The Billionaire's Reluctant Nanny
When Alessia Romano's ex-husband destroys her family's company to drag her back to him, she refuses to beg. But refusing comes at a cost she never expected.
Billionaire Adrian Virelli pays off every debt and saves Romano Industries from ruin. The price is simple. Three years of her life, living under his roof as his daughter's nanny.
Adrian is cold, controlled, and completely off limits. Alessia tells herself she feels nothing.
But when she discovers a hidden room filled with portraits of a woman wearing her face, the truth hits harder than any betrayal she has ever known
She was never the woman he wanted. She was only a replacement.
She walks away. Then his ex-wife returns, and the danger that follows is nothing like Alessia expected. Someone wants her dead, Adrian nearly dies saving her life, and when he finally opens his eyes again, he remembers nothing.
His ex-wife is standing at his bedside, ready to rewrite every memory he has left.
And Alessia is running out of time to make the man she loves remember that he loved her too.
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Chapter 6
Alessia's POV
I looked at the picture I was sent for God knows how long and I was in disbelief and hurt as well. Even though I knew my husband cheated I never expected his mistress to get pregnant this quickly just a few months after our divorce.
I was distracted from the conversation I was having with Adrian and from how I acted Adrain noticed something was wrong and he asked if I was okay ?
I lied and just said yeah I'm fine nothing happened he asked again, And I still gave him that same response of saying I was fine when within me I was crying silently.
I was hurt and even felt like crying but I guessed the tears in me had run out. I couldn't cry,I couldn't express myself. I just sat down dormant like a statue. The picture just kept replaying in my head like it was a bad dream that I needed to come to an end.
I gave everything to my husband,I was a loyal wife,I did everything a good woman was supposed to do for her husband and still ended up being divorced because I couldn't bear him a child over the years we were married and that's how my marriage crumbled.
And now he wanted to start a family with a woman who could bear him a child when I couldn't. After regaining myself I looked around and realized Adrian had already left the room.
I was so immersed in my own thoughts that I had not realized when Adrian had left.
There was a knock on the door and I answered '' come in ". It was Mrs. Davenport who opened the door gently and said she just wanted to know how I was feeling and if the bowl of soup made me a bit warmer.
Then I answered'' yes ma " it did keep me warm but deep within me my heart was cold from the picture message I received and this wasn't what a bowl of soup could make warm.
The rest of that day was just sour for me because of how I felt. I still couldn't get that picture out of my head and started thinking maybe yes I was a barren woman. Because never did I miss my period or had even a miscarriage before.
And yet somehow just a few months after my divorce Marissa was pregnant with my ex husband's child.
The next morning I got up late because I couldn't sleep properly and Ava was already prepared for school and breakfast was already served when I got down to the dinning room. Adrian and Ava was having breakfast and Ava started her mischievous behavior with "Look at the time you are waking up" And added don't you know you are the one supposed to get me ready for school ?
I just snarled and said " sorry Miss Ava it won't happen again". And Adrian just watched without saying anything to his daughter.
After breakfast I escorted Ava to the Car where her driver was already waiting outside to take her to school.
The morning air was crisp against my skin as I stood by the car, watching Ava settle into the backseat like a tiny queen being chauffeured to her kingdom.
"Bye, Miss Alessia," she said with a small smirk, almost as if she enjoyed bossing me around.
I forced a smile. "Have a good day at school."
The car door shut, and within seconds, the vehicle pulled away from the mansion, leaving me alone in the driveway.
Alone... just like I had been feeling since yesterday.
I wrapped my arms around myself, as if I could hold together the pieces of my heart that were slowly falling apart.
That picture.
It flashed again in my mind.
Marissa, smiling brightly, her hand resting on her slightly protruding belly... and beside her-my ex-husband, looking happier than I had ever seen him.
I clenched my fists.
"Stop it," I whispered to myself. "You're stronger than this."
But was I?
A barren woman.
The words echoed in my head like a cruel chant.
I had never said it out loud before. Never accepted it. But now... it felt like the truth was being shoved right in my face.
"Alessia."
I turned abruptly at the sound of my name.
Adrian was standing a few steps behind me, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, his expression unreadable as always.
"I thought you went back inside," I said, quickly masking my emotions.
"I did," he replied calmly. "Then I realized you didn't follow."
His sharp eyes scanned my face, as if trying to peel back every layer I had carefully put up.
"You look pale."
"I'm fine," I said immediately.
The same lie.
Again.
He didn't respond right away. Instead, he took a slow step closer, his gaze never leaving mine.
"You keep saying that," Adrian said quietly. "But you don't look fine."
My throat tightened.
Why was he doing this?
Why was he looking at me like he could actually see me?
"I said I'm fine," I repeated, this time a little firmer.
For a moment, silence stretched between us.
Then Adrian sighed softly, running a hand through his hair.
