Reborn To Love My Ruthless Billionaire
Jaclyn woke up in the sterile hospital room after falling down the stairs. The nurse delivered the devastating news: she had bled heavily and lost her baby.
But before she could even cry, her trusted cousins, Katelyn and Cherri, locked the door and revealed the horrifying truth.
"It wasn't an accident," Katelyn smirked, pinning Jaclyn's arm down. "The lubricant on the top step was a very deliberate choice."
They needed her broken and unstable. They had forged her signature, draining her massive trust fund to save their uncle's bankrupt business.
What shattered Jaclyn's world was the fresh hickey on Cherri's neck. Her lover, Bradford, had helped plan the entire murder.
When Jaclyn tried to scream, they smothered her with a pillow, framing her as a lunatic having a mental breakdown.
Two weeks later, when she confronted them, Bradford violently shoved her through a second-story glass window to silence her forever.
As she fell to her death, the husband she had spent her life hating—the ruthless billionaire Gaines—burst through the doors.
He threw himself forward, his face filled with pure terror, desperately trying to catch her.
When her body hit the stone patio, Gaines fell to his knees in her blood, weeping and begging her not to close her eyes.
Until her last breath, Jaclyn was consumed by suffocating regret. Why did she trust the monsters who killed her, and hate the only man who truly loved her?
Opening her eyes again, she was back in the penthouse, exactly one month into her marriage with Gaines.
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Chapter 5
Jaclyn pressed her cheek flat against the center of Gaines's chest.
Beneath the crisp white fabric of his dress shirt, she could hear his heart. It was hammering against his ribs in a frantic, erratic rhythm.
Gaines froze completely.
His arms hung uselessly at his sides. He stopped breathing. The sudden, overwhelming sensation of her soft body pressed against his rigid frame short-circuited his brain.
He looked down at the top of her head. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her hair. His fingers twitched.
Five agonizing seconds passed.
Gaines's survival instincts finally kicked in.
He grabbed both of her shoulders. His fingers dug into her flesh. He shoved her backward with brutal force.
Jaclyn's injured ankle buckled under the sudden weight shift. She stumbled backward, her arms flailing. Her hip slammed into the edge of the destroyed piano.
Gaines's eyes flared with panic. He took a half-step forward, his arms tensing as if to catch her, before he caught himself and froze, his hands clenching into white-knuckled fists at his sides.
He stood tall, looking down at her with eyes as cold as liquid nitrogen. A cruel sneer twisted his lips.
"Very impressive," Gaines mocked. "Trying to get close enough to claim I hit you? Looking for domestic abuse evidence for the divorce settlement?"
Jaclyn gripped the edge of the piano to steady herself. Her heart ached at how deeply she had damaged his trust.
She didn't yell. She just looked at him, her eyes clear and calm.
"If I was looking for evidence," Jaclyn said softly, "why did you push me away?"
The logic of her question hit him like a physical blow. Gaines's mouth opened slightly, but no words came out. His brow furrowed in deep confusion.
Before he could formulate a response, a shrill ringtone shattered the silence.
It was coming from the cell phone resting on the glass coffee table.
Jaclyn turned her head. The caller ID flashed brightly on the screen: Cherri.
The blood in Jaclyn's veins turned to ice. Her fingernails dug into the wood of the piano.
Gaines saw the name. A harsh, ugly laugh escaped his throat.
"Answer it," Gaines commanded, gesturing toward the phone. "Let's hear what your handler wants you to do next."
Jaclyn took a deep breath. She walked over to the coffee table, picked up the phone, and hit the speaker button.
"Jackie!" Cherri's sickeningly sweet voice filled the living room. "Are you okay? Did that monster hurt you after you fell?"
Gaines crossed his arms over his chest. He watched Jaclyn intently, waiting for her to launch into her usual tirade about how much she hated him.
Jaclyn stared blankly at the wall.
