Married to the CEO by Morning
After my boyfriend of four years publicly humiliated me at a charity gala, calling me a "charity case," I drowned my sorrows at a dive bar and had a one-night stand with a stranger.
I woke up the next morning in a luxury hotel suite to find out the stranger was Christian Porter, the most ruthless billionaire on Wall Street.
Worse, paparazzi had photographed us leaving the bar. He coldly informed me that the photos would create a scandal that could tank his company's upcoming IPO, costing him hundreds of millions. As if my world wasn't collapsing fast enough, I got a call that my younger brother had been arrested for assaulting my ex in my defense.
Christian didn't want my apology; he wanted a solution. He slammed a prenuptial agreement on the table in front of me.
He gave me an ultimatum: sign a two-year marriage contract to turn the scandal into a corporate fairy tale, or he would ruin me. Trapped, I agreed. But when my furious brother confronted him at the police station, Christian looked him dead in the eye and said something that left me breathless.
"I didn't marry her to solve a problem," he said, his voice echoing in the small room. "I married her because I've been in love with her for ten years."
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Chapter 5
The black Maybach idled smoothly at the base of the wide stone steps of Manhattan City Hall.
The driver hurried to open the door. Christian stepped out first, the midday sun glinting off his dark hair as he casually buttoned his suit jacket.
Elenor followed, her legs feeling like lead. She was wearing a white, vintage Chanel tweed suit that Christian's assistant had somehow procured within an hour.
The bright autumn sunlight stung her eyes. She instinctively raised a hand to shield her face.
Christian turned back. He held out his hand, his large palm facing upward, waiting.
Elenor stared at his hand for a fraction of a second before placing her icy fingers into his.
His hand clamped down instantly, his grip firm and unyielding, as if anchoring her to the earth. He led her up the steps.
Passersby turned their heads, their eyes lingering on the striking couple, assuming they were just another pair of wealthy elites tying the knot.
They pushed through the heavy brass doors. The chaotic noise of the crowded lobby hit Elenor, making her stomach churn with sudden panic.
She slowed her pace, an overwhelming urge to run seizing her muscles.
Christian felt the resistance in her arm. He stopped and tilted his head, leaning down until his lips were inches from her ear.
"If you back out now," he warned, his voice a lethal whisper, "the breach of contract penalty is fifty million dollars."
Elenor glared at him, her jaw clenching. "I wasn't going to run," she hissed through her teeth.
A team of high-powered lawyers in sharp suits was already waiting for them near the clerk's office. They efficiently handed Christian a stack of expedited paperwork.
They bypassed the massive line of waiting couples and were ushered directly into a private office. A senior city clerk sat behind a heavy desk, offering them a warm, practiced smile.
The clerk began to process the application. The solemn legality of the process bounced off the wood-paneled walls, making the reality of the situation crash down on Elenor.
She was binding herself to a stranger. A ruthless billionaire who was using her to appease his board of directors.
"Do you, Christian Porter, swear the information on this marriage license application is true and correct?"
"I do," Christian answered instantly. There was zero hesitation in his deep voice.
He turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto Elenor with a heavy, suffocating weight.
"And do you, Elenor Gould..."
Hearing her birth name echo in the room was a stark reminder; Deann Benson had never bothered with the paperwork to legally change her last name, another small, cruel proof that she was never truly a part of their family. Elenor's throat closed up. The silence in the small room stretched, thick and unbearable.
Christian's thumb pressed hard into the back of her hand, a silent, commanding pressure.
Elenor squeezed her eyes shut, drew in a shaky breath, and forced the words past her lips. "I do."
"Excellent," the clerk declared cheerfully, stamping the document with a heavy seal. "By the State of New York, your marriage license is hereby issued. Please remember, the mandatory twenty-four-hour waiting period must pass before you can have the actual ceremony."
Elenor stiffened her spine. She expected Christian to simply take the document and leave.
Instead, Christian reached up, his large hands framing her face. He tilted her head up and crashed his mouth down onto hers.
