Take My Fiancé, I Take The Empire
Eleanor Sinclair always knew her stepmother and stepsister were leeches, but she never expected their betrayal to reach into her private study.
In the dead of night, she caught the family's trusted nanny of twelve years photographing confidential trust documents. The mastermind paying her off was Lillian, Eleanor's stepmother, who had been secretly embezzling estate funds and bribing tutors to deliberately ruin the academic future of Eleanor's younger brother, the only legitimate heir.
Emboldened by their deceit, the parasites grew arrogant. Her stepsister, Isabelle, deliberately flaunted her secret affair with Eleanor’s billionaire fiancé, sobbing fake tears while waiting for Eleanor to suffer a humiliating nervous breakdown.
When the tension finally peaked, Lillian played the victim so perfectly that Eleanor's own father, a powerful U.S. Senator, stormed into the room with a raised hand, ready to strike his own daughter.
"You will apologize to your stepsister immediately! I will not have this family harmony destroyed by your petty jealousy!"
They actually expected her to be a weeping, heartbroken girl. They thought cheap hotel affairs and stolen pennies could outsmart the true Sinclair bloodline. Did they really believe a few fake tears and a weak-willed father could strip her of her empire?
Eleanor didn't feel anger; she felt the cold, detached fascination of a biologist observing doomed insects. She calmly pulled out the forensic audits, locked down the estate's exits, and prepared her stepmother's psychiatric commitment papers. The merciless purge of her family had officially begun.
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Chapter 3
Eleanor pushed open the French doors. The crisp morning air hit her face. She stepped onto the white gravel path of the private gardens, heading toward her grandmother's secluded suite at the far end of the estate.
Her designer shoes crunched softly against the stones. The rhythmic sound announced her approach.
As she neared the blooming rose trellis outside Genevieve's windows, she saw her.
Isabelle was sitting on a wrought-iron bench. She was perfectly positioned to be clearly visible from Genevieve's sitting room window. Isabelle was sobbing loudly into a white lace handkerchief, her shoulders shaking with exaggerated grief.
Eleanor stopped a few feet away. She crossed her arms over her chest. She did not say a word. She simply allowed the heavy, judgmental silence to stretch out until the sheer awkwardness of it forced Isabelle to look up.
Isabelle dramatically gasped. She clutched her hand over her chest as if startled.
"Eleanor!" Isabelle cried out, launching instantly into a rehearsed, breathless apology. "I'm so sorry! Last night with Julian... it was an accident. We were just talking, and things got out of hand. We couldn't stop ourselves. We're in love!"
Eleanor did not interrupt. She tilted her head slightly. She watched Isabelle's theatrical performance with the clinical interest of a scientist observing a struggling lab rat.
The silence stretched again. Isabelle's fake crying faltered under Eleanor's unwavering, dead-eyed stare. The loud sobs turned into an awkward, pathetic whimper.
"Did you use waterproof mascara for this specific production?" Eleanor finally asked. Her tone was entirely flat.
Isabelle's face flushed a violent shade of red. She dropped the lace handkerchief onto her lap. Her victim persona cracked instantly, replaced by a ugly sneer.
"You are completely heartless!" Isabelle accused angrily, her voice shrill.
Eleanor took a deliberate step forward. The sun was behind her. Her shadow physically fell over Isabelle, plunging the younger girl into darkness. Isabelle instinctively shrank back against the hard iron backrest of the bench.
"Julian is a weak-willed idiot," Eleanor stated bluntly. "You are welcome to him. Provided you understand the price."
Isabelle looked confused. She blinked rapidly. "Are you... are you calling off the engagement? Because your heart is broken?"
Eleanor let out a short, sharp laugh. It was a sound completely devoid of humor.
"The marriage alliance remains," Eleanor clarified, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I am marrying the Beaumont political network. You will merely be the hidden mistress he visits when he's bored."
Isabelle stood up abruptly. Her fists clenched at her sides. "Julian loves me! He told me he's going to break the engagement and marry me instead! His family will love me!"
