The Runaway Bride's Secret Billionaire Protector
I sat before the vanity in a lace dress that cost more than a mid-sized sedan, but to me, it felt like a burial shroud. I was the sacrifice being offered to the Ortega family, a human payment for my father’s debts and failing company.
When I tried to refuse, my stepmother forced a glass of drugged champagne into my hand and threatened to destroy me. She whispered that if I didn't marry the "monster" Cooper Ortega, she’d release psychiatric records proving I was a mental patient who hallucinated a child that never existed.
I escaped by jumping out of a speeding limo, tumbling into a ditch and losing everything but my life. A mysterious, scarred driver in a beat-up Ford saved me, but when I limped back home, my father threw me out like trash. My own sister stood in the foyer, wearing my engagement ring and clinging to Lance, the man who had promised to protect me.
"You're a sinking ship, Fran," my father sneered before locking the gates. Then I found the recording—my stepmother’s voice complaining that the doctor wanted more money because my baby had cried before they took him away. My son wasn't stillborn; he was stolen by the people I called family.
I was broken, homeless, and hunted, with only a "poor" driver named Cooper to help me. I didn't know he was actually the billionaire monster I had jumped out of a car to avoid, but I moved into his cramped studio anyway.
I’m starting a war with nothing but a cracked phone and a mother’s rage. They took my life and they took my son, so now I’m going to take everything they have left.
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Chapter 7
Lance scrambled up from the floor. His face was red, a vein bulging in his neck.
"You're dead," he spat at Francesca. "I'll sue you for everything you don't have."
He grabbed Dollie, who was still wailing about her mascara, and dragged her toward the exit.
"Not yet," Francesca said.
She ran after them.
"Fran!" Anna yelled, but Francesca was already weaving through the crowd.
She burst out the back door into the alleyway.
Lance was there, trying to wipe a stain off his jacket. Dollie was by the car, checking her reflection in the window.
"Lance!"
He turned. "What? Haven't you done enough?"
"Why?" Francesca asked. She stood in the rain, shivering. "Five years, Lance. Was any of it real?"
Lance stopped wiping his jacket. He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time that night. He let out a sigh, dropping the act.
"The first year? Maybe," he said. He took out a pack of cigarettes. "But then you got... sad. After the 'miscarriage'. You were depressing, Fran. And your dad made it clear: the money follows the winner. You were losing."
"So you just switched sisters? Like buying a new car?"
"It's business," Lance said, lighting the cigarette. "Dollie is fun. She's uncomplicated. And she comes with a seat on the board."
"I loved you," Francesca whispered.
"That's your problem," Lance said, blowing smoke in her face. "You love too hard. It's pathetic."
Something snapped inside Francesca.
She stepped forward and slapped him.
It wasn't a movie slap. It was a palm-heel strike to his jaw, fueled by five years of grief.
Crack.
Lance stumbled back, dropping his cigarette. He touched his lip. It was bleeding.
His eyes went dark.
"You stupid whore," he growled.
He lunged at her. He grabbed her wrist, twisting it.
Francesca cried out.
"I'm going to teach you a lesson," Lance hissed, raising his other hand.
"I wouldn't do that."
A voice from the shadows. Deep. Gravelly.
Cooper stepped out from the rear exit door, closing it softly behind him. He was wearing a leather jacket now, collar up. He looked like trouble.
Lance laughed. "Who the hell is this? A hobo?"
"Let her go," Cooper said. He walked closer. His movements were fluid, predatory.
"Get lost, man," Lance said. "This is a domestic dispute."
"It looks like assault to me," Cooper said.
He didn't wait for a response. He moved.
One second he was three feet away. The next, he had Lance's finger in one hand and his wrist in the other.
He twisted.
Lance screamed. He dropped to his knees.
"My finger! You broke my finger!"
Cooper released him, shoving him into a pile of wet cardboard boxes.
"Touch her again," Cooper said, his voice dropping to a whisper that carried more threat than a scream, "and I'll break the other nine."
Lance scrambled up, cradling his hand. He looked at Cooper with pure terror. He didn't know who this was, but he knew violence when he saw it.
