The billionaire's beautiful marionette
"Be my wife."
Lucia looked at him, questioning his sanity.
"You're out of your mind.I don't even know you ".
Lucas Mariano's voice was icy, his gaze unreadable.
"You need help.Your sister requires care.I can help you both.You have quite the image so I'm sure you'll need it.
It's transactional-nothing more."He finished.
Once the rising star in the ballet world, Lucia Moretti's life is shaken after a brutal divorce and a terrible fire that leaves her and her sister homeless.
Now, with her dreams buried,her heart is guarded and her main focus is keeping both herself and her sister alive.
Enter Lucas-Merciless, cold and sinfully compelling.He offers a contract marriage which comes with everything Lucia needs but at a cost she doesn't understand...yet.
What started as a formality quickly grows into something far more twisted when her ex-husband,Matt-lucas's best friend-returns, determined to have her again.
"You got married to Lucas?" Matt snarled,fury dripping from his voice.
"Is this your revenge?" He continued icily.
No, Lucia said without emotion.
"This is survival."
As sparks fly and secrets come to light, Lucia Finds herself torn between a past that nearly broke her and a man who might shatter her in a brand new way.
In a world of socialites, betrayal and fake love, Lucia must ask herself: Is she the puppet or the one holding the strings?
Chapters
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Chapter 1
Lucia's pov
The smell of burnt coffee beans and crisp onions stuck to me like Regret as I scrubbed a sticky table top with the same desperation I used to polish my ballet slippers, only now there was zero music,no cheering or applause - just flickering lights about to die and the irritating voice of my wretched manager spitting out orders as usual.
"Table seven's been patient for long enough Lucia, move your ass!"
I didn't respond.I stopped responding quite a long time ago.words used to flow out of me like a symphony - smooth, unfiltered and captivating. Now they remained stuck somewhere behind clenched teeth and my forced smile.
I managed to balance two plates as I glided towards a table, my posture straight despite my sore joints.
A toddler screamed as she flung food across a table.My fingers twitched on instinct like I was about to perform a pirouette but I stopped myself.
That part of me was lost.
I chuckled bitterly as I mocked myself:
Lucia Moretti, you've fallen so far from a prodigy to a mere waitress in a faded uniform, pouring lukewarm coffee for strangers who can't even look you in the eye.
I brushed aside the thought as I spoke to the man at table seven."Can I get you anything else sir?" my voice devoid of emotion.
Yeah," the man at the table replied,his eyes never leaving his phone.
"get me someone who actually knows how to serve a proper meal because clearly you don't."
I ignored his comment as I took the plate, turned and walked back to the kitchen without saying a word.I also didn't flinch when the ceramic plate shattered in the sink though my coworker was startled.
"My God,Lucy...."
"I'll cover the damages;I murmured and kept my feet moving.
It wasn't the plate.it wasn't even the insult either.it was the unfortunate date. Six months. Six months since that fire. Six months since everything that had meaning in my life was taken from me in the blink of an orange-glowing haze.
"Well not everything. I thankfully still had Sophia,my sister", I corrected myself mentally.
By noon,my feet felt like burning coal and my spine groaned with every step.
My shift finally ended and I dashed out of there without saying goodbye,I didn't really care about anyone but Sophia right now.
I crumpled my tips tightly in my fists - barely enough for the house rent,let alone medicine for Sophia.
Outside, the rain drizzled from the grey sky as I walked on the cracked pavement to the bus stop, hugging my jacket tighter for warmth. A little girl twirled around in circles in the corner nearby,humming off-key and careless in her joy. I froze.
That used to be Me.
Every spin she took was like a punch to my stomach.I smiled bitterly as I watched her pretend the sidewalk was her stage and the rain, her spotlight.
I saw my fifteen year old self again as I remembered being full of dreams and dancing in the snow because practice couldn't wait.
My first costume was a silky tutu that I couldn't wait to wear and my mother used to cry with pride as she saw me, the smell of roses on her fingertips.
My pleasant memories were interrupted by my ex husband's voice as my mind took a wrong turn:"you're losing it Lucy. You can barely take care of yourself,let alone a demanding career like ballet. You're unstable."
