The Jilted Ex-Wife's Undercover Billionaire Assistant
Carlee signed the divorce papers without a second of hesitation, ending a three-year marriage to a billionaire husband she had never even met.
She walked away with nothing, publicly cutting ties with both the Vaughan empire and her toxic family to launch her own jewelry design studio.
Her family immediately retaliated. They mocked her as a useless, abandoned trophy wife and ruthlessly blacklisted her new company from every major supplier in the city, intent on forcing her to crawl back.
Exhausted but defiant, she hired a handsome, seemingly broke valet she bumped into outside a hotel to be her personal assistant.
She even bought him a tailored suit, pitying his maxed-out credit cards and his desperate need for a paycheck.
But things quickly stopped making sense.
Why did this humble assistant possess such lethal combat skills, effortlessly snapping a two-hundred-pound bodyguard's wrist to protect her?
And why did top-tier luxury store managers bow to him in absolute, trembling terror?
"Whatever is happening, I will handle it."
Carlee found a foolish comfort in her poor assistant's reassuring voice.
She had absolutely no idea that the man sitting at the wobbly desk in her cramped office was Braden Vaughan—her legally divorced ex-husband. And the ruthless billionaire was currently orchestrating a global financial massacre from the shadows, entirely obsessed with clearing her path to the top.
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Chapter 3
Carlee pushed open the heavy double doors of the ballroom.
The blinding light from the massive crystal chandeliers poured over her, instantly casting her in the center of the room's attention.
She stood tall. The deep V-neck of her haute couture gown clung to her curves, radiating a cold, untouchable elegance. The loud hum of conversation in the room abruptly died down.
Whispers immediately hissed through the crowd. Several high-society women raised their silk fans to their mouths, their eyes darting toward Carlee with malicious curiosity.
Carlee ignored the burning stares. She walked straight to the towering champagne pyramid and lifted a crystal flute from a passing waiter's tray.
Brigette Barron pushed through the crowd. She wore a puffy, cotton-candy pink dress and clung tightly to the arm of a wealthy trust-fund heir. A nasty, triumphant smile stretched across Brigette's face as she marched toward Carlee.
"Carlee!" Brigette called out, her voice artificially loud, designed to carry across the silent room. "Why are you here all by yourself?"
The surrounding guests stopped pretending to mingle. They turned their bodies toward the two women, eager to watch the Barron family tear itself apart.
Brigette took another step closer, her eyes gleaming with fake pity. "Where is that mysterious Mr. Vaughan? Oh, wait. It's been three years and you still haven't even seen your husband's face, have you?"
A wave of muffled laughter rippled through the crowd. A group of heiresses standing near the bar openly smirked, their eyes full of vicious delight.
Carlee's fingers tightened around the stem of her champagne flute. The glass dug into her skin, her knuckles turning stark white. She kept her face perfectly still, maintaining a flawless, icy smile.
Brigette mistook the silence for weakness. She reached out, trying to grab Carlee's wrist. "Just come back to the family company and apologize to my father. Stop embarrassing yourself."
Carlee shifted her weight and dodged the touch. Her eyes turned as cold as a frozen lake. She looked Brigette up and down, taking her time.
"You're wearing this season's runway piece," Carlee said. Her voice was smooth, unhurried, and loud enough for the entire room to hear. "But somehow, you make it look like a cheap mannequin display at a discount mall."
Brigette's smile vanished. Her face flushed a violent, ugly red. The muffled laughter in the room instantly shifted, the mockery now aimed directly at Brigette.
Brigette's chest heaved. "You arrogant bitch," she hissed, losing her composure. "You're going to get thrown out of the Vaughan family like garbage!"
Carlee let out a sharp laugh.
She slammed her champagne flute down onto the marble bar. The loud, violent crack of glass hitting stone echoed like a gunshot.
The entire ballroom went dead silent. Everyone stopped breathing, their eyes locked on Carlee.
Carlee squared her shoulders. She looked around the room, her chin held high.
