My Contract Husband Hides His Billions

My mother's ultimatum was impossible: marry a wealthy man within a week, or face daily blind dates. After one humiliation too many, I asked Hunter, my brother's unassuming former roommate, to be my fake boyfriend. He refused, proposing a legal marriage of convenience instead. Still wounded by an ex who left me for an heiress, I signed a strict one-year contract, thinking I had found a harmless loophole. Then my brother called in panic, warning that my new husband was a ruthless shark. When my cheating ex appeared at my coffee shop, Hunter stepped from the shadows—no longer a gentle project manager, but a man of glacial eyes and absolute authority. "I'm her husband." The Bentley, the command, the truth: I hadn't married an ordinary man, and he never intended this to stay a contract.

Chapters

Chapter 2

The brisk Seacrest City wind hit Anika's face, a welcome shock after the suffocating tension in the coffee shop. It did little to clear the knot of frustration in her chest.

She walked blindly, her mind replaying the disastrous encounter with Mr. Price and anticipating the inevitable fallout with her mother. Lost in thought, she slowed to a halt near a storefront, trying to steady her breathing. She didn't notice the shadow approaching until she turned to continue and walked right into a solid chest, stumbling back with a gasp.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" she stammered, looking up to apologize. Her words caught in her throat. It was him. The man from the corner.

Strong hands gripped her arms, steadying her. His touch was firm but gentle. "It's alright," his voice was a low, pleasant rumble. "Are you okay?"

Anika's face flushed with embarrassment. "It's you. Sorry about the scene in there."

He shook his head, releasing her arms. "You handled it with grace. He didn't deserve your time."

His simple, validating words were so unexpected they momentarily stunned her. She looked at him properly for the first time. He was handsome, in a quiet, understated way, with a strong jaw and those intense eyes. There was something familiar about him.

"Have we met before?" she asked, frowning slightly. "You look familiar."

A small smile played on his lips. "I don't think we've been formally introduced. I'm Hunter Orozco. I was in the same year as your brother, Leo, at Stanford."

The name clicked. A fuzzy memory of a serious young man in the background of Leo's college photos sharpened into focus. "Hunter... of course! Leo's roommate. You've changed a lot."

The connection, the shared history, however tenuous, felt like a lifeline. It eased the awkwardness of the situation, replacing it with a faint sense of camaraderie.

"Small world," she said, a genuine smile finally reaching her eyes. "What are you doing in Seacrest City?"

"My company transferred me here a few months ago," he replied smoothly, the pre-prepared line rolling off his tongue. "I work in project management."

It sounded perfectly normal, perfectly plausible. Anika nodded, accepting it without a second thought.

Just then, her phone began to vibrate violently in her purse, a frantic, insistent buzz. The screen lit up with one word: Mom.

Anika let out a long, weary sigh and declined the call. A second later, it started ringing again.

Hunter's gaze was sympathetic. "Family trouble?"

A bitter laugh escaped her. For some reason, standing here with her brother's old roommate, a near-stranger, she felt an overwhelming urge to talk.

"You have no idea," she said, leaning against the brick wall of the building beside them. The words felt heavy on her tongue. She didn't mention Kyle—that wound was too deep—but the frustration with her mother was harder to contain.

"She's on a mission to marry me off," Anika said, her voice tight with the effort of maintaining her composure. "She thinks financial security is the only path to happiness."

Hunter listened patiently, his expression never changing, but a flicker of something-pain, anger?-stirred deep in his eyes. He didn't need a private investigator to tell him about Kyle Tucker. Leo’s late-night rants during their senior year at Stanford had painted a vivid enough picture. He knew the damage had been far worse than she was letting on.

Her phone rang for a third time. Defeated, Anika finally answered it.

She didn't even have time to say hello. Her mother's voice, shrill and furious, erupted from the speaker. "Anika, Mr. Price called me! He said you insulted him! How could you be so rude?"

Anika held the phone a few inches from her ear. Hunter could hear every word of the tirade.

"And Heather Sullivan just got engaged to a doctor! A DOCTOR! What are you doing with your life? I'm giving you one week, Anika! One week to find a suitable man to bring home, or I'll arrange three blind dates for you every single day!"

The line went dead. The threat hung in the air between them, heavy and suffocating.

Anika's face was pale, her hand trembling as she lowered the phone. She looked up at Hunter, her eyes wide with a mixture of desperation and a wild, frantic energy.

"A week..." she whispered, the words a ragged breath. It wasn't a statement. It was a countdown to the end of her world.

Continue to next part

I woke up from emergency surgery to repair a torn retina, completely blind and alone. The first phone call I received wasn't one of concern. It was my mother, furious that I had embarrassed our family by missing a business brunch. Her next order was chilling. "Go to your husband. Get pregnant. A Hartman heir is the only thing that will secure our trust fund." My husband, Jakobe Hartman, is a man who views our marriage as a corporate merger. Our hundred-page prenup has a clause that strictly forbids any emotional entanglement. He was the last person I wanted to see me so helpless. But then I stumbled blindly out of my room and crashed right into him. He found me weak and pathetic. He overheard my mother's abusive voicemail. He even listened in silence as I spun pathetic lies on the phone, pretending he was a doting husband just to get her off my back. I expected him to walk away in disgust. Instead, he moved me to the penthouse suite and sent me home in an armored car. I dismissed it as a cold calculation to protect his public image. I thought I was finally safe in my own apartment. I had no idea he was watching me on a live security feed, just moments after ordering the hostile takeover of my family's entire company.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.3

