The $300 Husband Is A Zillionaire
I woke up in a blindingly white hotel penthouse with a throbbing headache and the taste of betrayal in my mouth. The last thing I remembered was my stepsister, Cathie, handing me a flute of champagne at the charity gala with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Now, a tall, dangerously handsome man walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips. On the nightstand sat a stack of hundred-dollar bills. My stepmother had finally done it-she drugged me and staged a scandal with a hired escort to destroy my reputation and my future.
"Aisha! Is it true you spent the night with a gigolo?" The shouts of a dozen reporters echoed through the heavy oak door as camera flashes exploded through the peephole. My phone lit up with messages showing my bank accounts were already frozen. My father was invoking the 'morality clause' in my mother's trust fund, and my fiancé had already released a statement dumping me to marry my stepsister instead.
I was trapped, penniless, and being hunted by the press for a scandal I hadn't even participated in. My own family had sold me out for a payday, and the man standing in front of me was the only witness who could prove I was innocent-or finish me off for good.
I didn't have time to cry. According to the fine print of the trust, I had thirty days to prove my "rehabilitation" through a legal marriage or I would lose everything.
I tracked the man down to a coffee shop the next morning, watching him take a thick envelope of cash from a wealthy older woman. I sat across from him and slid a napkin with a $50,000 figure written on it.
"I need a husband. Legal, paper-signed, and convincing."
He looked at the number, then at me, a slow, crooked smile spreading across his face. I thought I was hiring a desperate gigolo to save my inheritance. I had no idea I was actually proposing to Dominic Fields, the reclusive billionaire shark who was currently planning a hostile takeover of my father's entire empire.
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Chapter 3
The coffee shop was one of those pretentious places in SoHo where the menu was a chalkboard and the baristas wore suspenders.
Aisha stood outside, adjusting the oversized sunglasses she had bought from a street vendor. She had changed into jeans and a sweater she kept in her gym locker, looking slightly less like a runaway debutante.
She spotted him through the glass.
Dominic was sitting at a corner table. He was wearing a t-shirt that was tight in all the right places and a leather jacket that looked distressed enough to be either very old or very expensive.
Across from him sat an older woman. She had silver hair pulled back in a severe bun and was wearing a Chanel suit.
Aisha ducked behind a newspaper stand.
The woman reached across the table and patted Dominic's hand. It looked... affectionate? No, patronizing.
She slid a thick manila envelope across the table.
Dominic took it. He didn't look inside. He just gave the woman a charming, practiced smile. The kind of smile that made women open their checkbooks.
He's working, Aisha thought, a wave of disgust warring with relief. That's his sugar mama.
The woman stood up, smoothed her skirt, and left.
Dominic stayed. He slumped back in his chair, staring out the window, looking strangely tired.
Aisha took a deep breath. She pushed open the door. The bell chimed.
She marched straight to his table and sat down in the empty chair.
Dominic blinked, pulling his gaze away from the street. Recognition dawned in his gray eyes.
"The runaway," he said. "Come back for your three hundred bucks?"
"I have a proposition," Aisha said. She didn't waste time with pleasantries.
A waiter appeared. "Can I get you something?"
"Two large coffees. Black. And the check," Aisha said.
She turned back to Dominic. She took off her sunglasses.
"I saw that woman," she said softly. "I know what that envelope was."
Dominic's expression shifted. The boredom vanished, replaced by a razor-sharp focus. "Do you?"
"It's payday," Aisha said. "She's your client."
Dominic stared at her for a long moment. Then, the corner of his mouth twitched. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.
"You think I'm a gigolo," he stated. It wasn't a question.
"I don't judge," Aisha lied. "But I need your services."
Dominic laughed. It was a rich, genuine sound that made heads turn. "Honey, I don't think you can afford my rates."
Aisha reached into her bag and pulled out a napkin. She grabbed a pen and wrote a number on it.
$50,000.
She slid it across the table.
"That's a down payment," she said. "I need you for a month. Maybe two."
Dominic looked at the number. He looked at her.
