Married to the man I shouldn't love
She was never supposed to be the bride.
Lila Hart has always lived in her older sister's shadow, Evelyn, the perfect daughter, the favorite, the one chosen to marry Adrian Blackwell, the cold, powerful billionaire heir who controls half of Manhattan. But forty-eight hours before the wedding, Evelyn disappears. No explanation, No goodbye. Just a single warning: "Don't let him find out what I did."
Now the Hart family is about to lose everything, their reputation, their company, their future, unless Lila steps into the role her sister abandoned.
So Lila becomes the replacement bride
A marriage born out of duty for her... and pure anger for him.
Adrian doesn't want a wife, He wants answers. And he's certain Lila knows more about Evelyn's disappearance than she claims. They swear they'll keep their distance, No love,No trust, Just a contract neither of them asked for.
But the night of the wedding, a violent warning arrives, proving Evelyn didn't run away, She was taken. And whoever has her... wants Lila next.
Now Lila is trapped in a marriage built on secrets, hunted by enemies she can't see, and falling for a man she was never supposed to love.
Because the most dangerous place for her... might be right beside her husband.
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Chapter 5
I slept restlessly that night. Every time I drifted off, I jolted awake again, my thoughts circling the same image-Evelyn looking over her shoulder in a dark Brooklyn street. It played on repeat in my mind, blurry but haunting. She wasn't panicked. She wasn't crying. She looked... alert. Aware. Almost like she expected someone to find her.
When I finally gave up on sleep, pale sunlight was creeping through the tall windows. The penthouse was still and silent, too large for one person to wake up in. I wrapped my arms around myself, bracing against a sense of loneliness I didn't want to admit.
As I stepped into the hallway, I nearly collided with someone.
Adrian.
He was coming out of his home office, sleeves rolled up, tie loose, the faint beginning of stubble along his jaw. He looked like he hadn't slept either. His eyes flicked over me quickly, sweeping from my expression to my posture.
"You didn't sleep," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"Neither did you," I replied.
His jaw tightened slightly, but he didn't deny it. He walked past me, heading toward the kitchen, and I followed without meaning to. His presence pulled me along like gravity itself.
He poured coffee into two cups before pausing, as if realizing what he was doing. For a moment, he looked at the second cup like it surprised him. Like the thought of including me was instinctive rather than deliberate.
He pushed it toward me.
"Drink."
I accepted it carefully, watching him over the rim.
Adrian leaned against the counter, arms crossed, studying me with that unreadable intensity he wore like armor.
"You're thinking about the photo," he said.
"I'm thinking about Evelyn," I answered softly. "None of this makes sense."
He didn't respond immediately. He took a slow sip of coffee, eyes fixed on the floor for a brief, rare moment of distraction. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before.
"She always ran from responsibility," Adrian said. "But she never ran blindly. If she's hiding, she has a reason. A serious one."
I hesitated before asking, "Do you blame her for leaving?"
His eyes lifted to mine, sharper now. "What do you think?"
I swallowed. "I think you're angry. But not only because she abandoned you."
A muscle in his jaw flexed.
Adrian Blackwell did not enjoy being seen.
Before he could respond, the penthouse door opened and Marcus stepped inside, carrying a folder in one hand and a phone in the other.
"Morning," Marcus said. Then, noticing the tension in the room, added, "Or whatever we're calling this."
He handed the folder to Adrian. "I checked city traffic cameras. Evelyn's sighting is real. She was in Brooklyn two nights ago, then got into a black car. No plates. Driver was careful. Practiced."
Adrian flipped the file open, scanning the images. "Someone picked her up?"
"Yes," Marcus said. "Voluntarily."
The word hit me like a slap.
"Voluntarily?" I repeated.
Marcus nodded. "I zoomed in. She wasn't forced. No struggle. She walked straight to the car."
My stomach twisted.
She wasn't running from someone chasing her.
She was meeting someone.
Adrian closed the file slowly, as if fighting the instinct to slam it shut.
