One Night With The President
I was just a senior in college, struggling with student loans and a part-time job, when a plastic stick with two pink lines shattered my world.
I had no memory of the graduation party a month ago, only a terrifying, blacked-out void and the lingering, haunting scent of expensive cedarwood.
But before I could even process the pregnancy, I was publicly humiliated by a frat boy's over-the-top proposal, which ended with me vomiting in front of the entire campus.
That's when a black Lincoln Navigator pulled up, and I was whisked away to a mansion and forced into a marriage with the most powerful man in the country-Senator Hilbert Wilkinson.
His grandmother revealed that the child I was carrying was the Wilkinson heir, and they demanded I sign a prenup to save his presidential campaign from scandal.
I was drowning in debt, and they offered to save my parents from ruin, but the cost was becoming a pawn in a loveless, corporate political merger.
Why did I have no memory of that night, and how could a man as cold as ice be the father of my child?
I signed the papers, but as I walked into his forbidden private quarters and found myself holding his silk underwear just as he stepped out of the shower, I knew this year of "marriage" wouldn't be the quiet arrangement he expected.
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Chapter 4
The living room fell into a suffocating silence. Eloisa stared at the frozen frame of the video on the tablet. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, panicked breaths.
Eleonora Wilkinson glanced at the antique grandfather clock standing against the wall. She was calculating the seconds.
"It seems," Eleonora said smoothly, "you need to see it with your own eyes."
Eloisa looked up, her vision blurred with unshed tears. "See what?"
Heavy, measured footsteps echoed on the marble floor of the foyer.
Eloisa's heart kicked against her ribs. She turned her head toward the arched doorway.
A man walked into the room.
He was tall, with broad shoulders encased in a flawless, dark navy suit. He reached up with one hand and unbuttoned his suit jacket as he walked. The movement was fluid and elegant, but the aura radiating off him was freezing cold.
Eloisa stopped breathing.
She knew that face. Everyone in America knew that face. She saw it on the news channels playing in the campus coffee shop. She saw it on billboards lining the highway.
Senator Hilbert Wilkinson.
He was the youngest senator in the country. The golden boy of the Wilkinson political dynasty. And he was currently running for President of the United States.
Eloisa's pupils dilated. Her fingers dug into the velvet sofa.
It was him.
The blurry memory of the deep, dark eyes snapped into perfect focus. In the fragmented, drunken memory, his eyes had seemed dark, almost black. But here, in the cold, clear light of the mansion, she saw they weren't black at all. They were the color of slate-gray, like a stormy sky just before it breaks. They were the exact same eyes that stared out from the television screens. Cool, calculated, and entirely untouchable.
Hilbert walked past Eloisa without even glancing at her. He looked at the elderly woman.
"Grandmother," he said, giving a slight nod.
Then, he turned his head. For the first time, his slate-gray eyes landed on Eloisa.
He didn't look at her like she was a human being. He looked at her the way a mechanic looks at a broken engine. He was assessing the damage. There was absolutely zero emotion in his gaze.
Eloisa felt completely naked under his stare. She instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, trying to make herself smaller.
Hilbert spoke. His voice was deeper than it sounded on television. It was a low, gravelly baritone that sent a shiver down her spine.
"So. This is her."
The words were an ice pick to Eloisa's chest. This is her. She wasn't a person. She was a problem. A variable in an equation.
Eleonora tapped her wooden cane against the floor. "Hilbert, sit down. Now that everyone is present, we will discuss the solution."
Hilbert sat on the sofa opposite Eloisa. He crossed his long legs. He looked entirely relaxed, yet his presence filled the room with an unbearable pressure.
"My solution is simple," Eleonora announced. "The two of you will go to City Hall and register your marriage today."
Eloisa shot to her feet. "What? No! Absolutely not! You can't force me to do that!"
Hilbert didn't even look at her. He kept his eyes on his grandmother. He adjusted his pristine white shirt cuff.
