Reborn Heiress: The CEO's Revenge Bride
I lay in the hospital bed, every breath feeling like I was inhaling wet concrete. My husband, Trent, stood by the window, more interested in his reflection in the glass than his dying wife.
My sister, Cristi, sat nearby, complaining about how the rain would ruin her expensive shoes on the way to the car.
Trent walked to my bedside and brushed a finger against my oxygen tube.
"The liver failure is aggressive," he whispered. "But we expected that, didn't we? After all those 'vitamins' you've been taking."
I tried to scream, but my vocal cords were paralyzed. Cristi just giggled, telling me not to struggle because they needed my trust fund voting power by midnight. They held up a Do Not Resuscitate order and told me my hand had "signed" it with a little help.
"You were a depreciating asset, Cleora," Trent said, his lips cold against my forehead. "Now, you're finally liquidated."
As the darkness swallowed me, I saw flashes of my life—my mother’s suspicious car crash, my stolen sketchbooks, and the bitter almond taste in my morning juice. I died in a state of pure, helpless rage, realizing I had been murdered by the only people I ever loved.
How could they be so heartless? How could I have been so blind to the monsters living in my own home?
Then came the sensation of falling.
I sat up with a gasp, my lungs burning with fresh, salty air. The hospital was gone. I was in a luxury stateroom on our family’s charity cruise, three years before my death. I was alive, healthy, and back at the beginning.
When a blood-stained billionaire named Clemente Pennington walked out of the suite's bathroom, I didn't run. I looked him in the eye and realized that this time, I wouldn't be the one liquidated. I was going to make them pay for every drop of poison they ever fed me.
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Chapter 6
Freedom was expensive.
Cleora sat in the lobby of a mid-range hotel. Her credit cards had been declined an hour ago. Beatrice had unlocked the allowance, but Elena had used her existing power of attorney to file an emergency freeze, citing Cleora's "erratic behavior" and "financial incompetence." It was a tug-of-war, and Cleora was the rope.
She had fifty dollars in cash.
She walked to the law firm of Goldman & Associates. She needed to file for an emergency injunction against her father's estate to get her mother's money.
The receptionist looked at her pityingly. "I'm sorry, Miss Hart. The firm is undergoing a restructuring. We aren't taking new clients."
"I'm not a new client," Cleora said. "I'm a legacy client."
"The firm was acquired yesterday," the receptionist said. "By Pennington Holdings."
Cleora's stomach dropped.
The elevator doors pinged open. A phalanx of men in black suits walked out. In the center was a man wearing sunglasses, despite the indoor lighting. He moved with a limp that he tried to conceal, but Cleora saw it.
Clemente.
He stopped. He took off his sunglasses. His eyes were still as dark as the ocean at night.
"The designer," he said.
"I need a lawyer," Cleora said, standing her ground.
"You need a miracle," Clemente corrected. He gestured to the conference room. "Inside."
Cleora followed him. The room was all glass and chrome. He sat at the head of the table. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ruby ring. He spun it on the mahogany surface.
"You froze my accounts," Cleora realized. "It wasn't Elena. It was you."
"I leveraged your family's debt with their primary lender," Clemente said casually. "A single call suggesting a risk assessment of their internal power struggles was all it took to freeze your liquidity. You are effectively destitute, Cleora. You have enemies in your own home. You have a restraining order pending-yes, I know about that too."
"What do you want?"
"I need the voting rights attached to this ring," he said. "And the ones in your trust fund. My uncle is trying to push me out of my own company. The Hart family holds a swing block of Pennington shares from a merger in the 80s."
"So take the votes," she said.
"I can't. The trust stipulates the beneficiary must be married to exercise the rights."
He slid a folder across the table.
"I need a wife. You need protection, money, and a lawyer who isn't afraid of your grandmother."
Cleora opened the folder. It was a marriage contract. As she read the cold, transactional clauses, a wave of dizziness washed over her. She subtly placed a hand on her lower abdomen. In this timeline, her relationship with Trent had just ended. The nausea she'd felt on the cruise... it wasn't just a phantom echo of poison. It was real. She was pregnant. And this contract, this man, could either be a cage for her child or its ultimate protection.
"A merger," she said.
"An acquisition," he corrected.
Cleora picked up a pen. She looked at the terms. They were generous financially, but restrictive.
"I have conditions," she said.
Clemente raised an eyebrow. "You're in no position to negotiate."
"I want control of the Hart Group's design division when we crush them," she said. "And I want a prenup that guarantees not only my freedom after two years, but grants me sole, uncontested custody and financial oversight for any potential heirs, with no claim from the Pennington family."
Clemente leaned back. He winced slightly, his wound bothering him. Her demand was oddly specific, but in their world, planning for heirs was standard.
"Ambitious," he said. "Fine."
Cleora signed her name. The ink was dark and permanent.
Clemente stood up. He extended his hand.
"Welcome to Pennington Holdings, Mrs. Pennington."
He pulled her up. He didn't let go of her hand.
"Pack your things," he said. "You're moving into the penthouse tonight."
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8.4
Kloe Guthrie dragged her crystal-encrusted wedding gown down the penthouse corridor, exhausted but ready to finally be alone with her new husband, Justen.
But as she passed the presidential suite, a familiar, cloying perfume stopped her. Through the cracked door, she saw Justen brutally thrusting into her cousin, Candyce.
"Like fucking a corpse with Kloe," Justen grunted, his voice thick with lust. "Worth it for the trust fund control, though."
Candyce giggled, mocking Kloe's pathetic gratitude.
Shattered, Kloe stumbled backward in the dark, only to be caught by Julian Larsen—Justen's billionaire best man.