"Who was the driver?" he asked.
"No match in our system," Marcus said. "But I can tell you something else-your father is definitely involved. His assistant requested sealed court records last night."
"Sealed records?" Adrian's voice dropped. "Of what?"
Marcus sighed. "Marriage contracts."
The room went silent.
Marriage contracts.
The arranged marriage.
Our marriage.
My heart hammered painfully.
Adrian straightened, the shift in his presence immediate and chilling.
"He's trying to find proof the bride was switched," Adrian said.
And suddenly everything inside me froze.
Marcus nodded. "And knowing Victor, he won't stop until he gets it."
I felt lightheaded. "If he finds out... what happens?"
Adrian looked at me, really looked at me, and for a moment his walls slipped-not enough for me to see everything, but enough to reveal tension sharp enough to cut.
"If my father proves this marriage is invalid," Adrian said, "he'll have it annulled."
Annulled.
The word rooted itself in my chest like a stone.
"You'd lose the Blackwell alliance," Marcus said. "And Lila-"
"-would be out," Adrian finished.
The implication hit me slowly, painfully.
"I'd be sent back to my family."
The family that only wanted me when Evelyn ran.
Adrian's expression remained unreadable. "You'd lose everything this marriage protects you from."
Everything.
The debts.
The public shame.
The humiliation.
The questions about Evelyn's disappearance.
The life I had been pushed into had somehow become the only shield I had.
Marcus cleared his throat. "We have two options."
Adrian didn't move. "Say them."
"Option one: We find Evelyn before Victor's investigator does."
"And option two?"
Marcus hesitated. His eyes flicked toward me, then back to Adrian.
"Option two... is to strengthen the appearance of the marriage."
The silence was immediate and suffocating.
I felt Adrian tense beside me.
Marcus continued carefully. "Victor loses power if he can't argue the marriage is fake. Public events. Family dinners. Appearances. Anything that shows Lila is your wife-and not just on paper."
My cheeks burned.
My heart raced.
Adrian's expression hardened instantly.
"That's out of the question."
Marcus shrugged. "So is letting your father win. Unless you want him controlling your household for the next decade."
Adrian didn't respond.
For the first time, he seemed... conflicted.
Marcus sighed. "Then we stick with option one. Find Evelyn."
He stepped toward the door, pausing only once.
"Oh," Marcus added casually, "and Victoria is on her way here."
"What?" Adrian snapped. "Why?"
Marcus smirked lightly. "She said she wants to 'welcome the new Mrs. Blackwell properly.'"
My blood went cold.
Victoria Blackwell.
His mother.
The woman who saw weakness as a flaw and love as a disease.
I felt Adrian move closer to me without realizing he had stepped forward. His voice dropped low, steady, and deliberate.
"Lila."
"Yes?"
"Whatever happens," he said, "you do not let my mother see fear."
My breath hitched.
"And why not?" I whispered.
His eyes held mine-dark, intense, uncomfortably sincere.
"Because she destroys anything that looks afraid."
The knock on the penthouse door echoed sharply through the room.
Marcus exhaled. "Showtime."
And Adrian glanced at the door with the expression of a man preparing to go to war.
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8.2
Bougth love
8.2
The story begins among the vine rows of the San Lorenzo Estate in the Guadalupe Valley. To Hanna Román, this land isn't about money; it's the living memory of her father, the man who taught her that every grape holds the secret of time. However, since his death, Hanna's world has been falling apart. Her mother, Doña Elena-a woman whose entire identity is tied to her last name and her jewelry box-has squandered the family fortune in a desperate attempt to keep up appearances among Mexico's elite.
Debt is closing in, and the banks are threatening to seize the hacienda. This is when Elena plays her final card: her daughter. Hanna is young, beautiful, and possesses a purity that stands in stark contrast to the decay of high society, making her the family's most valuable asset. Elena reaches out to the Montes family, a lineage of financial sharks, and proposes a deal that feels like it belongs in another century: a marriage alliance in exchange for wiping out the Román family's debts.
