His Unwanted Wife: The Genius Designer
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."
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Chapter 3
The metal door of the rundown Brooklyn apartment rattled under Kelsey's frantic knocking. It was two in the morning.
The door cracked open. Phoebe Chandler peeked out. Her hair was a messy nest. She held a can of pepper spray aimed straight ahead.
Phoebe saw Kelsey's blue lips and the old suitcase. Her eyes went wide.
She grabbed Kelsey's arm and yanked her into the cramped, warm apartment. She slammed the door and threw the deadbolt.
Phoebe rushed to the tiny kitchen. She poured a mug of hot milk and shoved it into Kelsey's freezing hands.
The heat seeped into Kelsey's numb palms. The tension in her spine snapped.
Tears spilled over her lower lashes and tracked down her cold cheeks.
Phoebe wrapped her arms around Kelsey's shaking shoulders.
"Ervin is a heartless bastard," Phoebe spat.
Kelsey sniffled. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her phone. Her thumb shook as she unlocked the screen.
She pulled up a series of leaked paparazzi photos and held the screen up to Phoebe's face.
Sylvia Vance was in the photos. She was wearing a tight dress, resting her hand on a slightly rounded stomach. She was walking out of a premier private maternity hospital in Manhattan.
Phoebe gasped. She snatched the phone and zoomed in on the picture.
"Sylvia even emailed her ultrasound report directly to my private inbox," Kelsey whispered. Her voice cracked.
Phoebe's face turned bright red. She grabbed a throw pillow off the couch and hurled it at the peeling wallpaper.
"I am calling my contacts at the tabloids! I am exposing this entire Valdez family scandal!"
Kelsey reached out and grabbed Phoebe's wrist. She shook her head. Her eyes looked dead.
"I have no right to take the moral high ground against Sylvia."
Phoebe froze. She stared at Kelsey in total confusion.
Kelsey took a deep breath. Her lungs ached.
"Three years ago, I used a pregnancy report to force the Valdez family into a marriage through the media."
"That was an accident!" Phoebe yelled. "And you lost the baby! You were the victim!"
"In Ervin's eyes, I am just a vicious, calculating liar," Kelsey cut her off.
She wrapped her arms around her own ribs. The memory of the media tearing her apart three years ago made her throat close up.
Phoebe sat back down. She grabbed Kelsey's cold hand and squeezed it tight.
Ten minutes passed. The silence settled.
Kelsey wiped her face. The fragile look in her eyes hardened into something sharp.
She pulled Phoebe's old laptop across the coffee table.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard. She typed in a long, complex string of passwords. She opened an encrypted offshore email server.
The inbox loaded.
Dozens of unread emails sat in the queue. They were all from top-tier global jewelry brands.
Phoebe leaned closer to the screen. She slapped both hands over her mouth to muffle her scream.
Every single email subject line started the same way.
"To the esteemed legendary designer, R."
Kelsey clicked on an email from Starlight Jewels. She hit the reply button.
She turned to look at Phoebe. A real smile finally touched her lips.
"It is time to find myself again."
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9.8
Ina Holman, heiress to a failing real estate empire, was forced to attend a high-stakes matchmaking meeting to secure a financial lifeline for her family.
But the drink she was handed was secretly spiked. Desperate to avoid a public scandal that would ruin her father, she fled into a VIP elevator, only to fall directly into the arms of Buren Warner—the most ruthless billionaire predator on Wall Street.
After a blurred, chaotic night, the nightmare truly began.
A fabricated scandal of her hotel rendezvous hit the front pages. Her father slapped her across the face, using the disgrace as an excuse to freeze her accounts and kick her out onto the streets, legally severing her from the family trust before declaring bankruptcy.
Even worse, her twin sister was killed in a sudden estate explosion.
And the final, crushing blow? Ina discovered that her ex-boyfriend, Faron, the man supposed to save her family, was secretly gay. He and her best friend had orchestrated the drugging to destroy Ina's reputation, allowing Faron to break their alliance and keep his inheritance without suspicion.
Stripped of her home, her family, and her dignity, Ina screamed in agony on the freezing streets.
Her own father had murdered her sister for a fifty-million-dollar insurance payout and sacrificed Ina to hide his assets. The people she trusted most had conspired to ruin her life just for their own selfish greed.
Driven into a corner with absolutely nothing left to lose, Ina stared at the cold, calculating billionaire who had tracked her down to an abandoned cliffside estate.
"Marry me, and I will give you the power to destroy them all."
To avenge her sister and crush the people who betrayed her, Ina signed her soul to the devil.
9.2
Jacqueline Blackburn, a desperate Ivy League tutor, walked into the sleazy Veridian VIP club just to save her job.
But her billionaire client, the ruthless Christian Montgomery, mistook her for a cheap escort, blowing cigar smoke in her face and treating her like trash.
When she furiously turned to leave, a drunk former client attacked her in the hallway, tearing her white dress open and pinning her by the throat.
She fought back, stabbing the man's hand with a pen, only for Christian to emerge from the shadows and brutally crush the attacker's bleeding hand under his heel.
Instead of letting her go, Christian draped his heavy suit jacket over her exposed skin, trapped her in his dark suite, and forced her to sign a suffocating contract.
