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?
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Chapter 5
Lucas's pov
I should have left. I had a chauffeur waiting,a schedule full of billion - dollar choices - but I couldn't leave. Not when I caught a glimpse of her through the window, holding her sister like she was holding the last bits of herself together. Lucia Moretti wasn't just shattered - she was hurting from within, and something about that quiet hurt made it quite hard for me to leave.
After their hug, she stood at her sister's bedside,her fingers dabbing a damp cloth over the child's forehead. Her dark hair was pulled into a messy bun,strands framing her face. I chuckled to myself. She always fails to notice me.
I coughed,loud enough to catch her attention.
She looked startled, like a deer in headlights."Ahh...Mr.Marano again.."
"I was just about to take my leave," I said, nodding towards the exit.
"I just wanted to properly say my goodbyes."
Her face fell, just a little."You have my thanks...for your help. I still don't understand your reasons, but...thank you."
"You don't need to understand," I said.
"Just do your best to make sure she gets better."
Lucia's arms folded around her, her voice a whisper. "She's all I have."
Her words lingered in the air like the smell of antiseptic - sharp and painful.
I moved forward, closer to her. "You make me remember someone. Someone I lost."
"My sister. She used to be a ballerina." I didn't speak more. It simply wasn't the time. "Anyway.. goodbye, Lucia."
She nodded slowly, lips parted like she wanted to speak some more. But there were no words.
I gave her a curt, respectful nod and walked out.
I didn't look back.
But I bet she won't forget me.
The city outside lit up like nothing had happened, but something in me felt different. I undid my ties as my chauffeur drove away from the hospital, the cold leather of the backseat offered little comfort.
"Your destination,Mr.Marano?"
Cassius asked from the driver's seat.
"Marano holdings. And call Adrian. I need all we can find on someone. Lucia Moretti."
Cassius didn't argue. He would never.
Three hours later, I was in my corner office, its intricate windows showing the skyline like a work of art. But I wasn't focused on the view.
Adrian entered, tablet in his grip, his face blank. "You requested a background check on Lucia Moretti."
I motioned for him to speak.
He flipped open a file. " She's twenty five. Formerly a professional ballerina - a global prodigy. Danced in New York, London,and Paris. Headlines from about two and a half years ago. She was arguably one of the best."
I looked up, shocked. "She didn't tell me any of that."
"There's a lot more," Adrian continued.
"She was the wife of Matt Richards."
The name knocked me out of breath.
Matt. My best friend.
I laughed at myself mentally...to think I was hiding Lucia from him, when he knew her very personally.. to put it mildly.
But Adrian didn't notice my reaction as he continued again. "Their divorce was finalized about a year plus ago after a very public scandal. Headlines blamed her for destructive behavior, missed performances and a meltdown on stage. Her career went downhill after that. No charges. No police business. Just silence."
I snatched the tablet from him and scrolled. The pictures were jarring. Lucia mid twirl,her face glowing with happiness and passion. In the next photo, she curtseyed low before the crowd,her eyes shining.
And then the final photo - Lucia outside a courthouse, sunken eyes and ruined makeup. The headline said: "Ballet's Brightest star Burns out in public meltdown."
The article was cruel, heartless.
I gripped the tablet tighter.
"I'm sure she doesn't even know that I know Matt," I sighed.
"She obviously doesn't," Adrian snorted.
"You've always been a shadow,boss."
"Don't speak of this to anyone, not even Cassius."
"Yes,boss."
Adrian left. I stared out at the city once more - but now the view was icy, like glass against my skin.
I really shouldn't care.
But here I am. Caring.
Lucia's softness wasn't a weakness. It was a cry for help buried under silence.
And now I knew she was once a part of the world of grace,stages and beauty - just like Clara.
No wonder the way she carried herself, even after everything,felt regal. She didn't let the world destroy her totally. At least not yet.
I recalled the way she covered Sophia, shielding her like a tigress but she was sinking slowly.
And no one cared.
But I did.
I slipped back into my sofa, clutching a stress ball.
Matt had never mentioned her name before. Not in all the years that we've been friends which means either he'd forgotten her..or he had buried her somewhere deep.
My phone rang but I shoved it aside. I was in no mood to take business calls.
I had a gut feeling that there was more to her fall than what the world knew.
I'd seen Matt twist media narratives before and suddenly, I wasn't sure who the bad guy was in their story but I was going to find out for myself.
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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."