The Clash of Two Worlds
Sergio Montes doesn't believe in fate, only in statistics. As the CEO of Montes Holdings, his life is a whirlwind of private jets and board meetings in Mexico City skyscrapers. He is strikingly handsome but glacially cold. He accepts the deal not for love or even desire, but out of strategic necessity: his grandfather, the patriarch of the empire, has given him an ultimatum to inherit the presidency of the company-he must "settle down" and project a solid family image.
Their first meeting at a luxury restaurant in Mexico City is a total train wreck. Hanna arrives with the dust of the hacienda still in her soul and her pride wounded; Sergio arrives with a legal contract in hand. He looks at her as just another acquisition-a beautiful but silent asset. She looks at her as the executioner of her freedom.
The Paper Pact
The contract is signed with clear clauses:
A two-year public marriage.
Living together in Sergio's penthouse in Mexico City.
Hanna receives the funds to modernize San Lorenzo but cannot return to live there until the contract expires.
Any real emotional involvement is strictly forbidden.
The beginning of their life together is a cold war. Hanna feels suffocated by the city and Sergio's controlling nature. He, in turn, is caught off guard by her resistance. Hanna isn't the "trophy wife" he expected; she secretly studies agronomy, reads up on commercial law, and questions his every move.
Cracks in the Armor
The turning point comes when Sergio is forced to visit the San Lorenzo Estate for an audit. Away from his concrete jungle, he sees a different Hanna: passionate, a leader, and deeply connected to the land. For the first time, the arrogant CEO feels a crack in his armor. The physical attraction that was always humming beneath the surface like an electric current finally explodes during a storm at the hacienda, where the contract stops being about paper and starts being about skin.
However, Hanna's mother, Elena, isn't done with her schemes. Seeing Sergio start to soften, she fears losing her grip on the money and begins leaking information to the press to sabotage the relationship-leading Hanna to believe that Sergio is planning to sell the hacienda behind her back to build a hotel complex.
Climax and Redemption
The perceived betrayal breaks Hanna. She flees the city and retreats to the vineyards, ready to lose everything rather than stay with a man who thinks everything has a price. Sergio, faced for the first time with something he can't buy with a check, has to choose between his empire and the woman who taught him how to feel.
The end of the story isn't just about saving the San Lorenzo Estate; it's about the transformation of them both. Sergio has to swallow his pride to ask for forgiveness, and Hanna has to learn that love-even when it starts as a transaction-can be the only absolute truth in a world of appearances.
7.0
For three years, I played the perfect, submissive wife to Alpha Julian Sterling.
When I finally got pregnant with his heir, I thought it would warm his cold heart. But the first thing he did when he returned from his trip was hand me a Mate Rejection Agreement.
He had brought back his ex-lover, Serena.
Julian coldly declared our marriage was just a political chore. To clear the path for her, he fired me from the company I built, watched her mock my late father, and threatened to throw me out as Rogue meat if I didn't submit.
The most chilling part was a hidden clause in the divorce papers. It stated that because I was a wolfless Omega, if I were ever pregnant, he would terminate the pup to protect his pure bloodline.
I had given him everything, only to be discarded like trash. I touched my flat stomach, terrified and disgusted that the man I loved would gladly kill his own child just to please his new queen.
"Prepare the documents to accept the rejection," I told my lawyer calmly.
Julian thought he had won, throwing away his useless, barren Omega. He had no idea I was taking his only heir with me, and I would burn his entire empire to the ground before he ever found out.
9.6
In a world where mates are found by scent, he should have known but he didn't.
The richest supernatural billionaire in the city. The most feared Alpha of the most powerful pack. Untouchable. And cursed, or so he believes is unable to smell his true mate.
Yet something keeps pulling him toward her. No scent. No bond. Only a relentless, inexplicable obsession.
She knows the truth. She knows he is her mate. But revealing herself would put them both in danger, and risk exposing secrets she has fought to keep buried.
