The Billionaire's Bride Has A Secret
I took a blade for my husband, Marco, five years ago. It saved his life, but the wound to my stomach cost me the ability to give him an heir. He swore it didn't matter. "I only need you," he had whispered.
Today, he brought home my replacement. He called her a "surrogate," a university student named Bianca who was meant to secure his family's bloodline. But that night, I found them tangled in our guest bed.
I stood in the doorway, a ghost in my own home, and listened to him praise her.
"You're so pure," he whispered. "Lia... she's so frigid."
The betrayal was a second blade twisting in my old scar. His affair became blatant. He showered her with gifts and forgot my birthday. When she coveted the heirloom pendant my dying mother gave me, he ripped it from my neck and gave it to her.
"It's a worthless trinket," he scoffed.
That night, she tried to run me over with his Aston Martin. He arrived to find me bleeding in the driveway, and he didn't even ask if I was okay. He just looked at me with disgust, believing her lies instantly.
"What the hell have you done now?" he bellowed. "You're not dead, are you?"
I laughed then, a hollow, chilling sound. I picked up my suitcase, turned my back on the ruins of my marriage, and made a single phone call.
"Dante," I said to my brother, the Don of the Romano family. "It's done. Cut them off."
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Chapter 6
Alessia's POV:
Back at the estate, I didn't even bother going upstairs.
I stood in the cold marble foyer, pulling out my phone, my fingers moving with a steadiness that felt entirely alien.
A hotel room downtown.
That's all I needed.
I refused to spend another night under his roof.
I hauled my single suitcase downstairs.
The house was eerily quiet.
Marco was out, probably still comforting his weeping mistress.
But Bianca, it seemed, was very much present.
I saw her heading for the garage, a triumphant smirk twisting her lips.
Maria, the head maid, scrambled after her.
"Miss Sugden, please, you mustn't! You don't have a license.
Mr. Bellini would not want you driving his cars."
Bianca casually shoved the older woman aside.
"I'll have whatever I want soon enough," she purred.
She slid into the driver's seat of Marco's silver Aston Martin, the engine roaring to life.
Just as I stepped out of the front door, her eyes met mine through the windshield.
The smirk vanished, replaced by a mask of pure, unadulterated hate.
She floored the accelerator.
There was no time to think, only to react.
I hurled myself to the side, the motion clumsy and desperate.
The car's fender clipped my leg, sending me tumbling into a bed of thorny rose bushes.
A sharp, searing pain blazed from my knee to my hip.
My hands and knees were scraped raw.
"Are you crazy?" I screamed, pulling myself out of the dirt, thorns clinging to my dress.
Bianca leaned out the window, her hair wild.
"Yes," she admitted, her voice giddy, a manic light in her eyes.
"And I regret not hitting you harder."
The words stole my breath.
She put the car in reverse, the tires screeching against the pavement.
Suddenly, a black sedan screeched to a halt behind her.
Marco.
He was here.
Bianca slammed on the brakes.
Her expression shifted in a blink, the madness replaced by panicked concern as she scrambled out of the car and rushed to my side.
"Lia! Oh my god, are you okay?"
I got to my feet, my body shaking with adrenaline and rage.
Without a word, I swung my hand and slapped her hard across the face.
The sharp sound cracked through the quiet courtyard.
She burst into tears, her hand flying to her cheek, a perfect picture of victimhood.
I pointed a trembling finger at the car.
"She tried to run me over."
Bianca immediately spun her story, her voice a pathetic wail as she turned to Marco.
"She came at the car! She tried to attack me! I got scared!"
Marco's eyes, which had been wide with shock, narrowed into slits on me.
He believed her.
Without a flicker of doubt.
Instantly.
"What the hell have you done now?" he bellowed, striding purposefully toward me.
"Are you trying to terrorize a pregnant woman?"
Maria tried to intervene, stepping forward cautiously.
"Sir, I saw it.
Miss Sugden-"
"Silence!" he roared, and the maid flinched back as if struck, her face paling.
He turned his furious gaze back to me, his eyes raking over my scraped knees and torn dress with utter disgust.
"You're not dead, are you?" he snarled, his voice laced with contempt.
The words hit me with the force of a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs.
A laugh, high and chilling, bubbled up from my chest, unbidden and brittle.
"I was blind," I whispered, looking at the monster he'd become.
"Utterly blind to ever love you."
I slapped him, too.
The sting on my palm was deliciously satisfying.
His face contorted with rage.
He shoved me backward, hard.
"You're unhinged," he spat.
He turned his back on me, scooping the weeping Bianca into his arms and carrying her inside, cooing promises of comfort and safety.
He didn't give me a second glance, not even a flicker of acknowledgment.
Maria rushed to my side, her face pale with concern.
"Mrs. Bellini, your leg..."
I looked down.
A thin trickle of blood was making its way down my shin, staining the pristine white of my sock a stark crimson.
"We're divorced," I told her, my voice final and steady.
"I'm not coming back."
I picked up my suitcase, turned my back on the ruins of my marriage, and walked away, never looking back.
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8.8
I woke up in a penthouse suite at the Pierre with a hangover from hell and a naked man who looked like he'd been carved from marble. Thinking he was a high-end escort I couldn't afford, I left my last hundred dollars and a petty note on the nightstand.
