The Phantom Heiress And Her Fake Lover
Elodie was the Evans family's adopted daughter, living in a cold, isolated room while her sister Bristol enjoyed a life of luxury. Secretly, she was a top-tier freelance operative.
Her adoptive family finally found a use for her. To secure a massive corporate merger, they decided to marry her off to Elwyn Lyons, a billionaire heir rumored to be a violent, dying psychopath.
They did this just to spare their precious Bristol from the exact same arrangement.
When Elodie hesitated, her adoptive father showed his true colors. He threatened to cut off the life-saving medical care for Gus, the poor man who had actually raised her.
Her older brother even laughed about it with his friends in the dark.
"If Lyons dies, she gets nothing. If he beats her, well... she's tough to break. Either way, she's a pawn."
Hearing her brother casually discuss her potential death as a business strategy was the final blow. They didn't see her as a daughter, just a disposable shield.
All those years of staying quiet to keep the peace turned to ash. She realized the people she called family were monsters who would eagerly trade her life for a few patents.
Elodie threw an ironclad legal separation agreement on their coffee table and walked out forever.
To secure Gus's medical funds, she accepted an eight-figure commission from a mysterious client. Her mission was to play a toxic lover and publicly destroy the Lyons engagement.
Little did the Evans family know, the "sickly" heir was actually in peak physical condition, and he had just hired Elodie to ruin them all.
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Chapter 2
Elodie sat in the backseat of the unmarked Ford sedan, parked two blocks away from the Evans estate.
She pulled the night-vision goggles off her head and tossed them onto the seat. She unzipped the black nanofiber suit, peeling it off her skin. She shoved the expensive tactical gear into a signal-blocking duffel bag.
She pulled a faded, oversized t-shirt over her head and slipped into a pair of worn-out jeans.
She pressed a finger to the bone-conduction earpiece tucked behind her ear.
"Scrap," Elodie said, her voice flat. "I'm out. The data is uploading now."
A heavily distorted, robotic voice crackled in her ear. "Received. I'll have the analysis report to you in thirty minutes. The payout for this intel is massive. Are you sure you want to route the entire sum to the Pennsylvania Children's Trauma Center anonymously?"
"I'm sure," Elodie said.
She stared out the window at the glowing streetlights of the wealthy neighborhood. She felt nothing for the money.
She grabbed her duffel bag, opened the rear door, and slipped into the driver's seat. She adjusted the seat and rested her hands on the steering wheel for a moment, steadying herself.
"Switching channels," Elodie said.
She tapped her watch, connecting to the micro-bug she had planted in Preston Evans's home office a week ago under the guise of deep-cleaning the study. She had anticipated this exact showdown was coming, and she needed the leverage.
Static hissed, followed by the heavy sigh of her adoptive father, Preston.
"Cynthia, it's done," Preston's voice echoed in Elodie's ear. He sounded exhausted. "Old Mrs. Lyons agreed. As long as we fulfill the marriage contract, they will inject the capital we need to save the company."
"But what about Bristol?" Cynthia's voice was shrill, dripping with panic. "My baby cannot marry Elwyn Lyons IV! The man is a walking corpse. They say he's violent, Preston. Unstable!"
Elodie's fingers tightened around the edge of the car seat. Her knuckles turned white.
"Relax," Preston said coldly. "We aren't sacrificing Bristol. We still have Elodie."
Elodie's stomach dropped. A cold, physical weight settled in her chest.
"Elodie?" Cynthia spat the name like it was poison. "That feral stray we dragged out of the Rust Belt? She isn't fit for the Lyons family. Look at that hideous mark on her face. She's a disgrace to the Evans name."
"A disgrace who legally shares our last name," Preston countered. "The contract only specifies 'the daughter of Preston Evans.' It doesn't name which one. This is exactly why we kept her around. A dying man gets a flawed bride. It's a perfect match."
Elodie stopped breathing. The oxygen in the car felt thick, suffocating.
