My Runaway Groom's Billionaire Cousin
I stood in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown, waiting to seal the merger of the century between the Singleton and English families. Everything was perfect, fragile, and obscenely expensive.
But minutes before the ceremony, my brother burst into the bridal suite looking like he’d seen a ghost. He handed me a crumpled note from Jeffery, the man I was supposed to marry.
"I can’t do it," the note read. "I’m choosing love." Jeffery had fled to Paris with another woman, leaving me to face two thousand guests and a family legacy that would plummet forty percent by Monday morning.
Harrison Singleton, the family patriarch, didn't offer sympathy; he offered a cold ultimatum. The wedding would happen, with or without Jeffery. He stepped aside to reveal Declan Singleton, the "Wolf of Wall Street" who had spent the last year ruthlessly stripping my father’s companies for parts.
To save my family from bankruptcy, I had to walk down the aisle and marry the man I hated most. At the altar, Declan didn’t just say "I do"; he claimed me with a kiss so possessive it felt like a sentencing.
The humiliation was physical, a knife twisting in my gut as the world watched the "hostile takeover" of my life. I was a spoil of war, traded to a predator who believed in leverage over love.
Then, Jeffery called, weeping about his mistake and begging to come back. I looked at the massive, perfectly-sized diamond Declan had already prepared for me and realized this wasn't a coincidence.
I wiped away my tears and straightened my emerald silk. If I had to live in a cage, I was going to make sure I had the sharpest teeth.
"Let's go to war," I whispered to my new husband.
Chapters
Share
Chapter 1
The reflection in the mirror didn't look like Blaire.
She looked like a porcelain doll encased in fifty thousand dollars' worth of Vera Wang silk and lace. Perfect. Fragile. Expensive.
Blaire pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to flatten the nausea rolling in waves. It was just nerves. Every bride felt this way. It was the biological response to signing away her life to one person forever.
"Oh my god, Blaire, listen to this one," Serena chirped from the velvet settee behind her. Serena was scrolling through her phone, the blue light reflecting in her perfectly manicured nails. "'The merger of the century. Singleton and English aren't just joining fortunes; they're creating a dynasty.' People are obsessed. The hashtag SingletonEnglishWedding is trending higher than the Met Gala."
Blaire forced the corners of her mouth up. It felt tight. Artificial.
"That's great," she whispered.
She glanced at her phone sitting on the vanity. The screen was black.
Jeffery hadn't texted. Not a Good morning, beautiful. Not a Can't wait to see you. Nothing since last night.
Her chest tightened. A specific kind of pressure, like a fist squeezing her lungs. Jeffery was emotional. He was soft. He should be blowing up her phone with nervous emojis right now.
The silence was loud. Too loud.
Suddenly, the heavy oak door to the bridal suite flew open. It banged against the wall with a violence that made Blaire jump.
Serena dropped her phone.
Blaire spun around, her massive skirt rustling like dry leaves.
Barrett stood in the doorway. Her brother. But he didn't look like the confident CEO of English Enterprises. He looked like a man who had just seen a ghost. His skin was the color of ash. Sweat beaded on his forehead, matting his blond hair.
"Barrett?" Blaire took a step forward. "Is it time?"
He didn't look at her. He looked at Serena. Then at Piper, who was fixing her lipstick in the corner.
"Get out," he croaked. His voice was wrecked.
Serena frowned. "Excuse me? We're in the middle of-"
"I said get the hell out!" Barrett roared, his voice cracking. "Now!"
The air left the room. Serena and Piper scrambled, grabbing their clutches and rushing past him without a word. The door clicked shut, sealing them in.
The silence that followed was heavy. Suffocating.
"What happened?" Blaire asked. Her voice was trembling. She hated it. "Is it Mom? Is it Dad?"
Barrett walked toward her. His legs seemed unsteady. He stopped two feet away and reached into his tuxedo pocket. His hand was shaking so badly he could barely grip the piece of paper he pulled out.
It was a sheet of hotel stationery. Crumpled. Stained.
He held it out to her.
"Blaire," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."
Blaire stared at the paper. She didn't want to take it. She knew, with a sickening, physiological certainty, that touching that paper would end her life.
But she took it.
She unfolded it. Jeffery's handwriting. Loopy. Rushed. Cowardly.
