My Stranger Husband Is A Hidden Zillionaire
To escape my abusive adoptive mother selling me to a loan shark for $50,000, I rushed to City Hall to marry a blind date.
In a blind panic, I grabbed the wrong man.
He was Julian Cardenas IV, a billionaire CEO who desperately needed a fake wife to dodge a corporate arranged marriage. We signed the papers on the spot.
He became my legal shield. He moved me into his pristine penthouse and secretly protected me from my family's violent threats. When I broke down crying in the freezing cold, he quietly left me hot cocoa. For the first time in my life, I felt safe.
But then, Julian overheard me complaining to my sister about my constantly breaking-down car, groaning that I had to "get rid of this baby four times."
He thought I meant abortions.
The man who was slowly melting my frozen heart instantly turned to ice. He threw away the dinner he had specially bought for me, his eyes filled with absolute disgust and blinding rage.
I was left entirely confused and terrified. Why did my savior suddenly look at me like I was the most repulsive thing in the world? What had I done to deserve this sudden cruelty?
I thought this fake marriage was my ticket out of hell. I didn't realize I had just locked myself in a cage with a furious, ruthless CEO who now wanted to destroy me.
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Chapter 3
Brook pushed open the door to her apartment. The hinges screamed.
The smell of damp drywall and stale cigarettes hit her instantly. She locked the deadbolt, slid the chain into place, and leaned her forehead against the peeling paint of the door.
She walked to the tiny kitchen table and dropped the white corporate card onto the scratched laminate.
Julian Cardenas IV.
Project Manager. The Cardenas Consolidated logo sat in the corner next to a phone number.
Her phone vibrated on the table, rattling against the wood. The caller ID said Tammy.
Brook snatched it up. "Tammy?"
"Brook, did you get away?" Tammy's voice was a harsh, terrified whisper.
"I got married, Tammy," Brook said. She sank into the wobbly kitchen chair. "I did it."
Silence stretched over the line. Then, the sound of a muffled sob broke through the speaker.
"It's too late, Brook," Tammy cried. Her voice cracked with panic. "Dad already took the deposit from Travis."
Brook's stomach violently cramped. She doubled over slightly, pressing her free hand against her abdomen.
"Fifty thousand dollars," Tammy choked out. "They're going to sell you to him, Brook. Mom said if you don't come back, she's going to hunt you down and make your life a living hell until you beg to marry Travis."
Bobbi's twisted, furious face flashed in Brook's mind. The memory of Bobbi's heavy rings striking her cheek made her skin burn.
Brook looked down at the corporate business card.
Julian was a stranger. But he was a stranger who had stood between her and Bobbi. He was a legal shield.
"I'm not coming back, Tammy," Brook said. Her voice dropped an octave, hardening into something brittle and sharp. "I am legally married. They can't force me to do anything."
"Who is he?" Tammy asked. "Is he safe?"
Brook closed her eyes. She remembered the solid wall of Julian's chest. The calm, cold way he handled the clerk.
"His name is Julian. That's all I know."
"Just... be careful, Brook. Please."
The line went dead.
Brook dropped the phone. She couldn't stay here. Bobbi had the address. Travis had the address.
She picked up her phone again, opened a new text message, and typed in the number from the corporate card.
Mr. Cardenas, this is Brook. When can we discuss the living arrangements for this marriage?
She hit send. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
Three seconds later, a reply popped up.
I'll come get you at 9 AM tomorrow. Be ready.
Brook stared at the glowing screen. She didn't know what she was walking into. But as the Seattle rain began to lash against her cracked window, she pulled her knees to her chest and felt a tiny, fragile spark of hope.
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7.4
My mother was dying and desperately needed a half-million-dollar deposit for an experimental heart surgery by tomorrow.
I swallowed my pride and begged my wealthy husband, Garrick, to save her life.
Instead of helping, he laughed coldly and threw a thick stack of divorce papers right in my face.
"A hen that can't lay eggs gets slaughtered," he sneered, ruthlessly poking my flat stomach.
He revealed that his secretary, my supposed friend Lacey, was already pregnant with his heir.
To him, our three years of marriage was just a business transaction, and now that my family was bankrupt, I was nothing but damaged goods.
He flicked a humiliating five-thousand-dollar check at me as his final act of charity, then locked me out of our townhouse into the freezing, pouring rain.
I had spent years enduring agonizing hormone treatments for a fertility issue that wasn't even my fault, only to be discarded like trash when I needed him the most.
Was my dignity, my absolute devotion, and my mother's life really worth nothing to him?
Driven by pure, reckless desperation, I threw myself directly into the path of a moving Rolls-Royce Phantom on Fifth Avenue.
It belonged to Holden Tillman, the ruthless patriarch of the Tillman empire—and the uncle Garrick lived in absolute terror of.
I thought I was walking into my death, but instead, I became his fiancée, ready to make Garrick and Lacey pay for every tear I shed.
9.5
My husband, Colton, the Wall Street mogul, slid annulment papers across the table, coldly discarding me and our unborn child. He thought he was getting rid of a useless wife, but he was actually throwing away the secret architect of his entire empire. Now, I'm ready to make him pay for every insult, every lie, and every single secret I've kept.
For three years, eight months pregnant, I secretly saved Colton's ten-billion-dollar company from collapse, enduring a cold, transactional marriage.
One night, he shattered that illusion, serving annulment papers and callously discarding me and our unborn child.