She remembered the day they brought her to this mansion. The fake smiles. The promises of a real family.
For years, she had watched Bristol get the designer clothes, the private tutors, the unconditional love. Elodie got the blame whenever Bristol broke a vase or failed a test.
"Will she even agree to it?" Cynthia asked, her tone shifting to pure calculation. "She's stubborn."
Preston let out a dark chuckle. "She doesn't have a choice. Her old foster father back in Pennsylvania, Gus Kowalski? His lung condition is getting worse. We can offer to 'sponsor' his treatments at the best facility. But only if she plays her part."
A violent surge of heat rushed through Elodie's veins.
Her vision blurred with pure, unadulterated rage. They were using Gus. The only person in the world who had ever actually cared about her.
Her fingers gripped the steering wheel in a death grip, her knuckles turning white from the force. A cold, venomous rage burned through her veins, yet her expression remained completely stony. She merely took a deep, measured breath, forcing the violent urge back down into the darkest corners of her mind.
"Mom? Dad?" Bristol's voice filtered through the bug. It was high-pitched, laced with fake innocence. "I heard Mr. Elwyn is really sick... I'm so scared. Is Elodie really going to take my place?"
"Oh, my sweet girl," Cynthia cooed. "You have too big of a heart. This is Elodie's chance to finally repay us for everything we've done for her. It's an honor for her."
Bile rose in the back of Elodie's throat.
The last fragile thread tying her to this family snapped.
She had spent years thinking they were just neglectful. But they weren't. They were monsters. To them, she wasn't a human being. She was a meat shield. A disposable asset.
Elodie reached up and killed the audio feed.
The car fell into a deafening silence.
She looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror. The pale, butterfly-shaped birthmark on her cheek stood out in the dim light.
"Game over," Elodie whispered to the empty car.
She shifted the car into drive. She didn't head toward the Evans estate. She turned the wheel, driving in the opposite direction.
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7.2
I am a resident surgeon, secretly married to Dr. Barrett Walters, the Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. It was a transactional marriage; he paid my mother's mounting medical bills, and I was his secret, obedient wife in the dark.
But at the hospital, he was a cold-blooded tyrant who deliberately made my life a living hell. During a major medical conference, he viciously tore apart my successful surgical repair, looking me dead in the eye as he called me incompetent in front of all my colleagues.
The humiliation didn't stop there. With his tacit approval, the senior residents bullied me, assigning me every brutal night shift. When his beautiful, wealthy heiress "girlfriend" visited the ward, he publicly mocked my background to make her smile.
"Some people get in through the back door. They're not fit for the front lines."
Even when I was forced to work as a secret banquet waitress to cover the medical copays he ignored, he found me, ruined the job out of pure possessive jealousy, and then fined my meager resident salary the very next morning just to show his absolute control.
I endured his punishing kisses and cruel rebukes, sacrificing my dignity just to keep my mother alive. But I couldn't understand why he had to destroy every shred of my peace. If he wanted the perfect heiress, why did he refuse to let me go?
Staring at his cold, controlling eyes in the stairwell, my exhaustion finally overpowered my fear. I was done being his victim, and it was time to tear up this contract.
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.
7.6
My father raised seven brilliant orphans to be my potential husbands. For years, I only had eyes for one of them, the cold and distant Damien Paul, believing his distance was a wall I just had to break through.
That belief shattered last night when I found him in the garden, kissing his foster sister, Eve—the fragile girl my family took in at his request, the one I had treated like my own sister.
But the true horror came when I overheard the other six Fellows talking in the library.
They weren't competing for me. They were working together, orchestrating "accidents" and mocking my "stupid, blind" devotion to keep me away from Damien.
Their loyalty wasn't to me, the heiress who held their futures in her hands. It was to Eve.
I wasn't a woman to be won. I was a foolish burden to be managed. The seven men I grew up with, the men who owed my family everything, were a cult, and she was their queen.