Blaire,
I can't do it. I can't sacrifice my soul for a stock portfolio. I met someone. She makes me feel real. I'm choosing love, Blaire. I hope one day you can forgive me.
J.
The world didn't go black. It went white. A blinding, sharp white.
A high-pitched ringing screamed in her ears, drowning out the sound of her own ragged breathing.
Choosing love.
"He's gone," Barrett said. His voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. "He took the Gulfstream. He filed a flight plan for Paris, but he turned off his transponder thirty minutes ago. He could be anywhere."
Her fingers went numb. The paper slipped from her hand, fluttering to the expensive Persian rug like a dead bird.
"Anywhere," Blaire repeated. The word tasted like bile.
Her knees gave out.
She didn't swoon gracefully. She collapsed. The weight of the dress, the weight of the humiliation, it pulled her down. She hit the floor hard, the silk billowing around her like a drowning pool.
"Blaire!" Barrett dropped to his knees, grabbing her shoulders. "Breathe. You need to breathe."
She couldn't. Her throat was closed.
Jeffery left her. On their wedding day. At the altar.
The humiliation wasn't just an emotion; it was a physical blow. It was a knife twisting in her gut. Two thousand guests. The press. The livestream.
"We're ruined," she gasped, the realization hitting her harder than the heartbreak. "The merger. The liquidity loan. If this wedding doesn't happen..."
"The stock will plummet forty percent by opening bell tomorrow," a deep, gravelly voice said from the door.
Blaire froze.
Barrett looked up.
Harrison Singleton walked in. The patriarch of the Singleton family. He didn't look sympathetic. He looked furious. He looked like a man inspecting a broken machine. Two large security guards stood behind him, blocking the exit.
Blaire wiped her face, smearing her perfect makeup. She tried to stand, but the dress was too heavy. She stayed on the floor, looking up at the man who held her family's debt in his hands.
"Mr. Singleton," Blaire choked out. "I... I didn't know."
"It doesn't matter what you knew," Harrison snapped. "What matters is the contract. We have a deal, Ms. English. My family does not tolerate public embarrassment. And my investors do not tolerate volatility."
"There is no wedding!" she screamed, the hysteria finally bubbling over. "The groom is over the Atlantic Ocean!"
Harrison stepped aside.
"The groom is irrelevant," he said coldly. "The name is what matters. You promised to become a Singleton today. And you will."
A shadow moved behind him.
A man stepped into the light.
He was taller than Harrison. Broader. He wore a tuxedo that fit him like a second skin, black on black. His hair was dark, swept back with severe precision. His jaw was a sharp line of granite.
Blaire's heart stopped. Literally stopped.
Declan Singleton.
Jeffery's cousin. The "Wolf of Wall Street." The man who had ruthlessly acquired three of her father's subsidiaries last year and stripped them for parts.
He wasn't looking at Barrett. He wasn't looking at Harrison.
He was looking at her.
His eyes were dark, intelligent, and terrifyingly calm. While her world was burning to ash, he looked like he was standing in a temperature-controlled boardroom.
"Get up, Blaire," Declan said.
His voice was low, vibrating through the floorboards into her skin.
"No," she whispered. She scrambled backward, pushing against the settee. "No. You have to be kidding me."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Declan stepped into the room. The air seemed to get colder.
"Harrison," Barrett pleaded, standing up. "You can't expect her to-"
"I expect the English family to honor their debt," Harrison cut in. "Declan has agreed to step in. The paperwork is already being amended. A judge was convinced to sign a waiver, given the circumstances. The press doesn't know which Singleton you're marrying, only that it's a Singleton."
A waiver? The speed of it all felt wrong, predatory. A cold knot of suspicion formed in her gut, but she pushed it down. She had no time for conspiracy theories when her world was ending.
"I won't do it," she hissed, glaring at Declan. "I won't marry him. He's a monster."
Declan didn't flinch. He adjusted his cufflink, a slow, deliberate movement.
"Your family has enough operating cash to last until the markets open on Monday," Declan said. He spoke casually, as if discussing the weather. "If this wedding doesn't happen, your father files for bankruptcy. Your trust fund dissolves. This building," he gestured around the room, "gets seized by the creditors."
