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.
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Chapter 8
The gala was a blur of flashes and fake smiles. But they won. They dominated the room.
They got back to the penthouse at midnight. They were both a little tipsy on champagne and adrenaline.
Blaire went into the bathroom to change.
She reached behind her to unzip the dress. It was stuck.
She tugged. Nothing. The fabric was caught in the teeth.
"Ugh," she groaned. She twisted, trying to get a better angle. She pulled harder.
Rip.
"Damn it!"
"Need help?"
Blaire jumped. Declan was leaning against the doorframe. His tie was undone, hanging loose around his neck.
"It's stuck," she admitted, her face heating up.
"Turn around."
She hesitated. Then she turned her back to him.
She felt his hands on her bare skin. His fingers were hot. He brushed her hair aside, exposing her neck.
"Hold still," he murmured.
He worked on the zipper. His knuckles grazed her spine, sending shivers down her legs. He was taking his time. Too much time.
"Declan," she breathed.
"Got it."
The zipper hissed down. The dress loosened, pooling around her waist.
She caught it before it fell completely. She looked in the mirror.
Declan was standing right behind her. He was looking at her reflection. His eyes were dark, hungry.
"You were dangerous tonight," he said. "The way you looked at those investors... you have teeth, Blaire."
"I learned from the best," she whispered.
He placed his hands on her waist. His thumbs rubbed against her skin.
"Did you?"
He leaned down and kissed the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder.
Her knees gave out. She gripped the edge of the marble sink to stay upright.
"Declan, we shouldn't..."
He spun her around. He lifted her effortlessly and sat her on the edge of the vanity. Her legs dangled open. He stepped between them instantly.
"Why not?" he challenged. "We're married. You hate Jeffery. I want you. What's the problem?"
"It's... complicated."
"It's simple."
He cupped her face. "I've wanted you for two years, Blaire. Since the moment I saw you at that merger meeting."
Her eyes widened. "Two years? But... I was with Jeffery."
"I know," he growled. "And I hated every second of it."
He kissed her.
This wasn't like the church. This was desperate. Raw.
She tasted the scotch on his tongue. She felt the desperation in his grip.
Her hands found his hair. She pulled him closer. The dress slid further down.
She forgot about the contract. She forgot about the business deal.
She just wanted to feel something other than pain. And Declan... Declan felt like fire.
"Say yes," he groaned against her lips. "Blaire, say yes."
She looked at him. She saw the need in his eyes.
"Yes," she whispered.
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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.