Owned By My Father's Enemy
Adaline Whitmore becomes the price for her father's betrayal when she is forced to live under the roof of the ruthless billionaire Ronan Frost, the man who lost everything because of her family.
But neither of them knows one truth. She is the same girl who once saved him years ago.
As everything begins to change and secrets come to light, the line between punishment and desire fades. Now Ronan must choose between his need for revenge and the woman quietly stealing his heart.
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Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
The gates were too tall to climb. Adaline noticed that first. The compound was vast, too vast to feel human. Stone pathways cut cleanly through trimmed lawns so perfect they looked artificial, as though nature itself had been disciplined into obedience. Everything was green but nothing bloomed .
There were no flowers lining the walkways. No burst of color softening the edges of the towering Walls. Just hedges trimmed into sharp lines. She slowed her gaze searching instinctively for something familiar, something gentle. There was nothing.
The emptiness settled in her chest. She has always loved flowers. Her mother had loved them too when she was alive. She believed they were proof that softness could survive anywhere. After her mother's death, planting flowers became her favorite activity, she always felt closer to her mom whenever she spotted a flower or went closer to where it is.
The car came to a stop, which made adaline's heart jolt. The engine idled softly, the sound too loud in the quiet environment surrounding them. She did not move right away. Her fingers tightened around the hem of her dress as she waited for instructions. Then the door opened. Cold air slipped under, brushing her legs, carrying with it the scent of stone and something metallic. Adaline swallowed and stepped out of the car. The ground beneath her shoes was smooth stone, chilled despite the sun overhead. She straightened instinctively, lifting her chin and even as her pulse raced.
The car door closed behind her. She turned just for a second, but the driver was already gone, the vehicle rolling away. She looked forward and noticed a lady by the front door. She started walking towards her, taking each step as steady as possible.
At the front of the mansion, a woman was waiting. She looked to be in her early fifties, dressed simply but impeccably, her posture straight, her hands folded neatly before her. Her presence softened the severity of the place just slightly.
Mrs Margareta.
Her eyes settled in Adaline with quite assessment, not unkind, but thorough as though she were nothing more than an appearance alone.
"Good day, miss whitmore". She greeted as soon as Adaline got closer. Her voice calm, measured. "Welcome".
"Before you go any further", Mrs Margareta continued gently, " there are few rules". She said again gently. " They were set by Mr. Ronan himself. You will follow them exactly". She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to.
"You will wake before sunrise every morning," she continued.
"Breakfast will be prepared by you alone. It must be ready when he comes down".
"You are not to speak", Mrs Margareta went on, her tone even, "unless you are spoken to. Silence is expected in his presence.
She paused. Watching Adaline carefully as though gauging how much she could bear .
"Lastly, once you have entered this house ", she continued, you will not leave it. Not the Wing, not the compound, unless you are told to".
She allowed the words to settle before she continued.
"If any of these rules are broken", Mrs Margareta added, her voice lowering just slightly, "you will be taken to the torture room".
Adaline's breath hitched before she could stop it.
Mrs. Margareta turned and led the way.
They moved past the grand staircase, deeper into the mansion where the air seemed heavier and the silence more deliberate. The corridors here were narrower, more intimate, lined with dark wood panels and soft, recessed lighting that cast long shadows along the floor.
"This is the private wing," Mrs. Margareta said as they walked. "Only a few rooms are here."
Adaline noticed there were no portraits on the walls. No family photographs. Just abstract art and closed doors, each one polished to a muted shine. The farther they went, the more aware she became of how close everything felt.
They stopped.
Mrs. Margareta gestured subtly to the door beside them. "Mr. Ronan's room," she said.
Adaline's breath caught before she could stop it.
Then Mrs. Margareta took one more step forward and stopped again, this time in front of the next door.
"And this," she said, placing her hand on the handle, "is yours."
The door opened smoothly.
The room beyond was beautiful.
Too beautiful.
Soft cream walls, a large bed dressed in fine linen, a chandelier casting warm light across polished floors. A sitting area by the window held an elegant chair and a small table, arranged with precision. Everything looked untouched, curated, as though no one was meant to leave a mark.
Adaline stepped inside slowly.
The window drew her attention next and then her heart sank. The glass was thick, reinforced, the kind that didn't open. The door behind her closed with a quiet, unmistakable click, and when she turned, she saw the lock embedded seamlessly into the frame.
Hidden. Permanent.
"This room is meant to be comfortable," Mrs. Margareta said evenly. "You will find everything you need here."
