His Unwanted Wife: The Hidden Genius
For three years, June played the perfect, submissive wife to billionaire Augustus Pruitt, hoping a child would finally warm his cold heart and secure their marriage.
But when she cautiously suggested they have a baby, he looked at her with pure, unfiltered disgust.
"A woman who schemes her way into a marriage doesn't get to carry my blood."
He sneered, leaving immediately to lavish his mistress with diamonds. The nightmare only escalated from there. Augustus bought the one painting June desperately wanted—a piece she had secretly created herself—just to gift it to his mistress. He publicly outbid June at the gallery, mocking her lack of wealth, and left her to collapse in the freezing rain. When the storm gave her a severe 104-degree fever and she nearly died on their staircase, he didn't even stay by her hospital bed. Instead, he sent an assistant with a box of jewelry to buy her silence, then forced her to attend a family dinner where his mother and sister viciously mocked her barren womb and background.
Looking at Augustus, who sat there casually cutting his steak while his family tore her apart, the last flicker of hope in June's chest sputtered and died.
She finally understood that her three years of bleeding devotion were nothing but a pathetic joke to them.
She dropped her silverware, the sharp clatter silencing the entire room. She wasn't going to be their punching bag anymore. It was time to finalize the divorce papers, reclaim her hidden identity as the world-renowned artist 'mr.sun', and make them all regret it.
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Chapter 4
The silence in the gallery was absolute. It was so quiet June could hear the frantic beat of her own heart, a wild drum against the backdrop of her husband's cruel challenge.
Julian Finch looked at her, his face a mask of pity and helplessness. He was a businessman. He could not defy Augustus Pruitt.
June stared at Augustus, disbelief warring with a tidal wave of humiliation. He was going to do this. He was going to use his fortune to crush her, right here, in front of this woman and a stranger. It wasn't about the painting anymore. It was a public execution of her dignity.
Herlinda clung to Augustus's arm, her voice a soft murmur. "Gus, this feels wrong. It's so... aggressive." But her eyes, fixed on June, were gleaming with triumphant delight. She was enjoying the show.
"It's fair," Augustus said, his gaze locked on June, cold and unyielding. He was watching her, waiting for her to break, to crumble. "It's the only way to settle this."
He turned to Julian. "The painting's list price was five hundred thousand. I'll start the bidding. One million dollars."
He didn't even start at the base price. He doubled it, a casual display of power designed to end the fight before it even began.
A wave of dizziness washed over June. Her entire life savings-the money from her freelance illustration work before the marriage, the small inheritance from her grandmother-it was all less than his opening bid. She knew, logically, that this was a battle she could not win.
But she couldn't surrender. Not without a fight. Not for this.
She clenched her jaw, lifted her chin, and met his gaze.
"One million," she said, her voice barely a whisper, but it carried across the silent room, "and one hundred dollars."
A choked sound, half-laugh, half-scoff, escaped Herlinda's lips.
Augustus's expression didn't change. He looked amused, like a cat watching a mouse take its last, futile steps.
"Two million," he said, the words rolling off his tongue with insulting ease.
The air in June's lungs turned to ice. Her hands, shoved deep into the pockets of her jeans, were slick with sweat. This wasn't a competition. It was a slaughter. He wasn't just outbidding her; he was demonstrating, with every added million, how insignificant she was, how worthless her resources were compared to his.
He was buying the proof of her powerlessness.
"My goodness, Gus," Herlinda breathed, her voice filled with feigned awe. "That's so incredibly generous." Her performance was flawless.
Augustus didn't look at her. His eyes were still on June, a cold, expectant gleam in them. "Your turn, Mrs. Pruitt."
He used her married name like a brand, a reminder of who she belonged to, who held all the cards.
June looked away from him, her gaze falling on the painting. Metamorphosis. It depicted a lone, gnarled tree, its bark peeling away to reveal not wood, but a galaxy of stars. It was about shedding a painful skin to reveal something beautiful and infinite inside. It was her story. A story he was now turning into a vulgar transaction.
