One Year with the Billionaire.
Pastry chef Olivia Chen is drowning in debt when billionaire Ashton Blackwell makes her an offer: marry him for one year to secure his inheritance, and he'll pay off everything plus give her a million dollars. No love, just business.
But fake vows become real feelings, and when Ashton's vengeful ex returns with devastating family secrets, Olivia must choose between protecting the man she's fallen for and exposing the truth that could destroy him.
In a world of lies and betrayal, their contract marriage might be the only real thing worth fighting for.
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Chapter 1
Olivia's Pov
"Miss Chen, if you don't deliver those appetizers in the next thirty minutes, consider your contract terminated."
I stared at my phone, watching the client's threat dissolve into a black screen as my battery died. Perfect. Just perfect.
My catering van had decided to break down on the side of Highway 101, smoke billowing from under the hood like a dragon having a tantrum. Inside the back, three hundred carefully prepared canapés were getting warmer by the minute, and I was supposed to be serving them at Blackwell Industries' investor gala right now.
I kicked the tire. Hard. Pain shot through my foot, but at least I felt something other than the crushing weight of failure.
"Need help?" A trucker slowed down, leaning out his window.
"Unless you can teleport me and two hundred pounds of food to downtown San Francisco in five minutes, I'm beyond help." I tried to smile, but my face wouldn't cooperate.
He drove off. Smart man.
I pulled out my backup phone, the ancient flip phone I kept for emergencies, and called the only person who answered anymore. "Sophie, I need a miracle."
"How bad?"
"Career-ending bad. The Blackwell event. My van died, and I'm going to lose the biggest contract I've ever had." My voice cracked. I couldn't afford to cry. Crying was a luxury for people who had time to fall apart.
"I'm sending a rideshare. Get there. Salvage what you can."
The rideshare cost me eighty dollars I didn't have, and the driver looked ready to murder me when I loaded his pristine Tesla with containers of food. We hit every red light, and I watched the clock tick past the event start time.
When I finally burst through the service entrance of Blackwell Tower, I was two hours late. The event coordinator took one look at me and the lukewarm appetizers and turned pale.
"They're already serving store-bought alternatives. Mr. Blackwell is furious."
My stomach dropped. "Please, just let me set up. I can fix this."
"It's too late." She shook her head. "He wants to see you. Now."
I followed her through pristine hallways, my secondhand heels clicking against marble that probably cost more than my annual income. The ballroom was stunning, all crystal chandeliers and floor-to-ceiling windows showcasing the San Francisco skyline. Beautiful people in beautiful clothes held champagne glasses, and I'd never felt more out of place.
Then I saw him.
Ashton Blackwell stood near the bar, his tailored suit fitting him like it was born on his body. He was younger than I expected, maybe mid-thirties, with dark hair and the kind of face that belonged on magazine covers. But his eyes were cold, scanning the room like a predator assessing prey.
The coordinator cleared her throat. "Mr. Blackwell, this is Olivia Chen from-"
"The catastrophically late caterer." His voice was smooth and cutting. "Do you have any idea how unprofessional this makes me look to my investors?"
Heat rushed to my cheeks. "My van broke down. I got here as fast as I could."
"Excuses don't feed my guests." He turned to the coordinator. "Terminate the contract. Make sure every vendor in the city knows Chen Catering is unreliable."
Something inside me snapped. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was knowing that this would destroy the last thread holding my life together. Maybe I just couldn't take another rich person treating me like I was disposable.
"You know what? Money can't buy decency." The words came out before I could stop them. "I worked sixteen-hour days this week preparing food that would've been perfect if my fifteen-year-old van hadn't died. But sure, blacklist me. Add me to the long list of little people you've crushed because you can."
His eyes widened slightly. Around us, conversations stopped. I'd just committed career suicide in front of San Francisco's elite.
"How dare you speak to my grandson that way."
I turned to find an elegant older woman in diamonds approaching us. She had the same sharp features as Ashton Blackwell, but her eyes sparkled with something that looked like amusement.
"Grandmother, this isn't-"
"Hush, Ashton." She studied me like I was a fascinating painting. "What's your name, dear?"
"Olivia Chen, ma'am." My anger deflated into mortification. "I apologize for the disruption. I'll leave."
