Secret Triplets: The Billionaire's Second Chance
I stood at my mother's open grave in the freezing rain, my heels sinking into the mud. The space beside me was empty. My husband, Hilliard Holloway, had promised to cherish me in bad times, but apparently, burying my mother didn't fit into his busy schedule.
While the priest's voice droned on, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a livestream of the Metropolitan Charity Gala. There was Hilliard, looking impeccable in a custom tuxedo, with his ex-girlfriend Charla English draped over his arm. The headline read: "Holloway & English: A Power Couple Reunited?"
When he finally returned to our penthouse at 2 AM, he didn't come alone-he brought Charla with him. He claimed she'd had a "medical emergency" at the gala and couldn't be left alone. I found a Tiffany diamond necklace on our coffee table meant for her birthday, and a smudge of her signature red lipstick on his collar. When I confronted him, he simply told me to stop being "hysterical" and "acting like a child."
He had no idea I was seven months pregnant with his child. He thought so little of my grief that he didn't even bother to craft a convincing lie, laughing with his mistress in our home while I sat in the dark with a shattered heart and a secret life growing inside me.
"He doesn't deserve us," I whispered to the darkness. I didn't scream or beg. I simply left a folder on his desk containing signed divorce papers and a forged medical report for a terminated pregnancy. I disappeared into the night, letting him believe he had successfully killed his own legacy through his neglect.
Five years later, Hilliard walked into "The Vault," the city's most exclusive underground auction, looking for a broker to manage his estate. He didn't recognize me behind my Venetian mask, but he couldn't ignore the neon pink graffiti on his armored Maybach that read "DEADBEAT." He had no clue that the three brilliant triplets currently hacking his security system were the very children he thought had been erased years ago. This time, I wasn't just a wife in the way; I was the one holding all the cards.
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Chapter 2
The elevator dinged at 2:00 AM.
The sound was sharp, slicing through the stillness of the penthouse. Cailin hadn't moved from the sofa. She was still in her damp funeral dress, though it had dried stiff and uncomfortable against her skin. She hadn't turned on a single light.
She heard the heavy tread of Hilliard's footsteps. He was moving slowly, dragging his feet.
The living room lights flared on, blindingly bright. Cailin blinked, shielding her eyes.
Hilliard stood in the entryway, loosening his bow tie. His jacket was slung over one arm. He looked exhausted, his hair slightly mussed, his eyes bloodshot. When he saw her sitting there, he flinched.
"Cailin," he said, his voice rough. "You're awake."
"I am," she said. Her voice was flat. Dead.
"I tried to call," he started, walking toward her. "The meeting... it was a nightmare. The merger with the Asian market is falling apart, and-"
"Don't," she said.
Before she could say more, a movement behind him caught her eye.
Charla English stepped out of the elevator.
She was wearing a white dress-a stark, blinding white that felt like a slap in the face on a day of mourning. She looked pale, her hand pressed to her forehead as if she might faint.
"Hill?" Charla's voice was a soft, trembling mewl. "I feel dizzy again."
Hilliard turned immediately, his posture shifting from defensive to protective. He dropped his jacket and reached out to steady her. "Easy. I've got you."
Cailin watched them. The way his hand naturally found the small of her back. The way Charla leaned into him, her weight entirely supported by his frame.
"What is she doing here?" Cailin asked. She didn't stand up. She didn't have the energy.
Hilliard looked at Cailin, exasperation tightening his jaw. "She had a panic attack at the gala. Hyperventilated. She couldn't be alone tonight, Cailin. Her parents are in Europe."
"So you brought her here," Cailin said. "To our home. On the night of my mother's funeral."
"It was a medical emergency," Hilliard snapped. "Don't start this. Not tonight. I'm exhausted."
Then, the smell hit her.
As they moved closer, the scent of Charla's perfume drifted across the room. It was heavy, floral-gardenias and musk. It was cloying. It filled Cailin's nose, coating the back of her throat, making her gag.
It was the same scent that had been on Hilliard's shirts for months. The scent she had told herself was just from social greetings, from crowded boardrooms.
"I'm sorry, Cailin," Charla whispered, looking at her with wide, watery eyes. "It's my fault. I ruined the night. Don't blame Hill."
Charla shifted, the white dress slipping slightly off her shoulder. "I... I think I left my shawl in the car. I was so cold earlier, Hill gave me his jacket."
Cailin's eyes dropped to Hilliard's white dress shirt.
There, on the collar. A smudge.
It was small. Red. The exact shade of lipstick Charla was wearing right now.
The world stopped spinning. The noise in Cailin's head-the grief, the thunder, the excuses-silenced instantly.