It wasn't a fake kiss. It was deep, consuming, and aggressively possessive.
His scent, his heat, his sheer physical dominance completely overwhelmed her senses. Elenor's knees weakened, her hands instinctively grabbing his lapels to stay upright.
After what felt like an eternity, Christian pulled back just enough to break the seal. His thumb dragged slowly across her swollen lower lip.
"You are mine now," he rasped, his voice so low only she could hear it.
Elenor's heart hammered violently against her ribs. She saw a flash of dark, terrifying obsession in his eyes that made her breath hitch.
Before she could process it, the clerk slid the crisp, stamped marriage license across the desk.
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8.0
Elena never planned on marrying a stranger, especially not someone engaged to her sister. But when her sister disappears days before the wedding, Elena is forced into an arrangement she never agreed to, with a man she knew nothing about.
Nathaniel Sinclair, billionaire heir with his dreamy looks and charming attitude is just as unenthusiastic about the situation as she is. Their marriage begins with distance, awkward silences and the quiet understanding that neither of them asked for this.
But as days turn into weeks and forced proximity becomes a regular thing, Elena starts to wonder: what happens when two people trapped in an arrangement begin to fall for each other?
It was never meant to be love. But love has a way of rewriting the rules.
7.4
I never expected to be branded a 'fake heiress' and a 'scheming bitch' on my own wedding anniversary.
"Did you really think we'd never find out you faked the DNA test?" My mother's voice cut like a blade. "You've been impersonating our real daughter all along."
The irony was suffocating. They were the ones who stormed into my peaceful life, insisting that I was their long-lost child-no proof needed. And now they dared to call me the fraud.
"Since Camille has finally returned to where she belongs," my father declared coldly, "it's time for you to crawl back into whatever shadow you came from."
Then came the final blow. My husband of five years didn't even hesitate.
"I'll have the divorce papers drawn up immediately. Don't make this difficult, Mirena. You were never meant to be my wife."
Overnight, I was discarded. The scandal of the city. The woman who stole a life that was never hers.
But they forgot one thing: I never needed them.
Before I was George Ashton's wife, I was Mirena Sterling-the Investment Queen. The woman who broke Wall Street records before she turned twenty-five. A racing champion. A tech prodigy.
I walked away from all of it. Gave up my empire. My crown. My name. All for a man who threw me away like garbage the moment someone "better" came along.
Big mistake.
On the night they cast me out, soaking wet and humiliated, I ran into the last person I ever wanted to see.
"Look at you now, Mirena," Alexander Pierce murmured, watching me with those piercing eyes. "The woman who once ruled the financial world. Reduced to this." He tilted his head. "And for what? Love?" A dark laugh. "Pathetic."
My former rival. The man who spent years trying to beat me-and never once succeeded. Now he stood before me, a Wall Street titan, watching my downfall with hungry satisfaction.
He thought he'd seen the last of me.
He was wrong.
The game was simple now: drop the dead weight, reclaim what's mine, and remind everyone why they feared my name.
Within months, I was back. Every market moved when I breathed. Every headline screamed my return. The Sterlings came crawling, begging for mercy they'd never shown me. And George? He watched in horror as I bought his most prized company without blinking.
The divorce he'd so eagerly signed? His greatest regret.
"Mirena, please," he begged, groveling at my feet. "Give me another chance."
I didn't even look at him. "Sorry, darling. I don't recycle trash."
But what I didn't expect was him.
Alexander Pierce dropped to one knee in front of me-the man who had once mocked my fall, now looking up with something raw and undisguised in his crimson gaze.
"I knew you'd take back everything they stole," he said, voice low. "Now..." A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. "Take me too."
9.7
Gemma expected the tearing agony of the bullet wound that had just ended her life.
Instead, her trembling fingers met the cool, smooth friction of heavy silk.
She stared into the mirror. Her face was flawless, completely devoid of the jagged scar that had marred her cheek for the last five years.