"I'm fine, Cherri," Jaclyn said. Her voice was completely flat, devoid of any emotion. "He didn't touch me."
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Cherri was clearly thrown off by the lack of hysteria.
"Well... Bradford is going crazy with worry," Cherri pushed, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "When can you sneak out to see him?"
At the sound of Bradford's name, the phantom sensation of his hands around her throat choked Jaclyn.
She lifted her eyes and looked directly into Gaines's dark, suspicious gaze.
She leaned closer to the phone.
"I am a married woman, Cherri," Jaclyn said, enunciating every single syllable. "Do not ever mention his name to me again."
Gaines's arms dropped to his sides. His jaw went slack. A storm of shock and disbelief raged in his eyes.
"Jackie? What are you talking about-" Cherri stammered.
"My head hurts from the concussion. I'm hanging up," Jaclyn interrupted coldly.
She pressed the red button and tossed the phone back onto the table.
The massive living room fell dead silent. The faint hum of Manhattan traffic bled through the glass windows.
Gaines stared at her like she had just grown a second head. His brain was spinning, desperately trying to calculate the angle of this new manipulation.
A woman who despised him didn't just cut off her lover in front of him.
It had to be a trap. A massive, lethal trap.
He took slow, predatory steps toward her until he was standing right in her personal space.
"Whatever game you and the Lesters are playing," Gaines whispered, his voice vibrating with dark menace, "you are going to lose."
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7.9
I woke up in a sterile hospital room, my head split open from a horrific car crash.
But the pain in my skull was nothing compared to the memory burned into my retinas just before the impact: my billionaire husband, Dawson, walking into a luxury hotel with a woman who looked exactly like his dead first love.
When Dawson finally arrived at the ward, there was no panic or relief in his eyes. He just coldly looked at my bloody bandages.
"Your reckless driving just forced me to postpone the quarterly board meeting."
Even our seven-year-old son, who I almost died giving birth to, didn't spare me a single glance. He kicked my hospital bed in annoyance.
"The Wi-Fi here is garbage. You're a bad mom! Dad said Aunt Angelita should be the one living with us!"
My blood turned to ice. For five years, I had bent over backward, wearing the hideous pale dresses he picked, starving myself to maintain a fragile figure, all to be a perfect, obedient substitute for a ghost.
And this was what I got. An unfaithful husband who would rather bury me in debt than grant me a divorce, and a son who wished I was dead.
The weak, subservient Charlene died on that wet asphalt.
When the doctor pointed to Dawson and asked for his name, I looked at my husband with a hollow, defensive stare.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
Using retrograde amnesia as my shield, I was going to tear their perfect world apart.
9.2
Jacqueline Blackburn, a desperate Ivy League tutor, walked into the sleazy Veridian VIP club just to save her job.
But her billionaire client, the ruthless Christian Montgomery, mistook her for a cheap escort, blowing cigar smoke in her face and treating her like trash.
When she furiously turned to leave, a drunk former client attacked her in the hallway, tearing her white dress open and pinning her by the throat.
She fought back, stabbing the man's hand with a pen, only for Christian to emerge from the shadows and brutally crush the attacker's bleeding hand under his heel.
Instead of letting her go, Christian draped his heavy suit jacket over her exposed skin, trapped her in his dark suite, and forced her to sign a suffocating contract.
"You have exactly ninety days, or I will personally ensure you cease to exist in my city."
She thought she could just keep her head down, teach his nephew, and survive.
But she didn't understand why this terrifying underground tyrant was suddenly so fixated on her.
Why did he use his immense power to isolate her, publicly claim her at a billionaire gala, and track her every move?
When she received a chilling midnight text demanding she pack her bags and move into his sprawling estate by 8:00 AM, the terrifying reality set in.
She hadn't escaped the wolf. She had just walked directly into his cage.
8.7
Ada was eight months pregnant, sitting peacefully in her husband's Manhattan estate, looking at a baby nursery catalog.
