The Billionaire's Ten Million Dollar Wife
To save my father's failing workshop from ruthless loan sharks, I sold one year of my life.
I signed a fake marriage contract with Cameron Fox, an icy billionaire who needed a wife to pacify his sick grandmother. The rules were strict: it was purely a commercial transaction, with absolutely no physical contact and no emotional attachments.
Soon after, that cold hearted man seemed different to me. Wait, is he pursuing me?
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Chapter 4
Aimee locked the door to the guest bedroom. The heavy click of the deadbolt echoed in the quiet room. She collapsed onto the edge of the king-sized bed, staring blankly at the glowing screen of her phone.
Her thumb hovered over the screen, then mindlessly tapped the Facebook icon.
She scrolled through her camera roll until she found a faded, digitized photograph. It was a picture of her mother, taken years ago under the Brooklyn Bridge. Her mother was laughing, her hair blowing wildly in the wind.
Today was the anniversary of her mother's death.
Aimee typed out a short caption: Another year without you. I'm trying to be strong for Dad, but everything feels so heavy today. I miss your laugh.
Set the entire line to be visible only to Cameron. She hit post.
The emotional exhaustion finally caught up to her. Her skin felt grimy from the sweat of panic and the lingering smell of the workshop. She needed to wash the day off. She stood up, stripped off her cheap clothes, and walked into the en-suite bathroom.
She turned the shower dial all the way to hot. The scalding water battered against her shoulders, turning her pale skin pink. Thick, heavy steam quickly filled the small space, fogging up the mirrors. Under the roar of the water, Aimee finally let her guard down. Her chest heaved, and she sobbed silently, the tears mixing with the shower water streaming down her face.
Meanwhile, in the study down the hall, Cameron was aggressively flipping through a quarterly earnings report. The numbers on the page were blurring together. His mind kept flashing back to the look of absolute despair in Aimee's eyes when she was sitting at the kitchen island.
He picked up his phone to check an email from Clara. As he unlocked the screen, a Facebook notification popped up.
Cameron tapped the notification. Aimee's post filled his screen.
He stared at the picture of the smiling woman. He read the caption. I'm trying to be strong for Dad, but everything feels so heavy today.
The words hit him like a physical blow to the sternum. The cold, impenetrable armor he wore around his heart cracked just a fraction. He remembered the suffocating pressure of his own family trust, the way he had been forced to sacrifice his own freedom for the Fox empire. For the first time, he looked at Aimee not as a greedy opportunist, but as a daughter desperately trying to keep her family afloat.
He needed an excuse to check on her. He grabbed a tax exemption form from his desk that required her signature. He stood up and walked down the long hallway to her guest room.
He knocked twice. There was no answer. Assuming she was asleep, he turned the handle. The door opened.
Cameron stepped into the room, intending to leave the file on the nightstand.
At that exact second, the sound of running water stopped. The bathroom door handle clicked.
The door swung open, unleashing a massive cloud of thick, humid steam into the bedroom.
Aimee stepped out.
She was dripping wet. Her hair was plastered to her collarbones. She was wrapped in a single, stark white hotel-style towel that barely covered her. The hem stopped dangerously high on her thighs. The hot water had flushed her skin a deep, rosy pink, and beads of water traced paths down her bare legs.
Cameron froze. He turned his head, and his eyes collided with the sight of her.
His pupils dilated instantly. The breath was violently knocked out of his lungs.
Aimee looked up. She instinctively crossed her arms over her chest, gripping the edges of the towel in a death grip. The sudden movement caused the bottom of the towel to hike up another inch. She took a panicked step backward, her bare feet slipping slightly on the hardwood floor.
Cameron's Adam's apple bobbed hard. A sudden, intense heat flared in his lower abdomen. He immediately averted his eyes, spinning around so his back was facing her.
"I... I brought the tax forms," Cameron said. His voice was completely unrecognizable-rough, gravelly, and strained with the effort of keeping his physical reactions in check.