It wasn't a suspicion anymore. It was a fact, printed in red wax on high-thread-count cotton.
Cailin stood up. Her legs felt surprisingly steady.
She walked past the shattered vase on the floor. She walked past the Tiffany box on the table.
She walked right up to Hilliard. He looked down at her, expecting a fight, expecting tears.
"Do you know what day it was?" she asked. Her voice was so quiet he had to lean in to hear her.
Hilliard frowned. "It was Tuesday. Cailin, look, I know I missed the service, and I'll make it up to you, but-"
"It was the day you buried your marriage," she said.
She stepped around him. She didn't look at Charla. She didn't acknowledge the other woman's existence.
Hilliard reached out and grabbed her arm. His grip was firm, familiar. "We need to talk. You're being unreasonable. You're hysterical because of your mother."
Cailin looked down at his hand on her arm. Then she looked up at his eyes.
"Don't touch me with those hands," she hissed. The venom in her voice startled him. He let go as if he'd been burned.
Cailin walked to the guest bedroom down the hall. She went inside and locked the door. The click of the lock was the loudest sound in the universe.
"Cailin!" Hilliard banged on the door once. "Open this door. Stop acting like a child!"
She didn't answer.
After a moment, she heard him sigh. "Fine. Pout. I'll sleep in the master."
"Hill?" Charla's voice drifted from the living room. "I think I need some water."
"Coming," Hilliard said. His footsteps retreated.
Inside the guest room, Cailin slid down the door until she hit the floor. She pulled her knees up, wrapping her arms around them, trying to stop the shaking.
She touched her belly.
"He doesn't deserve us," she whispered. "He doesn't get to be your father."
She reached under the bed and pulled out a small duffel bag she had stashed there weeks ago, back when the suspicion had first started to rot her gut. Inside was a burner phone and a stack of cash she had withdrawn slowly over the last month.
She turned on the phone. Her hands were shaking, but her mind was crystal clear.
She dialed a number she had memorized. A private clinic in New Jersey, one that specialized in discreet procedures for the wealthy and desperate.
"Horizon Medical," a voice answered.
"I need an appointment," Cailin said. "Tomorrow morning. Under the name Jane Doe. For a consultation."
"We have an opening at 7:00 AM."
"I'll take it."
She hung up. She began to pack. Not clothes-she didn't want anything he had bought her. Just her documents. Her mother's old ring. The cash.
From the living room, she heard the low murmur of voices. Then, a soft laugh. Hilliard was laughing.
On the night of her mother's funeral. With his mistress in their house.
That laughter was the fuel she needed. It burned away the fear. It burned away the hesitation.
She sat at the small desk and pulled out a folder. Inside were the divorce papers she had drafted herself, finding templates online to avoid alerting the family lawyers.
She uncapped a pen.
She didn't cry. Tears were for people who had hope.
She signed her name. Cailin Morton. Not Holloway. Never again Holloway.
She left the papers on the desk.
She lay down on the bed, fully clothed, clutching the bag to her chest. She wouldn't sleep. She would just wait for the sun to rise so she could disappear into it.
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9.8
Four years ago, I was drugged on a luxury yacht and ended up pregnant with twins.
I raised them in secret, enduring my stepfamily's daily abuse, until the billionaire West family patriarch cornered us at the airport.
He instantly recognized my son's face—an exact replica of his ruthless grandson, Bernardo West.
My malicious stepmother and stepsister immediately leaked to the press that I was a delusional gold-digger using fake kids to trap a billionaire.
They wanted the West family to destroy me to save their own social standing.
Bernardo himself looked at me with pure disgust, demanding a DNA test.
"If you ever lie to me, I will take the children, and I will make you wish you were never born."
I didn't want his money. I was a victim of that night too, left with a crescent-shaped bite mark on my collarbone and zero memory of who set us up.
Why did someone drug us? And how could I protect my babies from a corporate predator who could crush me with a snap of his fingers?
But when the DNA test came back 99.9999% positive, I didn't cower.
I showed him the scar he left on me, looked the most dangerous man in the country right in the eye, and made my demand.
"If you want to claim your heirs, you have to marry me."
9.7
Clarissa rushed into a crowded nightclub for one simple reason: to save her wildly drunk best friend.
But her ruthless billionaire husband, Giovanny, was watching from the VIP room. After effortlessly ruining a man just for grabbing her wrist, Giovanny punished Clarissa for breaching their public image contract with an impossible curfew.
When she inevitably arrived back at his penthouse late, he didn't just yell. He forced her to her knees by his bathtub to wash his back, making her watch an explicit, humiliating video as punishment.
A sudden family medical emergency dragged them to his parents' estate. Still in her soaked, transparent dress and his misbuttoned shirt, Giovanny's mother caught them. She joyfully assumed they had been passionately intimate.