Suddenly, her husband's mistress, Jacklyn, walked in, threw an ultrasound photo on the table, and locked the door.
Before Ada could process the betrayal, Jacklyn dragged her to the top of the marble staircase and threw herself backward just as Desmond walked through the front doors.
"She pushed me, Desmond! She tried to kill our baby!"
Desmond looked at Ada with absolute hatred.
He ignored Ada's breaking water and her agonizing screams for help, leaving her to miscarry on the freezing floor while he rushed Jacklyn to the hospital.
He sent Ada to a brutal federal prison for three years, where she was tortured and left with a body covered in horrific scars, mourning the baby she was told died at birth.
When Ada was finally released, Desmond destroyed her cousin's company to force her back to his estate as a lowly maid.
But when Ada saw Jacklyn's three-year-old son, her world stopped.
Right in the center of the little boy's palm was a faint crescent moon birthmark.
It was the exact same mark Ada had kissed on her own lifeless baby's tiny hand before the doctors took his body away.
How did her dead child become Jacklyn's little prince?
Looking at the woman who stole her life and the husband who threw her in hell, Ada clenched her scarred hands and swore she would tear their world apart to get her son back.
9.2
Lainey spent her last life destroying herself for Larry, only to become the woman he discarded most cruelly. He never loved her, never wanted her, and made no secret that his first love still owned his heart.
On their wedding day, he abandoned Lainey at the altar for that woman, then later used Lainey as nothing more than a stepping stone for his company's rise. In the end, he even had her kidney ripped from her.
Reborn at the very moment everything began, Lainey called off the wedding without hesitation. But after losing her, Larry begged desperately.
Lainey shot him a cold look, then turned and walked straight into the arms of a powerful, aloof man, who stared down at Larry with pure contempt. "She's my wife now."
9.5
Eda Roman clutched her father's diagnostic report, its sharp edge cutting her finger. His cancer had mutated, standard treatment failed, and a fifty thousand dollar deposit for experimental therapy was due by midnight. Fail to pay, and his hospital bed would be cleared.
Wife to Axel Foley, a multi-billion dollar CEO, Eda faced an impossible chasm. Her family trust, controlled by Keri Lane, offered a meager three hundred dollars.
An emergency fund request met a forty-eight-hour review—a death sentence. Keri's assistant denied expedite and blocked calls. Desperate, Eda called Axel, but his assistant dismissed her with lies, Axel's laughter echoing.
Humiliation and betrayal ignited cold fury. Wife to Seattle's wealthiest, yet begging on a hospital floor? Axel's indifference and Keri's games showed her: her father's life couldn't be left in their hands.
Wiping tears, the pleading girl vanished; her survival instinct roared. Red lipstick her war paint, Eda Roman marched to Foley Group Headquarters, ready to reclaim what was hers.
9.1
On our fourth wedding anniversary, I prepared a perfect home-cooked dinner for my husband, Carlisle.
But the moment he walked in, he threw a marital settlement agreement right onto the table.
"Sign it. Celine is back. There's no place for you here anymore."
His mother and sister immediately marched in to supervise my packing, calling me a barren gold-digger and trying to smash my late mother's only keepsake.
I signed the papers and walked out into the freezing night, thinking the nightmare was finally over.
But the next day, a heavily edited video of a childhood friend helping me into his car went viral online.
Carlisle's PR team released a public statement branding me a cheating wife, completely destroying my reputation.
He let the world tear me apart, using my ruined name to play the victim and justify bringing his first love home.
I had sacrificed my own dreams and endured his family's endless abuse for four years, only to be discarded like trash and framed for the exact emotional cheating he had been doing all along.
Watching the vile comments flood my screen, my heartbreak hardened into pure, unbreakable ice.
I calmly picked up my phone and dialed my father's number.
"Dad, it's time. I want to come home and take over Mcneil Industries."