Pregnant And Fleeing The Ruthless Billionaire
For five years, Jodi was the perfect, compliant secret lover to billionaire CEO Armand Taylor.
Then, she woke up to a cold email and a seven-figure wire transfer. Armand was marrying European royalty. The money was a severance package to quietly warehouse her out of sight.
Refusing to be his dirty secret, Jodi invoked her contract's termination clause to leave for good. But Armand wouldn't let her go easily. He forced her to personally train her vicious new replacement, Selah.
Selah immediately tampered with a crucial financial file, framing Jodi for sabotaging Taylor Corp's multi-billion-dollar tech acquisition.
Without a second thought, Armand took the new girl's side. He cornered Jodi in the boardroom, his eyes dead and cold.
"You have three days to fix this. If you fail, I will personally see to it that you go to prison for corporate fraud."
He froze her bank accounts and stripped away her dignity, ready to destroy her life over a blatant lie.
He thought she was just a weak, discarded toy who would break under his threats.
What Armand didn't know was the terrifying secret Jodi had just discovered hidden at the bottom of her bathroom trash can.
Three positive pregnancy tests.
If the ruthless billionaire found out she was carrying his heir, he would never let her escape.
Wiping her tears, Jodi slipped into a severe black silk gown and crashed an exclusive Hamptons gala to intercept the tech CEO herself.
This time, she wasn't playing the obedient lover. She was going to clear her name and burn Armand's empire to the ground.
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Chapter 9
Jodi walked out of the Taylor Corp building like a ghost, the weight of Armand's threat a physical pressure on her chest. Prison. The word echoed in her mind, a death knell for the future she had just started to imagine for her child.
She didn't go home. She walked ten blocks in a daze until she found a small, anonymous coffee shop. She sat in a booth in the back and made the only call she could.
"Brooke," she said when her friend answered. "I need you."
Brooke Smyth was a force of nature, a PR guru who had built her own empire on intelligence and sheer nerve. She was the only person in Jodi's life who knew about Armand and wasn't on his payroll.
They met twenty minutes later. Jodi laid out the entire story—the breakup, the frame-up, the impossible ultimatum. The only thing she kept locked away was the pregnancy. It was a secret too fragile, too dangerous to share.
Brooke listened, her expression shifting from shock to white-hot fury. "That son of a bitch," she seethed, slamming her hand on the table, making the coffee cups jump. "And that little red-headed viper. I'll ruin her. I'll have her blacklisted from every firm in this city."
"Rage isn't a strategy, Brooke," Jodi said, her voice quiet but firm. The initial shock was already hardening into a familiar, cold resolve. "I need a plan."
She leaned forward. "I have to get to Cade Wexler. In person. But I'm radioactive right now. No one from Taylor Corp will help me, and any official approach I make will be blocked."
Brooke's eyes narrowed, the PR strategist taking over. "Cade Wexler," she murmured, already typing furiously into her phone. "Tech genius, borderline recluse. Hates publicity, hates corporate suits even more. Getting to him is a nightmare."
She scrolled through pages of calendars, social registers, and insider memos. "He's not on any public schedule for the next week... wait."
Her eyes lit up. "Here. Tonight. A private fundraiser for the Children's Defense Fund at a private estate in the Hamptons. Wexler is on the board. He never misses it."
Jodi's heart sank. "An event like that? The guest list is a fortress. I'll never get in."
A slow, wicked grin spread across Brooke's face. "You won't. But my client, the CEO of a luxury fashion brand, will. Or she would, if she hadn't just come down with a terrible case of the flu." She winked. "Her plus-one spot, for her 'assistant,' just opened up."
A flicker of hope ignited in Jodi's chest. "Brooke..."
"Don't thank me yet," Brooke said, already dialing a number. "We have to get you there, and you can't show up in a business suit. And I'm guessing 'Taylor Corp Platinum Card' is not an option right now."
"All my assets are frozen."
"Emergency," Brooke barked into her phone. "I need my full glam squad at my apartment in thirty minutes. Red carpet ready. Bring the new season couture samples. All of them."
In his office on the 80th floor, Armand Taylor stared at a screen. He'd had IT reactivate the tracker on Jodi's phone the moment she'd left the building. He watched her icon travel to a coffee shop, then meet with Brooke Smyth.
He expected to see a woman breaking down. Crying. Panicking. Calling a lawyer.
But the grainy satellite image of the cafe's storefront showed something else. Through the window, he could see Jodi leaning forward, her expression intense, focused. There were no tears. There was no despair.
Then he watched them leave. They paused on the sidewalk, and Brooke said something that made Jodi smile. It wasn't a happy smile. It was sharp, confident, and full of teeth.