Adaline's gaze drifted, no sharp edges, no obvious restraints, Just softness. Luxury. Control disguised as care. It wasn't as bad as she thought.
Mrs. Margareta continued. "You are not to wander the wing. Mrs. Margareta continued. "This area is reserved for Mr. Ronan alone."
Her eyes met Adaline's, steady and unflinching.
"He prefers proximity," she added. "It allows him to... keep order."
The implication settled heavily in the air.
Mrs. Margareta stepped back toward the door. "Rest," she said gently. "Tomorrow begins early."
The door opened briefly, then closed again.
The lock slid into place with a soft metallic sound.
Alone, Adaline stood in the center of the room, surrounded by silk and silence, by beauty that could not be escape. The rules should have frightened her.
Anyone else might have shaken, begged, cried. Adaline did none of those things. She listened, memorized, memorized them immediately with a calm that surprised even her.
Wake early.
Be silent.
Do not leave.
Obey or suffer.
They weren't new concepts.
Back home, fear had been routine. Silence had been survival. She had learned long ago that rules didn't exist to be fair they existed to be followed if you wanted to remain unbroken.
Inside, something steadied instead of shattered.
This place was cruel, yes but it was structured. Predictable. And that meant it could be endured.
She had lived by rules before.
She could do it again.
What unsettled her wasn't the threat of punishment.
It was the man who had written them.
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8.4
Twenty-four-year-old Rain Hart has fought to be seen all her life. Getting admitted into the prestigious Katherine Knight Fashion Academy with nothing but talent was a sign to her that things were finally falling into place in her life... until she encountered Adrian Knight, the billionaire CEO. She never planned to fall for the most dangerous man in it.
Adrian Knight is power, control, and temptation wrapped in a suit, and completely off-limits. He is everything Rain should avoid: married, connected to the Academy. But stolen glances turn into secret meetings, and before Rain can stop herself, she's trapped in an affair that could destroy them both.
Because Adrian doesn't belong to her. He belongs to a world built on dominance, legacy... and ruthless women who don't lose. When their secret explodes, it doesn't just trend...
It detonates. The headlines are merciless. The academy turns toxic. Jealous rivals circle like vultures. Then a blackmailer ends up dead. Adrian is arrested for murder. And Rain becomes the girl everyone loves to hate.
But the scandal isn't the most dangerous thing lurking in the shadows.
It's the truth.
A truth so devastating it shatters everything Rain thought she knew about love, loyalty... and herself.
Now pregnant, hunted by the press, betrayed by the powerful, and drowning in a world where trust is a weapon... Rain runs.
But in the Knight empire, power doesn't forgive. Jealousy doesn't forget. Survival comes at a price. And some secrets?
They should never be uncovered.
9.6
To escape my sister-in-law selling me off to a local thug, I married a complete stranger I met at City Hall.
My new husband, Drake, claimed to be a broke Uber driver who could barely make rent.
He even made me sign a brutal ten-page prenup just to ensure I wouldn't take his rusted, beat-up Ford sedan if we ever divorced.
I thought I was just sharing a decaying Brooklyn apartment with a struggling man at the bottom of the ladder.
But things quickly stopped making sense.
When that local thug cornered me at a restaurant, my "weak" husband didn't cower.
Instead, he dismantled three massive mobsters in ten seconds with the terrifying, fluid speed of an apex predator.
"I used to be a human punching bag in an underground boxing gym to pay off debts."
I believed his excuse, until his supposedly homeless grandfather showed up at our door in a moth-eaten sweater, begging to sleep on our lumpy sofa.
Before going to sleep, the old man casually pressed a heavy, intricately engraved pocket watch into my hand as a wedding gift.
He claimed it was a cheap flea market find that didn't even keep time.
But the sheer weight of the solid rose gold and the flawless mechanical gears inside screamed otherwise.
Why did a destitute driver have the aura of a man who controlled empires?
And what kind of homeless old man casually hands over a priceless, museum-grade antique?
I had no idea the "broke driver" sleeping on my floor was actually a ruthless billionaire CEO, and I had just walked straight into his trap.
8.6
As the eldest daughter of the Sharp family, I was treated worse than a stray dog, while my younger sister Seraphina was their precious princess.
When the family needed someone to marry a dying billionaire heir, they naturally chose me to take her place.
To force my consent, my brothers held a peanut butter sandwich to my face—knowing it was a lethal allergy—while dangling my EpiPen just out of reach.
On speakerphone, my own mother sighed in annoyance.
"Let her die. It might be for the best."