"Grandmother, this is entirely premature," Hilbert said, his tone flat. "There are much simpler ways to handle this situation."
Handle this situation.
Eloisa felt a wave of nausea hit her again. Did he mean paying her off? Or did he mean getting rid of the baby?
Eleonora struck the floor with her cane again. The sharp crack made Eloisa flinch.
"Simpler ways?" Eleonora snapped. "Like writing her a check and praying she disappears? And then waiting for the media to discover that the leading presidential candidate has a bastard child hidden in the slums?"
Eleonora pointed a shaking finger at Hilbert. "This is the first heir of the Wilkinson family. He will not be born a bastard."
Eleonora turned her sharp gaze to Eloisa. "And you, Miss Williams. Do you truly believe a single mother, working at a coffee shop, can provide a safe life for a child with Wilkinson blood? The press will tear you to pieces."
The words hit Eloisa like concrete blocks. She imagined the paparazzi. She imagined the cameras shoved in her face. She imagined her parents being harassed.
The room spun. She fell back onto the sofa.
Hilbert remained silent. His jaw clenched tight. He knew his grandmother was right. A scandal of this magnitude, right before the primaries, would destroy his political career instantly.
Eleonora delivered the final blow. Her voice left no room for negotiation.
"This is not a debate. The decision is made." She looked at the butler. "Pembroke, call City Hall. Tell the judge to prepare the paperwork."
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8.0
I sat at a table for two in the center of Le Coucou, clutching a gift box that had cost me two months of savings. It was our three-year anniversary, and I was waiting for Gavin to finally ask the big question.
But when the heavy oak doors opened, Gavin didn't walk toward me with a ring. He walked in with a polished blonde heiress tucked under his arm, her hand resting protectively over a small baby bump.
"This is Tiffany Stone. My fiancée," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. He didn't apologize for being late or for the three years we'd spent together. Instead, he pulled out a checkbook, scribbled a number, and slid a ten-thousand-dollar check across the white tablecloth.
"Consider it severance for your time," he added, as Tiffany mocked my cheap drugstore dress. "Don't contact me again. Tiffany doesn't need the stress." I was the entertainment for the entire restaurant—the pathetic girl dumped for a better model. By the time I walked out into the rain, I had lost my boyfriend, my home, and the funding for my secret medical research project.
I was an orphan with no safety net, facing an eviction notice and a ruined career. I had given Gavin everything, and he had discarded me like a broken tool. The injustice burned in my chest, a hot, sharp rage that replaced my tears.
Desperate and freezing, I ducked into a coffee shop where I met Colton Bentley, a reclusive billionaire in a wheelchair. After I defended him from a cruel date, he offered me a contract: a marriage of convenience and a seven-figure payment to act as his shield. I signed the papers that night, ready to use his wealth to rebuild my life. But as I watched my new husband navigate his penthouse, I noticed his "paralyzed" legs tense with a strength that shouldn't exist.
9.7
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Stella
I was a broken soul, and I never thought that I would be healed by my stepbrother.
Alex
My stepsister, whom I thought would hate her, but she became the one and only person whom I desire deeply.
***
"No. Flower, you're not ugly. If you could see yourself through my eyes, you'd understand how beautiful and desirable you are." I hold her face in my hands again, pulling her closer.
"You're lying, Alex. You treated me horribly at first because you thought I was ugly too."
She's not ready to hear my words, lost in the pain caused by that asshole boyfriend of hers. I press my lips against hers again, wrapping my arms around her waist, pushing her against the car. Her hand rests on the car's bumper.
I'm going to kiss her until she understands I'm not lying, that she is beautiful and desirable in every way.
9.6
To save her brother's life, she signs a one-year marriage contract with a cold, powerful billionaire.
No love.
No intimacy.
No feelings involved.
At least-that was the deal.
Living under the same roof with Adrian Blackwood, she slowly discovers a man who protects her in silence, shields her from his ruthless family, and watches her like she's already his world.
