Reborn Heiress: Breaking The Toxic Engagement
Candice Luna thought her marriage to Julius Hansen was a lifeline to save her father's struggling company.
She didn't know it was a death sentence until Julius coldly slid divorce papers across his mahogany desk.
His true love, Amina Rowe, was nestled in his arms with a triumphant, mocking smile. The "merger" Julius promised had been a brutal, hostile takeover designed to bleed the Luna Group dry from the inside. Bankrupted and utterly broken, Candice's father stepped off the roof of their corporate tower. Meanwhile, Candice was publicly humiliated, stripped of her dignity, and mocked by all of Wall Street as a discarded stepping stone.
She died in a car accident, her final moments consumed by an agonizing, feral scream. She hated herself for letting her blind devotion destroy the father who had always believed in her.
But when Candice opened her eyes to the harsh fluorescent lights of a hospital room, she realized she wasn't dead.
She was twenty-two again. Three years before the wedding. Three years before her father's suicide.
When Julius's assistant walked in holding a bouquet of blue roses to discuss the preliminary merger, he expected a docile, desperate heiress.
Instead, Candice grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and flung it directly into his smug face.
"Tell Julius Hansen to never, ever send his dogs to my door again."
This time, there would be no engagement. This time, the Hansen family would choke on her family's legacy.
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Chapter 2
Candice curled into a ball in the corner of the hospital bed, the darkness of the room a thin, fragile blanket of security.
The image of Julius at a party, laughing with his friends as he called her a "beautiful, but necessary, acquisition," flashed behind her eyelids. The memory was so vivid it made her head throb.
She squeezed her eyes shut, whispering the current date to herself over and over. A mantra to keep the ghosts at bay. It hasn't happened. You can stop it.
Her breathing slowly evened out. The wild panic began to recede, replaced by a cold, clear purpose.
A series of sharp knocks echoed from the door.
"Miss Luna? It's your nurse. I need to check your vitals."
"Go away," Candice said, her voice flat and devoid of emotion. "I don't want to see anyone."
A sigh from the other side of the door. "Miss Luna, avoiding everyone won't solve your problems with the Hansen family. The engagement is still-"
"I said, go away!"
The word "engagement" was like a physical blow. Candice grabbed a pillow and pressed it over her ears, trying to block out the world, to block out his name.
The nurse's footsteps retreated, but they were replaced by another sound. A slower, more deliberate tread. The sound of expensive leather shoes on linoleum. The footsteps stopped directly outside her door, followed by a voice she would never forget-smooth, calculated, and dripping with false concern.
"Nurse, if you don't mind," the voice said, low and penetrating even through the wood. "I'm Mr. Hansen's legal counsel. I need a word with Miss Luna."
It was Arthur Vance. The voice that had, in her other life, calmly read the terms of her family's destruction.
Candice scrambled back, pressing herself deeper into the corner of the bed. It felt like a wolf was sniffing at the door of her cage.
The lawyer knocked, his knuckles rapping twice against the wood. "Miss Luna? My name is Arthur Vance. I'm here on behalf of Mr. Hansen to go over some details of the merger."
Her breath hitched. The merger. The beginning of the end. She stared at the door, her heart pounding a frantic, painful rhythm against her ribs.
When she didn't answer, the doorknob began to turn.
A soft click echoed in the silent room.
The sound was an alarm bell. In a single, desperate motion, Candice threw herself off the bed. Her bare feet hit the cold floor as she launched herself at the door, slamming her full weight against it just as he began to push it open.
The door shuddered but held.
"Miss Luna," Vance's voice was laced with irritation now. "This childish behavior is unproductive. The Hansen family's patience is not unlimited."
Her hands were trembling, but she pressed them flat against the cool wood of the door, her shoulder aching in protest. "Get. Out," she snarled through gritted teeth.
A dry, humorless chuckle from the hallway. "As you wish. Mr. Hansen will be here tomorrow to speak with you himself. Perhaps you'll be more reasonable with him."
His footsteps receded down the hall.
Candice slid down the door, her legs giving out, and landed in a heap on the floor. She gasped for air, cold sweat plastering her thin hospital gown to her skin.
