The Billionaire's Neglected Wife Is A Genius
Ellyn woke to a news alert of her husband, billionaire Hardy Burnett, picking up his "mystery blonde" ex at a private terminal. Just hours earlier, he had been raw and consuming in their shared bed, but by morning, he was a cold stranger tossing a birth control pill at her. He reminded her with mechanical indifference that their marriage was a mere contract, and the Burnett family tolerated no accidental risks.
The mystery woman was Izabella Macdonald, the one who got away. While Ellyn spent her mornings dabbing heavy concealer over the purple bruises Hardy left on her neck, the rest of the world was celebrating the return of the "rightful" Mrs. Burnett. To Hardy, Ellyn was a liability; to his family, she was a placeholder with a bankrupt bloodline.
The humiliation peaked at a high-society gala when Hardy walked in with Izabella on his arm, leaving Ellyn to navigate the vultures alone. His mother mocked her as "cheap polyester," and socialites whispered about the penthouse Hardy was secretly buying for his mistress. Even as Hardy's jealousy flared when he saw Ellyn with his brother, his loyalty remained divided, his heart seemingly anchored to the woman in the white silk dress.
The breaking point came in the pouring rain outside the venue. Hardy ordered Ellyn into the backseat of the car like common cargo so that Izabella could take the passenger seat-the seat of the partner. He expected Ellyn to sit in the shadows and watch his ex-girlfriend play wife in the front, treating her presence as a domestic inconvenience he could simply command.
I stared at the man who owned my nights but despised my existence. The heavy thud of the pill I swallowed every morning felt like a lead weight, a bitter reminder that I was nothing more than a paid commodity in his eyes. He thought he knew everything about his destitute, dependent wife, from the temperature I needed the room to the way I took my tea.
But Hardy didn't know about the encrypted ledgers or the offshore accounts. He didn't know that the "destitute" woman he relegated to the backseat was the secret mastermind behind Skim, the global fashion empire currently worth more than his latest merger.
"I'm not getting in," I said, my voice eerily calm against the thunder. I slammed the door, turned my back on his roar of fury, and walked into the dark. It was time to stop being a ghost in his house and start being the woman who could buy his entire world.
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Chapter 2
Ellyn stared at the grainy photo on her phone screen. The figure was blurry, captured through a telephoto lens, but the posture was unmistakable. The blonde woman had a delicate, fragile grace that Ellyn knew by heart.
Izabella Macdonald.
Acid rose in Ellyn's throat, mixing with the bitterness of the pill she had just swallowed. Her stomach cramped, a sharp, twisting pain that forced her to double over slightly against the vanity.
Maria cleared her throat from the doorway. "Breakfast, Mrs. Burnett?"
"No," Ellyn said, locking her phone screen. Her hands were trembling. "I'm not hungry."
"Mr. Burnett called the house line," Maria said, her voice lowering. "He said he will be staying at the penthouse in the city for the next few days. To be closer to the office."
Ellyn closed her eyes. The penthouse. It was a lie. The office was a twenty-minute drive from their Long Island estate-without traffic. During the morning rush, the commute into Manhattan could easily stretch to two grueling hours, but even that didn't justify abandoning his home. The penthouse was where he used to take Izabella.
"Fine," Ellyn said. "Prepare the car. I'm going out."
An hour later, Ellyn sat on the cold stone bench in the private cemetery where her mother was buried. The wind whipped her hair across her face, stinging her cheeks.
Her phone rang. It was Vera.
"Tell me you didn't see the news," Vera said, skipping the greeting.
"I saw it."
"He's a bastard, Ellyn. A complete bastard. She's back. Izabella is actually back in New York." Vera's voice was high with indignation. "And the press is already spinning it. They're calling her the 'Exiled Queen' and you the... well, you know."
"The Usurper," Ellyn finished. "The Gold Digger."
"It's not just that," Vera hesitated. "The narrative is that she's a victim. That she only left because she was heartbroken over... the scandal. Hardy is playing into it. He let himself be photographed."