It was exactly ten years ago. The day of her engagement party to the ruthless billionaire, Brion Hubbard.
In her past life, her "best friend" Katelyn convinced her to run away with a scheming scumbag.
Katelyn claimed Brion was a heartless tyrant who would ruin her. Gemma had foolishly believed those fake tears.
That choice led to her family's bankruptcy, her brutal disfigurement, and ultimately, a fatal bomb explosion.
The only person who tried to save her was Brion, his blood-soaked body shielding hers from the blast.
She even realized too late that the strawberry cream cakes she always made for him were full of dairy.
He wasn't leaving to cheat on her. He was locking himself in a medical bay, fighting fatal allergic shock, just to accept a tiny scrap of her affection.
Gemma had been so incredibly blind. Why did she trust the venomous snakes who destroyed her, while hating the man who died for her?
Hearing Katelyn frantically knocking on the dressing room door, urging her to run away again, a towering hatred surged through Gemma's veins.
This time, she wasn't going to run.
She was going to expose the traitors, take back her family's wealth, and claim the tyrant for herself.
7.9
The rain was a solid sheet of gray as the black SUV rammed into my car, sending me spiraling over the guardrail. As the glass shattered and the world turned upside down, a searing pain ripped through my chest before everything went cold and dark.
I didn’t stay in the darkness. My spirit hovered ten feet in the air, watching the steam hiss from my mangled sedan.
I followed the magnetic pull of my soul back to my family estate, expecting to find them devastated. Instead, I found my stepmother, Florene, and my sister, Kassidy, pouring vintage champagne and laughing in the drawing room.
"To the end of the nuisance," Florene said, her eyes gleaming with greed. "The trust fund unlocks at midnight. We're finally rich."
The betrayal cut deeper than the metal that killed me, but the real shock came at my funeral. Hiram Tyson—the cold, masked husband I’d spent three years fearing—collapsed over my closed casket. He unbuckled his silver mask, revealing a face ruined by scars, and sobbed a name I hadn't heard since childhood.
"I'm sorry, Angel. I thought keeping you at arm's length would keep the darkness away."
He wasn't the monster I thought he was. He was the boy I had saved at the orphanage years ago, and he had been protecting me in silence while my own family plotted my murder.
I reached out to touch him, but the world exploded into a blinding white light.
When I opened my eyes, I wasn't in a casket. I was back in our bedroom, feeling the heavy weight of Hiram’s arm across my waist. The calendar on the nightstand read September 14, 2023—exactly one year before the crash.
I looked at the silver mask resting on the table and felt a cold, hard determination settle in my chest. This time, I wasn't going to be the victim. I was going to be the villain in their story and burn their world to the ground.
9.8
For two years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to wealthy heir Grady Maddox.
Then I found a hidden compartment in his study desk. Inside were dozens of explicit polaroids of his adopted sister, Jasmine, and a worn leather diary.
The diary revealed the sickening truth.
"Kaya is the perfect shield. As long as I have a wife, no one will ever look too closely at me and my little Yue."
When Jasmine deliberately knocked a bowl of boiling soup onto my hand, Grady didn't even glance at my blistering skin.
He frantically checked Jasmine for nonexistent scratches and yelled at me.
"Why weren't you paying attention? Look at the mess you've made! You scared her."
He then kicked me out to our empty penthouse as punishment, only to move Jasmine in the very next day, letting her parade around in his dress shirts and giving her my favorite custom furniture.
Looking at the husband I had devoted my life to fawning over the sister he was secretly sleeping with, I didn't feel heartbroken. I just felt a deep, suffocating disgust.
I was nothing but a paper wall meant to hide their twisted affair.
I didn't cry, and I didn't beg for his love.
I simply locked him out of the bedroom, gathered my financial records, and called Manhattan's most ruthless divorce attorney.
I was securing my escape, completely unaware that Grady's estranged, terrifyingly powerful older brother had been waiting ten years for this exact moment.
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?