Hiding wasn't enough. As long as that engagement existed, they would never leave her alone. They would hunt her, corner her, and devour her family's legacy, just like they did before.
She staggered to her feet and went to the window, pulling the edges of the blackout curtains together until not a single sliver of light could penetrate the room.
In the suffocating darkness, she thought of her father. She remembered his warmth, the way he always believed in her, even when she didn't believe in herself. A surge of strength, born of love and grief, flooded her veins.
She had to get out of here. She had to get to him.
She found her phone on the nightstand and dialed the number for her father's head of household, the family butler. Her voice shook, but her words were firm.
"I'm discharging myself. I'm coming home. Now."
The butler, shocked, tried to reason with her, but Candice cut him off. "If a car is not here in thirty minutes, I will walk out of this hospital and take a cab. Do you understand?"
She hung up before he could argue further.
In the dim light of her phone screen, she saw her reflection in the darkened window. A pale, haunted face with eyes that burned with a terrifying intensity.
She started throwing her few belongings into a small bag, her movements frantic. This room felt like a tomb, and she had to escape.
As she was about to leave, a commotion erupted in the hallway. Nurses were scurrying, their voices hushed but urgent.
"...Mr. Hansen is awake... in the room at the end of the hall... he's in a terrible mood..."
The bag slipped from Candice's numb fingers, hitting the floor with a soft thud.
Julius.
He was here. On this floor. Just a few doors away.
The devil was awake. And he was close.
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8.9
I was tossed into a dark alley like rotting garbage, bleeding and grieving the child I had just lost.
When I was finally brought back to my fiancé Angelo's penthouse, instead of comfort, I was met with absolute disgust.
His family declared me "unclean" after the kidnapping. Angelo coldly announced he was burying the scandal by marrying my sweet, innocent cousin, Carissa.
When we were alone, Carissa stood over my bed, her voice dripping with venomous delight.
"My father arranged the kidnapping. And now, Angelo and I can finally be together."
Before I could react, she forced a silver letter opener into my hand, deliberately stabbed her own shoulder, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Angelo stormed in, struck me across the face, and gathered a sobbing Carissa into his arms, looking at me with absolute revulsion.
The family matriarch appeared at the door, her cold eyes sweeping over the scene before she gave a chilling order to the maids.
"Clean this up."
They pinned me down and brutally drove the blade directly into my chest.
I choked on my own blood, staring at the man who had promised me the world as he turned his back, calling my murder a "mercy."
As my heart beat its final agonizing rhythm, I made a silent vow to the shadows that if there was a next life, I would have my vendetta.
When I opened my eyes again, there was no blood, only the soft silk of my nightgown.
I had returned to the day before my eighteenth birthday.
This time, I wouldn't play the desperate victim. I was going to ally with the Devil of Chicago and burn them all to the ground.
8.7
Five years ago, I was the invisible scholarship charity case at an elite Manhattan prep school, trying to survive in a sea of trust-fund babies.
Arlo Hammond, the untouchable billionaire heir, made sure to completely dismantle my soul.
When his wealthy friends asked if he noticed me, his mocking laughter echoed down the hallway.
"Are you out of your mind? You seriously think I'd be interested in a boring little nerd like her?"
But the moment we were alone, he would corner me in dark alleys, pinning my wrists against brick walls with terrifying, possessive jealousy if my phone even buzzed. He played his twisted games until I was left standing in the rain with my shattered dignity.
Now, I am an Assistant District Attorney. I spent years burying those memories under mountains of legal files.
But tonight, he returned.
When we crossed paths at an exclusive club, he looked at me with the cool detachment he'd give a piece of furniture. In front of a crowd of elites, he coldly declared:
"We have absolutely nothing to do with each other anymore."
Then he walked away to pick up a supermodel, leaving me trembling from the sheer humiliation.
I didn't understand. If I was so worthless to him, why did he still have my birthday tattooed in dark ink on his wrist? Why did he look at me with such raw, painful vulnerability in the shadows?
I stared at my pale reflection in the mirror and made a silent vow.
I am not that pathetic seventeen-year-old anymore, and I will prove to him that I am completely, entirely over him.