Ellyn hung up. She pressed her palms against the rough granite of her mother's headstone. Three years. Three years of trying to be the perfect wife, of erasing herself to fit into the Burnett mold, and one photo of Izabella undid it all.
Her phone buzzed again. This time, the caller ID made her teeth clench. Brenda Pennington.
"Where is the transfer, Ellyn?" Her stepmother's voice was a screech. "Your father has creditors lining up at the office."
"The allowance just cleared," Ellyn said, fatigue seeping into her bones. "I'll send it."
"You better. Or I'll come down to that fancy estate and scream about how the Burnetts treat their in-laws until the paparazzi show up."
Ellyn ended the call and opened her banking app. She transferred the funds-Hardy's money-to the black hole that was the Pennington family accounts. It was the price of keeping her past quiet.
She switched apps, opening a secure, encrypted email client.
Subject: Acquisition Offer - Skim
To: E.
From: UMi Fashion Group
Dear E, your latest collection has disrupted the market. Our offer stands. We are ready to discuss the buyout on your terms.
Ellyn stared at the screen. "Skim" was hers. Her designs, her vision, built in the shadows while she played the trophy wife. It was her escape hatch.
She didn't reply. Not yet.
When she returned to the estate, a garment bag was hanging on the door of her dressing room. A note from Hardy's executive assistant was pinned to it.
For the Charity Gala tomorrow. Mr. Burnett expects you at 7:00 PM.
Ellyn unzipped the bag. It was a stunning dress, but it wasn't a gift. It was a uniform. She looked in the mirror and practiced a smile. It didn't reach her eyes.
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7.6
Johana walked half a mile through a brutal blizzard just to secure a tutoring job with the elite Black family.
But the very night she was hired, she received a terrifying call from the ER—her quiet roommate, Hazelle, had been drugged and severely traumatized at a Hamptons party.
When Johana rushed to the hospital, she didn't find the police. Instead, she found a team of ruthless billionaires erasing the crime.
Leading them was Dalton Black, the cold, arrogant older brother of her new student.
Within minutes, Dalton's fixers wiped the hospital's security footage, deleted all digital evidence, and forcefully transferred Hazelle to a locked private psychiatric facility.
"We are ensuring her privacy."
Dalton's voice was devoid of emotion, treating the horrific assault like a minor PR glitch.
His friends mocked Johana's powerlessness, while Dalton authorized a blank check to pay for the private ward, effectively burying the scandal and buying their silence.
Johana stood in the sterile hallway, trembling with a mix of despair and absolute rage.
How could they destroy an innocent girl's life and simply pay to make it disappear? Why was the truth so easily erased by money?
She had no wealth, no connections, and no proof, but she refused to be a victim of their cover-up.
Staring directly into Dalton's intimidating, icy blue eyes, Johana made a vow.
"I don't want your money. I will find out what you monsters did to her."
She thought the billionaire heir would crush her on the spot, but instead, he watched her walk away and quietly ordered his assistant: "Find out everything about Johana Neal."
8.1
I was eight years old when my father, Alpha Derek, raided the rogue bunker to save my mother.
I thought I was finally safe.
But because I reeked of the wolfsbane chemicals used to hide my scent, my mother looked at me with pure disgust.
"Get that thing away from me! It smells like him!" she shrieked.
To protect his traumatized mate, my father didn't check my DNA. He threw me into the garage to sleep on oily rags.
For months, I was the true Alpha's daughter, yet I was forced to eat dog food while they pampered a fake orphan named Kylie in my place.
When Kylie ordered the guard dog to tear my arm open, my mother stood at the window.
Instead of saving me, she let the maid close the curtains so she wouldn't have to see the blood.
I only became useful when my father got into a critical car crash.
They drained my rare "Moon Blood" to save his life, then immediately signed papers to ship me off to a labor camp to get rid of the "stain" on their family.
They thought I was a dirty rogue.
They didn't know the chemical smell was masking the rarest bloodline in a century.
I am not a rogue.
I am a White Wolf.
And just as my grandfather discovers the DNA results and falls to his knees in regret, the most powerful pack in the North has already arrived to claim me as their queen.