"Alright," he said. "If that's what you want."
Relief should have washed over me.
But instead... something inside me felt disappointed.
He turned to leave, but paused after a few steps.
"If something is bothering you," he added without looking back, "you don't have to deal with it alone."
My heart skipped.
I watched as he walked away, his tall figure disappearing back into the house.
Deal with it alone?
That was all I had ever known.
I let out a shaky breath and followed him inside.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur.
I tried to keep myself busy-helping Mrs. Davenport in the kitchen, rearranging Ava's things, doing anything to stop my mind from wandering back to that picture.
But it was useless.
Pain has a way of finding you... no matter how hard you try to run from it.
By afternoon, I couldn't take it anymore.
I slipped into my room and closed the door behind me, leaning against it as my body slowly sank to the floor.
My hands trembled as I picked up my phone.
I opened the message again.
There it was.
That same picture.
That same smile.
That same proof that I had been replaced... so easily.
Tears finally welled up in my eyes, blurring my vision.
"So this is it..." I whispered.
"This is what I meant to him."
Nothing.
A sudden knock on the door startled me.
I quickly wiped my tears, standing up in a rush.
"Yes?" I called, trying to steady my voice.
The door opened slightly, and Adrian stepped in.
My heart skipped again.
"I need to go out for a meeting," he said. "I'll be back late."
I nodded. "Okay."
But he didn't leave.
Instead, his gaze dropped to my phone... still clutched tightly in my hand.
Then slowly, his eyes lifted back to my face.
This time, there was something different in his expression.
Something darker.
Something... protective.
"Who made you cry?"
My breath hitched.
"I wasn't-"
"Don't lie," he cut in, his voice low but firm.
Silence.
Heavy. Suffocating silence.
I didn't realize when the first tear slipped down my cheek.
Adrian's jaw tightened.
"Give me the phone."
I hesitated.
But something about the way he looked at me... made it impossible to refuse.
Slowly, I handed it over.
He took it, his eyes scanning the screen.
And then
His expression changed.
Completely.
The air in the room turned cold.
Dangerous.
Adrian's grip on the phone tightened, his knuckles turning white.
"Your ex-husband..." he said slowly, his voice now laced with something lethal, "...has a lot of nerve."
My heart pounded in my chest.
I had a feeling...
This wasn't going to end quietly.
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7.8
Alayna was working a grueling catering shift in worn-out heels to support her broke college boyfriend, Caiden, who claimed to be studying at the library.
But through the crack of a VIP suite door, she saw him wearing a bespoke suit and a Patek Philippe watch, sipping expensive liquor.
"It's a little poverty role-play. Keeps things interesting."
He was laughing with his rich friends, mocking her as his clueless "charity case."
To make matters worse, she was forced into a humiliating mascot costume just in time to watch him passionately kiss his wealthy ex-girlfriend.
That same night, Alayna's mother collapsed with gastric cancer, requiring a half-million-dollar surgery.
When a desperate Alayna begged Caiden for help, he refused.
"Why don't you just apply for Medicaid? That's the path for people like you."
For two years, she had starved herself to buy his textbooks, his tickets, and his shoes.
He had stolen her sweat and her sacrifices, all for a cruel game.
The sheer audacity of his betrayal made her blood run cold.
When a billionaire stranger stepped in to pay her mother's medical bills in exchange for a one-year fake marriage, Alayna didn't hesitate to sign the contract.
She slipped the flawless diamond ring onto her finger, opened a spreadsheet, and sent Caiden an invoice for every single cent.
This time, she was going to dismantle his entire life.
9.7
I secured the lifeline investment for my fiancé's company and went to his office to surprise him.
Instead, I caught Preston sleeping with his top actress—the woman he publicly claimed as his stepsister.
Through the cracked door, I heard him call me his "scarred, ugly bitch shield" to hide their sickening affair.
I didn't cry. I hacked the live broadcast of the Star Awards and played their sex tape to two thousand people.
But that night, drunk and reeling from the agonizing nerve pain in my facial scar, I stumbled into the wrong hotel penthouse.
I was pinned down by a drugged billionaire, Josephus Hodges.
The next morning, he left me a million-dollar check and a Plan B pill.
When he later tracked me down to offer a cold, calculated fake marriage just to absorb Preston's ruined empire, I threw the contract at his chest and told him to go to hell.
But when I got home and looked in the mirror, the chronic, burning torture in my scar was completely gone.
His touch during that terrifying night had somehow cured the agony that had ruined my life.
I had just declared war on the only man on earth who could heal me.
Just then, my ruined ex-fiancé called, begging me to save him with a PR press conference.
"I'll do it, but I control the venue."
I booked it at Josephus's heavily guarded hotel. I was going to slaughter my ex on live television, and force the apex predator to look at me again.
7.9
On my wedding day, my fiancé Connor received an urgent phone call.