From Ruin: The Photographer's Comeback

9.3

I was the daughter of a wealthy tycoon, deeply in love with my fiancé, Conrad. But on our wedding day, he arrested my father. My ten-year relationship was a lie. He was an FBI agent, and my best friend, Bonny, was his accomplice. The betrayal shattered me. I was forced into electroshock therapy, which erased my talent for architectural design-the one thing that was truly mine. My life fell apart. After a failed suicide attempt, I was saved by a kind stranger and my father's last words. I rebuilt my life from the ashes, becoming a successful photographer. Years later, Conrad reappeared, full of fake regret, begging for a second chance. I looked at the man who had destroyed me and compared him to a cat that had once bitten me. "I forgave you," I told him, "but I will never trust you again." My friend Corey, acting as my fake husband, defended my honor by punching Conrad in the face. Eventually, Conrad's career imploded due to a scandal involving Bonny. He was ruined. As for me? I was in Paris, my photography career soaring, when I picked up a sketchbook. Miraculously, the lines flowed. My gift was returning. I was finally in control of my own story.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.7

Hiding The Tycoon's Secret Genius Twins

9.7

Genevieve wakes drugged in a stranger's bed, remembering only a scarred back and the Carlisle crest. That night destroys her: inheritance gone, engagement broken, grandmother dead, family branding her a whore. Four years later, she returns to New York as Dr. Genevieve Reed, Head of Neurosurgery—cold, sharp, and done being a victim. She has two brilliant children: Theo, a four-year-old hacker, and Izzy, whose amber eyes mirror the stranger. When her stepsister, ex-fiancé, and stepmother try to destroy her, she exposes their corruption live and humiliates them publicly. But the man from that night, Julian Carlisle, has hunted her for years. When she operates on him, he recognizes her scent and voice. He's her twins' father—and he won't let her go.

Action Adventure Billionaire Modern Mystery Romance

9.2

Hitched or Ditched?

9.2

Two days before her engagement, Isabella's life takes an unexpected turn in Hitched or Ditched? While fitting her mermaid-style gown, her billionaire fiancé, Theodore Scott, displays a sudden and intense interest in her feet and footwear. Despite Isabella's discomfort with high heels, Theodore insists on red-bottom stilettos to achieve a specific aesthetic. This modern romance explores the tension between them as his burning gaze and strange requests create a new, unsettling atmosphere.

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.7

Neglected Wife: Hidden Heiress's Cold Revenge

9.7

I stood in the pouring rain at my father-in-law's funeral, the heels of my black pumps sinking into the mud. I was Mrs. Vargas, the wife of New York's most powerful billionaire, yet I was standing at the edge of the crowd like a forgotten statue. Ten feet away, under the dry shelter of the family tent, my husband Hayes held another woman against his chest. It wasn't me he was whispering comfort to; it was Felicity, his late brother's widow and childhood sweetheart. The humiliation didn't end at the cemetery. Hayes moved Felicity and her son into our home, relegating me to the guest wing while she took over the primary suites. He watched silently as her son smashed the only photograph of my deceased parents, then demanded I apologize for "scaring" the boy with my reaction. When Felicity's negligence ruined a twelve-million-dollar family heirloom, Hayes had the audacity to ask me to use my own savings to buy her a "consolation" engagement ring. He treated me like a parasite, never realizing I was a brilliant scientist with a hidden fortune and three patents to my name. I realized then that our three-year marriage was a hollow farce. Hayes had never even touched me, claiming he wanted to "remain pure" for his memory of Felicity. I was nothing more than a business merger, a smudge on the lens of the perfect family portrait he was building with another man's widow. The breaking point came during a lethal blizzard. Hayes promised to accompany me to my family's mandatory gala-a tradition where my absence meant a death sentence. But at the last second, he stood me up to stay home and tend to Felicity's stubbed toe. Left alone to face the wrath of the Santos Matriarch, I was forced to kneel in the freezing snow as punishment until my lungs began to fail and my vision blurred. Just as the darkness started to take me, a black Maybach smashed through the iron gates. My exiled brother, the man the world calls "The Wolf," stepped out of the storm to reclaim what Hayes had discarded. Hayes thought I was a helpless doll who couldn't survive a day without his trust fund, but he's about to find out what happens when you let a Santos daughter freeze.

Billionaire Modern Romance

7.7

Reborn: The Mafia Heiress They Abandoned

7.7

In my past life, the bullet chambered in the gun on the desk was less lethal than the indifference of the two men standing beside me. Dante and Matteo were supposed to be the future kings of Chicago, and I was their queen. But they threw it all away for Sofia—a liar with a pretty face and a fake sob story about a gambling father. They forced me into a gilded cage, making me serve Sofia like a maid while they played her saviors. They let me rot in isolation until I swallowed a bottle of pills just to escape the coldness of their neglect. They didn't even mourn me; they were too busy comforting the girl who would eventually destroy them. I died realizing that my loyalty was my fatal flaw. I had worshipped men who saw me as nothing more than an accessory, while they sacrificed their empire for a woman who played them for fools. But the universe has a sick sense of humor. It sent me back. Back to the day that sealed my fate. The Consigliere pushed the assignment papers toward us—the path to becoming Bosses. "We are not going," Dante said, looking at me with cold eyes. "Sofia needs us. She is fragile." In my past life, I begged them to stay. This time, I stepped forward and picked up the pen. "I will go," I said, signing my name in sharp black ink. "I don't need your protection anymore."

Billionaire Mafia Modern

My Contract Husband Hides His Billions

Chapter 2

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