Instead of offering sympathy, Julian trapped her against the wall. He forced her to listen to her husband's cruel mockery, then dragged her into the opposite suite, tearing off her wedding dress and dismantling her dignity piece by piece.
Everything she had believed for four years was a meticulously calculated lie.
She was nothing but a boring prop to the man she loved, a naive fool meant to be drained of her family's immense wealth and laughed at behind closed doors. The humiliation and betrayal burned through her veins like acid.
"You could cry," Julian whispered against her neck, his eyes predatory and dark. "Or you could make him regret he was ever born."
Instead of running from the man cornering her in the dark, Kloe looked at the destroyed remains of her life, grabbed Julian's collar, and pulled him in.
This time, she would make them all pay.
8.4
Elia was an orphan from the rust belt, taken in by the wealthy Chapman family in New York.
To them, she was just a shameful charity case.
The parents shoved her into a dusty storage closet, treating their other daughter Geri like a delicate princess, and mocked Elia as uneducated trash.
When Elia secured her own admission to Manhattan Elite Prep, Geri's jealousy turned vicious.
Geri orchestrated a massive smear campaign, posting anonymously on the school forum that Elia was a violent dropout who sold her body to a sugar daddy to pay tuition.
In the cafeteria, the school's elite dumped dirty milk on Elia's food.
They called her a whore and told her to go back to the streets, while Geri watched from afar with a victorious, innocent smile.
They thought she was just a helpless stray dog who would easily break under their high-society cruelty.
They had no idea she was actually "L", the dark web's most feared hacker, and "The Surgeon", a genius medical anomaly.
They also didn't know she was currently tracking a dying Wall Street billionaire who had stolen her only necklace in a dark alley.
What made these arrogant rich kids think they could destroy a girl who played with international firewalls for fun?
Instead of crying, Elia calmly pulled out her phone.
Within seconds, she breached the school's server, locking every screen in the building onto a blood-red skull.
As Geri's own recorded voice plotting the fake rumors blasted through the PA system, Elia grabbed her bag, stepping back into the shadows to reclaim what was hers.
7.3
Betrayed by the man she loved. Katrina Donovan's death was supposed to be the end. Instead, when Katrina opens her eyes, she isn't in heaven-She's in Rachel Sterling's body. The very woman who stole her lover, harvested her heart. The villain everyone hates.
Now trapped in the life of her enemy, Katrina must pretend to be the spoiled, manipulative heiress while hiding the truth that would destroy them all.
Worse-Owen Blake, the cold and powerful billionaire adopted son of the Sterling family, watches her every move. He despises "Rachel", believes she destroyed the only innocent girl he ever cared about. He doesn't know the girl he mourns... is standing right in front of him.
With hatred burning in her veins, Katrina swears she will not waste this second chance. She will expose the lies. Reclaim what was stolen. Make every person who carved out her heart beg for mercy.
But revenge is dangerous-Especially when the only man who might uncover the truth is the one who wants her dead.
8.3
One million dollars for one hundred days.
For Elena, a street-smart girl facing a mountain of debt, the offer from the mysterious Vance empire sounds like a miracle. The job is simple: use a high-tech "neural sync" to impersonate Lira, the beloved sister of tech-tycoon Alexander Vance, for a series of high-profile events.
But as the contract progresses, the "handshake" between their minds turns into a stranglehold. Elena begins to see memories that aren't hers. She feels a hunger for power that belongs to a dead woman.
When the synchronization hits a lethal 99%, the terrifying truth emerges: Elena wasn't hired to be a mimic. She was brought to be a biological host.
With a ghost clawing for control of her brain and a cold, brooding corporate assassin, Alexander, watching her every move, Elena must navigate a web of digital hauntings and billionaire secrets. From the neon streets of London to a high-stakes explosion in Malta, she has one goal:
Delete the ghost before the ghost deletes her.
8.4
For five years, I was Brogan Walton’s shadow—a contract companion kept behind closed doors, hidden away because of a cruel, fabricated rumor about my genetic health. I lived for the moments he looked my way, even if those moments were cold and transactional.
Everything shattered when he returned from London early, tossed a legal document onto the table, and coldly announced the termination of our contract. He didn't just want me gone; he wanted me erased, offering a severance package to ensure I never spoke of the life I’d traded for his protection.
As I signed the papers, my chest burned with the familiar, suffocating agony of my failing heart. I watched him check his watch, his impatience a blade in my back. When the door slammed shut, I finally collapsed, clutching the pill bottle that was my only lifeline, realizing I was dying—and he didn't care.
I wasn't a lover or even a person to him. The next day, I saw her—Kori Barnett, the new CEO, the woman Brogan actually loved. She looked identical to me, down to the curve of her smile. I was never a Cinderella; I was just a cheap, disposable stand-in he’d groomed to be a mirror for his true obsession.
Broken and discarded, I walked into the office, dropped my badge on the desk, and finally walked away. But as I stepped onto the street, I realized the nightmare wasn't over. A predator from his past was waiting for me, and when I looked at Brogan for help, he simply rolled up his window and drove away. I realized then that I had nothing left to lose. I took a deep breath, gripped the knife in my pocket, and decided that if I was going to die, I wouldn't go down as his victim.
9.1
She lost her job, her love, and her home until the man who fired her offered her a lifeline... in the form of a contract marriage.When loyal secretary Natasha Hills is wrongly accused of corporate betrayal, she's cast out by billionaire CEO Bruce Stamford and left broken by the sudden disappearance of her scheming boyfriend. But everything changes when Bruce, desperate to fulfill his dying grandmother's last wish, proposes a marriage of convenience.Their deal is strictly business... until emotions blur, secrets unravel, and enemies close in. In a world of power, lies, and betrayal, can fake vows turn into real love before everything crashes down?