Now, every glance, every accidental touch, every near encounter drags them closer to a connection neither of them can deny.
In a city of shadows, power, and hidden wolves, can love survive when the bond cannot be smelled, yet cannot be ignored?
8.5
Hadley married into the Jacobson family, a ruthless Wall Street empire. Her prenuptial agreement was absolute: she wouldn't touch a penny of the family wealth until she produced an heir.
But one rainy night, she used a copied keycard to enter a secret Tribeca penthouse, only to find her husband tangled in bed with a famous actress.
When she slapped the divorce papers in front of him, Cleveland didn't apologize.
"The party who files walks away with nothing. You will die in this position."
He tore the documents to pieces. To protect his flawless public image, he forced Hadley to attend family galas, smirking coldly while his grandfather publicly humiliated her for her "barren" stomach. When Hadley finally fought back and confronted his mistress, Cleveland snapped. With a single phone call, he froze her bank accounts, revoked her access to their home, and left her stranded in a cold parking garage.
She had given up her independence for a man who treated her like a useless breeding machine. He thought he could erase three years of her life in an instant, confident that his money made him invincible.
But Cleveland didn't know she was holding the ultimate weapon to destroy his precious legacy. As he received a frantic call about his mistress and rushed to his SUV, Hadley finally screamed the agonizing secret she had hidden for years.
"I can't give you an heir! It's over!"
Watching his taillights disappear into the dark, Hadley prepared to burn his empire to the ground.
8.9
He made one mistake-he chose revenge instead of mercy.
Luna's sharp tongue and careless drunken words should have been harmless. Instead, they mark her as a target for Daimen Blackwell, a billionaire who doesn't forgive and never forgets.
What begins as punishment turns into possession when he forces her into a contract that binds her to him as his mistress-his rules, his house, his bed.
Luna is naïve in love but not in spirit, and her defiance slowly becomes the one thing Daimen can't control. Somewhere between power plays and stolen moments, he wins her heart-only to destroy it.
When Daimen betrays her, Luna leaves with nothing but shattered trust. And that's when he discovers the truth: she is the woman he has been searching for all his life.
This time, the billionaire has nothing left to bargain with.
Only regret. Only groveling. And the hope that love might survive the damage he caused.
7.9
I had just survived a private jet crash, my body a map of violet bruises and my lungs still burning from the smoke. I woke up in a sterile hospital room, gasping for my husband's name, only to realize I was completely alone.
While I was bleeding in a ditch, my husband, Adam, was on the news smiling at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. When I tracked him down at the hospital's VIP wing, I didn't find a grieving husband. I found him tenderly cradling his ex-girlfriend, Casie, in his arms, his face lit with a protective warmth he had never shown me as he carried her into the maternity ward.
The betrayal went deeper than I could have imagined. Adam admitted the affair started on our third anniversary-the night he claimed he was stuck in London for a merger. Back at the manor, his mother had already filled our planned nursery with pink boutique bags for Casie's "little princess." When I demanded a divorce, Adam didn't flinch. He sneered that I was "gutter trash" from a foster home and that I'd be begging on the streets within a week. To trap me, he froze my bank accounts, cancelled my flight, and even called the police to report me for "theft" of company property.
I realized then that I wasn't his partner; I was a charity case he had plucked from obscurity to manage his life. To the Hortons, I was just a servant who happened to sleep in the master bedroom, a "resilient" woman meant to endure his abuse in silence while the whole world laughed at the joke that was my marriage.
Adam thought stripping me of his money would make me crawl back to him. He was wrong. I walked into his executive suite during his biggest deal of the year and poured a mug of sludge over his original ten-million-dollar contracts. Then, right in front of his board and his mistress, I stripped off every designer thread he had ever paid for until I was standing in nothing but my own silk camisole.
"You can keep the clothes, Adam. They're as hollow as you are."
I grabbed my passport, turned my back on his billions, and walked out of that glass tower barefoot, bleeding, and finally free.