9.5
For nine years, I poured my soul into proving I was worthy of my wealthy boyfriend, Clayton Wright. I endured his endless, humiliating "tests," sacrificing everything for a place in his world.
But at our engagement party, the final test was revealed. He stood by as his ex-girlfriend, Anjelica, framed me for shattering a priceless family heirloom.
"You manipulative bitch!" he snarled, slapping me across the face. He then ordered his bodyguard to force me to my knees, grinding them into the sharp, broken fragments of the watch.
As I bled on the floor, he pulled out his phone and gave a single command: demolish my childhood home, the last piece I had of my deceased father.
He destroyed my past and my dignity, yet minutes later, my phone buzzed with a message from him.
"The engagement is just for show. I'll still marry you. You're my destiny."
That night, clutching the last of my father's life insurance, I booked a one-way ticket and vanished. He thought he had finally broken his little project, but he had just unleashed a woman with nothing left to lose.
8.9
I sold three years of my life to a billionaire to save my mother. I was his pretend fiancée, a stand-in for his ex, counting down the days until the contract ended and we could finally be free.
But just as we were about to escape, his real girlfriend returned and publicly accused me of faking a pregnancy to trap him.
My fiancé, Drake, didn't hesitate. He called me a disgusting gold-digger and threatened to pull my mother's medical funding to force me into an abortion.
The shock of his cruelty sent my mother into cardiac arrest. She died right there in the hospital.
They demanded I abort a child that could never exist, a lie built to destroy me.
But they didn't know my secret. After my mother' s death, I finally told him the truth that shattered his world: I was born without a uterus. And with her last letter in my hand, I walked away from him forever.
8.7
I was pregnant with the future heir of the Blackwood Pack, but my fated mate, Alpha Gavin, was nowhere to be found when sharp, tearing agony ripped through my swollen belly.
Instead of rushing to my side, he was in a luxury penthouse with his mistress, Piper.
When I desperately called his human number for help, it was Piper who answered the phone.
"I'm Piper. His future Luna."
Minutes later, I received a leaked audio file of Gavin promising to formally reject me the moment our pup was born.
Before the heartbreak could even set in, my armored SUV was violently rammed off the road by a massive truck.
It wasn't an accident. It was a targeted hit paid for by Piper's pack.
I woke up in the clinic with an empty womb. My pup was dead.
Gavin didn't even show up. He just mind-linked the butler to say he was "too busy" to deal with my loss.
He let his mistress murder our child and treated me like disposable trash, assuming my grief would make me a weak, compliant victim.
He thought he could just bury my trauma and move on with his perfect new life.
He was wrong.
I faked my own death in a fiery crash, leaving him with nothing but my signed rejection papers and the bloody receipt proving his mistress hired the killers.
Now, armed with a new identity and untraceable wealth, I am stepping out of the shadows.
I am going to bankrupt their packs from the inside out and make my former Alpha watch his empire burn.
7.9
Cora Foster was a brilliant archaeologist, but a jagged burn scar across her face made the world treat her like a contagious monster.
During an elite excavation of a Gilded Age crypt, touching an ancient artifact triggered a terrifying memory. She remembered being Seraphina Beaumont, a socialite brutally buried alive by her vain, cruel sister, Isolde.
When the team pried open the crypt's pristine mahogany casket, they cheered, believing the mummified corpse inside was Seraphina. But Cora recognized the onyx hairpin and the angular jawline. It was Isolde. The sister who had stolen her life, mocked her agony, and left her to suffocate in the dark. Her colleagues scoffed at her forensic proof, dismissing her as a scarred, delusional liability.
Worse, the ruthless billionaire funding the expedition, Julian Montgomery, was the spitting image of Alistair—the man Seraphina had deeply loved. Why was Julian staring at her ruined face with such intense, inexplicable recognition? And why did Isolde take Seraphina's most precious silver ring to the grave?
Driven by a century of agonizing grief, Cora secretly pried the tarnished ring from the mummy's stiff, dead fingers and dropped it into her pocket.
"What are you looking at, Foster?"
Julian's deep voice vibrated inches from her ear, his cold, predatory eyes locked directly onto her half-open pocket.