Eleanor calmly reached into her pocket and pulled out the heavy, cream-colored invitation she had received earlier. She opened the card and shoved the thick paper with its handwritten note directly into Isabelle's face. Isabelle's eyes darted across the text. It was from Camilla Beaumont.
Eleanor, looking forward to seeing you solo at the gala. Julian's recent lapse in judgment is being handled. We have no interest in entertaining the Sinclair bastard child.
Isabelle's eyes widened in absolute horror. The blood drained from her face. She realized the Beaumont matriarch explicitly despised her.
"High society runs on capital, Isabelle," Eleanor whispered coldly, leaning in so close Isabelle could feel her breath. "Not cheap hotel affairs."
Isabelle's chest hitched. Genuine tears of frustration and humiliation welled up in her eyes. The romantic delusion she had built in her head was completely decimated. She realized she was nothing but a temporary, worthless distraction to the people who actually held power.
Eleanor stepped around the sobbing girl. She dismissed her existence entirely.
Eleanor walked up the stone steps to the heavy oak door of Genevieve's suite. She knocked twice. A firm, rhythmic sound.
The door was immediately opened by Mrs. Davies, the chief estate manager, who bowed her head slightly and stepped aside.
Eleanor stepped into the dimly lit suite. The air was thick with the scent of imported Earl Grey tea and old wood.
Genevieve Sinclair was seated in a massive wingback chair by the roaring fireplace. Her piercing, intelligent eyes locked onto Eleanor instantly.
"Why is there a crying girl ruining the peace of my garden?" Genevieve demanded, her voice raspy but commanding.
Eleanor walked over and sat in the chair opposite her grandmother. She smoothly smoothed the skirt of her suit.
"I was just taking out the emotional trash," Eleanor reported calmly.
Genevieve's thin lips twitched into a rare, approving smirk. She appreciated her granddaughter's ruthless lack of sentimentality.
"Do you intend to proceed with the Beaumont marriage?" Genevieve asked directly, tapping her silver-tipped cane against the rug. "Despite the public humiliation of Julian's infidelity?"
Eleanor met her grandmother's gaze flawlessly. "I accept the alliance purely for political leverage and status. I do not care about love."
Eleanor leaned forward slightly. "I plan to use Julian's guilt, and Camilla's embarrassment over the paparazzi photos, to extract a highly favorable prenuptial agreement. I want a larger percentage of their tech stocks placed in a blind trust under my name."
Genevieve nodded slowly. Her fingers reached up to tap her heavy pearl necklace. She was officially giving Eleanor her blessing to manage the crisis.
Suddenly, a loud, angry voice echoed from the hallway outside the suite. Heavy footsteps approached rapidly.
Senator Robert Sinclair was coming.
Eleanor and Genevieve shared a knowing, exhausted look. The brass handle of the heavy oak door began to rattle violently.
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8.8
Kaia was diagnosed with late-stage bone cancer, with only three months left to live.
She wanted to give up her family's entire trust fund just to have Gerrit play the role of a loving husband for her final days.
But before she could show him the biopsy report, he looked at her with absolute disgust, declaring that their three-year marriage made him physically sick.
He only loved Seraphina.
To force Kaia out, Seraphina constantly framed her. When Seraphina faked a fall, Gerrit pushed Kaia so hard she tore her waist open on a glass table.
When Kaia writhed in agonizing pain from her failing organs, he stood over her coldly, mocking her pathetic acting.
Even when Gerrit finally discovered Seraphina had hired a fake stalker and maliciously burned Kaia's skin with boiling tea, he still chose to protect his mistress.
"I already signed the divorce papers with Kaia. We are going to bury this story temporarily to protect the company."
Hearing those words from behind the wall, the last shred of hope in Kaia's chest completely died.
She had endured his cruelty for three years, only to realize his bias for another woman defied all logic and morality.
Lying in the bathtub, coughing up mouthfuls of dark blood that turned the water crimson, Kaia picked up her phone and dialed her lawyer.
"Julian, initiate the final plan."
Since Gerrit despised her existence, she would make sure he never found her body.
