candlelit birthday dinner, featuring a man's hand resting on a white tablecloth. I recognized the slight veins, the jagged scar on the thumb, and the navy-faced Patek Philippe watch I had spent six months tracking down as a wedding gift. Jere wasn't in a boardroom; he was celebrating his ex-girlfriend Irina's birthday while texting me to "don't wait up."
The next morning, I followed him to a VIP hospital wing. I watched through a cracked door as my husband cuddled a five-year-old boy and whispered tender promises to Irina. When he came home, he tried to buy my silence with a rare pink diamond bracelet, but I found the receipt: he had bought two identical ones. He had branded his wife and his mistress with matching jewelry, using hidden trackers to keep us both on a leash. When I confronted him, he didn't flinch. He coldly reminded me that he owned my father's massive debts and could send him to prison for insolvency fraud with one phone call.
"Stop with the attitude, Deliah," he said.
I felt like a ghost haunting my own life, trapped in a gilded cage by the man who paid for my mother's heart surgery while keeping a secret family across town. The humiliation peaked at our rescheduled anniversary dinner when Jere received a text, threw a stack of hundreds at me like I was a stranger, and abandoned me in a crowded restaurant to rush back to her.
"Pay the bill," he commanded before walking out.
Standing in the wreckage of a shattered crystal vase back at the penthouse, I realized my silence was the only thing keeping his empire standing. I pulled the crumpled divorce papers from my purse and signed my name with a steady hand. I wasn't just walking away; I was calling his sister to help me burn his perfect world to the ground.
7.1
After five years in a federal prison, framed by my stepmother and fiancé, I was finally released.
Instead of a welcome home, my stepmother tossed me a one-way ticket to Geneva and a threat: renounce the family name and disappear, or end up in the Hudson River.
When our limo was suddenly ambushed by military-grade SUVs on the highway, their cowardice almost got us killed.
I took the wheel, crashed the attackers, and saved their lives.
But the moment the danger passed, my stepmother tried to slap me, called me a psycho, and abandoned me on the desolate roadside.
My ex-fiancé later cornered me in public, trying to assert his dominance by grabbing my arm.
They still thought I was the broken girl they sent to a cage just so they could steal my dead mother's biochemical research.
I didn't feel heartbreak, only a cold, absolute certainty.
They threw me to the wolves, not realizing the federal penitentiary had burned away my capacity for mercy.
I hacked into the dark web and found out Dante Meltoni, the most dangerous Mafia Don in New York, was tearing the city apart to find a legendary underground doctor.
I am that doctor.
I walked straight into his heavily guarded fortress, pulled out a syringe, and saved his dying grandfather.
Then I looked the terrifying Don right in the eye.
"Marry me. And let me use your empire to wipe my family off the map."
8.1
When the private elevator pinged. That was the moment Eleanor's two-and-a-half years as a billionaire's perfect fake girlfriend abruptly ended.
Julian was terminating her services early because his real first love was moving into the penthouse tomorrow.
His assistant stood by the marble counter, bracing for a screaming match. He handed over a brutal non-disclosure agreement.
He slid a five-million-dollar check across the table, fully expecting her to cry, beg, or throw the money back in his face.
"Miss Palmer... Giselle is moving in tomorrow," he warned.
Instead, Eleanor calmly borrowed his Montblanc pen, signed her name three times without hesitation, and slipped the money into her planner.
"Congratulations to Mr. Caldwell-Prentice on finally getting what he wants," she smiled flawlessly.
They all thought she was just a high-end, emotionless mercenary who felt absolutely nothing for the men she served.
They didn't know she was actually Cara Love, the last surviving heir of the ruined Love Foundation, living under a fake name to avenge her dead father.
For years, she swallowed her burning hatred, playing the perfect emotional substitute to buy dark web intel and hide her unnatural, rapid-healing body from a ruthless medical syndicate.
But now, a tech billionaire client had just uncovered her true identity, and her burner phone flashed with a terrifying emergency alert.
The syndicate had found her.
Eleanor grabbed her suitcase and ordered the private jet back to New York.
The facade was over; it was time to face the deadly storm.
9.0
I married the CEO of the powerful Powers Corporation, and everyone saw me as the perfect trophy wife. They assumed my days were filled with nothing but shopping on Fifth Avenue.
But this prestigious family was a house of cards. My husband's siblings were spoiled, useless children threatening to bring the entire empire down with their stupidity.
His brother, Braden, was a parasite who mistook his trust fund for "freedom." His sister, Chelsea, was a brainless socialite being used as a pawn in a public scandal by a con artist.
Even the family's ruthless Chief of Staff, a man meant to be their shield, looked at me with utter contempt, viewing me as just another problem to be managed.
They all saw a fragile doll. They had no idea that their weakness was an insult to the family name, and I was not going to stand for it.
It was time to discipline the children. The first lesson began at 3,000 feet, when I kicked my brother-in-law out of a plane mid-flight. His rehabilitation—and my takeover of this family—had just begun.
9.6
A billionaire art collector purchases a mysterious 19th-century portrait and begins having vivid dreams about the woman in it. After a near-fatal accident, he realizes the portrait is connected to a tragic past that mirrors his present life. As he grows close to a woman who looks exactly like the one in the painting, he must uncover the truth behind the portrait before history repeats itself.
Can love survive centuries of secrets and mistakes? And will he finally find the courage to fight for the woman in front of him, or will the past destroy them both?
#mystery
#lovetriangle
#hero
#betrayal
9.6
I was the devoted PR manager and secret girlfriend of A-list actor Vance Sterling for three years.
Just minutes after he promised me a romantic dinner, I caught him sleeping with a wealthy Los Angeles socialite.
When I confronted him, he didn't apologize. Instead, he mocked my status, froze my bank accounts, and left me completely homeless on the rainy streets of the city.
Blacklisted in Hollywood and utterly destitute, I ended up having a reckless, revenge-fueled one-night stand with the socialite's ruthless billionaire fiancé, Jory Elliott.
But my nightmare had just begun. My younger brother accrued a half-million-dollar gambling debt with a brutal cartel, and they threatened to chop off his fingers.
Jory stepped in and paid the ransom, only for my brother to beg the billionaire for more gambling money, calling me a selfish bitch for not milking him dry.
Then, Jory threw a marriage agreement at my face.
"Act as my devoted wife for two years, and I will wipe the debt and give you ten million dollars."
I gave my youth to an actor who discarded me like trash, and my own flesh and blood only saw me as a walking ATM.
Did these powerful men really think my dignity was just another corporate asset to be bought and traded?
I looked into the cold, calculating eyes of the billionaire who thought he owned me.
I threw the contract right at his chest and stepped out of his Maybach into the freezing rain.
I would rather rot in the gutter than be a pet bought with a checkbook.