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 4
They walked out of the coffee shop into the drizzle.
Aisha stopped abruptly at the corner, her boots splashing in a puddle.
"Wait," she said. She turned to face him, hugging her arms around herself. "I need to know something. Before we go to City Hall."
Dominic stopped, hands in his pockets. "What?"
"Last night," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Did we... did you...?"
She couldn't finish the sentence. The thought that she might have slept with him-transactionally-made her skin crawl. Not because of him, but because she had no memory of it.
Dominic's face softened. The arrogance vanished.
He pulled his phone out of his leather jacket. He tapped the screen a few times and turned it toward her.
"I figured you might ask," he said, his voice low. "I know a guy on the security staff here. Owed me a favor."
It was a video. Grainy, black and white security footage.
Aisha watched as a woman-her-stumbled down a hotel hallway. She pushed open a door that was slightly ajar. She collapsed onto the bed, face down, fully clothed. The footage sped up slightly. It showed her tossing and turning, kicking off her heels. At one point, she sat up, groaning, and clumsily started tugging at the zipper of her gown, clearly uncomfortable. She managed to wriggle out of it, leaving it in a heap at the foot of the bed before collapsing back onto the mattress.
A minute later, Dominic walked in. He stopped, looked at her, looked at the hallway. He closed the door.
He walked over to the bed, pulled the duvet out from under her, and draped it over her. Then he grabbed a pillow and went to the sofa on the far side of the room.
The video ended.
Aisha let out a breath she felt like she'd been holding for ten hours. Her shoulders slumped.
"You slept on the couch," she whispered.
"I have a strict code of ethics," Dominic said, pocketing the phone. "I don't touch intoxicated clients."
It was a lie-the "client" part-but the sentiment was true.
"Thank you," she said. She meant it.
"Don't get used to it," he quipped. "Now, about this marriage. I assume you want a prenup?"
"Yes," Aisha said automatically. "My lawyer-"
"No lawyers," Dominic interrupted.
Aisha frowned. "What? Why?"
"Lawyers mean background checks. Background checks mean my... creditors... find me." He stepped closer, towering over her. "If we do this, we do it my way. No paper trail that leads to my past."
Aisha bit her lip. It was risky. Insanely risky. But she didn't have time for a lawyer anyway.
"Fine," she said. "But we write a memorandum of understanding. Right now."
She marched him to a park bench. The wood was damp, but she sat down and pulled a notebook from her purse.
"Clause One," she said, writing furiously. "No intimacy. We sleep in separate rooms."
"Agreed," Dominic said, sitting next to her. He stretched his long legs out. "Clause Two: You pay for my suits. I can't look like a trophy husband in rags."
"Fine. Clause Three: You have to attend family events and act like you adore me."
"I'm a great actor," he said, winking.
"Clause Four," she continued, ignoring the flutter in her stomach. "Monthly allowance. Five thousand."
Dominic looked at the number she wrote. He suppressed a laugh. That was less than he spent on wine in a week.
"Six thousand," he countered. "Inflation."
Aisha glared at him. "Fine. Six. But you do chores. Dishes. Trash."
"I don't do trash," he said.
"Then no six thousand."
He groaned. "Fine. Trash."
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He glanced at it. A text from Chester: Board meeting in 20. Where are you?
Dominic hit Ignore.
"Who was that?" Aisha asked sharply.
"Debt collector," he said.
Aisha's expression softened. She reached out and touched his arm. "We'll fix it. I promise."
Dominic looked at her hand on his jacket. He felt a strange twinge in his chest. Guilt? No, he didn't do guilt.
"Let's go get hitched," he said, standing up abruptly.
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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.