Armand's jaw tightened.
Why was she smiling? She should be terrified. She should be begging. The fact that she wasn't, the fact that she was doing something he couldn't predict or control, was an irritation that burrowed deep under his skin.
He slammed the laptop shut, but the image of her smile remained, burned into his mind.
Back at Brooke's sprawling SoHo loft, chaos reigned. Racks of gowns filled the living room. A makeup artist and hairstylist worked with frantic precision.
Jodi stood in front of a mirror, a blank canvas. Tonight, she couldn't be the victim. She couldn't even be Jodi Holden.
She had to be someone else.
Her eyes scanned the racks, passing over the sequins, the bright colors, the frothy tulle. Her hand stopped on a dress of severe, liquid black silk. It was deceptively simple, with long sleeves and a high neck. It wasn't a dress designed to be pretty. It was a dress designed to be powerful.
An hour later, she emerged from the dressing room.
Brooke and her team fell silent. The transformation was absolute. The soft, wounded woman was gone. In her place stood a queen. Her hair was swept up in an intricate, regal style. Her makeup was subtle but sharp, emphasizing the cold fire in her eyes.
She looked beautiful, yes, but more than that, she looked dangerous.
"My God, Jodi," Brooke whispered, her voice filled with awe. "Who are you?"
Jodi met her own reflection in the mirror. "I'm the woman who is going to get her life back."
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7.2
In the roaring flames of the abandoned warehouse, my skin blistered and peeled.
Through the crackling fire, my sister Elara's malicious voice echoed. She told me my husband, Damien, was dead, and it was all my fault.
For years, I had treated Damien like a monster. I fought him, threw tantrums, and desperately tried to escape our marriage, all because I blindly followed Elara's advice.
"Remember, the harder you fight, the more disgusted he'll get."
She texted me things like that, telling me to smash vases over his head and run away, claiming she was protecting me.
In reality, she was poisoning my mind, stealing my valedictorian spot at university, and plotting to crawl into my billionaire husband's bed.
My foolish rebellion cost me everything, ultimately leading to Damien's tragic death and my own fiery end.
As the massive explosion tore my consciousness to shreds, I finally understood who truly loved me and who the real monster was.
I died suffocating on my own agonizing regret, wishing I could tear Elara apart.
Then, a rush of freezing air punched into my lungs.
I opened my eyes to the crisp scent of cedar and mint. I was back seven years ago, on the very night our marriage was supposed to go to hell.
This time, looking at Damien's flawless, unscarred face, I didn't push him away.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and made a silent vow: I would make every single person who ever hurt him bleed.
9.6
Brenda Vincent thought her biggest nightmare was catching her boyfriend cheating with her roommate on her own sofa.
But her life truly derailed after a drunken night led her into the bed of Bryon Reeves, the ruthless billionaire CEO and older brother of the student she tutored.
Trying to pay off the most dangerous man in New York with a crumpled twenty-dollar bill was her first mistake.
Fleeing the hotel, she accidentally rear-ended his custom Maybach. Bryon used the massive repair bill to blackmail her into being his fake date, parading her at a gala just to make his sister-in-law jealous.
When Brenda finally snapped and fled the humiliation, only to be rescued by his biggest corporate rival, Bryon's twisted possessiveness turned completely destructive.
"If you feel kidnapped, call the police. But your teaching license will be permanently revoked."
He didn't just threaten her. He systematically dismantled her life, using his influence to force the university to freeze her tenure and suspend her without pay.
Brenda couldn't understand why this terrifying man was going to such extreme lengths to ruin a simple tutor who just wanted to be left alone.
Now, stripped of her career, her income, and her independence, she was forced into the sprawling Reeves Manor.
Hearing the heavy mahogany door lock from the outside in her signal-jammed bedroom, Brenda's panic slowly morphed into a cold, clinical rage.
She was trapped, but she refused to be his helpless pawn.
7.2
Blaire woke up in a Manhattan penthouse, her body covered in bruises and her innocence stolen.
Before she could process the terror, her adoptive sister Danita burst in, acting heartbroken and accusing Blaire of shamelessly seducing the powerful Kamryn Lane. Kamryn threw a one-million-dollar check at Blaire's bleeding face, calling her a calculating gold digger.
That night, Blaire overheard a conversation in the family study that shattered her entire reality.
"Once she gives birth to the Lane family's seed, we'll stage an accident, drain her blood, and transplant her healthy heart into your chest."
Her adoptive mother and Danita were celebrating the success of their trap. She wasn't an adopted daughter; she was a living organ bank and a disposable surrogate. Even her adoptive brother, Calhoun, knew everything, trapping her in the dark hallways with a sick, possessive obsession to ensure she never escaped.
