The Mute Heiress: My Ruthless Husband's Prize
I woke up in a hospital bed with the sting of antiseptic in my nose and my body feeling like lead. My world had been turned upside down by a crash, but the nightmare was only beginning.
Instead of a doctor, I found my Aunt Ursula and a man named Julian standing over me. They weren't there to comfort me; they were calculating my worth.
"Poor thing," Ursula cooed, pinning my wrist to the mattress.
Julian claimed he was my fiancé, even though I’d spent a year dodging his calls. I tried to scream, but my throat felt like it was filled with broken glass. They were using my silence to paint me as incompetent so they could seize my family’s trust fund. Just as Julian tried to force a ring on my finger, the door slammed open. Hilliard Blackburn, the city’s most ruthless billionaire, walked in and tossed a marriage certificate on the floor.
"I am her legal husband," he said. "Now, get out."
I was a piece of collateral, traded by my dying grandfather to pay off a debt. To Hilliard, I was just an asset in his portfolio. He didn't know that I was secretly "The Analyst," a hacker who moved millions on the dark web. He didn't know about the missing algorithm that could crash the market, or that my mentor had vanished in a lab fire.
The world saw a broken, mute heiress, but I was hiding a secret that could destroy us all. I was pregnant, and my stolen code was already being auctioned to the highest bidder. With Hilliard moving into my house to monitor me, I had to find the truth before my "husband" realized I was his greatest threat.
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Chapter 5
The MRI machine clanged and banged, a rhythmic, industrial techno beat. In the control room, Sophie was distracting the technician.
Inside the scanning room, Elenor slid off the table. She stripped off the hospital gown, shivering in the cool air, and pulled on a set of scrubs Sophie had stashed behind the supply cabinet. They were too big, but they would do.
She pushed open the heavy rear door. The hallway was empty.
Elenor ran. Her bare feet slapped against the tile. She found the side exit and pushed into the cool New York afternoon.
She kept her head down, pulling a surgical cap low over her forehead. She just needed to get to the subway.
A black SUV screeched to a halt across the sidewalk, blocking her path.
Elenor spun around. Three photographers jumped out from behind a parked van. Flashbulbs exploded like grenades. Pop. Pop. Pop.
She was blinded. She threw her hands up to cover her face.
"Elenor!"
The voice was amplified. Julian.
He stepped out of the SUV. He was holding a bouquet of red roses so large it looked comical. A camera crew was right behind him.
"I knew you'd come out!" Julian shouted, performing for the lens. "You were running to me, weren't you?"
Elenor stumbled back. The audacity was breathtaking. He was spinning her escape as a romantic rendezvous.
A crowd began to form. Phones were raised. TikTok live streams started.
Ursula appeared from the crowd, dabbing at dry eyes with a handkerchief. "She's so confused, the poor dear! Just like Hertha warned us she would be. But true love always finds a way. Don't let the Blackburns bully you, Elenor!"
Julian dropped to one knee on the dirty pavement. He held up the ring-the same cheap ring from the hospital.
"Marry me, Elenor," he said. "Let me save you from that loveless arrangement."
Elenor felt dizzy. The flashes, the noise, the smell of exhaust fumes. It was too much.
She shook her head frantically. She tried to back away, but the crowd had formed a wall.
Julian stood up. He closed the distance. He grabbed her hand, forcing the flowers into her arms. He leaned in for a kiss, blocking the camera's view of her face with his shoulder.
"Put the ring on," he hissed into her ear. "Or I send the hard drive I took from Silas's lab to the FBI. I know what was on it."
Elenor froze. The blood drained from her face. He had the drive? Or was he bluffing?
She looked at him. His eyes were cruel, triumphant.
She reached into her scrub pocket and pulled out the phone.
Julian smiled, preening. He thought she was typing a 'yes'. He waved at the camera.
Elenor turned the screen around. She shoved it toward the camera lens, then toward Julian's face.
The text was large. Bold.
YOU MAKE ME SICK.
The crowd gasped. A few people laughed.
Julian's smile curdled.
Elenor looked past him. At the corner of the block, a black Rolls Royce was idling. The window was down. Hilliard Blackburn was watching. He hadn't moved. He was waiting.
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8.5
Years ago, he made a promise he never kept. Now, he's a cold, ruthless billionaire she only sees on TV. For Elara Vance, the past is a painful memory overshadowed by her father's mountain of debt and the fight to keep her little brother alive. Just when she is at her lowest point, a message from her childhood friend, Alessandro Conti, offers a glimmer of hope.