This morning, I walked into my father's study to make a decision that would burn their world to the ground. He smiled, asking if I'd finally won Damien over.
"No, Dad," I said, my voice firm. "I'm marrying Hunter Beach."
7.0
I was the Stanton family heiress, engaged to the President's son to secure a vital military alliance.
But he cornered me in the White House sitting room, slamming a thick manila folder onto the marble table.
"I said, sign the annulment agreement, Hester."
He looked at me like I was dirt, demanding I step aside so he could be with a manipulative intern named Tricia.
In my past life, I was a naive lamb. I cried and begged him not to end it. My devotion was rewarded with absolute cruelty. He ordered my bones broken and my reputation completely shredded. My trusted assistant forced poison down my throat, and I was left to die with a rope burning my neck.
Until my last breath, I didn't understand. I had done everything perfectly for the family. Why did my unwavering loyalty only bring me a gruesome death? Why did the monsters who tortured me get to live happily in the highest seats of power?
Opening my eyes again, the suffocating terror of the noose suddenly washed away. I was sixteen again, staring at the exact same annulment papers.
"Hester, please. Just let us be happy," Tricia whimpered, reaching out her trembling hand.
This time, I didn't cry. I picked up the solid gold fountain pen, stabbed it violently through the center of the contract, and prepared to drag the entire First Family straight to hell.
8.4
To save my toxic family's bankrupt company, I was sold for fifty million dollars to marry Arch Rush III, a notoriously ruthless and paralyzed billionaire.
Because of my severe face blindness, I couldn't even recognize my new husband. I was just a cheap, replaceable pawn. Yet, while my own parents physically abused me and treated me like livestock, my terrifying new husband actually protected me.
But entering the Rush family estate was like stepping into a snake pit. His aristocratic relatives mocked my cheap clothes and even tried to disfigure me with boiling tea.
To further humiliate me in front of a world-renowned neurologist, his grandmother pointed a bony finger at me.
"Go massage his muscles, this is your daily duty now."
Arch glared at me with a lethal warning, but I had no choice. Trembling, I pressed my hands into his thigh.
My heart instantly dropped. Beneath his expensive suit, there was no soft, withered flesh. The muscle contours were tight, dense, and incredibly firm.
How could a man completely paralyzed from the waist down have the legs of an athlete?
Before I could process the terrifying truth, my strong fingers dug into a nerve cluster. Under my touch, his "dead" muscle violently twitched.
The doctor dropped his pen in absolute shock, and I realized I had just accidentally exposed the ruthless billionaire's deadliest secret.
7.5
Julianna was drowning in a corporate warzone, fighting a massive department deficit while fending off her mother’s relentless matchmaking.
Then, a ghost from her past returned to shatter her reality.
Eight years ago, Aidan Caldwell walked out of her life without a word. Now, he was back in New York as a ruthless billionaire, and a pitch-black Maybach started stalking her in the dim underground garage.
She had no idea the driver hiding behind the obsidian-tinted glass was Aidan.
She didn't know he had just choked a confession out of an executive, discovering that her "betrayal" eight years ago was a complete lie.
"Stay away from her. The rules are mine now."
Aidan had warned his rivals, his sanity tearing at the seams as he watched from the shadows while a creepy coworker put an arm around her shoulder.
He shattered glasses and crushed her favorite white flowers in his penthouse, driven by a lethal, obsessive jealousy seeing other men touch what belonged to him.
Julianna was completely in the dark, feeling only a heavy, predatory stare pinning her to the cold concrete.
When a sudden, heartbreaking scent of cedarwood rolled out of the cracked car window, her brain short-circuited.
Why was this terrifying stranger stalking her in the shadows?
Desperate to save her career, Julianna recklessly agreed to fake an engagement with a wealthy heir this weekend.
But she had no idea Aidan had already rigged her company's crisis, and the predator was about to tear her world apart to claim her back.