8.8
Bella Danvers aka Isabella Powell is a 20-year-old college student who encountered the hot and ruthless CEO of the Rinaldi Corporation, Gabriel Rinaldi. They had a forgetful one-night stand that took a turn for the worst. Will he be able to find her before he is forced into an arranged marriage? Will she be able to tell him the news? Or will they be forced apart?
8.7
I woke up from a coma in the hospital, universally condemned as the vicious daughter who pushed the beloved fake heiress, Georgina, down the stairs.
My ruthless billionaire brother, Angelo, stood over my bed with cold eyes, ready to destroy me for hurting his precious sister.
But as I looked at him, a terrifying prophecy from my coma flooded my brain. Our entire family was doomed.
In the original timeline, Georgina would team up with corporate rivals to bankrupt the company, frame Angelo, and send him to federal prison, while our parents would abandon me to die miserably.
Lying there, I didn't dare speak. I just desperately cursed my idiot brother in my head.
"This stupid brother is still yelling at me for that fake heiress. He doesn't even know he's going to be framed and sent to prison next month!"
I just wanted to stay quiet, let them ruin themselves, and run away from this toxic family.
But strangely, Angelo didn't strangle me. Instead, his attitude took a shocking turn.
He abruptly fired the driver plotting to kill him, destroyed the abusive fiancé of a family ally, and publicly humiliated Georgina at a high-society gala.
He even shielded me from our abusive parents, declaring to the world that I was the only sister he would ever protect.
I was completely terrified and confused. Why was the tyrant brother suddenly acting like a protective beast?
It wasn't until he flawlessly crushed a massive corporate attack using the exact financial secrets I had just complained about in my mind that a horrifying realization hit me.
He could hear my inner thoughts!
7.2
For ten years, Aurora was abandoned by her wealthy family to rot in the countryside.
When she finally returned, there was no warm welcome. The Lott family only brought her back to replace her adopted sister in an arranged marriage with Damian Yates, a notoriously violent, crippled billionaire, just to save their bankrupt company.
Her grandmother mocked her as uneducated trash. Her fake sister feigned disgust at her very presence.
When her biological father desperately tried to stop them from sending his daughter to her death, the family turned on him.
Her grandmother struck her father across the face, kicked the three of them out of the manor into the freezing rain, and arrogantly declared they would starve on the streets by nightfall.
They thought Aurora was just a helpless, pathetic hillbilly who would quietly accept being sold as livestock.
They had no idea that over the past decade, she had survived the darkest corners of the world, becoming a lethal operative with unimaginable power.
Standing in the cold rain, Aurora didn't shed a single tear.
She calmly pulled out her encrypted phone, personally canceled the billionaire's marriage contract, and ordered her hacker to completely freeze the Lott family's accounts.
"Total financial annihilation. Burn them to the ground."
But as she watched her abusers' legacy crumble, a classified file arrived on her phone, revealing that the very billionaire she just rejected was tied to her mother's unsolved murder.
The real hunt was just beginning.
8.3
I never thought I could find myself sucking the dìck of a man I should call father and made him moan out so loud. I found myself going back to have him finger and pound my clit, ripping moans off my throat as day passed by. I found myself moaning to him every single day, taking all his sexual command and fantasies, being daddy's naughty girl and wishing for nothing other than his 8 inches dick buried deep into my wet clit.
I grew up invisible, the illegitimate daughter of a woman who valued status more than motherhood. While she chased elite society, I learned to survive on my own, retreating into art and quiet fantasies of being chosen by someone who would finally see my worth.
Everything changes when my mother marries Calder Rhys, a billionaire widower seeking stability, not love. Thrust into a world of wealth and rigid expectations, I moved into the Rhys mansion and met Wells, Calder's polished and charismatic son. Drawn to him despite knowing he is unavailable, I mistake attention for affection, unaware that my longing is about to pull me into something far more dangerous.
A single mistake blurs boundaries that should never be crossed.
Caught between a mother who sees me as a liability, an elite society eager to destroy me, and a man whose influence could either protect or ruin me, I must decide who I want to become.