My fists tightened.
He had stolen everything - My name, platform,ballet.And when I disappeared from the spotlight,the world believed the headlines:"Ballet's brightest star burns out in public meltdown."
I'd begged him to stop truthfully.But Matt Richards knew just how to control the media and in the end everyone went with his version of my fall.
My apartment was run down and it was on the ground floor with peeling paint and overall barely holding together but it was the best I could manage after the fire.
The one person I still cared about was inside so at least there was hope.
I pushed open the door,then she ran to me.
"Cece!"Sophia beamed as she ran towards me, wrapped in a worn blanket.The bandages on her limbs had been replaced, but her scars peeked through - raw and angry.
I ignored the pain in my chest at her condition as I dropped my bag and knelt beside her."Did you stay in your blanket all day?"
"Noo...,"she replied proudly as she held up a painting.It was blurry stick figures - one tall,one short- holding hands in front of a house surrounded by flames.
My breath caught in my throat.
"sophia...
"I saw them Cece..." she said in a whisper.
"There was a very loud sound.And they were....there.." she trailed off.
I grew stiff."You went through a terrible experience soso, I think it's very normal for you to hallucinate."
"No.I saw them...shadows."
I wanted to hug her, to dismiss it as fear and imagination.But there was a part of me that blamed myself.The fire was so sudden...maybe I left the heater on or something because it doesn't make sense.
And even now, the official cause was left as"unknown electrical failure".
"You're ok now," I whispered, hugging Sophia tighter."Nothing is going to hurt you again."
I stayed awake to watch her sleep after dinner, listening to her steady breathing as I stared at the ceiling.My mind replayed the flames,the smoke, Sophia's screams,the door that wouldn't open....
Until Sophia's muffled whimper snapped me out of my thoughts. I hurried to her room and found her struggling under the covers,sweat covering her forehead.
"Stop,Stop! Don't come in!" Sophia cried in her sleep."The woman! She's in the fire!"
I shook her awake firmly." It's okay. It's okay soso."
Sophia looked up at me with wide terrified eyes that made my heart bleed."Was it just a dream Cece? or something else?"
I didn't know how to answer.
My throat tightened.
I cuddled with her in bed for a long time.
Later,she managed to sleep but I didn't.
I couldn't.
I have to do whatever it takes to help my sister.
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9.5
My boyfriend, Jefferson, convinced me to give up my Yale scholarship for him. He was my secret, my escape from the shame of my mother's past, and I threw away my future for our love.
Then, at a gala, he publicly announced his engagement to Aubrey Carroll-the girl who made my high school years a living hell.
He trapped me in his mansion, forcing me to become her personal servant. She tortured me daily, culminating in her brutally killing our dog, Charlie, with a garden trowel.
When her friends arrived, they joined in, stripping me half-naked and live-streaming my panic attack for the world to see.
The man who once promised to protect me watched as they destroyed me.
But as I lay bleeding out on the floor, it wasn't an ambulance that arrived. It was the private security of Alexzander Stevens-my estranged, billionaire grandfather.
He revealed I was his sole heiress, and now, we were going to make them pay for every last tear.
8.7
On her eighteenth birthday, Elinor thought she was finally an adult. But a single text message reminded her she was just property.
Boyd Walker, the ruthless billionaire who dictated her every breath, threw a contract onto her bed. He had bought her adoptive father's medical debt—one billion dollars. And she was the sole collateral.
The punishment for even a hint of rebellion was catastrophic.
When her disabled friend tried to check on her, Boyd had his good leg shattered in front of a live security feed just to teach her a lesson.
When she fought off an entitled frat boy at school and came back with a bleeding arm, Boyd didn't comfort her.
Driven by a twisted, suffocating jealousy, he held her under a freezing bath, then tied a red thread with a silver bell around her ankle.
"You are a pet that needs to learn its boundaries."
Every time she moved, the high-pitched ring was a humiliating reminder of her gilded cage. The billion-dollar debt was a chain she could never break, and the monster holding the leash would destroy anyone who dared to help her.
Stripped of her money, her friends, and her dignity, Elinor lay completely still in the dark room for three days, refusing all food and water.