She had lost.
She took one last, long look at the canvas, a silent goodbye to a piece of her soul.
Then, without another word, she turned and walked toward the door. Her back was ramrod straight. Her steps were even. If she was going to be defeated, she would do it with the last shred of pride she had left.
Her abrupt departure caught Augustus off guard. He had expected tears. Pleading. A dramatic scene. He had not expected this quiet, dignified retreat. Her silence was a defiance he hadn't anticipated, and it left his victory feeling hollow, incomplete.
A strange, unfamiliar flicker of irritation sparked within him.
"Gus, we won!" Herlinda squealed, her voice breaking the spell. "It's mine! It's really mine!"
But Augustus wasn't listening. His gaze was fixed on the glass door, on June's slender figure disappearing into the SoHo crowd.
He frowned, a deep line forming between his brows.
"Wait here," he said to Herlinda, his voice sharp.
He tossed the art book onto the sofa and strode purposefully toward the door, leaving a stunned and jealous Herlinda standing alone in the middle of the gallery. Herlinda's triumphant smile froze, her fingers tightening on her clutch as she watched him leave, a flash of genuine fury momentarily eclipsing her carefully constructed facade.
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9.8
Four years ago, I was drugged on a luxury yacht and ended up pregnant with twins.
I raised them in secret, enduring my stepfamily's daily abuse, until the billionaire West family patriarch cornered us at the airport.
He instantly recognized my son's face—an exact replica of his ruthless grandson, Bernardo West.
My malicious stepmother and stepsister immediately leaked to the press that I was a delusional gold-digger using fake kids to trap a billionaire.
They wanted the West family to destroy me to save their own social standing.
Bernardo himself looked at me with pure disgust, demanding a DNA test.
"If you ever lie to me, I will take the children, and I will make you wish you were never born."
I didn't want his money. I was a victim of that night too, left with a crescent-shaped bite mark on my collarbone and zero memory of who set us up.
Why did someone drug us? And how could I protect my babies from a corporate predator who could crush me with a snap of his fingers?
But when the DNA test came back 99.9999% positive, I didn't cower.
I showed him the scar he left on me, looked the most dangerous man in the country right in the eye, and made my demand.
"If you want to claim your heirs, you have to marry me."
9.7
"Sign it. You're no woman if you can't give me an heir."
Niamh gave Marcus two years of her life, her unwavering loyalty, and her silent love. In return, the billionaire CEO served her divorce papers and a one-way ticket to the gutter.
Cast out into a rainy night with nothing but the clothes on her back and twelve dollars, Niamh’s story should have ended there.
Instead, she stumbled on a stranger in the rain.
In an attempt to save him, he kisses her senseless. He is the last Lycan King standing, and a man of terrifying power, yet he is haunted by a seven-century curse.
When the king has a taste of Niamh in the pouring rain, he knew he had to keep her for himself, even though she was human and it was against the laws of their kind not to mingle with humans.
The King needs her essence and Niamh realizes she could use her body to get what she wanted; revenge on Marcus and his mother for humiliating her and making her waste her time.
Now, the woman Marcus discarded is rising as a global conglomerate queen and a Divine Enchantress as assigned by the Moon Goddess.
While her ex-husband’s empire crumbles into bankruptcy and his body rots with a shameful curse, Niamh is learning that being "claimed" by the King is much more than the contract she'd initially made with him.
He wanted to use her as his cure. She wanted to use him for her revenge.
But in the Lumina Realm, the Goddess has other plans.
8.9
Debora went to prison to protect the man she loved, only to end up a paroled convict living under the roof of her abusive foster parents.
When they found her positive pregnancy test from a one-night stand, they threatened to kick her out and send her straight back to a cell.
Just as they were about to report her, the stranger from that dark hotel room suddenly appeared.
He paid her foster parents one million dollars to marry her and take her away.
Debora thought she was finally safe.
But the moment they were alone, he looked at her with pure, venomous hatred.
He didn't want a wife; he wanted a prisoner.