"I am not getting thrown out," Carlee announced, her voice ringing with absolute certainty. "I dumped that blind, cowardly husband of mine today. I filed the papers myself."
A collective gasp sucked the air out of the room. The guests stared in pure shock. No one in New York dared to publicly insult the heir to the Vaughan empire.
Brigette's eyes bugged out. Her finger shook as she pointed at Carlee. "You... you're insane."
Carlee stepped into Brigette's space, forcing her cousin to back up. "As of today, I have zero ties to the Vaughan family, and zero ties to the Barron family."
Carlee stared dead into Brigette's eyes. "So stop trying to use those pathetic family names to chain me down."
Up on the second floor, behind a wall of one-way glass in the VIP box, Braden stood with a glass of amber whiskey in his hand. He watched the entire scene unfold below.
When Carlee called him a blind, cowardly husband, Braden didn't flinch. A brief, calculated chill flashed across his dark gaze as his razor-sharp mind instantly assessed the inevitable PR fallout and the incoming fluctuations in Vaughan Holdings' stock. A public insult of this magnitude would cause ripples across global markets by morning. But then, the corner of his mouth curved upward into a slow, dangerous smile. The chaotic storm she was whipping up tonight would serve as the absolute perfect smokescreen for his upcoming hostile takeover of the Barron family's remaining assets. He allowed her to run wild, knowing her fiery, public rebellion was the ultimate camouflage for his corporate slaughter. As he watched her stand her ground against the vultures below, the dark heat in his eyes flared into a raging, obsessive need to conquer her.
Down on the floor, Brigette's eyes welled with her signature fake tears. She looked completely crushed under Carlee's dominant presence.
The trust-fund heir standing next to Brigette puffed out his chest, trying to play the hero. "You're taking this too far, Carlee."
Carlee didn't even turn her head to look at him. "Your father's company is currently under investigation for cooking the books last quarter. I'd keep my mouth shut if I were you."
The heir turned pale and immediately took a huge step back, abandoning Brigette.
Carlee smoothed her hair back, looking at the wreckage she had just caused. "Enjoy the party."
She turned to walk away from the center of the room.
Just then, the heavy doors opened again. Genevieve Crestwood-Hawthorne, the host of the gala and a reigning queen of New York's old money, walked in.
The crowd parted instantly. Everyone assumed Genevieve was coming to throw Carlee out for causing a scene. Brigette wiped her fake tears, a cruel smile returning to her face.
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7.3
I found out my husband of three years had cheated on me and his mistress is the one who told me-because he didn't have the balls to do it himself.
I move out and get a new apartment, a job as a bartender, and try to move on with a broken heart. I wonder where it all went wrong, if I hadn't been enough for him, if I'd been stupid for marrying him in the first place.
I'm at work one night when he walks inside-the most beautiful man I've ever seen. He sits at the bar and a forest fire burns between us. I was depressed the moment before he entered, but the second I look at his blue eyes, I forget the dumpster fire that my life has become. I invite him back to my place and it's the most passionate night of my life. I expect to never see him again.
I just want him as an anti-depressant-but he wants me all to himself. I just got my heart ripped out of my chest so I want something easy and no-strings-attached, but he wants all the strings because he's hooked.
I don't get much of a say in the matter, and that's not surprising when I learn why-because he's the Butcher. The crime lord of all crime lords, the boss that overshadows all of Paris, that makes everyone abide by his rules-or pay.
And now I'm his.
9.7
Eliana Rivera is the firstborn daughter of business tycoon Cassian Rivera. When her father's company falls into debt, he marries her off to the arrogant and ruthless billionaire, Alexander Grayson, as part of a business contract and under the threat of blackmail.
Alexander, the billionaire CEO, never planned to marry, but the pressure of blackmail forces him into a union with a woman he barely knows. Although Eliana doesn't see Alexander as her ideal partner, she agrees to the marriage out of a sense of duty.