If Boyd wouldn't give her freedom, she would take the only thing she had left to control—her own death.
7.8
Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire.
I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper.
I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he’d dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family’s land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock.
I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim.
"If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned.
So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell—the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months.
Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I’ve suspended Hugh’s executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I’m just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout.
But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back.
7.6
I am the illegitimate, mute daughter of the wealthy Owen family, kept hidden in the attic like a shameful secret.
To save his failing company, my father decided to sell me off to a repulsive, predatory investor named Grossman.
At the family dinner, Grossman's sweaty hands roamed my bare legs while my half-sister Kaleigh intentionally spilled red wine on my dress, laughing as she watched me suffer.
When I grabbed a steak knife to defend myself, my father slammed his fist on the table.
"Sit down, or I will cut off the maintenance payments for your mother's grave."
My stepmother and sister sneered, treating me like a piece of meat meant to be sacrificed for their luxury. I was starved, locked away, and treated worse than a stray dog, all while my family paraded their high-society status to the world.
I couldn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or who really ordered the hit that killed my mother twenty years ago. The police reports were buried, and I was entirely powerless, trapped in a house of monsters.
But they didn't know that the night before, I had accidentally stumbled into the secret life of Burleigh Livingston—the ruthless, supposedly paralyzed billionaire who was faking his madness.
When Burleigh suddenly crashed our family dinner and threw a limitless Black Card on the table to outbid Grossman and buy me for the night, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, accepted his twisted deal, and prepared to use the devil himself to tear my family apart.
8.0
They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, mine didn't.
I came back with a marriage certificate bearing a stranger's name, a ring worth more than my parents' love ever was, and a son whose father I've never seen, never known, never remembered.
I went to Vegas for a racing competition. I won. I celebrated. And somewhere between the victory and the sunrise, my life changed forever.
For six years, I've lived with the consequences of one reckless night. I built an empire. I raised my son. And I searched for the man who changed my life without even knowing it.
Then fate laughed in my face.
My sister married my ex-fiancé-the man I was promised to since childhood. The man I was supposed to become Mrs. Windsor for. The man who now wears my family name... and looks far too much like my child.
Every time I'm near him, the past presses closer. Every glance feels like a question I'm terrified to ask. I shouldn't notice him. I shouldn't feel anything. He is my sister's husband.
But some secrets refuse to stay buried.
Because the truth about Vegas isn't just in the ring on my finger or the child in my arms.
It's standing right in front of me.
And when it finally comes out, it won't just destroy a marriage, it will burn an empire to the ground.
7.1
I lay paralyzed on stiff white sheets, a prisoner in my own skin, listening to the rain lash against the window like nails on a coffin. My father, Elmore Franco, didn't even look at my face as he checked his clipboard. He just listened to the steady, monotonous beep of the heart monitor-the only thing proving I was still alive.
Without a hint of remorse, he pulled a pen from his pocket and signed the Do Not Resuscitate order. My stepmother, Ophelia, stepped out from behind him, wearing my favorite pearl necklace and smelling of cloying perfume. She leaned close to my ear to whisper the truth that turned my blood to ice.
"It was the tea, darling. Just like your mother. A slow, tasteless poison."
She chuckled as she revealed that my fiancé, Bryce, had a two-year-old son with my sister, Daniela. My inheritance had been funding their secret life for years, and now that the money was secure, I was an inconvenience they were finally scrubbing away. As my father yanked the power cord from the wall, the beeping died, and the darkness swallowed me whole.
I was being murdered by my own flesh and blood, used as a bank account until I was no longer needed. I died in that sterile room, drowning in the realization that every person I ever loved was a monster who had been waiting for me to take my last breath.
Then, I gasped. I woke up in a luxury hotel suite surrounded by silk sheets, five years in the past-the very morning of my wedding. Next to me lay Basile Delgado, the "Wolf of Wall Street" and my family's most dangerous enemy. In my first life, I ran from this room in a panic and lost everything. This time, I looked at the man who would eventually destroy my father's empire and decided to join him.
"I'm not leaving, Basile. Marry me. Right now. Today."