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 6
The heavy door of the Lincoln Navigator slammed shut, sealing Eloisa and Hilbert inside the back seat.
Between them, resting on the center console, was a single sheet of paper. The marriage certificate. It felt like a ticking time bomb.
The trip to City Hall had been a blur. They were ushered through a private back entrance. A judge in a wrinkled robe read a standard vow. Hilbert said "I do" with the enthusiasm of a man ordering a black coffee. Eloisa whispered it. The stamp came down. It took exactly eight minutes.
Eloisa stared out the window. The buildings of D.C. whipped past. She was twenty-one years old, pregnant, and married to a man who hadn't looked at her once since they left the judge's office.
Hilbert had a phone pressed to his ear.
"I don't care what the committee says," Hilbert barked into the phone. "Strip the amendment from the bill. If they push back, threaten to pull our funding for the infrastructure project."
He was speaking a language of power and leverage that Eloisa didn't understand. He was completely ignoring her existence.
Finally, he ended the call and tossed the phone onto the leather seat.
The silence in the car was suffocating.
Eloisa swallowed hard. She reached out and picked up the marriage certificate. Her fingers brushed the raised seal.
"About the contract," Eloisa started, her voice tight. "I have some questions about the living arrangements."
Hilbert didn't turn his head. He picked up a tablet and began scrolling through emails.
"If you have questions regarding the logistics," Hilbert interrupted, his tone flat, "speak to my lawyer. Alex Cole will be your primary point of contact."
He spoke to her like she was a low-level intern bothering him with a scheduling issue.
A hot spark of anger ignited in Eloisa's chest. The fear and intimidation she felt in the mansion suddenly burned away, replaced by a fierce need to defend her dignity.
"Your lawyer?" Eloisa snapped. "I am your wife now. Even if it's just on paper. We are going to be living in the same house. I am not communicating with my husband through a legal proxy."
Hilbert finally stopped scrolling. He slowly turned his head. His slate-gray eyes locked onto hers. They were sharp and irritated.
"Ms. Williams," Hilbert said, his voice dropping an octave. "Let us establish boundaries immediately. This is a business arrangement. Do not inject unnecessary emotional expectations into a corporate transaction."
Ms. Williams.
The name felt like a slap. Eloisa gripped the marriage certificate, the paper crinkling loudly in her fist.
"Legally," Eloisa said, her voice shaking with anger, "my last name is Wilkinson."
Hilbert's jaw tightened. "A name is a label. It does not change the reality of what you are to me."
Eloisa felt the sting of tears behind her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She looked at his perfect, unbothered face. He was a fortress of ice. He thought he could control every single aspect of this situation.
She wanted to crack that ice. She wanted to see him lose control, even for a second.
Eloisa leaned back against the leather seat. She took a slow breath, calming her racing heart.
"Fine. Partner," she said, mimicking his cold, corporate tone. "As part of our logistics, you need to tell your driver to take me to my apartment. I need to pack my things."
Hilbert pressed a button on the intercom connecting to the driver. "Turn around. Take Ms. Williams to her residence."
He used the name again. He was deliberately drawing a line in the sand.
Eloisa looked at his sharp profile. A reckless, spiteful idea sparked in her brain.
She shifted her body weight, leaning slightly closer to him. The scent of his cedarwood cologne wrapped around her, making her stomach flutter, but she pushed the feeling down.
She pitched her voice up, making it drippingly sweet and heavily sarcastic.
"Thank you so much," Eloisa purred.
Hilbert didn't react. He kept his eyes on his tablet.
Eloisa leaned an inch closer. She made sure her voice was loud and crystal clear in the quiet car.
"You are so incredibly thoughtful... dear husband."
She placed heavy, mocking emphasis on the last two words.
Hilbert's finger froze on the tablet screen.
His entire body went rigid. The muscles in his broad shoulders locked tight. Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head to look at her.
His slate-gray eyes were wide. The cold, calculating politician was gone. In his place was a man who looked genuinely shocked, deeply annoyed, and entirely thrown off balance.
Eloisa watched in absolute triumph as a dark, angry flush of red crept up from the collar of his expensive shirt, burning the tips of his ears.
He was blushing. The untouchable Senator Wilkinson was blushing out of pure, unadulterated irritation.
Eloisa leaned back in her seat, a small, victorious smirk playing on her lips. Round one goes to the fake wife.
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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
Forbidden Flames: Spicy Series
Book 2 My Stepbrother
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.