Once engaged, however, he barely acknowledges her presence and harbours disdain for her because of her father's actions and their relationship. But as they navigate their newfound relationship, the unexpected desire for each other's touch ignites-a twist neither of them planned, leading them toward an unforeseen love.
8.0
Finley's stepfather gave her a sickening ultimatum: marry her predatory stepbrother Shane tonight, or he would throw her fragile mother out on the street.
To escape this hell, she used a matchmaking agency and hastily married a complete stranger. Garrison Strickland claimed to be an ordinary data analyst making $95,000 a year, driving a beat-up Honda Civic, and needing a wife in name only. They got their marriage license at City Hall that very afternoon.
But when Finley returned home to pack her bags and threw the certificate on the table, her family just laughed. Dozier ordered Shane to drag her into the bedroom to "teach her a lesson" and trap her forever.
"Come on, little sister," Shane crooned, lunging at her. "Don't fight it."
Finley's own mother just stared at the floor, blaming Finley for ruining the family, watching blindly as Shane cornered her.
Terrified and desperate, Finley smashed an ashtray over Shane's head and frantically dialed her new husband's number. Shane snatched the phone, mocking the "imaginary husband" before the line went dead. Finley felt a bottomless despair. Garrison was just a normal guy; he would never risk his life against her violent family. She was completely on her own, waiting for the end.
Suddenly, deafening bangs echoed through the house, and Garrison stepped into the living room radiating a cold, terrifying fury. This supposedly "frugal data analyst" effortlessly snapped Shane's wrist, leveled a ruthless death threat that made Dozier tremble, and whisked Finley away in a waiting Bentley. Looking at the powerful man beside her, Finley's heart raced: just who exactly had she married today?
7.8
Andrea was trapped in a suffocating marriage with billionaire Gregory Morse, forced to live as the pathetic substitute for his dead fiancée.
When armed intruders broke into their estate in the dead of night, she called her husband in pure terror.
"Stop playing these cheap, attention-seeking games," Gregory sneered with disgust, and hung up the phone.
She barely escaped with her life, but the cruelty only escalated. At the family mansion, his dead fiancée's sister deliberately scalded Andrea's hand with boiling tea. Instead of defending his wife, Gregory publicly humiliated her, ordering her to clean up the mess while calling her a stray dog.
That night, hiding in the dark wine cellar, Andrea overheard a chilling confession.
Gregory admitted to his brother that he knew Andrea was completely innocent of the car crash that killed his fiancée. He knew she had been framed.
Why did he marry her? Just to use her as a psychological punching bag to vent his twisted grief. He watched her suffer every single day, treating her like disposable trash, while violently threatening anyone who showed her an ounce of kindness.
He thought she was just a useless, helpless shadow who would quietly endure his torment forever.
He had no idea that behind her submissive facade, she was secretly Madame Lan, the apex predator of the global fashion world. And now, she was ready to burn his empire to the ground.
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.
9.4
Aria Mcgee was the unwanted second daughter of a decaying Long Island family.
To save their bankrupt corporation, her father and older sister drugged her. They shoved her into a town car and delivered her to a ruthless Wall Street billionaire's bed like a piece of meat.
They expected her to be the perfect sacrifice. The original Aria had no access to her own trust fund and was forced to live in a windowless broom closet. Even worse, a cold, synthetic System voice echoed in her skull, demanding she play the tragic, helpless female lead. It ordered her to endure her family's abuse and suffer the billionaire's humiliation to force a pathetic romance plotline.
"Host must follow the tragic trajectory and achieve the ultimate painful romance."
But the soul that woke up in that bed wasn't a weak, frightened girl. She was a dead Hollywood Oscar-winning actress. Why would a top-tier professional ever agree to play the weeping victim in such a garbage, B-list script?
Instead of trembling in fear as the System commanded, Aria looked at the billionaire and smiled. Using her flawless acting skills, she shattered his ego, extracted a hundred thousand dollars, and walked right out the door. Now, she was heading back to the Mcgee estate, ready to rip her money from her father's greedy hands and burn her sister's life to the ground.