I choked out an agreement just as my throat closed up. But the forced engagement broke my sacred mystical vow, causing me to violently cough up my own lifeblood.
Seeing the blood, Seraphina dramatically fainted. My brothers instantly carried her to the hospital, stepping over my dying body and leaving me to bleed out on the cold marble floor.
I had to use a forbidden blood rune, draining my last ounce of strength, just to survive the night.
Even the mystical Order I served offered no comfort, calling only to demand I secure ten billion dollars for them or forfeit my soul for eternity.
Abandoned by my blood family and my spiritual master, I was completely alone, left with nothing but a broken body and a ticking clock.
But they made one fatal mistake: they let me live.
I turned to the dying heir they forced me to marry, a man plagued by a dark curse only I could cure.
"I will be your wife, and I will save your life," I told him.
In exchange, I would use his unimaginable wealth and power to make everyone who threw me away pay the ultimate price.
7.9
In my past life, I was the naive surrogate who fell desperately in love with Karson King, an untouchable Wall Street billionaire.
I thought my blind devotion would earn me a place in his family. Instead, his cruel mother forced me to sign away my parental rights to my three-year-old daughter.
I was locked in a dark, freezing basement. I watched helplessly as his arrogant relatives tormented my child, pushing her down a flight of marble stairs and shattering her tiny arm.
When we finally died in a horrific car crash, my face covered in blood amidst the shattered glass, Karson didn't shed a single tear. To him, my death was just the convenient erasure of a cheap mistake.
I sacrificed my dignity for his approval, but they treated us worse than stray dogs. Why did my innocent daughter have to pay the ultimate price for their ruthless arrogance?
Opening my eyes again, the harsh glare of a massive crystal chandelier pierced my vision. I was back in the grand foyer of the King estate, exactly five years ago.
"Sign it. You are nothing but a gold digger."
My soon-to-be mother-in-law slammed the thick legal contract onto the marble table, demanding I give up my daughter.
This time, the paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by absolute, icy clarity.
I didn't cower. I picked up the pen, looked right at the billionaire who despised me, and prepared to manipulate his entire empire.
8.7
I died in the terrifying plunge of Flight 815. But when I opened my eyes, I was lying in a luxurious bathtub, completely unharmed.
The door opened, and my husband Jordi walked in—looking fifteen years older, his eyes glacial. He pinned me to the wall, his thumb pressing against my windpipe, demanding to know who hired me to play his dead wife.
I managed to prove I was the real Isadora, biologically still twenty-eight years old. But my nightmare had just begun.
My twenty-three-year-old son Hector looked at my unaged face with pure hatred.
"Get this cheap replica out of my father's house, or I'll have him declared incompetent!"
My twenty-year-old daughter Blossom, now a spoiled stranger treating Jordi like a personal ATM, screamed at me over the phone.
Even Jordi's ambitious female colleague showed up at our estate, treating me like a temporary toy she could easily replace.
In the space of a single breath, I had lost fifteen years. My children had grown up without me, learning to hate instead of grieve. Now, they looked at their real mother as if I were a monster trying to steal my own inheritance.
But I didn't return from the dead just to be pushed out.
I put on my old green silk dress, stepped in front of the female executive, and smiled.
If they want to treat me like a threat, I'll fight them all to get my family back.
7.1
I sat in the emergency room corridor, pressing a soaked bandage against my heavily bleeding arm. I had texted my husband of three years, billionaire Efford Thornton, begging him to come.
He did come, but he walked right past me as if I were a piece of furniture. When the doctor finally brought the last bag of O-negative blood in the city to save my life, Efford's assistant intercepted it.
Efford coldly ordered the blood to be sent to the VIP wing for Aletha Chase.
"Mrs. Chase is pregnant with the Thornton heir," he declared flatly. "The priority is non-negotiable."
As I watched my life-saving blood being carried away, he handed me a divorce agreement and an NDA. If I dared to expose his affair, he would immediately cut off the funding for my grandmother's dementia care, leaving her to rot in a public ward. He then turned his back, leaving me to bleed out in the hallway.
For three years, I had given up my career and my identity to be his perfect, compliant wife. I couldn't understand how the man who once looked at me like I was his whole world could now literally watch me die just to protect his mistress.
But he forgot one thing. The submissive wife he married was just a ghost. I wiped the blood from my hands, dug out the leather half-mask I had hidden away years ago, and made a call.
It was time for the legendary runway model "Phoenix" to rise from the ashes and burn his empire to the ground.