"Leave? Nonsense." She smiled. "You're the first person I've seen speak honestly to my grandson in years. He needs that." She turned to Ashton. "I like her."
"Eleanor, she ruined the event."
"The event is fine. We have food. We have drinks. We have pompous investors congratulating themselves." Eleanor waved dismissively. "But this girl has fire. Spirit. She's exactly what you need."
"What I need is a reliable caterer."
"What you need," Eleanor said, her voice dropping to something more serious, "is a wife. And I just found her."
My brain short-circuited. "I'm sorry, what?"
Ashton's jaw clenched. "Grandmother, not here."
"You have six months, darling. The clock is ticking." Eleanor patted his arm, then turned to me. "It was lovely meeting you, Olivia. I hope we'll see each other again soon."
She glided away, leaving me standing there with a furious billionaire and a destroyed career.
I should've run. Instead, I asked, "What did she mean about six months?"
"Nothing that concerns you." Ashton pulled out his phone. "My assistant will send you compensation for your wasted ingredients. Consider it a severance."
"I don't want your pity money."
"It's not pity. It's a transaction." He finally looked directly at me, and I saw something flicker behind that icy exterior. Curiosity, maybe. "Where are you parked?"
"I took a rideshare. My van is dead on the highway."
He sighed, the sound of a man making a decision he'd regret. "I'll have it towed. And I'll give you a ride home. We need to talk."
"About what?"
"About whether you meant what you said about money not buying decency." His eyes locked onto mine. "Because I'm about to make you an offer that will test exactly how much your principles are worth."
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7.1
Belle Triston, a pediatrician with a brilliant career faked her relationship with a billionaire. She didn't like Gabrielle Rolland's arrogance at all, but she had to become a surrogate mother to give birth to Gabrielle's offspring in order to fulfill her mother's last wishes before she died.
Their relationship was complicated because Gabrielle was married to a famous actress, Fleura Delacour. Belle and Gabrielle made an agreement that their relationship would only be professional. But unexpected things happened. Fleura's affair with her co-star left a deep wound in Gabrielle's heart. When his heart was wounded and bleeding, Belle was there to heal his wounds. Their relationship was no longer as simple as they thought when hearts started playing in it. When Gabrielle realized that he loved Belle and wanted to be with her, Fleura came and begged him for a second chance. Gabrielle had to choose, while his heart couldn't choose. Belle knew Fleura's biggest secret and she wouldn't just keep quiet. She would fight for her baby and her love for Gabrielle.
7.2
I am a resident surgeon, secretly married to Dr. Barrett Walters, the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. It was a transactional marriage; he paid my mother's mounting medical bills, and I was his secret, obedient wife in the dark.
But at the hospital, he was a cold-blooded tyrant who deliberately made my life a living hell. During a major medical conference, he viciously tore apart my successful surgical repair, looking me dead in the eye as he called me incompetent in front of all my colleagues.
The humiliation didn't stop there. With his tacit approval, the senior residents bullied me, assigning me every brutal night shift. When his beautiful, wealthy heiress "girlfriend" visited the ward, he publicly mocked my background to make her smile.
"Some people get in through the back door. They're not fit for the front lines."
Even when I was forced to work as a secret banquet waitress to cover the medical copays he ignored, he found me, ruined the job out of pure possessive jealousy, and then fined my meager resident salary the very next morning just to show his absolute control.
I endured his punishing kisses and cruel rebukes, sacrificing my dignity just to keep my mother alive. But I couldn't understand why he had to destroy every shred of my peace. If he wanted the perfect heiress, why did he refuse to let me go?
Staring at his cold, controlling eyes in the stairwell, my exhaustion finally overpowered my fear. I was done being his victim, and it was time to tear up this contract.
7.5
To save my dying father, I made a deal with the billionaire Christopher Kirkland. I became his secret, a bird in a gilded cage he paraded around when it suited him.
But I was just a pawn in his twisted game to win back his ex-girlfriend.
He proved it when he publicly outbid me for my own mother's heirloom necklace, only to gift it to her right in front of me.
Then he threw me out of the penthouse. My few cherished belongings-my books, a photo of my parents-were tossed out.
"Chaney doesn't like clutter," he told me, erasing my entire existence for her.
A text on his phone confirmed the brutal truth.
"Our little game is working perfectly," she'd written. "She's completely fooled."