"What exactly does fifty grand buy me?" he asked, his voice dropping an octave.
Aisha felt heat rise in her cheeks, but she held his gaze. "A husband. A legal, paper-signed husband."
Dominic choked on his water. He coughed, thumping his chest. "Excuse me?"
"I need to get married. Today. It's... a legal matter regarding a trust fund. I need someone who looks good in a suit, can memorize a backstory, and won't ask questions."
She leaned in closer. "I know you need money. I saw you take that cash this morning. I can give you a monthly stipend. Five thousand a month, plus expenses. You get to live in my apartment. You get access to a car."
Dominic studied her. He looked at the napkin, then at her desperate, determined eyes.
He was Dominic Fields. He made fifty thousand dollars every time the stock market ticked up a point. He didn't need her money.
But he was bored. He was tired of the board meetings, the fake smiles, the endless pursuit of more power. And this woman... this woman who thought he was a prostitute... she was the most interesting thing that had happened to him in years.
"I have debts," he lied smoothly. "Big ones. Sharks looking for me."
Aisha didn't blink. "I'll handle them. Once I get my trust fund unlocked, I can pay them off. Within reason."
"Within reason," he repeated, hiding a smile.
"Do we have a deal?" She extended her hand across the table. Her fingers were trembling slightly.
Dominic looked at her small hand. He looked at the fire in her eyes.
He reached out and engulfed her hand in his. His palm was warm, rougher than she expected.
"Deal," he said. "Mrs. Bartlett."
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8.8
They say tough situations don't last, but tough people do.
They are bloody liars, whoever said that.
My tough situation didn't make me stronger. It pushed me into the arms of Elias Thorne. CEO of Blackwood Holdings. One of the richest men in the country. And, apparently, my fake husband.
I'm just a contract wife. A transaction. He needs me to secure his standing in the company. He hates me and I don't care. I need his money, his influence, his resources, anything to save my mother's and sister's life.
Forty-five days. Then I walk away.
That was the deal.
No love or feelings. Just business.
But a penthouse is smaller than it looks. And forced proximity has a way of cracking open doors you swore you locked up.
He has his own wounds. His own ghosts. And sometimes, when he looks at me, I swear he's not seeing a contract at all.
Forty-five days.
Either we walk away untouched.
Or we burn.
8.9
My father was marrying a gold-digger, the mother of my cheating ex-boyfriend.
To end the charade, I crashed their luxury wedding with a ten-foot funeral wreath.
In front of hundreds of elites, my father slapped me across the face, calling me a vicious bitch while his new wife smiled in victory.
I triggered the estate's fire system to ruin them, but a terrifying stranger in the VIP section bypassed my military-grade hack in seconds.
He was Kavon Velasquez, a dangerous billionaire heir who had been missing for twelve years.
Instead of exposing me, he shielded me from my father's second blow.
When my pathetic ex tried to drag me away, I grabbed Kavon and kissed him to humiliate my ex.
I shoved a $500,000 check into Kavon's pocket as hush money and left.
I thought that was the end of it.
But why did this apex predator move into the penthouse right next to mine at 2 AM?
Why did he violently crush my ex's face the next morning just for grabbing my arm?
"She is my woman. If you ever come within ten feet of her again, I will bury you."
I didn't understand why a man with lethal skills was suddenly hunting me.
Then I found out he had just blackmailed my father with undeniable proof of corporate money laundering.
His demand wasn't money. It was me.
He ordered my father to announce our engagement by tomorrow sunset, and this dangerous game officially began.
8.5
Billionaire oil mogul Iyke Obiora is a man who has everything-money, influence, and a marriage admired by society. But beneath the polished surface, his empire is cracking. His wife has grown distant, his rivals are closing in, and his secret underground deals could cost him everything.
Then he meets Amara Okoye, a stunning and ambitious school secretary whose quiet charm awakens a hunger he thought long dead. What begins as an innocent encounter soon becomes an all-consuming affair-one that threatens to shatter their lives.
