The Jilted Heiress And Her Possessive Guardian
Ardella caught her fiancé Braden cheating with an actress in a downtown VIP room.
It was supposed to be a simple business marriage to save her family's bankrupt company.
But instead of supporting her, her uncle and aunt demanded she get on her knees and apologize to the cheating fiancé.
They didn't care about her dignity; they only cared about the merger capital.
Her cousin publicly mocked her, and her uncle threatened to permanently hide the police file revealing who murdered her father if she ruined the deal.
To make matters worse, Ethelbert Stone, the terrifying billionaire who raised her—and the man she was desperately trying to escape—publicly claimed he didn't know her.
Yet, moments later, he trapped her in his car, his eyes filled with a sick, possessive rage, reminding her that every inch of her belonged to him.
She was completely cornered by a cheating fiancé, a parasitic family, and an obsessed former guardian.
They had drained her father's trust fund dry and now wanted to sell her off to cover their debts.
They really thought she was just a helpless pawn they could manipulate and discard at will.
But they were dead wrong.
Ardella calmly wiped her hands after throwing scalding tea at her aunt's feet, staring down at her greedy family.
"The headline tomorrow will read: Price Group Bankrupt, Fails to Sell Niece to Cover Debts."
She backed up the video of her fiancé's betrayal to ten different servers and sent a text to her private investigator.
Tonight, at the elite society dinner, she was going to blow the scandal wide open and drag them all down with her.
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Chapter 6
Ardella was forced to look up at him. The grip on her chin sent sharp spikes of pain through her jaw, but she refused to make a sound.
Ethelbert's eyes were like blue fire. His gaze burned over her lips and her pale, wet cheeks.
The tension in the car was pulled so tight it was about to snap. Then, Ardella's phone rang.
The loud, shrill ringtone shattered the silence. Ethelbert's fingers twitched, his grip loosening just a fraction.
Ardella used the distraction. She jerked her head back, breaking his hold, and pressed her body hard against the car door.
She dug into her bag with shaking hands and pulled out her phone. The screen showed Eleanor's name.
She felt Ethelbert's heavy, burning stare fixed on the glowing screen. A reckless, self-destructive idea flashed in her mind.
She did not answer the call. She pressed the mute button.
Ethelbert narrowed his eyes. "Why aren't you answering? Is the Coffey boy calling to beg?"
Ardella pushed her wet hair out of her face. She put on a fake, careless smile.
"It's not Braden. It's an old Wall Street guy I just met. He's annoying."
She let her voice drop into a cheap, flirtatious tone. "But he is very generous. He said he wants to buy me an apartment in Tribeca."
The air in the car turned into solid ice.
Ethelbert's chest heaved. A terrifying, violent storm ripped through his blue eyes.
He lunged at her. He grabbed her shoulders and slammed her hard against the cold window glass. The impact knocked the breath out of her lungs with a quiet gasp.
He shoved his knee aggressively between her legs, completely pinning her to the seat. There was nowhere to run.
Ethelbert ground his teeth together. The sound vibrated in his chest. "Say that again. Who is buying you an apartment?"
Ardella felt a sick, twisted thrill. She had found his breaking point. She had hurt him.
She stared defiantly into his furious eyes. "I am an adult, Mr. Stone. My private life is none of your business."
Ethelbert dropped his head. His lips were a millimeter away from her nose. His breathing was heavy and ragged.
"None of my business?" he snarled. "Did you forget? Every single inch of your skin was raised by me."
The words were raw and dripping with dark possessiveness. Ardella's face burned hot. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs.
He tilted his head. He was going to kiss her. She could feel the heat of his mouth.
Suddenly, the driver slammed on the brakes.
The violent physics of the sudden stop threw them forward. Before Ardella could hit her head on the glass, Ethelbert's hand shot out. He cupped the back of her head, taking the impact against his own arm.
The intercom buzzed. Leo's voice came through. "Sir, we have arrived at The Plaza Hotel."
The words acted like a bucket of ice water. The suffocating heat in the car vanished.
Ethelbert pulled his hand away as if she had burned him. He slid back to his side of the car, straightened his suit jacket, and locked his face back into a mask of cold indifference.
Ardella gasped for air. She grabbed her bag and shoved the car door open, practically falling out onto the pavement.
She stood under the grand awning of the hotel. She watched the black Rolls Royce speed away into the rainy night, disappearing down Fifth Avenue.
She reached up and touched the back of her head. The heat from his palm was still burned into her hair. The tears she had been fighting finally spilled over her eyelashes and hit the concrete.
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7.2
Four years ago, Madelynn accepted money from Caiden's family and vanished. She thought it was for the best-he would remain the untouchable heir while she faced her tough life alone.
When they met again, Caiden humiliated her in public, yet appeared when she was cornered by a difficult client, pulling her back into his life.
He forced her to stay as his lover, using her mother's medical bills as leverage, whispering, "What you owe me... you'll repay the same way."
Madelynn believed he despised her. Only after the accident, when he ran toward her before the explosion, did she understand-he never let go.
