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 7
The master bedroom was dead silent. The only sound was the faint hum of the air conditioning vent above them.
Gaines sat on the edge of the mattress. His spine was completely rigid. He looked like a statue carved out of tension.
Jaclyn lay behind him. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through the windows. She stared at the broad expanse of his back, her gaze slowly moving upward.
Her eyes stopped at the collar of his dress shirt. He had unbuttoned the top two buttons.
Just below his collarbone, a harsh, angry red scratch marred his tanned skin. It looked fresh.
The memory hit her like a physical strike.
On their wedding night, when he had tried to carry her into this very room, she had fought him like a wild animal. She had taken the massive diamond engagement ring Bradford had given her and dragged it violently across Gaines's chest.
A suffocating wave of guilt crashed over her.
Jaclyn slowly let go of his sleeve. She lifted her trembling hand, reaching out toward the red scratch on his skin.
Gaines felt the shift in the air.
Just as her fingertips were about to brush his skin, he violently jerked away. He shot up from the bed as if he had been burned.
He spun around. His large hand shot out and clamped around her wrist, stopping her hand in mid-air.
His grip was brutal. Jaclyn gasped in pain, her eyebrows pulling together.
Gaines stared down at her. His dark eyes were burning with a mixture of suppressed rage and the humiliating sting of his wounded pride.
"What are you doing?" Gaines sneered, his lip curling in disgust. "Checking to see if you cut deep enough to hit an artery?"
Jaclyn shook her head frantically. Fresh tears spilled over her lashes.
"No," she choked out, her voice thick with tears. "I just... I wanted to see it. I wanted to apologize for what I did."
Gaines let out a harsh, barking laugh. The sound was completely devoid of humor.
He shoved her hand away and took a large step backward, putting a safe physical distance between them.
"Your acting is pathetic," he spat, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Yesterday, you couldn't even stand to look at my face without gagging. Now you want to touch me?"
Jaclyn pushed herself up on her elbows, ignoring the spinning in her head.
"Gaines, please listen to me," she pleaded. "I see everything clearly now. Bradford is a liar. The Lesters are-"
"Shut up."
Gaines cut her off. His voice was like a whip cracking in the silent room.
He glared at her, his chest rising and falling with heavy, angry breaths.
"I don't care if you're playing hard to get, or if you've completely lost your mind," Gaines stated, his voice turning to absolute ice. "I am never signing those divorce papers."
He leaned forward, his hands resting on his hips.
"You can hate me. You can try to run. But you will die in this penthouse as Mrs. Acevedo."
It was a cruel, possessive declaration. But underneath the brutal words, Jaclyn heard the desperate, bleeding insecurity of a man terrified of losing her.
She didn't scream back. She didn't throw a pillow at him.
She sat up slowly, resting her back against the headboard. She looked at him with nothing but deep, unconditional pity and warmth.
"I won't ever ask for a divorce again," Jaclyn said quietly.
The calmness of her response hit Gaines like a physical slap. It completely derailed his anger. His eyes narrowed, his suspicion skyrocketing to dangerous levels.
He stared at her for a long, agonizing moment, trying to dissect her soul.
Then, he spun around and marched toward the door.
He stopped with his hand on the brass knob. He didn't look back.
"Dr. Alan will be here in thirty minutes," Gaines said coldly. "Be ready."
He walked out and slammed the heavy oak door shut behind him. The loud bang echoed off the walls, rattling the windows.
The room fell silent again.
Jaclyn slumped back against the pillows. She covered her face with both hands. A muffled, broken sob ripped through her fingers.
Outside the room, Gaines didn't walk away.
He leaned his back against the cold wood of the door. His chest heaved as he gasped for air.
He squeezed his eyes shut. His hands curled into tight fists, his fingernails biting painfully into his palms. He fought every instinct in his body screaming at him to open the door and pull her into his arms.
He forced his eyes open. The vulnerability vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating glare.
He pushed off the door and walked toward his study. He needed facts. He needed to find out exactly what the Lester family had done to her brain.
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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."