But the man who shows up isn't the boy she remembers. He offers a cold, emotionless contract: a one-year marriage of convenience in exchange for a fortune that will save her family. Bound by paper and circumstance, Elara enters Alessandro's world of power and lies. He doesn't remember the vow he made, but soon, his calculated plans crumble under the weight of an unscripted love.
When a single moment of betrayal tears them apart, a new, even more devastating truth remains hidden, and Alessandro must lose everything to find the truth and the woman he never stopped loving.
9.0
Adaline Poole thought she had escaped her family's toxic corporate grip by moving to London and adopting a stray cat named Monty.
But when she returns to her empty apartment, her father delivers a chilling ultimatum: he has kidnapped the cat and will euthanize it by morning unless she accepts an arranged marriage with Barron Cooke, a notoriously elusive billionaire.
Her entire family becomes complicit in her sale. Her mother demands she secure their elite status, and her brother secretly spies on her social media to feed Barron her every move. Horrified to discover Barron is a thirty-three-year-old "fossil" twelve years her senior, Adaline resorts to sabotage. She goes to a Soho club, takes a scandalous photo with a frat boy, and sends it to the old billionaire to disgust him into canceling their upcoming dinner.
But her rebellion backfires horribly when the frat boy spikes her drink with a powerful narcotic. As her body burns with a terrifying, feverish heat, she collapses in a dark corridor. Stripped of her phone and betrayed by her bloodline, she is left utterly defenseless as a predator approaches to drag her away.
Suddenly, the heavy fire door is kicked open by a towering, terrifyingly handsome stranger who effortlessly neutralizes her attacker.
"Please... help me," Adaline begs, deliriously throwing her burning body into his arms.
She has absolutely no idea that the handsome savior she is clinging to is Barron Cooke himself.
9.0
My fiancé, Connor, and I had a one-year pact. I'd work undercover as a junior developer in the company we co-founded, while he, the CEO, built our empire.
The pact ended the day he ordered me to apologize to the woman who was systematically destroying my life.
It happened during his most important investor pitch. He was on video call when he demanded I publicly humiliate myself for his "special guest," Jaden. This was after she'd already scalded my hand with hot coffee and faced zero consequences.
He chose her. In front of everyone, he chose a manipulative bully over our company's integrity, our employees' dignity, and me, his fiancée.
His eyes on the screen demanded my submission.
"Apologize to Jaden. Now."
I took a step forward, held up my burned hand for the camera, and made a call of my own.
"Dad," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "It's time to dissolve the partnership."
9.2
Blurb
When broke event planner Isabella "Izzy" Hart agrees to fake an engagement with cold, commanding tech billionaire Alexander Blackwood, she thinks it'll be simple: smile for the cameras, fake a few kisses, collect the money, and walk away.
But nothing about Alex is simple.
Not the way he looks at her.
Not the way he touches her, as she belongs to him.
And definitely not the way he says:
"If this is just business... why does it feel like you're mine?"
It was supposed to be fake.
Now neither of them knows what's real.
7.7
It's common knowledge that Ethan married me only because I look like his first love.
Three years of marriage, and he never once slept with me, because he thought it would be a desecration of his first love.
On the surface, I was madly in love with him. In reality, I was blowing through his money like crazy and keeping a man on the side.
But now there's a problem.
The man I've been keeping… how does he look exactly like the richest man in New York? And even have the same name?
8.6
I married Damien Pierce for love.
I divorced him for my sanity.
He was a billionaire heir with ice in his veins and obsession in his heart. I was the waitress who accidentally spilled coffee on his suit and somehow ended up in his penthouse, in his bed, in his world. For two years, I was his wife-and his prisoner.
He didn't hit me. He didn't have to.
He simply watched. Every move I made. Every friend I spoke to. Every breath I took outside his permission was met with silence so cold it burned. When I finally found the courage to leave, I left everything behind. The money. The name. Even my dignity.
I told myself I'd rather be alone forever than belong to Damien Pierce for one more day.
That was three years ago.
Now, I'm standing in my mother's living room, champagne in hand, smiling at her new fiancé-a kind, gentle widower who looks at her like she hung the moon.
Then the front door opens.
And Damien walks in.
Because the kind, gentle widower? Is his father.
My ex-husband is about to become my stepbrother.
The first words out of his mouth, in front of our beaming parents, are not hello.
They are: "Did you really think divorce papers would make me stop owning you, Ayra?"
Now we share holidays. We share family dinners. We share a hallway in our parents' mansion.
And Damien Pierce has made one thing very clear:
He doesn't want to be my ex-husband.
He doesn't want to be my stepbrother.
He wants to be my sin.