9.7
Eliana Rivera is the firstborn daughter of business tycoon Cassian Rivera. When her father's company falls into debt, he marries her off to the arrogant and ruthless billionaire, Alexander Grayson, as part of a business contract and under the threat of blackmail.
Alexander, the billionaire CEO, never planned to marry, but the pressure of blackmail forces him into a union with a woman he barely knows. Although Eliana doesn't see Alexander as her ideal partner, she agrees to the marriage out of a sense of duty.
Once engaged, however, he barely acknowledges her presence and harbours disdain for her because of her father's actions and their relationship. But as they navigate their newfound relationship, the unexpected desire for each other's touch ignites-a twist neither of them planned, leading them toward an unforeseen love.
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.
9.7
For three years, I believed I had the perfect, flawlessly submissive wife.
But right as I was about to sign a fifty-million-dollar divorce settlement to make her go away quietly, I suddenly heard a sharp, ecstatic voice echoing inside my skull.
"Freedom! Long live freedom! I finally shook off this absolute bastard!"
I snapped my head up, only to see Iris sitting across the table, her delicate shoulders trembling as she sobbed into her hands, looking like a shattered woman losing her entire world.
It wasn't a hallucination; I could actually hear her inner thoughts. The realization hit me like a physical blow. My fragile, heartbroken wife was a calculating hypocrite who mentally cursed me out while physically begging me to stay. When I later dragged her out of a nightclub where she was partying half-naked, I heard her true thoughts about our intimacy—she considered our nights together a mere "complimentary clause" in our business contract. Even the loving, home-cooked French dinners I cherished were exposed through her mind to be microwaved Michelin-star takeout.
For three years, I had prided myself on being a dominant, attentive husband, yet I was played for an absolute fool. How could she fake every single tear, every single touch, with such terrifying perfection while viewing me as nothing more than an ATM?
Looking at her cowering on my penthouse floor, clutching an anniversary Birkin bag she secretly planned to sell for a Porsche, a dark rush of power blinded me.
I wasn't just going to let her walk away with my millions anymore; I was going to use my new ability to rip off her mask and utterly destroy her.
7.2
Five years ago, I, Claire Parker, ran away for love with Daniel Carter, the broke boy everyone looked down on. But on the very day we were supposed to leave together, he abandoned me.
Overnight, I became the laughingstock of the entire city and was forced into a marriage alliance with a terminally ill man, Ryan Cooper.
Five years later, my husband died, the marriage arrangement fell apart, and the Cooper family threw me out without a shred of mercy.
Meanwhile, Daniel, the man everyone once sneered at, returned home in glory and became the hottest rising name in the business world.
And somehow, he ended up becoming my boss.
I wanted nothing to do with him, yet he kept closing in on me, cornering me with sarcasm sharp enough to draw blood.
Then one day, Daniel caught me on a date with another man.
His eyes reddened instantly as he pinned me against the wall. "Claire... are you abandoning me again?"
7.4
I was freezing to death in an abandoned cabin, desperately waiting for my fiancé to save me.
Instead, my phone flickered with a video from my adopted sister.
She was smiling as she confessed that she and my fiancé had orchestrated my kidnapping, and my parents' fatal plane crash, just to steal my family's trust fund.
When I called him with my dying breath, he mocked me for faking a PR stunt and hung up.
I died in the sub-zero blizzard, consumed by absolute despair.
But as a ghost, I watched my greatest business rival, the ruthless billionaire Collins, kick down the doors of my mansion.
He didn't just mourn me.
He shot my fiancé, trapped my sister, and set the entire place on fire, choosing to burn alive in the inferno just to avenge me.
I couldn't understand why the man I had publicly despised for a decade loved me so fiercely, while the people I gave everything to wanted me dead.
Opening my eyes again, I was back backstage on the night I won my Oscar, four years ago.
My fiancé smiled, holding out his arms to hug me.
I pushed him away in disgust, marched straight into the crowded theater, and kissed my billionaire rival on live television.
"Let's get married tomorrow."
This time, I would use him to burn them all to the ground.