The Billionaire's Escape Bride
"W..who are you?" She stuttered, taking backward steps towards the door, heart pounding in her chest.
"Well, I can be whoever you want me to be" he drawled, taking little steps till he had her cornered with no way out. "I can be your poison or your antidote. I can be your bane or your comfort. I can even be your nightmare or your dream."
With each word, he traced circles on my skin, sending fire through me.
"So Kitten, who do you want me to be?"
Katarina Richards, a timid second generation finds her world thrown into disarray when she is suddenly informed of her betrothal to the number one business mogul in the state.
She cannot fight for her freedom nor can she accept a man she never met so she decides to be brave for once and runs.
She runs as far as she can hoping for a fresh start and she finds it.
Or so she thinks.
She will soon come to realize that she can never outrun her destiny.
Or should I say, she can never outrun him?
Follow Katarina as she is plunged into a world of lies, betrayal, war, lust, and power.
Will she come out of it all with her dream life or will she be pushed into a nightmare?
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Chapter 5
Katarina
3 months later.
"Table at Isle Five is asking for his order."
Odette, one of my colleagues said to me as she walked past me, carrying a tray of empty plates to the kitchen sink.
I rolled my eyes, annoyed that I had somehow gotten the worst of the worst customer today.
"I'll be right there, thanks Odette," I said to her despite my irritation for the man at table five.
He had only been inside the restaurant for all of ten minutes and he's been nothing but a pain in the ass.
First, he'd tried to touch me inappropriately and then he'd told me to get him a particular wine and when I had, he had tried to gaslight me that he'd asked for a different wine.
I didn't need a priest to tell me that it was going to be trouble with that one.
"What's up with table five's order, Greg?" I called out, to the chef over the counter.
"Two minutes more and I'll be done, Lisa."
Greg said as he flipped the eggs in the pan.
Lisa... I was still getting used to that name. Sometimes I'd even forget that it was my name and completely ignore my colleagues when they used it.
It had been a total of three months since I left everything behind, three months since I left the most powerful man alone on the altar. I'd like to say it was easier now that I was no longer forced to be with a man I didn't care about but that would be a lie.
Being by myself made me realize just how sheltered I was back when I was with my parents.
The street was hard and harder for someone who was desperately trying to bury her old life and at the same time run away from it.
I had grown so much in three months despite how difficult it had been for me to adjust the first couple of weeks. Thanks to the cash I had gotten from Jerome. Not only had I been able to skip town, I had been able to get myself a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the worst part of the town, but I was practically a new person.
My short pixie-cut pink hair was one of the drastic changes I had to make when I first arrived in town. I was at least five states away from my family now but I wasn't about to take my chances.
I even wore blue contacts to cover up my amber-colored eyes and did my makeup differently. I still looked like me but anyone trying to find me would have a hard time recognizing me, especially when I was wearing makeup.
"Alrighty, it's ready!" Greg said, moved closer to the counter, and plucked the tray of food.
"Thanks, Greg."
"Anytime..."
I practically ran down to table five and found the man staring at me with an irritated look in his eyes.
"What the hell took so long?" He glared as soon as I placed the tray on his table.
I wanted to scream at him that it had only been ten minutes since he ordered but decided against it. I didn't want to lose my job, I couldn't afford to.
"I am sorry, sir." I gave an apologetic smile to the balding man, my hands behind my back.
"Are your words supposed to make me forgive you?"
Forgive me? Was the man insane? Was he missing something?
"I hope sir," I said.
"Well, it's not."
I was doing my best to ignore his silly tantrum but the more he spoke, the harder it got.
"I'm not sure what you want me to do sir..."
A lewd smile spread across his face causing an uncomfortable shiver to run down my spine.
"You know, you are a beautiful girl, one I'd like to plunge, just imagine you on my bed and me on top of you fucking your brains out. Wouldn't that be interesting?" The man said, his disgusting smile still in place.
What I wanted to do was slap the shit out of him but I ended up taking the high road because I wanted to keep my job.
"If you'd excuse me, sir, I think I hear the chef calling for me."
I turned around without waiting for him to speak. I hadn't even taken a step when I felt his hands slap my butt.
I turned around to look at him but knew I couldn't exactly do anything.
Shamefully, I walked away, not wanting to cause any trouble. I was barely five steps away from him when I heard the sound of someone getting punched.
I turned around to find a man punching the shit out of the man at table five.
"How dare you put your hands on her?" The stranger growled.
He had him up in a chokehold, and his legs were dangling up in the air.
I would have laughed if the man's face hadn't started to change color.
"You will apologize to the waitress or I'll kill you right here."
"Please." The man struggled to get my savior's hands off but couldn't. He looked like a garden gnome being strangled by a giant.
I ran up to them and signaled for a colleague of mine to get security.
"I will apologize." The man choked out, his words barely coherent.
"Good," the tall man said and dropped him to the ground like a hot potato.
"Now, apologize."
The bald man quickly glanced at me and began to plead for forgiveness but I was too stunned to even acknowledge him because standing in front of me was a man I thought I'd never see again.
It was Jerome, the man who had saved my life three months ago after I had escaped my wedding day.
"Jerome?" I whispered, barely audible enough for me to hear.
The man looked at me like he didn't know who I was and it was then I realized that of course, he wouldn't. I looked nothing like I did, the day he met me.
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8.2
The prophecy didn't save me, it claimed me.
Death was not her ending...... it was her rebirth.