Caught between fiery passion and deadly consequences, Iyke and Amara must face the truth: their love burns too brightly to remain hidden, but stepping into the light may destroy them both.
A tale of power, forbidden desire, and dangerous secrets-Crude Desires will leave you breathless.
9.5
Blaire's mother gave her a ruthless ultimatum: find a husband today, or never call her mother again.
Desperate to escape the suffocating control and disastrous blind dates, Blaire agreed to a fake marriage with a stranger she met through an old woman.
She thought she was marrying a dirt-poor salesman drowning in mortgage debt.
They lived in a rundown Queens apartment and split the living expenses fifty-fifty.
He drove a sputtering Toyota Camry, established extreme territorial rules, and treated her like a gold-digging biohazard.
When she accidentally tripped and spilled hot soup on him, he didn't help her up, instead accusing her of using pathetic tricks to seduce him.
Her own mother even crashed their apartment, ruthlessly mocking his pathetic financial state and calling him a total loser.
Blaire endured his coldness and extreme germaphobia, genuinely pitying him for his stressful, low-paying job.
She refunded his money and defended his dignity, refusing to take advantage of a struggling man.
But she couldn't understand why this supposedly broke guy possessed such a lethal, commanding aura, or why an incredibly expensive cashmere blanket mysteriously appeared on her when she was freezing on the couch.
Until her brother called with a shocking warning.
"Blaire, the name on your marriage certificate belongs to the notoriously secretive billionaire CEO of New York's top financial syndicate!"
Blaire laughed out loud, completely unaware that behind the bedroom door, her "broke" husband was frantically ordering his PR team to bury his true identity.
9.5
I was the heiress to a real estate empire, celebrating my engagement to Douglas at our Manhattan penthouse.
But when I stepped into the master bedroom, I caught him sleeping with my best friend, Krystle.
Before I could even react, Douglas forced me to sign away my family's entire trust fund.
He held up a tablet and forced me to watch a live feed of my parents being burned alive in our Hamptons estate.
"The fire hasn't reached the main house yet, sign it and I'll call them off," he lied.
As soon as the ink dried, he beat me to the ground and locked me in the soundproof study.
He poured twenty-three-year-old whiskey on the carpet and dropped a lit cigar.
"You could have walked away with nothing, but alive," he sneered.
He left me to burn to death while he and Krystle went back to our engagement party to drink champagne.
As the flames melted my skin and my bones shattered against the bulletproof glass, I couldn't understand it.
How could the man who promised me forever brutally exterminate my entire family just for money?
But I didn't die in that fire.
Three years later, with a reconstructed face and a new identity as the mysterious global designer Alice Moreau, I returned to New York.
Watching Douglas and Krystle flaunt the wealth they stole from my family's ashes, I smiled behind my black veil.
It was time to make them pay with everything they had.
9.7
Charity woke up in a hellish, acid-rain-soaked slum, trapped inside a bloated body covered in festering, toxic sores. She was the exiled Grand Princess of the Empire.
But the real nightmare wasn't her ruined body. It was the fact that the original owner had used her royal authority to force genetic marriage contracts onto four top-tier, powerful men.
Now, she was bound to them, and they absolutely loathed her.
Hjalmar, chained to a bed in her filthy room, smiled like a feral beast and promised to rip her head off the second his chains snapped.
Braden, a ruthless military officer, saved her from a mutated rat only to look at her with pure disgust.
"If you want to die, go die somewhere else. Don't dirty my patrol sector."
Even the locals mocked her fallen status, and a wealthy heiress publicly framed her for stealing a hundred-thousand-coin energy core just to see her rot in a dark cell.
She was universally despised, physically repulsive, and a lethal biological toxin gave her exactly 59 days left to live. How was she supposed to survive this absolute hell when her starting affection with her partners was at negative 100?
Then, a mechanical voice echoed in her skull, activating a survival system. To purge the poison, she had to harvest emotional energy by making these four men fall for her. Charity accepted the mandate, unlocked a top-tier culinary skill, and grabbed a rusted meat cleaver to start her counterattack.