Years later, after she betrayed him and his empire nearly crumbled, he came back begging. He thought he could buy my forgiveness. He was about to learn that my freedom had no price tag.
7.1
I waited a year for my mate, Alpha Justin, to return from the border war. While he was gone, I used my ten-million-dollar dowry to keep his crumbling pack afloat and buy life-saving elixirs for his mother.
But when he finally walked through the door, he reeked of another female's scent.
He brought back Gamma Brenna and a Royal Decree, coldly announcing she would be his "Co-Luna."
His family, who survived entirely on my wealth, immediately turned on me. They mocked me for being a wolfless orphan since my father and brothers were slaughtered defending the kingdom.
"You're just a fragile woman who belongs hidden away," Justin told me.
They demanded I accept this humiliation, step aside for his new warrior mate, and continue funding their luxurious lifestyle. Justin even arrogantly offered to sleep with me just once to give me a pup as a "consolation prize," declaring his heart and body belonged entirely to Brenna.
They thought my ruined pack meant I had no backing. They thought I was a pathetic victim who would cling to their scraps and accept a polluted mate-bond just to avoid being cast out into the woods as a Rogue.
They had no idea I had already visited the Alpha King.
I wasn't going to cry, and I certainly wasn't going to share my mate. I packed up every last cent of my ten million dollars, secured a Royal Severance Decree, and prepared to watch their arrogant pack starve to death.
9.7
Charity woke up in a hellish, acid-rain-soaked slum, trapped inside a bloated body covered in festering, toxic sores. She was the exiled Grand Princess of the Empire.
But the real nightmare wasn't her ruined body. It was the fact that the original owner had used her royal authority to force genetic marriage contracts onto four top-tier, powerful men.
Now, she was bound to them, and they absolutely loathed her.
Hjalmar, chained to a bed in her filthy room, smiled like a feral beast and promised to rip her head off the second his chains snapped.
Braden, a ruthless military officer, saved her from a mutated rat only to look at her with pure disgust.
"If you want to die, go die somewhere else. Don't dirty my patrol sector."
Even the locals mocked her fallen status, and a wealthy heiress publicly framed her for stealing a hundred-thousand-coin energy core just to see her rot in a dark cell.
She was universally despised, physically repulsive, and a lethal biological toxin gave her exactly 59 days left to live. How was she supposed to survive this absolute hell when her starting affection with her partners was at negative 100?
Then, a mechanical voice echoed in her skull, activating a survival system. To purge the poison, she had to harvest emotional energy by making these four men fall for her. Charity accepted the mandate, unlocked a top-tier culinary skill, and grabbed a rusted meat cleaver to start her counterattack.
9.2
I spent three years as the perfect, silent wife to billionaire Ezequiel Sanford, enduring a marriage colder than the marble floors of our Manhattan mansion. The day I finally saw two pink lines on a pregnancy test was the same day my world burned down.
I found Ezequiel at the hospital, but he wasn't there for me. He was cradling his ex-girlfriend, Alexa, with a gentleness he had never shown me, while my own father was being rushed into the ICU after a suicide attempt triggered by our family's bankruptcy.
Instead of comfort, Ezequiel handed me divorce papers. He had checked a box that read "No Issue of Marriage," effectively erasing any claim I had to his legacy. He blackmailed me, promising to save my father’s company only if I signed away every cent of alimony and walked away with nothing.
When Alexa called him claiming an emergency, Ezequiel shoved me aside so violently I hit the sharp corner of his glass desk. As I collapsed to the floor, clutching my abdomen in sudden, searing pain, he didn't even look back.
"Stop acting," he sneered, his voice dripping with disgust. "It’s pathetic. I will never love you, Claudia, no matter how many times you fall down."
He walked out to be with her, leaving me bleeding on his office carpet with the secret he had spent years trying to avoid. He thought I was a gold-digger faking a crisis, never realizing I was actually carrying the Sanford heir he claimed didn't exist.
Now, I’m hiding in a private clinic while my husband’s security team scours the city for me. My childhood friend just handed me a one-way ticket to Paris and a chance to restart the medical career I sacrificed for a lie.
The money just hit my father's account. I’m signing the papers and disappearing. By the time Ezequiel realizes what he’s lost, I’ll be a world away, and he’ll never even know my child’s name.