SECRETS OF A BILLIONAIRE HUSBAND
For two years, Rivera Royce lived in Italy with a man she thought was her husband. Her real husband, Reagan Royce was in prison in Italy and the man she lived with was her husband's best friend, Luke Ivan. On the day that her husband was released from prison, Luke finally broke the news to her. When Reagan Royce reappears, everything changes. He seems cold, distant, controlling, cruel, and impossible to trust, yet she feels drawn to him. But Reagan carries a burden Rivera cannot see. Will their love survive the multiple tests that will come or has she really fallen for his best friend Luke who she spent the past two years with?
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Chapter 4
"I hate suspense. I still want my answers," Rivera insisted. To her, satisfying her curiosity was more important than whatever consequences the answers she sought bore.
"But I live for suspense." He stepped closer and reached out, his fingers catching a stray lock of her hair. It was a slow, deliberate gesture. Rivera wanted to flinch, and swat his hand away, but her body wouldn't obey.
She hated that this man, this cruel, arrogant stranger knew exactly what he was doing to her. His words were cruel but his touch was gentle, calculated and mesmerizing.
'He's bad for you,' a voice screamed in the back of her mind.
"Have you ever considered that maybe you've trusted my discretion too much?"
"Hmm," he hummed softly as his fingers slid from her hair to her cheeks.
"I could easily go out there and tell my side of this story. Imagine how bad that'd look for you. It makes me wonder if you're not really as thorough as you think you are," she pushed, even though her heart hammering against her ribs.
She didn't know where she found the courage to threaten a man like him, but if it's what would lead her to get her answers, then she didn't mind.
She needed to scare him into surrender, and she expected anger, but he didn't seem threatened. He seemed captivated. Slowly, he withdrew his hand, only to trail his knuckles down the line of her jaw with a light, maddening touch.
"You're a daring darling, aren't you?" he said instead. "I actually love that."
Rivera didn't understand why a threat like this would amuse him. He obviously looked down on her.
"You think I wouldn't do it?" Rivera frowned, her skin still buzzing where he'd touched her.
"No. I think you simply haven't read the marriage contract you signed two years ago."
"What marriage contract?"
"The one stating that as long as you're married to me, you are obligated to obey my directives, protect my secrets and uphold my reputation." Her eyes widened. Reagan's voice went cold, the playfulness vanishing. "If you breach that contract, you are required to repay every cent I've ever given your family, plus damages. Immediately."
"What?" Rivera felt the blood drain from her face. She stumbled back, her heels clicking sharply against the stone.
That document was the paper she signed on her wedding day. She had thought it was just a marriage certificate. She wished she had listened when her gut screamed at her then to back out of this marriage.
With no means to pay back such an amount, she'd become nothing but a mere slave to this stranger.
"I've been a complete fool to expect decency from a man like you," was her bitter response.
"A man like me?"
"Yes. A man who hands his wife to his best friend and expects that nothing will happen between them for two years."
His expression darkened instantly.
"I guess your reputation is the only thing you care about. It makes me wonder what exactly you did to end up in prison," Rivera added.
"What do you mean by 'expect nothing to happen between them'?" he demanded sharply. He stepped toward her again, but this time, there was no gentle touch.
She paused, then smiled. That smile unsettled him. Finally, it seemed she had found some sort of weakness to poke at.
"You can never be entirely sure, can you? What if I told you that while you were away, Luke and I were together in every way a husband and wife should be?"
Reagan stiffened. "That's impossible."
"Is it? You may not trust me, but do you trust him that much? Two years is a long time to live with a woman and keep your hands off her."
"Of course, I trust Luke." Reagan knew that Luke would never betray him, but something wavered beneath his certainty.
She clicked her tongue mockingly. "You know, you're more naive than you look."
That did it. In one swift movement, Reagan grabbed her, pulling her against his chest. His grip was firm and possessive. She could feel the hard line of his body, the heat radiating off him, and the sheer, suppressed violence in his grip.
"What happened between you and Luke?"
Rivera struggled, but he was like a wall of granite. She realized fighting was useless, so she went still, meeting his stormy gaze with a coldness of her own. "What do you think? If you're so worried, go ask him."
He released her. She straightened her dress and lifted her chin. She was ready to make her demands now.
"If you divorce me, you won't have to worry about any of that. And I'd never tell a soul about your secret or that I was ever your wife. None of this will matter. I'll go back to Arizona. You keep your secrets, I keep my freedom."