What she doesn't know is that this marriage was never business to him.
He has loved her for years-quietly, painfully-waiting for a chance that finally came disguised as a contract.
When the truth is revealed and the contract ends, will love be enough to keep them together...
or will she walk away from the man who loved her first?
A slow-burn billionaire romance filled with fake marriage, hidden love, heartbreak, and redemption.
7.4
I was Z, the world's most lethal hacker. But after I died, I woke up gasping for air in a massive, freezing bathtub.
Memories that didn't belong to me slammed into my brain. I was trapped in the body of Zero Vance, a notorious "trashy young master" of a wealthy family, who was actually a girl hiding in plain sight.
The original owner of this body was a pathetic, lovesick stalker obsessed with an esports god named Maverick Thorne.
She wore ridiculous rainbow hair and cheap makeup, sending him thousands of desperate, unread texts every single day.
When he completely ignored her, she became the ultimate laughingstock.
Bullies at her elite academy spray-painted "freak" on her locker, shoved her around, and her own family looked at her with exhausted disappointment.
Unable to take the endless humiliation and his cold rejection, she swallowed a bottle of pills and slipped into the icy water.
Looking at the ruined, tear-stained reflection in the mirror, physiological disgust washed over me.
Why would anyone throw their life away for an arrogant, frozen block of ice?
I grabbed the grooming scissors and sheared off the neon hair until only a sharp, silver-blonde crop remained.
I deleted his contact, blocked his number, and put on a perfectly tailored black suit.
When the school's head cheerleader pointed a finger at my nose, warning me to stay away from Maverick, I snapped it backward.
"I have zero interest in Maverick Thorne."
I am alive. And as the new Zero, I am going to take everything back.
7.5
I was the supreme architect of reality. Now I'm trapped in a womb with my twin brother Jaden, and he's already trying to kill me.
Born with a Void Lord core, Jaden is a gluttonous black hole that started draining my life force before I even had eyelids. Unfortunately for him, my ancient soul came with me. I crushed his consciousness, chained his dark power, and established the only rule that matters: Sister is God.
Three years later, he's a whimpering, chocolate-donut-obsessed mess who cries when I threaten to cancel snack time. I've got a demonic shadow bird enforcing my orders and a mother who has no idea her adorable daughter is secretly terrifying.
But when assassins hunting my family corner us in the forest, I have to stop playing cute. They see a toddler in pink overalls. I show them what an architect of reality looks like.
My twin is a Void Lord destined to consume worlds. He still flinches when I raise an eyebrow. Some hierarchies are eternal.
7.6
I spent five years as the perfect wife to Easton Harrington, smoothing his midnight-blue ties and fading into the wallpaper of his massive estate. I thought I was the heart of our family, but I was really just a ghost in a sensible beige dress.
The illusion shattered at a charity gala when Easton’s "family friend," Georgina, appeared in a gown that matched his suit perfectly. While they basked in the flashbulbs as a golden couple, I was literally pushed into the velvet ropes by a cameraman. No one noticed.
Then my four-year-old son, Holt, slapped my hand away in front of the city's elite.
"Don't touch me! You're not my mom, you're just the nanny. Daddy said so."
The room went silent, but Easton didn't defend me. He just looked annoyed that I was causing a scene, making a sharp shooing motion for me to take the boy away. Beside him, Georgina feigned shock while her eyes crinkled in pure amusement.
I realized then that I wasn't his partner; I was a placeholder. They had stripped me of my dignity and even my child's love, treating my five years of devotion like a temporary staff position.
I didn't scream. I just slid off the Harrington heirloom ring, tossed it into a fountain, and walked out into the night.
Easton thinks I’m a penniless housewife who won’t last a week without his credit cards. He doesn't know that I’m Dr. Althea Morrison, the "prodigy" researcher his company has been begging to hire.
I'm not asking for alimony, and I'm not begging for a second chance. I’m returning to the lab to build an empire that will bring his to its knees.