Instead of clearing her name, Giovanny pulled Clarissa close and lied to his mother's face.
"We are working very hard on the family's future, Mother."
He locked her in the guest suite, tossed a sheer silk nightgown on the bed, and literally shattered the tablet holding their "no-contact" prenuptial agreement. He then slapped a file against the window—he had secretly bought all her father's toxic debt.
Clarissa was terrified. They were supposed to be business allies bound by a strict contract. Why was he suddenly acting like a predator determined to own her body and soul?
"Give me an heir, or your father goes to federal prison," he whispered.
Stripped of all choices, Clarissa picked up the white silk. She would surrender tonight to save her family, but as his shadow swallowed her, she made a silent vow to survive this monster, and one day, tear his empire to the ground.
8.4
For three years, Sophia Carter was the perfect wife to billionaire CEO Alexander Kingsley. She loved him quietly while he treated her like a stranger.
When his first love suddenly returns, Sophia is falsely accused and thrown out of the Kingsley mansion with nothing but humiliation.
The divorce shatters her heart-but it also frees her.
What Alexander never knew was that Sophia was never ordinary. She was the hidden heiress of a powerful empire.
Three years later, she returns-richer, stronger, and untouchable.
Now the man who once discarded her is desperate to win her back.
But this time, the woman he abandoned is no longer the same girl.
And revenge has never looked so beautiful.
7.1
Aurora Andrews has never known a life free from pain. Orphaned and left in the care of her cruel uncle and aunt, she endured years of abuse that taught her the safest place was in the shadows.
But even in college, her silence couldn't shield her from the cruelty of her peers. Just as she reaches her breaking point, fate intervenes in the form of Alexander Mark, the powerful and enigmatic CEO of the Vanguard Group company.
Alexander saves her from a nightmare, but one impulsive, accidental night binds their fates together. When the morning light comes, he leaves her with a heartless dismissal, assuming she is just another gold digger looking for a payout. But Aurora carries a secret more precious than anything.
Forced to drop out of school to protect her unborn baby, Aurora fights to survive in a world that wants to break her. But the shadows of her past are closing in; what will happen when her abusive aunt and uncle discover she is pregnant?
And what will become of her when Alexander Mark walks back into her life, unaware of the child growing in her womb?
He left her thinking she was a whore. But the truth is far more dangerous. When their paths inevitably cross again, will he accept the child as his own? Or will he destroy the only chance Aurora has at a happy ending?
"I'm not a whore, I promise you, Sir.
I just wanted to save you... and nothing else."
7.5
Amelia has slaved her whole life, working multiple jobs to help support her poor husband Caleb― only to discover he is a millionaire!
When confronted, Caleb feels no guilt. He divorces her immediately to pursue his true love, leaving her with nothing to her name.
"Kelsie is the woman that I love, the woman who truly deserves to be by my side," Caleb said. "Now, sign the papers and I can end this farce of a marriage."
But thankfully, fate has yet to close all its doors on her.
The messy breakup has led Amelia to meet the elusive Matteo Montgomery, the mysterious owner of X'el International Inc., and even though Amelia could have sworn that this is the first time they have ever met, Matteo seemed to hold more interest in her than ordinary.
With her divorce finalized, Matteo's courtship quickly grows more extravagant. He offers her everything, from a job as his secretary, a new penthouse apartment, and a permanent home in his heart.
But just as Amelia's heart begins to open up to Matteo's sincerity, Caleb comes crawling back, determined to ruin her life.
***
[Excerpt]
"Oh?" Matteo asked, and Amelia caught a hint of amusement in his voice. "Then pray tell, what did we converse about?"
Amelia swallowed. Good heavens, he was so close. She could barely even breathe, afraid that every movement she made would just amplify how loud her heartbeat was. It was racing like a bullet train at this point, and she felt it clog at her throat, refusing her a chance to speak.
"I... I...I―"
"I have no girlfriend, Amelia," Matteo said. "And before you overthink, I do not have a wife in secret either."
His fingers didn't let go of her wrist, and instead, it even tightened its grip. It wasn't painful in the slightest, but it sent surges of electricity rushing through her body as though she had been struck by lightning in the most thrilling of ways.
A coy smile curved his lips, and he leaned in just the slightest. His lips were now a hair's breadth away from hers, and Amelia instinctively held her breath.
"Unless, perhaps you would like to volunteer?"
9.3
Adrian Blackwood , billionaire CEO of Blackwood Holdings, Alpha of the Blackwood Pack... Mated to a weak, broken and wolfless female?!! No way! This is impossible, this must a sick prank by the moon goddess and fate.