7.7
Eva Brooks, a 25-year-old woman, was set up by her best friend. Her fiancé broke up with her and demanded compensation for allegedly cheating on him.
Eva had a one-night stand with the richest CEO in Dominic City, Ethan Owen. He was arrogant and offered her a job as his secretary.
As his secretary, Ethan couldn't shake his fondness for Eva. He became obsessed with her, worrying that she was cheating on him.
He broke up with his fiancée to become engaged to Eva, but will his fiancée let him go? Will Eva accept a relationship with her boss?
8.7
Ada was eight months pregnant, sitting peacefully in her husband's Manhattan estate, looking at a baby nursery catalog.
Suddenly, her husband's mistress, Jacklyn, walked in, threw an ultrasound photo on the table, and locked the door.
Before Ada could process the betrayal, Jacklyn dragged her to the top of the marble staircase and threw herself backward just as Desmond walked through the front doors.
"She pushed me, Desmond! She tried to kill our baby!"
Desmond looked at Ada with absolute hatred.
He ignored Ada's breaking water and her agonizing screams for help, leaving her to miscarry on the freezing floor while he rushed Jacklyn to the hospital.
He sent Ada to a brutal federal prison for three years, where she was tortured and left with a body covered in horrific scars, mourning the baby she was told died at birth.
When Ada was finally released, Desmond destroyed her cousin's company to force her back to his estate as a lowly maid.
But when Ada saw Jacklyn's three-year-old son, her world stopped.
Right in the center of the little boy's palm was a faint crescent moon birthmark.
It was the exact same mark Ada had kissed on her own lifeless baby's tiny hand before the doctors took his body away.
How did her dead child become Jacklyn's little prince?
Looking at the woman who stole her life and the husband who threw her in hell, Ada clenched her scarred hands and swore she would tear their world apart to get her son back.
9.1
Elise thought her life was finally falling into place. She turned down her father's company to work as executive assistant to Marcus Grey-the boy she's loved since childhood, now the powerful CEO she's devoted her life to.
But when Marcus proposes to another woman, Elise's world crumbles. Enter Sebastian Deluca-Marcus's tattooed, ruthless, long-estranged brother. He's everything Marcus isn't: dangerous, magnetic, and determined to take back his place in New York.
But, there's something odd about him.
Something changed since he arrived.
Bound by family secrets and a mutual desire to expose Marcus's fiancée, Elise and Sebastian form an uneasy alliance. But as sparks ignite between them, Elise must choose: remain loyal to the boy she thought she loved, or risk everything for the man who sees her as more than a shadow.
Some loves are safe. Others are consuming. Which one will she survive?
8.4
Kathern was forced out of her sister's home by her abusive brother-in-law, who violently demanded she pay half the rent or get out.
To protect her sister from his rage, Kathern agreed to a six-month paper marriage with a stranger—an old woman's grandson, Bronson—in exchange for a simple apartment.
But her new husband treated her like a scheming gold digger from the very first second.
He showed up to City Hall in a cheap suit, shoved a brutal prenup in her face, and dumped her in a completely empty, dust-filled apartment.
"Just don't cause any trouble," he warned coldly, before leaving her alone.
When Kathern politely texted him to ask if he was coming home for dinner, he immediately blocked her number.
Kathern was furious and baffled. She didn't want a dime of his money, nor did she care about his boring middle-management job.
She had only agreed to this marriage for a place to sleep, yet this arrogant man treated her like absolute garbage.
Refusing to swallow the insult, Kathern immediately dialed his grandmother to expose his behavior.
She was going to build her own independent life, completely unaware that her "cheap corporate loser" of a husband was actually the ruthless billionaire CEO of the Vaughan empire.
9.0
To save her dying mother, Adaline walked into the Waldorf Astoria to deliver a shirt to her fiancé.
She didn't know her stepsister, June, had swapped her keycard. Adaline stumbled into a pitch-black suite and was brutally assaulted by a stranger in the dark.
The nightmare didn't end there. June paid off the only bone marrow donor for Adaline's mother to flee the city, and stole Adaline's fiancé. Bankrupt and desperate, Adaline was forced to sell herself into a loveless marriage with the ruthless billionaire Ferris Finch just to secure a medical team.
But when Ferris saw the dark, violent bruises covering her body, his eyes filled with absolute disgust.
"You make me sick. Pack up your cheap tricks."
He mocked her, calling her a filthy woman who couldn't even wash her lover's marks off before crawling into his house.
Adaline swallowed her pride and endured his cruel humiliation. When June publicly taunted her about the hotel assault, Adaline finally snapped, ending up handcuffed in a freezing police cell.
She thought she was completely out of moves, waiting to rot in prison while her new husband despised her.
But back at the estate, Ferris had just pulled the hotel's security footage.
Staring at the screen, the arrogant billionaire's face turned completely ashen.
He finally realized that the innocent woman he had destroyed in the dark that night, and the wife he was currently torturing, were the exact same person.