The Billionaire's Wife Escapes To Antarctica
The anniversary candles were burning down, and the Wagyu beef had long gone cold. I waited for two hours, but Brigham never came home.
Instead, a push notification shattered the silence. It was a live video from an exclusive club, showing my husband laughing with Giselle Leach—the woman he claimed was just a business acquaintance. In the footage, he pulled her into his chest to shield her from a champagne spray, his hand possessive on her hip.
The humiliation stung, but the printed apology card he sent via his butler later that night was the final insult. He didn't even bother to sign it by hand. My life felt like a hollow performance, a series of lies meant to keep up appearances for a man who kept me as a placeholder while his heart belonged to someone else.
I felt like an idiot, holding onto a marriage that had been dead for years. Why did I keep trying to fix something that was never mine to begin with?
Then, the email arrived—a three-year research expedition in Antarctica. It required me to cut off all outside contact. I looked at the man who had treated me like a disposable accessory, then at the screen. I didn't hesitate. I typed my acceptance, ready to leave the life, the lies, and the man who never saw me behind forever.
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Chapter 6
One week later. The fluorescent lights of the university biology lab hummed loudly. Amy stared through the lenses of her microscope, adjusting the focus knob. The repetitive nature of the cell counting was the only thing keeping her mind from spiraling.
The heavy lab door swung open and banged against the wall. Chloe Nash, her coworker, stood there looking uncomfortable. "Amy, the Dean wants to see you in his office. Right now."
Amy pulled off her safety goggles. She rubbed her tired eyes and walked down the hall to the administrative building.
Dean Alistair Cromwell sat behind his massive mahogany desk. He had a wide, fake smile plastered on his face. He pushed a printed itinerary across the desk.
"Amy, I need you to act as the university's representative this afternoon. We are hosting a very important donor for a campus tour."
Amy glanced at the paper. The name at the top was printed in bold letters: Brigham Myers.
Her stomach dropped. She pushed the paper back. "I can't do this, Dean Cromwell. I have a critical deadline for the glacier ecology data tomorrow."
The Dean's smile vanished. His eyes turned cold and hard. "Mr. Myers just donated fifty million dollars for the new modern art wing. The board is giving the naming rights to a new trustee he recommended. This is a political necessity, Dr. Torres."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. "If you refuse this assignment, I will personally see to it that your research funding for the next academic year is completely frozen. That includes your clearance for the Antarctica project."
Amy's jaw clenched. She bit the inside of her cheek. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Her career, her escape plan to Antarctica, was entirely in this man's hands.
"Fine. I will do it."
At 2:00 PM, Amy stood on the concrete steps of the main administrative building. She wore a stiff, gray pencil skirt and a white button-down shirt.
Three black, armored SUVs rolled into the campus plaza. Students stopped walking. Media photographers, tipped off by the university PR team, raised their cameras. The flashes started popping like strobe lights.
The middle SUV stopped. The door opened. Brigham stepped out. He looked immaculate in a dark navy suit. He stood tall, exuding power and control.
He did not look at the crowd. He walked around to the other side of the vehicle and opened the door. He reached inside and carefully lifted a woman out, placing her gently into a sleek, custom wheelchair.
It was Giselle. She wore large dark sunglasses and a soft cashmere blanket draped over her legs. She looked incredibly fragile.
Amy watched them. A wave of nausea hit her stomach so hard she had to swallow back bile. She forced her facial muscles into a polite, professional smile and walked down the steps.
Dean Cromwell rushed forward. "Mr. Myers! Welcome. This is Dr. Torres, our top researcher. She will be leading your tour today."
Brigham looked up. His eyes locked onto Amy. A muscle in his jaw twitched violently. His fingers tightened on the handles of the wheelchair. He clearly had no idea she worked at this specific campus.
Giselle slowly pulled off her sunglasses. She looked up at Amy. A sweet, victorious smile spread across her face. "Hello, Amy."
The tour began. Amy held a small megaphone. She walked backward, reciting the history of the brick buildings and the library. Her voice was completely monotone.
Brigham pushed Giselle's wheelchair. He stayed right behind her, never leaving her side. He did not look at the buildings Amy pointed out.
Kade Vance walked next to them. He laughed loudly, pointing at a statue. "Hey Giselle, maybe they'll put a statue of you in front of the new art wing. The future Mrs. Myers deserves it, right?"
Kade completely ignored Amy's presence. He spoke as if she was invisible.
Brigham did not correct Kade. He did not tell him to shut up. Instead, he leaned down and asked Giselle if she needed a bottle of water.