He told me a D-list actress had broken her leg on set, then abandoned me right at the altar.
In my past life, I cried until my throat bled, begging him not to leave.
But my tears only brought endless humiliation. My mother and adopted sister mocked me, framed me, and forged my signature to steal my multi-million dollar trust fund.
They kicked me out of the family estate without a single dime.
I ended up freezing to death in the minus-twenty-degree New York blizzard, listening to my mother's voicemail telling me to die in the street as long as I didn't bleed on her carpets.
Until my last breath, I couldn't understand why my own blood relatives hated me so much, yet treated an adopted daughter like a precious princess.
The only person who showed me any mercy—draping his wool coat over my frozen corpse and giving me a proper burial—was Connor's ruthless, untouchable uncle, Harding Snow.
Opening my eyes again, I was back in the bridal suite, right as Connor was rushing out the door.
This time, I didn't shed a single tear.
I let him run to his actress, then walked straight into the VIP room to face the most feared billionaire on Wall Street.
"The wedding proceeds as planned, but the groom's name changes to yours."
9.7
For three years, I played the role of a devoted, naive wife to billionaire Conrad Whitney. I hid my true identity and foolishly believed in our fairy tale.
Then he handed me a harsh divorce agreement, ordering me to sign and walk away with absolutely nothing. He was leaving me to marry Cindy, the fragile woman he claimed had saved him from a fire.
He expected me to cry and beg. Instead, he watched coldly as Cindy and her family illegally transferred my father's trust fund. When I confronted them at the hospital, Conrad shielded her, calling me a greedy, toxic viper. He mocked me, completely blind to the fact that Cindy was a fraud. He truly believed I was just a pathetic, useless housewife who would be utterly destroyed without his money and status.
I looked at the man I had actually dragged out of that burning debris with my own soot-covered hands. My trauma, my sacrifices, and my love had all been reduced to a joke by his sheer arrogance and a few fake tears from a manipulative liar.
I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed the papers, drugged his wine, and left a crumpled one-dollar bill on his unconscious chest with a sticky note mocking his terrible service.
Then, I picked up my encrypted phone. It was time for the world's top surgeon, Dr. Hades, to return, and for Conrad to finally see the god he had just thrown away.
9.2
Celestia woke up heavily sedated, her wrists bound tightly to the legs of a grand piano in a cold, opulent room.
Before she could even process the panic, a towering billionaire named Sterling Sinclair IV stepped in, looking at her like a possessed piece of art.
The head maid then handed Celestia a thick surrogacy contract with her perfectly forged signature.
"You are here to bear an heir for Mr. Sinclair," the maid stated flatly.
Celestia screamed that they had the wrong person, but her desperate cries bounced uselessly off the soundproof walls.
Stripped of her clothes, phone, and identity, she was trapped on an isolated island surrounded by high-voltage electric fences and armed guards.
When she furiously fought back, Sterling physically overpowered her, punishing her resistance with brutal, terrifying dominance until she lost consciousness on the marble floor.
She didn't understand who had kidnapped her from her normal life.
Why was her biometric data perfectly faked in a classified dossier?
Who had framed her as a willing, ten-million-dollar premium product for a ruthless billionaire?
Driven by pure survival, Celestia began aggressively consuming raw garlic and bathing in harsh white vinegar to destroy her fertility and repel his touch.
And when Sterling finally reviewed her bizarre, self-sabotaging dietary logs, the terrifying truth hit his calculating mind like a physical blow.
The broken, innocent woman he had been brutally tormenting all week was never his hired surrogate.
8.4
Harlene was locked out of her own family's estate in a freezing blizzard, still trembling from a severe panic attack.
Her mother delivered a cold ultimatum through a security screen: attend her golden-child sister Estella's award gala, or lose her medical funds.
To make it worse, her ex-fiancé, Dennis, had chimed in to call her embarrassing and pathetic.
At the gala, Harlene was treated like a diseased outcast.
Dennis fiercely protected his new lover, Jailyn—the very woman who had stolen Harlene's designs.
But the ultimate betrayal came when Estella flaunted a silver-embroidered antique dress.
It was Harlene's grandmother's dress, her only pure memory of love, handed over to the enemy as a trophy.
When Harlene demanded answers, her own father slapped her across the face in front of the press, just to protect their pristine image.
They had stolen her career, her fiancé, and her inheritance, all while branding her the crazy, unstable daughter.
The sheer hypocrisy and cruelty finally severed the last thread of her sanity.
Why should she play the silent victim while they played the perfect family?
Instead of crying, Harlene smiled.
She drew a hidden dagger, slashed the antique dress to ribbons, and dragged Estella and Jailyn to the center stage.
Standing under the blinding spotlight with a bloody blade, she looked out at the terrified crowd.
"The Beaumont family is done hiding," she declared into the microphone. "Tonight, the curtain falls."