"You have exactly ninety days, or I will personally ensure you cease to exist in my city."
She thought she could just keep her head down, teach his nephew, and survive.
But she didn't understand why this terrifying underground tyrant was suddenly so fixated on her.
Why did he use his immense power to isolate her, publicly claim her at a billionaire gala, and track her every move?
When she received a chilling midnight text demanding she pack her bags and move into his sprawling estate by 8:00 AM, the terrifying reality set in.
She hadn't escaped the wolf. She had just walked directly into his cage.
8.9
Five years ago, Arabella Sterling vanished without a trace, disgraced, heartbroken, and branded her billionaire benefactor's dirty secret.
What the world never knew was that she'd also been his wife.
Or that the man she loved-and the son she gave everything for-chose another woman over her.
Now, she's back as The Reformer, a world-renowned business strategist celebrated for resurrecting dying empires.
Her newest client? The Sterling Group.
Her ex-husband's empire.
Adrian Sterling has spent years trying to atone for the lies that destroyed them both.
But when Arabella walks into his boardroom, colder, sharper, untouchable...he realizes redemption may come at a cost he can't pay.
Because this time, she's not here to save him.
She's here to ruin him.
7.9
Cora Foster was a brilliant archaeologist, but a jagged burn scar across her face made the world treat her like a contagious monster.
During an elite excavation of a Gilded Age crypt, touching an ancient artifact triggered a terrifying memory. She remembered being Seraphina Beaumont, a socialite brutally buried alive by her vain, cruel sister, Isolde.
When the team pried open the crypt's pristine mahogany casket, they cheered, believing the mummified corpse inside was Seraphina. But Cora recognized the onyx hairpin and the angular jawline. It was Isolde. The sister who had stolen her life, mocked her agony, and left her to suffocate in the dark. Her colleagues scoffed at her forensic proof, dismissing her as a scarred, delusional liability.
Worse, the ruthless billionaire funding the expedition, Julian Montgomery, was the spitting image of Alistair—the man Seraphina had deeply loved. Why was Julian staring at her ruined face with such intense, inexplicable recognition? And why did Isolde take Seraphina's most precious silver ring to the grave?
Driven by a century of agonizing grief, Cora secretly pried the tarnished ring from the mummy's stiff, dead fingers and dropped it into her pocket.
"What are you looking at, Foster?"
Julian's deep voice vibrated inches from her ear, his cold, predatory eyes locked directly onto her half-open pocket.
7.5
Daisy spent her birthday cooking a perfect dinner, waiting in their massive penthouse for her billionaire husband, Emmett.
Instead of coming home, a breaking news alert flashed on her screen: Emmett was at the hospital, protectively shielding his old flame, Eryn. When Daisy rushed to the VIP ward, Emmett physically blocked her to comfort a crying Eryn, completely forgetting it was his wife's birthday.
Heartbroken, Daisy demanded a divorce and fled. In response, Emmett ruthlessly froze all her bank accounts and trust funds, leaving her penniless in the freezing Manhattan rain. When she cornered him with divorce papers at a public funeral, a heavy metal cart slammed into her, tearing her calf wide open. Bleeding onto the marble floor, she begged him to sign. Instead, Emmett violently ripped the bloody papers to shreds.
"Unless I am dead, you are my wife," he snarled, locking her inside a room.
Daisy risked her life to escape through a window, dragging her bleeding leg to a dingy motel. But the real nightmare began when Eryn called. The tragic car crash that killed Daisy's adoptive parents ten years ago wasn't an accident—the brake lines were cut. And Emmett, the man she loved, had been using his vast corporate empire to protect the murderers all along.
Why did Emmett bury the police report? What was the deadly secret behind her true identity and the antique "Venus" necklace? Staring at her blood-stained hands in the cracked mirror, the terrified wife died. Daisy grabbed her coat and limped out into the dark, heading straight for the Navy Yard to burn his empire to the ground.
9.7
Eleonora held the positive pregnancy test, trembling with fragile hope as she told her husband they were having a baby.
Instead of embracing her, Butler slapped the plastic stick away, his eyes cold and dead.
"You cheating whore," he spat, throwing a stack of papers at her face.
He didn't listen to her desperate pleas. He ordered his bodyguards to drag her out of their penthouse and lock her in a private hospital room.
Trapped and terrified, Eleonora watched in horror as Butler's mistress walked in with a wicked smile.
The mistress shoved a medical consent form, signed with Butler's unmistakable handwriting, right in front of Eleonora's face.
"This isn't just an abortion," the mistress sneered. "It's a full hysterectomy. You'll never have a child again."
Eleonora's heart shattered into pieces. She couldn't understand how the man she loved could be so cruel, willing to kill their unborn baby and mutilate her body over a fabricated lie.
Driven by pure maternal terror, she smeared her blood on the forged papers, set the hospital room on fire, and let the world believe she had burned to ashes.
Five years later, Eleonora returned to New York with her young son.
She was no longer the weak, broken girl who begged for mercy.
Walking into the Holloway Group boardroom in a flawless Dior suit, she slammed a legal document onto Butler's desk.
She was still his legal wife, and she was here to dismantle his empire piece by piece.