He believed Debora was the ruthless murderer who had destroyed his life in a car crash, and he planned to make her suffocate in her own despair.
He didn't know she was just a scapegoat.
To survive and protect her baby, Debora found a job at a bridal shop, only to run into the real culprit—the man who actually drove the car and framed her.
He was now happily engaged to a wealthy heiress.
They deliberately ruined a priceless wedding gown and blamed it on her.
"Kneel on this floor and apologize, or I'm calling the police to revoke your parole!"
Why did she have to rot in hell for his sins, while the man she married wanted to destroy her?
Just as her trembling knees were about to touch the cold marble floor, the heavy glass doors were violently shoved open.
Her billionaire husband strode in like a force of nature, his eyes locked onto the wealthy couple with a terrifying, destructive rage.
7.9
On my wedding day, my fiancé Connor received an urgent phone call.
He told me a D-list actress had broken her leg on set, then abandoned me right at the altar.
In my past life, I cried until my throat bled, begging him not to leave.
But my tears only brought endless humiliation. My mother and adopted sister mocked me, framed me, and forged my signature to steal my multi-million dollar trust fund.
They kicked me out of the family estate without a single dime.
I ended up freezing to death in the minus-twenty-degree New York blizzard, listening to my mother's voicemail telling me to die in the street as long as I didn't bleed on her carpets.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand why my own blood relatives hated me so much, yet treated an adopted daughter like a precious princess.
The only person who showed me any mercy—draping his wool coat over my frozen corpse and giving me a proper burial—was Connor's ruthless, untouchable uncle, Harding Snow.
Opening my eyes again, I was back in the bridal suite, right as Connor was rushing out the door.
This time, I didn't shed a single tear.
I let him run to his actress, then walked straight into the VIP room to face the most feared billionaire on Wall Street.
"The wedding proceeds as planned, but the groom's name changes to yours."
8.9
For fifteen years, I thought my mother had died in a tragic fire.
Then the wealthy Ross family's butler knocked on my door, revealing she was alive—locked away in the psychiatric annex of their massive estate.
I rushed into the lion's den to save her, only to run straight into Graydon Ross, the ruthless billionaire CEO.
He looked at my cheap clothes with pure disgust, convinced I was a bottom-feeding scammer trying to extort his family.
"Throw this bitch out into the snow."
He ordered his armed guards to drag me away, completely cutting off my only chance to see my mentally broken mother.
But as he violently grabbed my collar to throw me out, I saw a custom eagle-head cufflink hanging from his coat pocket.
My blood turned to ice, and a wave of paralyzing terror crashed over me.
Eight months ago, I accidentally slept with a masked stranger in a pitch-black hotel room and fled before dawn.
That cufflink belonged to him.
The man who took my virginity—the Wall Street tyrant I had been hiding from—was Graydon Ross.
If he ever found out I was that woman, he would literally destroy my life.
But to save my mother, I couldn't be thrown out.
When his grandmother suddenly appeared, I dropped to the floor, exposed the dark bruises Graydon had just left on my wrists, and sobbed.
I framed the billionaire for assault to secure my place in the mansion, forcing myself to live right next door to the monster whose bed I had fled.
7.6
🔞🔞🔞🔞🔞🔞
Aria Bennett is the perfect daughter, a decoration in her father's massive business empire. But for one night, she decides to break every rule. At a secret underground club, she meets Adrian, a man who knows exactly how to please her and awaken desires she never knew she had. They promise each other nothing but one night of pleasure and desire.
But when Aria wakes up to find him gone, leaving only a cold note behind, she thinks the fantasy is over. That is, until she walks downstairs the next morning to see the same man standing in her driveway.
Now, the man who knows her darkest secrets is her father's new driver. Forced to face him every day while pretending they are strangers, Aria is caught in a suffocating game of cat and mouse.
Adrian on the other hand is dangerous, cold, and hiding a secret that could destroy her father's empire.
And the closer she gets to him, the more she risks losing everything, including herself.