"Get out!" Aimee stammered, her face burning so hot she felt dizzy. "Please, just get out!"
Cameron took a long stride toward the bedroom door. His hand grasped the brass handle.
But as he pulled the door open, the reality of her father's threat pierced through Aimee's blinding shame. Logic violently overrode her modesty. If he walked out that door, she lost her only chance.
"Wait!" Aimee cried out. She took two steps forward, her voice cracking with a desperate, raw edge. "Please, Cameron. Just this weekend. Please reconsider and accompany me home to meet my father."
Cameron stopped. He closed his eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath, forcing the vivid image of her wet, flushed skin out of his mind.
He turned his head slightly, keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the wall above her head, refusing to look down.
"One time," Cameron said, his voice rigid but lacking its usual cruelty. "I will do this exactly one time. Put some clothes on before you ruin the hardwood floors."
Aimee's eyes widened. The crushing weight on her chest vanished, replaced by a dizzying rush of relief. Hot tears spilled over her eyelashes. She nodded frantically, clutching the towel tighter. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
Cameron felt that irritating flutter in his chest again at the sight of her tears. He pulled the door open to leave.
He paused in the doorway. He didn't turn around. He kept his broad back to her, his posture stiff.
"What does your father like to eat?" Cameron asked, the words sounding awkward and foreign on his tongue. "I will have Martha prepare something."
Aimee stood frozen in the middle of the room. She stared at his retreating back as the door clicked shut. Her heart, which had been racing from fear, suddenly skipped a beat, fluttering wildly against her ribs at the unexpected, jarring gentleness of his question.
Aimee lay in bed and silently deleted the post that was only visible to Cameron.
If she judgment is correct, did he soften his heart after reading the post?It seems that he is just indifferent on the surface, but actually much better than imagined.
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8.0
When gifted cellist Vivienne Aurel inherits her late father's catastrophic $4.2 million debt, she expects to lose everything. She doesn't expect the debt to be bought by Caspian Vane, the most feared private equity magnate in New York. Caspian doesn't want to ruin her; he wants her to work exclusively for him as the artistic director of his new cultural foundation for eighteen months. Forced into his world under a binding agreement, Vivienne prepares to fight against a cold, transactional cage. But as the intense, quiet proximity between them begins to blur the lines of their contract, she discovers a terrifying truth: the man who now owns her future has been watching her from the shadows long before she ever knew his name.
7.4
I single-handedly saved my family's corporate empire from a hostile takeover, securing our market share for the next decade.
But my grandfather didn't see me as a hero. He saw me as a flawed piece of inventory.
To calm the board and fix the reputation I supposedly ruined, he forced me into an arranged marriage, auctioning me off to the highest bidder.
Desperate, I turned to my childhood friend, Egnacio, the only person who ever promised to protect me.
But instead of saving me, he publicly humiliated me. He used my desperation as a networking opportunity, pitching my arranged marriage as a business deal to a ruthless private equity king named Dexter Mathews.
Later that night, I caught Egnacio holding my cruel cousin in his arms.
"What man wants to be with a woman who looks at you like she's planning a hostile takeover?"
Hearing him mock my pain shattered the last bit of hope I had.
I realized I was never family to them. I was just a sharp knife, used to cut down their enemies and then traded for cash before I got dull.
The heartbreak vanished, replaced by a cold, violent rage.
I didn't break, and I didn't run.
Instead, I got into the back of Dexter Mathews's car. He had watched my family tear me apart, but he didn't see a broken pawn. He saw a queen.
And together, we were going to burn their entire empire to the ground.
7.5
Five years of a fake marriage to a billionaire.
Christi thought she was a wealthy wife-until City Hall told her the truth.
No marriage license. No legal rights. Nothing but a lie.
Her husband cheated on her for four years.
His entire family mocked her, used her, and planned to trap her with a baby.