The silence from Brigham was a public endorsement. He was letting his friend humiliate his legal wife in front of dozens of students and cameras.
The students walking by started whispering. Some pointed at Amy. The pity in their eyes was worse than the mockery.
Amy's knuckles turned stark white as she gripped the handle of the megaphone. Her fingernails dug into the plastic. She kept her back straight and continued walking.
Giselle watched Amy's rigid posture. Her eyes narrowed with malice. She let her hand drop casually to the side of the wheelchair. Her fingers brushed against the metal brake lever.
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8.1
Desperate for a way out of rejection and poverty, Pearl Augustine accepts a nanny job with an outrageous salary-working for billionaire Ace Warren. What she doesn't expect is his daughter.
Mia Warren is spoiled, sharp-tongued, and feared by everyone in the mansion. Behind her cruelty is a lonely child longing for a mother. As Pearl becomes the only one who can reach her, walls begin to fall-especially those around Ace, a grieving man hiding behind wealth and control.
What started as "just a job" quickly turns into something dangerous: attachment.
Sometimes, healing begins where you least expect it.
7.2
Kayla Robinson is at her breaking point. After catching her boyfriend and her best friend, in the backseat of her own car, her world shatters. To make matters worse, she's broke and in debt.
Just when she thinks she has hit rock bottom, her powerful, and intimidating boss, Damien Blackwood, CEO of Blackwood Industries makes her an offer she can't refuse.
Damien needs a wife to secure his corporate empire, and he's chosen Kayla for the role.
She must play the part of the powerful Mrs. Blackwood while fighting her growing attraction to a man who is as dangerous as he is handsome.
Now she's part of a high stakes game. When secrets unfold and traitors are revealed, would she be able to see it through? How long will it take for her to fall for Damien and breach her contract? Or will Damien fall for her first?
8.4
They say marrying Cassian Blackmoor is a death sentence.
Seventeen wives. Seventeen funerals. One widower no one can explain.
They call him cursed. They call him dangerous. Some call him a murderer who hides behind wealth and silence. But no one can prove anything - and no one dares accuse a billionaire who buries his wives with the same calm devotion he once loved them with.
Eloise Laurent knows the rumors. She knows the whispers. She knows the stories about the widower whose brides never live long.
Instead, she falls for him.
For the quiet sadness in his eyes.
For the way his voice softens only for her.
For the way he loves like he's terrified of losing her.
And maybe he should be.
But when she discovers a hidden grave bearing her own name, Eloise realizes something far worse than rumors is waiting for her inside his house.
9.7
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.
8.6
I was on my knees in the Ohio dirt, frantically scooping wet coffee grounds back into a torn trash bag while my foster mother screamed that I was a useless waste of space.
Then, ten black Escalades rolled into our rotting trailer park like a funeral procession, and a woman in silk fell to the mud, sobbing that she had finally found her "Elara."
I was whisked away to a mansion that looked like a castle, but the nightmare didn't end with a warm bed and sterilized air.
My brother Harlen looked at me with pure disgust, and when he slapped a chicken leg out of my hand at our first dinner, I instinctively dove under the table to eat it off the rug, begging for mercy through my tears.
My billionaire father, Arthur, watched in silent agony as I tried to wash my own rags in a gold-plated sink at dawn, terrified that I would be starved if I didn't "earn my keep."
He promised me a thousand silk dresses and ordered the trailer park bulldozed to the ground, but I still felt like a prey animal caught by very large, very sad predators.
The trauma wasn't a smudge I could wash off; it was a map of cigarette burns and bruises that I was desperate to hide from the family that had spent millions searching for me.
Just as I thought I might be safe, a black helicopter banked over the lawn, carrying a medical team and a cold order from my oldest brother, the "Shark" of New York.
"No one is ever taking you away," my father growled, shielding me from the men in white coats.
But as the rotors shook the windows, I realized that being found was only the beginning of a different kind of war within the Bridges empire.
9.1
Ava Montgomery has it all. Wealth, beauty, and a life that everyone envies. By night, she becomes someone no one would expect. She is a masked vigilante who fights corruption inside her own family's empire.
Leo Kane is smart, charming, and dangerous. His family was ruined by Ava's father and he is determined to get revenge. When he meets Ava, sparks fly, but he does not know she is the very enemy he is hunting.
Secrets and lies surround them. Every smile hides the truth. Every touch is risky. Ava and Leo must navigate a world full of betrayal, passion, and danger before the city, their families, and their hearts are destroyed.