The suggestion stunned him. Women had always begged to stay, never to leave. She was different.
"I'll never divorce you. Divorce would damage my reputation." His voice had a time of finality. Her heart sank. "And you won't be leaving this estate without my consent. You are my wife. Public sentiment matters. I cannot have you roaming freely."
She stared at him in disbelief. "So I'm just property?"
"You will obey my terms. Unless you have a way of repaying me in a month's time."
"A month! That's outrageous," she protested. She wouldn't be able to pay that amount of money back even if she put everything she had for sale and worked tirelessly for the rest of her life.
"That's what the contract says. You know, you don't strike me as a dull one. You should have read through that paper before you signed it. Even a child knows that much."
"Well, unlike manipulative men like you, I didn't expect a contract to be hidden in an innocent wedding certificate," she shot back.
"Fair point, but life's unfair Rivera. I hope you'll always remember that, because you'd need some real grit to get through it." He then summoned one of the live-in staff who was about Rivera's age.
"Isabel. You'll be in charge of Mrs. Royce. Help her settle in. Take her shopping tomorrow. She won't need her old belongings any longer."
"I'm not your prisoner," Rivera said with a shaky, defeated voice as Reagan turned to leave.
He paused, then, without looking back, said, "You are now."
Rivera could see it now that Reagan is nothing like Luke. He's a cruel man with no empathy, and she was not doubtful that he would make her life a living hell.
Upstairs, Reagan restlessly paced his bedroom. He stopped by the window and looked down at her small figure below.
Was I too hard on her? How could she not remember me? After everything.
Then his thoughts drifted back to her words about Luke. Luke hadn't called or come to see him. That wasn't like him. It was suspicious.
Could something have really happened between them?
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8.3
I was the long-lost Donovan heiress, finally brought home after a childhood in foster care. My parents adored me, my husband cherished me, and the woman who tried to ruin my life, Kiera Reese, was locked away in a mental facility. I was safe. I was loved.
On my birthday, I decided to surprise my husband, Ivan, at his office. But he wasn't there.
I found him at a private art gallery across town. He was with Kiera.
She wasn't in a facility. She was radiant, laughing as she stood beside my husband and their five-year-old son. I watched through the glass as Ivan kissed her, a familiar, loving gesture he’d used with me just that morning.
I crept closer and overheard them. My birthday wish to go to the amusement park had been denied because he’d already promised the entire park to their son—whose birthday was the same day as mine.
"She’s so grateful to have a family, she’d believe anything we tell her," Ivan said, his voice laced with a cruelty that stole my breath. "It's almost sad."
My entire reality—my loving parents who funded this secret life, my devoted husband—was a five-year lie. I was just the fool they kept on stage.
My phone buzzed. It was a text from Ivan, sent while he stood with his real family.
"Just got out of the meeting. So exhausting. I miss you."
The casual lie was the final blow. They thought I was a pathetic, grateful orphan they could control.
They were about to find out just how wrong they were.
8.1
I was the "fallen princess" of New York, living in a charcoal silk cage while paying off my father’s millions in debt with my own body. My owner was Braxton Kensington, a man who looked at me with the same cold interest he gave a fluctuating stock graph.
One morning, a New York Times alert shattered the silence: Braxton was getting engaged to a billionaire socialite in the merger of the decade. When I demanded my freedom and the five-million-dollar severance promised in our contract, he just smirked and pointed to the fine print.
"In a court of law, an engagement is just an intention," he whispered, gripping my chin until it bruised. "Until I sign that marriage license, you belong to me."
He flicked a black AmEx at my feet like I was a tragic charity case, ordering me to buy a dress for his engagement gala. To save my dying mother from eviction, I took a secret translation job, only to realize my client was his new fiancée, Caroline. She dragged me to Braxton’s office to humiliate me, and after he hid me in a secret room to avoid a scandal, he branded me a "security risk" and froze every cent I had.
I stood in a CVS with my last sixty dollars, swallowing a Plan B pill dry while watching a news report about Braxton demolishing my family’s last legacy. He didn't just want my body; he wanted to erase my entire existence and leave me with nothing.
The cruelty was breathtaking, but Braxton forgot that a woman with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous player in the game. I reached out to the only man he truly feared—his billionaire half-brother and the boy whose heart I broke years ago, Ansel Neal.