"Service was acceptable. Keep the change."
But when I rushed home to check on my dying father, I found the locks changed and my boyfriend, Chad, draped over my stepsister on the landing. My stepmother, Meredith, didn't even look up from her coffee as she handed me a legal folder.
She told me to sign away my inheritance or she'd stop paying for my father's life support. The hospital called seconds later, demanding fifty thousand dollars by the end of the day, or they'd pull the plug.
Meredith had already arranged my "payment": a dinner with Boris Gorsky, a predator who collected young women like trophies. I was being sold to a monster to keep my father alive, standing in a thrift-store dress while my family laughed at my ruin.
I didn't understand how my life had collapsed in twelve hours, or how my own blood could put a price tag on a man's life. I sat at that restaurant trembling, waiting for the man who would buy my soul.
Then the man from the hotel walked in. It wasn't Gorsky; it was August Sanders, the billionaire CEO of a media empire, and he was holding my hundred-dollar bill.
He didn't want an apology; he wanted a contract wife for a year. He slid a confirmation for a five-hundred-thousand-dollar hospital deposit across the table and handed me a fountain pen.
"Welcome to the firm, Mrs. Sanders."
I signed the paper with a shaking hand, knowing I was trading my freedom for my father's life. But as August handed me his black card, I realized I finally had the weapon I needed to destroy the people who thought I was nothing.
8.1
Lila Hart never meant to fall for her boss. Especially not Aiden Blackwood-the cold, untouchable billionaire who trusts no one. But long nights, stolen glances, and a connection neither can ignore pull them into a dangerous, forbidden romance.
When Lila discovers her estranged father was the man accused of betraying Aiden's company years ago, everything shatters. Aiden feels lied to. Lila feels broken. And the truth feels impossible.
Until a darker secret comes out-her father was innocent, and the real traitor is the woman determined to destroy them both.
Now Lila and Aiden must fight for love in a world built on lies... before it's too late.
7.2
After a one night stand with the woman whose house Jason broke into, his life has never been the same. Like a siren's call, he can't get the nymphomaniac woman off his mind. Weeks later, while getting intel for the crew's next heist, Jason lays eyes upon the woman and follows her into a secret strip club. She appears to lead a double life. One where she's the CEO of a multimillion company and her father's golden child. The other side of her life is that she owns a strip club and is extremely erotic. Can Jason learn to live with her as she is? Will he put his pride aside to be with the woman? ... especially when his crew is hired to kidnap a woman who turns out to be the love of his life.
8.2
My wedding to Ethan Reed was just weeks away.
After seven years, I was certain of our perfect future.
Then, Ethan claimed "selective amnesia" from a head injury, forgetting only me.
I tried to make him remember, until I overheard his video call.
"Total genius move," he boasted to friends.
His amnesia was a fake "hall pass" to pursue influencer Chloe Vance before our wedding.
Heartbroken, I feigned belief.
I endured his open flirting with Chloe and their taunting selfies.
He mocked my distress, prioritizing Chloe's fake emergency.
After an accident he caused, he abandoned me, injured, choosing to send Chloe to the hospital first.
He even tried to cut me off financially.
How could my fiancé be this cruel, calculating monster?
His betrayal poisoned every memory.
I felt like a fool for trusting such boundless cruelty.
His audacity left me reeling.
But I wouldn’t be his victim.
Instead of breaking, a cold plan formed.
I would shed my identity, become Olivia Carter.
I would disappear, leaving him, my past, and his engagement ring behind forever, claiming my freedom.
7.1
My husband, tech billionaire Amir Carter, was a god in Chicago. For five years, he was the perfect husband, and I, a pediatric doctor, believed I had finally tamed the infamous playboy.
But when my brother Keon needed an urgent heart transplant, everything fell apart. The donor Amir found was a young singer-exactly his type.
On the day of the surgery, as my brother was dying, I found my husband comforting her.
"Don't pressure her, Blake," he said. "She's delicate."
Then the call came. My brother was dead. Amir didn't even notice, annoyed that I was stressing out his new project.
He pushed me down a flight of stairs, crashed his car into my taxi to protect her, and gave her the last gift my brother ever made for me.
He saw me bleeding on the floor and walked right past, his only concern for the woman who let my brother die. My fairy tale was a lie. I was just another one of his seasonal projects, now completed and discarded.
He took everything from me. So I signed the divorce papers, refused his millions, and vanished. Now, he's left alone with the truth: he killed my brother, and he didn't even know it.
7.2
"Be my contracted boyfriend for two years, and I'll grant you three wishes."
What happens when Aurora Everly the billionaire heiress and co-CEO of Everly Elite Enterprise, who is used to getting what she wants until her father demands she marry a man twice her age for the sake of their company's future, desperate for an escape, she finds herself in a roadside convenience store, drunk and reckless she makes an outrageous proposal to a total stranger.
Theo Winslow a struggling graduate looking for a means to pay off his family's debt but never expected a night shift at his parent's store to change his life. After three failed job interviews, he is out of options until Aurora stumbles in and offers him a deal that seems too good to be true.
But with Theo's heart set on another and Aurora's strict and scary father standing in their way, will the reckless contract still stand? And even worse...can the world accept her BOYFRIEND FROM THE STORE.