She was ready to ruin them all.
Then a secret changed everything:
Her late parents were DARPA elites. She is the sole heir to $50 billion.
There's only one catch-marry Cornelius Gregory, Wall Street's ruthless paralyzed tycoon.
She signs the contract in an instant.
Freeze their accounts. Destroy the Rivera family.
The game is over for them.
And the queen has just arrived.
7.7
I trusted the wrong people in my past life.
My supposed lover and my sweet sister conspired against me, locking me inside a burning warehouse to die.
But the man I had spent my life hating, my ruthless captor Damien Sterling, rushed straight into that inferno and burned alive just to try and save me.
In my past life, I was utterly blind. I believed Julian's forged documents and Scarlett's fake affection. I even tried to assassinate Damien with a silver dagger they provided, breaking the heart of the only man who truly loved me. I died choking on thick ash, realizing too late who the real monsters were.
Why was I so incredibly foolish? Why did I let their vicious manipulation turn me into a weapon against the one person who would sacrifice absolutely everything for me?
Opening my eyes again, the phantom smell of smoke vanished.
I was sitting in the bloody water of Damien's bathtub, right after my staged suicide attempt.
When my sister sneaked into my penthouse suite and handed me the dagger to kill him again, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed her hand tightly and plunged the sharp blade directly into my own shoulder.
"Please don't kill me, Scarlett!"
This time, I will ruthlessly ruin them both, and I will never let Damien go.
7.1
For six years, I was the perfect, obedient wife to billionaire Hartwell Ware, enduring his coldness because I thought my love could eventually thaw his heart.
Then, my friend sent me a photo. Hartwell was at the airport, tenderly holding the waist of his first love, Eveline Craig.
He came home smelling of her synthetic rose perfume, accused me of stalking him, and coldly demanded a divorce.
His lawyer handed me a thick settlement agreement. It offered astronomical alimony and luxury properties, but it came with a humiliating ten-page non-disclosure agreement.
He wanted to buy my silence. He wanted to strip me of my rights to our son and gag me permanently, just so he could parade his new life with Eveline without any PR backlash.
Even now, he still thought I was a gold digger who had orchestrated a media scandal to trap him into marriage.
I stared at the man I had worshipped for two thousand days. My six years of desperate devotion had been nothing but a humiliating, one-sided delusion.
Hope was finally dead, and with it, my tears had completely dried up.
He expected me to cry, to beg, to negotiate for more millions.
Instead, I snatched the pen, crossed out the massive alimony, and signed my name on the dotted line.
"I am taking the basic child support, and not a single red cent more."
Leaving my five-carat diamond ring on the marble table, I walked out the door with nothing but my old suitcase.
8.1
My billionaire husband, Cooper, was thirty minutes late to my father's funeral.
When the heavy cathedral doors finally opened, he wasn't there to comfort me. He was tightly shielding his mistress, Celeste, under his umbrella, treating her like a fragile lily while I stood alone in my black mourning dress.
The whispers in the pews were deafening, but they were nothing compared to the truth I soon uncovered.
Cooper hadn't just humiliated me—he had secretly taken my father's life-saving spot in a medical clinical trial and given it to Celeste's family. My father died gasping for air because of him.
Days later, while I was shivering in the ER with a 103-degree fever, I saw Cooper sneaking into the VIP maternity ward. He was holding Celeste, his face glowing with the ecstatic joy of a man about to become a father.
For three years, I swallowed my pride to be his perfect, obedient wife, only to let his elite friends openly mock me to my face.
"You were just keeping the seat warm until the real queen came back."
He let my father die, hid all our marital assets in offshore trusts, and made me take birth control every single morning, claiming he wasn't ready for kids.
I didn't scream, and I didn't let him see me break.
Instead, I hired Manhattan's most ruthless divorce lawyer, smiled sweetly as I handed Cooper his coat at home, and began secretly gathering the evidence to burn his entire empire to the ground.