The horrific truth suffocated her. The family that had taken her in had raised her like livestock for slaughter. How could they smile at her every day while planning to carve out her heart?
Terrified but burning with a desperate will to survive, Blaire swallowed a Plan B pill to ruin their surrogate plot and fled the estate. To get the money and power she needed to crush her adoptive family, she pulled out Kamryn Lane's business card. This time, she would make a deal with the devil.
7.4
Evelina Barrett was the legitimate daughter, yet she was framed for a disgusting sex scandal, expelled from the Ivy League, and locked out of her late mother's massive trust fund.
While she was thrown out to rot on the streets with a jagged, hideous red scar covering half her face, her father and step-family were throwing a lavish charity gala to celebrate her total ruin.
They laughed as they officially published her disownment notice in the Times to cut her off forever.
"Without the school halo, that ugly freak will be begging on the streets by tomorrow," her sister Aspen sneered.
Her stepmother Annabella toasted to taking out the trash, perfectly happy to steal Evelina's inheritance while ignoring the fact that Evelina knew exactly how they had murdered her mother.
For years, Evelina had been locked in a dark basement, abused by bodyguards, and treated worse than a stray dog.
Why should she, the true heir, suffer in the gutter while the leeches who destroyed her life enjoyed the wealth that rightfully belonged to her?
She refused to be their victim anymore.
Washing away her fake scar to reveal her true, breathtaking face, Evelina blackmailed New York's most lethal billionaire into marriage to secure the ultimate shield.
Then, she put on a black mourning dress, ordered a dark web ghost crew, and climbed into a heavy semi-truck.
At exactly 6:00 PM, she smashed through the iron gates of her family's elegant gala, delivering three pure black coffins directly to the lawn.
8.6
For two years, I was trapped behind my own eyes, a prisoner in my own skull.
A crazed fan had hijacked my body after a brutal car crash, wearing my skin like a cheap suit.
When my soul finally locked back into my flesh in a cramped hospital room, I realized she had destroyed everything I built.
This parasitic stalker had drained my massive fortune to zero, buying luxury gifts for a mediocre actor and turning me into the internet's most hated woman.
My phone was flooded with death threats, and the hashtag demanding I go to hell was trending at number one.
Even the hospital nurses despised me. One marched into my room, raising her hand to violently slap my pale cheek.
"You psychotic bitch, you make me sick!"
Worse, my sprawling Beverly Hills estate had been foreclosed and sold to a mysterious billionaire named Kasey Dominguez.
I had absolutely nothing left. No money. No reputation. No home.
The sheer violation of watching a psychotic stranger ruin my life while I was locked in the passenger seat of my own mind made my blood boil.
I refused to let her destroy my legacy.
As the nurse's hand descended, my atrophied muscles snapped into action.
I twisted her wrist until the joint popped, grabbed the keys to my freedom, and slipped out into the cold Los Angeles night.
I was going to take my life back, starting with the billionaire who thought he owned my house.
7.8
Evelyn was already suffocating under her family's impending bankruptcy when she rear-ended a ten-million-dollar Rolls Royce in the freezing rain.
The tinted window rolled down, revealing the cold, predatory face of Julian Hawthorne—the man she had brutally abandoned three years ago.
Now a ruthless billionaire, he demanded a seven-figure repair check she couldn't afford, or she would have to pay with her body.
Desperate, she went to her wealthy fiancé, Preston, for the money, only to find him in a VIP club with another woman straddling his lap.
Instead of helping, Preston threw the repair bill on the floor and laughed with his rich friends.
"You want the money? Fine. Get on your knees, crawl over here, and kiss the tip of my shoe in front of everyone."
Evelyn trembled with pure humiliation.
Three years ago, she had sacrificed the only man she truly loved to save her family from ruin, only to end up engaged to this pathetic, cheating scum.
Just as her knees bent toward the carpet, the heavy velvet door was kicked completely off its hinges.
Julian walked in like the grim reaper, beat Preston half to death, and dragged Evelyn away.
He pinned her in his car, threatening to destroy everyone she cared about if she didn't return to him.
Evelyn was terrified and confused. Why was this powerful tyrant going to such extreme, violent lengths to trap a woman who had thrown him away?
The answer slipped out through an accidental phone call: the cold-blooded CEO had spent the previous night drunk, crying and screaming her name.
Realizing the monster caging her was actually just a desperate, heartbroken man, Evelyn wiped her tears and made a decision.
She was going to break her engagement, walk into his corporate fortress, and finally face the terrifying debt of their past.