"Coffee isn't enough," Ansel replied to my message in seconds. "Dinner. Our old spot. 8 PM."
As I walked into the club to meet Braxton's greatest rival, I knew the game wasn't over. I was just changing the rules.
7.1
I was living as a ghost in a run-down trailer park, trying to outrun a past that would kill me if it ever caught up. Then the storm hit, and a dying monster collapsed through my door, bringing the smell of copper and the promise of a very different kind of death.
I tried to defend myself with a cheap butcher knife, but Darius didn't just disarm me—he acquired me. Before the rain even stopped, I was drugged and whisked away on a private jet, waking up in a luxury penthouse that was nothing more than a high-tech cage overlooking the city skyline.
He didn't just want my silence; he wanted total control. When I begged to check on my sick grandmother, he threw a manila envelope on the table filled with surveillance photos of her at her nursing home.
"I own the board of that facility," he said, his voice cold as ice. "One call from me, and she dies alone on the street."
He vetted my life in that trailer park down to my medical records and childhood diaries, convinced he had every lever of power needed to keep me obedient. He forced me into silk dresses and expected me to be his domestic pet, a quiet girl waiting for him to return from his world of shadows and blood.
I played the part, letting him pull me into his lap and bury his face in my neck, pretending to be the broken girl he thought he’d bought. I watched his security cameras, calculated his blind spots, and waited for the moment his exhaustion outweighed his instinct.
Darius thinks he knows me because he saw where I lived, but he’s never been more wrong. His investigators found the pauper, but they completely missed the princess with an Ivy League degree and a family name that carries more weight than his illegal empire.
He thinks he’s the one holding the leash, but he has no idea who he’s actually brought into his home. The game has just begun, and this time, the "asset" is going to be the one who burns the house down.
9.2
Marissa," he said softly, but there was nothing gentle about it. His voice was low, controlled to the point of fracture. "Walk away. Now. Or I won't be able to stop myself."
The sound slipped from me before I could cage it-a quiet, helpless moan.
I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze.
"Don't," I whispered. "Don't stop yourself, Carlton."
His last bit of restraint snapped, along with the clasp of my bra
7.5
After my boyfriend of four years publicly humiliated me at a charity gala, calling me a "charity case," I drowned my sorrows at a dive bar and had a one-night stand with a stranger.
I woke up the next morning in a luxury hotel suite to find out the stranger was Christian Porter, the most ruthless billionaire on Wall Street.
Worse, paparazzi had photographed us leaving the bar. He coldly informed me that the photos would create a scandal that could tank his company's upcoming IPO, costing him hundreds of millions. As if my world wasn't collapsing fast enough, I got a call that my younger brother had been arrested for assaulting my ex in my defense.
Christian didn't want my apology; he wanted a solution. He slammed a prenuptial agreement on the table in front of me.
He gave me an ultimatum: sign a two-year marriage contract to turn the scandal into a corporate fairy tale, or he would ruin me. Trapped, I agreed. But when my furious brother confronted him at the police station, Christian looked him dead in the eye and said something that left me breathless.
"I didn't marry her to solve a problem," he said, his voice echoing in the small room. "I married her because I've been in love with her for ten years."
8.1
Pretty Devil
8.1
Maddy worked at an exclusive underground club, always hidden behind a sleek black mask. One night, a wealthy client approached her with a filthy fantasy , he didn't want to just fuck her. He wanted to be her complete slave.
He took her to his luxury penthouse, while she shoved her soaked pussy onto his face and rode his tongue until she came, then mounted his cock and used him mercilessly, slapping and choking him while denying his orgasm until he begged like a broken whore. Even after she quit the club and started a new corporate job, she kept hooking up with him. One day, she walked into the CEO's office... and froze. Her new boss was the same man.
By day, in his luxurious office, he is the dominant, commanding CEO , barking orders, running the company with iron authority, and no one suspects a thing. By night, he becomes her secret pathetic slave: crawling, getting pegged over his own desk, licking her cum off his floor, and having his cock locked in chastity while she laughs at how easily she owns him.
Pretty Devil is a raw, extremely explicit erotic novel packed with intense femdom, heavy BDSM, humiliation, orgasm denial, pegging, face-sitting, and twisted power exchanges that blur the dangerous line between boss and secret slave.
This book is unapologetically nasty and graphic. Reader discretion is strongly advised.