He looked at her then. Really looked at her.
"Is your pride worth your legacy, Blaire?"
She looked at Barrett. Her brother was crying. Silent, helpless tears. He looked broken.
If she walked away, she killed them. She killed her family.
The church bells began to toll. A deep, resonant sound that vibrated in her teeth.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
It was a countdown.
She closed her eyes. She saw Jeffery's back as he ran away. She felt the phantom sting of his betrayal.
Love was a lie. Love was weak. Jeffery chose "love," and he left her in the dirt.
Declan Singleton didn't believe in love. He believed in leverage. He believed in winning.
If she married him, she wasn't just saving her family. She was arming herself.
She opened her eyes. The tears were gone.
She grabbed the edge of the settee and hauled herself up. The dress was heavy, but she locked her knees. She lifted her chin.
"Fine," she said. The word was a shard of glass.
Declan's lips quirked. A microscopic smile that didn't reach his eyes.
He walked over to her. He towered over her, smelling of sandalwood and cold rain. He held out his hand.
It was large. Steady. A predator's paw.
She placed her trembling hand in his.
His fingers closed around hers. He didn't hold her gently. He squeezed. Hard. Hard enough to grind her knuckles together. Hard enough to hurt.
He leaned down, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear.
"Don't shake, darling," he whispered, his voice dark and promising. "The show is just starting."
You may also like
9.5
I was a disgraced heiress hiding as a dishwasher in a high-end club, scrubbing lipstick off glasses until my fingers went numb. One night, I was forced to deliver a bottle of vintage whiskey to the penthouse, only to find the tech billionaire Kenan Cervantes collapsing from a lethal neural storm. I used my surgeon’s training to save his life, holding him in the dark until his fever finally broke.
The next morning, the world I knew shattered. My coworker Tiffany, who hadn't even stepped foot in the room, claimed my identity as the savior. She signed a non-disclosure agreement and walked away with a $200,000 check, while I was accused of stealing the whiskey and had my entire month's wages forfeited as punishment.
While Tiffany was flaunting Chanel suits and posting photos from his balcony, I was being shoved into the mud by my abusive foster father in a dark alley. I watched from the shadows as Kenan stepped into his luxury car, looking right through me with nothing but cold distaste. To him, I was just "street trash" cluttering the sidewalk, while the imposter was the "angel" who had stabilized his heart.
The injustice felt like a physical weight. I had quieted the noise in his brain and kept him from the brink of death, yet I was the one facing eviction and hunger. I didn't understand how he could be a genius and still be so blind to the truth, rewarding a thief while I rotted in the basement.
Everything reached a breaking point when Tiffany forced me to sneak into his penthouse to help her maintain the lie. But Kenan returned from Tokyo early, finding me on the terrace with his military-grade protection dog. The beast that had tried to bite Tiffany was now resting its head in my lap, protecting me from its own master.
Kenan dropped his briefcase, his eyes locking onto mine as the fragmented memories of the storm finally clicked into place.
"You," he whispered.
8.1
I was the "fallen princess" of New York, living in a charcoal silk cage while paying off my father’s millions in debt with my own body. My owner was Braxton Kensington, a man who looked at me with the same cold interest he gave a fluctuating stock graph.
One morning, a New York Times alert shattered the silence: Braxton was getting engaged to a billionaire socialite in the merger of the decade. When I demanded my freedom and the five-million-dollar severance promised in our contract, he just smirked and pointed to the fine print.
"In a court of law, an engagement is just an intention," he whispered, gripping my chin until it bruised. "Until I sign that marriage license, you belong to me."
He flicked a black AmEx at my feet like I was a tragic charity case, ordering me to buy a dress for his engagement gala. To save my dying mother from eviction, I took a secret translation job, only to realize my client was his new fiancée, Caroline. She dragged me to Braxton’s office to humiliate me, and after he hid me in a secret room to avoid a scandal, he branded me a "security risk" and froze every cent I had.
I stood in a CVS with my last sixty dollars, swallowing a Plan B pill dry while watching a news report about Braxton demolishing my family’s last legacy. He didn't just want my body; he wanted to erase my entire existence and leave me with nothing.