Awakened into a world of gods, bloodlines, and ancient curses, she learns that her second life is bound to a prophecy written long before she existed. Marked by divine blood and hunted by fate, she becomes the one Olympus never wanted to rise again.
As secrets unfold and forbidden bonds form, she must decide whether to obey the destiny forced upon her or defy the gods who control her future. But prophecies always demand a price, and some rebirths are meant to destroy the world that created them.
Because being reborn under a cursed prophecy means there is no escape, only fate.
7.1
*
**One night of betrayal. One night of passion. A lifetime of consequences.**
Celine was always the shadow-the reliable twin who worked while her sister, Celeste, basked in the spotlight. But when she finds her boyfriend of five months in her sister's bed, the shadow finally snaps. A reckless night at a dive bar with a hazel-eyed stranger was supposed to be her escape, a way to forget the people who saw her as a spare part.
But the stranger wasn't just a face in the crowd. He was **Idris Al-Miraj**, the billionaire Sheikh and the owner of the very hotel where Celine works.
When her parents attempt to sell her into a sacrificial marriage to save the family's reputation, Celine finds herself hunted by her past and trapped by her future. Idris doesn't just want her back in his bed; he wants to own every brick of the wall she's built around her heart.
Jobless, homeless, and backed into a corner by a family that only needs her when they can use her, Celine prepares to run again. But Idris has other plans. He doesn't want her to run. He doesn't even want her to surrender.
He wants her to fight back.
**"Use me,"** he says.
In a world where power is the only currency, Celine must decide if the man who dismantled her life is her greatest enemy-or the only weapon she has left.
8.3
My husband watched as my skin melted, scalded by boiling soup, yet his hands were busy comforting my attacker. Five years of marriage, built on a foundation of my family's power, crumbled with a single, brutal act of betrayal. He bought me off with a penthouse and a trust fund, but I tore out my IV and threw his charity back in his face.
It was our fifth anniversary, but my husband, Ethan, remained distant, avoiding any talk of Chicago or the mafia protection my family once offered him. He then pushed a black velvet box across the table.
Inside was a Separation and Property Division Agreement, not a diamond. He told me to sign for Ilene's security, offering millions. When I refused, Ilene hurled boiling soup. Ethan shielded her, not me, as the scalding liquid melted my dress.
With second-degree burns, he blamed me, ordering me from our home for Ilene’s comfort. My family saved him, yet he sacrificed my body and marriage for another woman.
The love I felt turned to ash. What kind of debt demanded my flesh and marriage?
I ripped the IV from my arm, hurling his "charity" keys back. My diamond ring placed on the agreement, I walked away. From today on, Ethan, you and I are dead to each other.
9.5
The first clue my life was a lie was a moan from the guest room. My husband of seven years wasn't in our bed. He was with my intern.
I discovered my husband, Brendan, was having a four-year affair with Kiya-the talented girl I was mentoring and personally paying tuition for.
The next morning, she sat at our breakfast table in his shirt while he made us pancakes. He lied to my face, promising he'd never love another, just before I learned she was pregnant with his child-a child he'd always refused to have with me.
The two people I trusted most in the world had conspired to destroy me. The pain wasn't something I could live with; it was an annihilation of my entire world.
So I made a call to a neuroscientist about his experimental, irreversible procedure. I didn't want revenge. I wanted to erase every memory of my husband and become his first test subject.
7.7
I was driving through a rainstorm in upstate New York, pushing my old Volvo to the limit just to pick up a Dior gown for my wife, Catarina. She needed it for a gala tonight, where she planned to spend the evening standing next to the man she actually loved, Atticus Deleon.
The truck hit me head-on, crossing the center line and sending my car rolling down an embankment in a shriek of twisted metal and shattered glass. As the steering column crushed my chest, my brain didn't see a white light; it was pried open by a digital tsunami, flooding my mind with the "Quantum Archive"-billions of data points on surgery, high-frequency trading, and combat.
I woke up in the ICU with three broken ribs and a concussion, but the only thing waiting for me was a screaming voicemail from my wife's assistant.
"Jorden, where the hell are you? Catarina has been waiting for thirty minutes! You are so incompetent it's actually impressive."
There was no "Are you okay?" or "Are you alive?"-only fury over a ruined dress and a missing tie. While I was being resuscitated, my wife was on Instagram, singing "Endless Love" with Atticus and laughing at my "tantrum." She even called the family lawyer to freeze my credit cards, wanting to make sure I couldn't even buy a coffee without her permission.
For three years, I had been the "useful husband," the doormat who apologized whenever she stepped on my toes. But the accident had overwritten my desperation with cold, hard logic, and I realized I had almost died for a woman who viewed me as a liability with a negative return on investment.
When Catarina finally stormed into my hospital room to demand an apology for ruining her night, I didn't look at her with the usual puppy-dog eyes. I looked at her with ice in my veins and handed her a manila envelope I had drafted myself.
"Sign the divorce papers, Ms. Evans. I'm done being your canary."
9.2
Slave to her pack, Delilah Hunt has suffered the worst betrayal from those she considered family. Turning from a Sentinel to a wolfless member of the pack, she has lost all hope. Not until she met General Kane, the executioner.
Kane lost all empathy and developed a stony heart years ago when his birth mother was banished by his father. He never bothered to search for his mate, refusing to love or be loved by anyone. He lived closed off from the rest of the world except a few of his pack members. But an encounter with Delilah Hunt, one of his many prisoners, sets off something in him.
For how long would he be able to resist their bond?