I signed, leaving luxury behind. Exposing his butler's fraud, I escaped. Colton later found his wedding ring gone and, on his desk, my SEC compliance fixes—proof I was his hidden genius.
Blindsided, he realized he’d destroyed his own empire. His mother then called, gloating. The injustice ignited a fierce resolve within me.
The next morning, I launched Kidd Legal Consulting. I'd use forty-seven folders of Farmer Capital's un-patched loopholes to force a fair settlement, securing my daughter's future.
9.1
For three years, June played the perfect, submissive wife to billionaire Augustus Pruitt, hoping a child would finally warm his cold heart and secure their marriage.
But when she cautiously suggested they have a baby, he looked at her with pure, unfiltered disgust.
"A woman who schemes her way into a marriage doesn't get to carry my blood."
He sneered, leaving immediately to lavish his mistress with diamonds. The nightmare only escalated from there. Augustus bought the one painting June desperately wanted—a piece she had secretly created herself—just to gift it to his mistress. He publicly outbid June at the gallery, mocking her lack of wealth, and left her to collapse in the freezing rain. When the storm gave her a severe 104-degree fever and she nearly died on their staircase, he didn't even stay by her hospital bed. Instead, he sent an assistant with a box of jewelry to buy her silence, then forced her to attend a family dinner where his mother and sister viciously mocked her barren womb and background.
Looking at Augustus, who sat there casually cutting his steak while his family tore her apart, the last flicker of hope in June's chest sputtered and died.
She finally understood that her three years of bleeding devotion were nothing but a pathetic joke to them.
She dropped her silverware, the sharp clatter silencing the entire room. She wasn't going to be their punching bag anymore. It was time to finalize the divorce papers, reclaim her hidden identity as the world-renowned artist 'mr.sun', and make them all regret it.
9.3
For five years, I was Ashton Miller's invisible partner, his loyal fiancée, pouring my life into building his empire from the shadows. Tonight, the Bronze Deer exhibition, my masterpiece, was finally opening at the Met, a testament to our shared future.
Then, Bianca, a third-tier actress, stepped into the spotlight in *my* custom Vera Wang wedding dress. My blood ran cold as Ashton's arm circled her waist, his whispered words promising to make her the "new queen of the city."
Five years of trust and sacrifice crumbled. I was a blood bag, drained and discarded. When I publicly exposed their lies, Ashton cornered me backstage, his face twisted in fury, threatening to ruin me, to blacklist me forever. I ripped off his engagement ring, tossing it at his chest. "We're done," I said, walking out as his enraged screams echoed.
The man whose empire I secretly built called me a parasite, his mistress feigning tears, painting me as delusional. My guilt vanished, replaced by freezing, absolute hatred for the man who twisted reality to erase my existence.
Standing in the New York rain, I finally pulled out the military-grade encrypted phone hidden for five years. The line clicked open instantly, a low, gravelly voice asking, "Is it you?" Before I could answer, Archer's voice hardened: "Give me the location. I'll be there in ten minutes. Who touched you? I want his life."
8.4
Kenzie, the former leader of the Aegis Alliance, opened her eyes to find herself reincarnated as a freezing, abandoned infant in a wet cardboard box.
She was rescued from the rain by Devin Ayers, a ruthless billionaire, and rushed to a private hospital, but a deadly threat was already waiting for her.
The ER doctor, Desiree Dillon, approached her with a syringe. Through a sudden burst of telepathy, Kenzie read the doctor's dark thoughts. Desiree wasn't trying to cure her fever. She deliberately ignored the safe dosage, drawing a lethal amount of Diazepam to permanently silence the crying baby and disguise it as sudden infant death.
"This will make it all go away," Desiree smiled gently, the needle glinting as it moved inches from Kenzie's arm.
Trapped in a weak, paralyzed three-month-old body, Kenzie couldn't run, fight, or even speak. She could only watch the poison inch closer.
How could she survive death only to be assassinated in a hospital bed by a corrupt doctor? She used to command armies. The sheer injustice and terror of dying completely helpless in this tiny body ignited a blinding rage inside her.
Refusing to be a victim again, Kenzie pushed her newborn brain to its absolute limit and unleashed a desperate telepathic scream directly into the billionaire's mind.
"Poison! She's trying to kill me!"
Devin, who had been looking away, suddenly froze, his icy gray eyes locking onto the doctor's wrist.
7.5
I am the biological daughter of the wealthy Fitzpatrick family, but I spent my childhood eating out of dumpsters.
When I was finally brought back to the estate at age seven, I thought I would experience my parents' love.
Instead, my biological parents looked at my dirty clothes with raw disgust. They only cared about Hallie, the fake daughter who lived like a princess.
The moment I walked in, Hallie hurled a heavy ceramic cup at my head, slicing my hand open.
"Get out of my house!"
My father didn't even look at the blood. He raised his hand to strike me, accusing me of bringing trailer park rules into his home.
In my past life, I dropped to my knees and begged for their forgiveness. I endured their abuse, hoping they would eventually love me.
But they let the maids humiliate me, let Hallie steal my identity, and eventually threw me back onto the streets to die. Even my playboy Uncle Byron, the only person who ever showed me mercy, was driven to suicide by them.
I didn't understand why my own flesh and blood hated me so much, or why a vicious liar deserved everything while I was treated like a jinx.
Opening my eyes again, I was back on the exact day I first returned to the estate.
As my father raised his hand to hit me, I didn't cower.
Instead, I looked at the family patriarch and pointed directly at my notorious, alcoholic uncle.
"I want him to be my new guardian."