The cruelty was breathtaking, but Braxton forgot that a woman with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous player in the game. I reached out to the only man he truly feared—his billionaire half-brother and the boy whose heart I broke years ago, Ansel Neal.
"Coffee isn't enough," Ansel replied to my message in seconds. "Dinner. Our old spot. 8 PM."
As I walked into the club to meet Braxton's greatest rival, I knew the game wasn't over. I was just changing the rules.
9.3
My fiancé, Chadwick Steele, always treated me like a dirty secret-the nerdy brains behind his glamorous tech empire. He flaunted his affair with his mistress, Isa, while constantly reminding me I was an embarrassment he was forced to tolerate.
That all came to a head in a crowded mall. In front of everyone, he publicly broke our engagement, choosing her over me and leaving me to her mercy.
But Isa wasn't satisfied with just winning. She had Chadwick's bodyguards pin me to the floor.
She slapped me, kicked me, and then pulled out a silver letter opener. As she carved a bloody gash across my cheek, she laughed about teaching me a permanent lesson for daring to exist in her world.
I was bleeding and broken, my spirit completely shattered. I thought it was over.
Then, a custom Rolls-Royce pulled up. My mother, Frederica Mooney-the silent titan of Silicon Valley who secretly bankrolls the entire Steele family fortune-stepped out. She took one look at my face, her eyes turning to ice, and gave me the only words I needed to hear: "I give you my full permission."
7.2
Azura Briggs was just a broke college student working freezing valet shifts to pay her adoptive mother's crushing medical debt.
Her desperate life shattered the night a bulletproof Maybach violently cornered her in an alley, and a ruthless billionaire kidnapped her by mistake.
After a harrowing escape, Azura was forced to take a humiliating "plus-one" gig at a high-end gala just to survive. But her date turned out to be the billionaire's arrogant nephew, who promptly abandoned her to the wolves. Cornered by a sleazy executive and his psychotic wife, Azura was publicly slapped, her dress torn, and left bleeding on the floor while hundreds of elites watched in disgust.
Just as she prepared to fight to the death, the crowd violently parted. Hunter Mcintosh, the terrifying man who had kidnapped her days ago, dropped to his knees in the broken glass and wrapped his bespoke jacket around her trembling shoulders.
Azura was completely paralyzed. Why was the monster who threatened her life now destroying billionaires just to protect her?
But the illusion of safety didn't last. Trapped in his Maybach hours later, Hunter threw a draconian employment contract at her feet.
"Sign it, and her care is covered. Forever."
He knew exactly how to break her. He was offering to pay off her mother's debt, but only if she signed her life away to become his personal assistant. With no other way out, Azura picked up the heavy pen.
9.3
For three years, Evelyn Harper was the perfect invisible wife, brilliant architect who anonymously poured revolutionary designs into her cold CEO husband Alexander Knight's company, building his billion-dollar empire while being dismissed as useless by him and his family.
When he hands her divorce papers expecting tears, she signs with a calm smile and walks away taking back her genius.
What Alexander never knew: every award-winning project, every stock surge, every headline praising his vision was hers.
Now, as Elara Voss, Evelyn returns stronger than ever surrounded by powerful men who truly see her, winning landmark contracts, and watching rivals tremble at her name.
Alexander wakes to regret too late: his crumbling empire, the secret twins he never knew existed, the woman he lost.
He begs for forgiveness, offers everything to start over, even kneels publicly in humiliation.
But Evelyn demands justice: full credit, billions in royalties, and control.
As old enemies scheme violently out of jealousy and his world falls, Alexander fights to prove change, while Evelyn builds an untouchable new empire on her terms.
Co-parenting begins. Old sparks flicker. Forgiveness debates rage in her heart.
Will she allow slow reconciliation for their brilliant twins?
Or close the door forever on the man who once owned her world?
8.6
She gave up a billion-dollar fortune for love.
He humiliated her, betrayed her, and threw her out. Pregnant and alone.
Five years later, Emma Weiss is back.
Not as the pathetic wife he despised, but as the hidden heiress who owns the empire he's desperately begging to save.
Now Jasper Parrish will learn the hard way: never underestimate a woman scorned.
While he crawls for scraps, another man is ready to give her everything she deserves: passion, power, and a love that doesn't destroy.
Revenge has never been this sweet... or this hot.