"You're crazy! Both of you!"
Lance ran toward his car, leaving Dollie standing there, mouth open.
Cooper turned to Francesca.
She was leaning against the brick wall, sliding down slowly. The fight had drained the last of her energy.
"You," she breathed.
"Me," Cooper said.
"Are you following me?"
Cooper took off his leather jacket. He draped it over her shoulders. It was heavy, warm, and smelled of him.
"I had a drop-off nearby," he lied. "Saw a lady in distress."
"You broke his finger," she said, looking at his hands.
"He tripped," Cooper said.
Francesca looked up at him. The rain matted his hair to his forehead. He looked dangerous. And he was the safest thing she had ever known.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don't mention it," Cooper said. "You still owe me money. Can't have you dying on me."
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8.2
In a kingdom ruled by shadow magic, elemental fire wielders were slaughtered decades ago after a devastating rebellion.
Christabel is the last surviving Flamebound.
Prince William is the heir to the throne that ordered her people's execution.
When an ancient magic awakens one older than both flame and shadow they are forced into an alliance that neither of them wants.
But their powers react when they touch.
And prophecy whispers that only together can they save the kingdom...
Or burn it down.
8.0
I sat at a table for two in the center of Le Coucou, clutching a gift box that had cost me two months of savings. It was our three-year anniversary, and I was waiting for Gavin to finally ask the big question.
But when the heavy oak doors opened, Gavin didn't walk toward me with a ring. He walked in with a polished blonde heiress tucked under his arm, her hand resting protectively over a small baby bump.
"This is Tiffany Stone. My fiancée," he said, his voice devoid of any warmth. He didn't apologize for being late or for the three years we'd spent together. Instead, he pulled out a checkbook, scribbled a number, and slid a ten-thousand-dollar check across the white tablecloth.
"Consider it severance for your time," he added, as Tiffany mocked my cheap drugstore dress. "Don't contact me again. Tiffany doesn't need the stress." I was the entertainment for the entire restaurant—the pathetic girl dumped for a better model. By the time I walked out into the rain, I had lost my boyfriend, my home, and the funding for my secret medical research project.
I was an orphan with no safety net, facing an eviction notice and a ruined career. I had given Gavin everything, and he had discarded me like a broken tool. The injustice burned in my chest, a hot, sharp rage that replaced my tears.
Desperate and freezing, I ducked into a coffee shop where I met Colton Bentley, a reclusive billionaire in a wheelchair. After I defended him from a cruel date, he offered me a contract: a marriage of convenience and a seven-figure payment to act as his shield. I signed the papers that night, ready to use his wealth to rebuild my life. But as I watched my new husband navigate his penthouse, I noticed his "paralyzed" legs tense with a strength that shouldn't exist.
9.3
For three years, Evelyn Harper was the perfect invisible wife, brilliant architect who anonymously poured revolutionary designs into her cold CEO husband Alexander Knight's company, building his billion-dollar empire while being dismissed as useless by him and his family.
When he hands her divorce papers expecting tears, she signs with a calm smile and walks away taking back her genius.
What Alexander never knew: every award-winning project, every stock surge, every headline praising his vision was hers.
Now, as Elara Voss, Evelyn returns stronger than ever surrounded by powerful men who truly see her, winning landmark contracts, and watching rivals tremble at her name.
Alexander wakes to regret too late: his crumbling empire, the secret twins he never knew existed, the woman he lost.
He begs for forgiveness, offers everything to start over, even kneels publicly in humiliation.
But Evelyn demands justice: full credit, billions in royalties, and control.
As old enemies scheme violently out of jealousy and his world falls, Alexander fights to prove change, while Evelyn builds an untouchable new empire on her terms.
Co-parenting begins. Old sparks flicker. Forgiveness debates rage in her heart.
Will she allow slow reconciliation for their brilliant twins?
Or close the door forever on the man who once owned her world?
7.3
Sign the papers and disappear. You were never one of us."
Those were the last words Seraphina Cole heard before the Ashford dynasty erased her existence.
They took her marriage.
They stole her unborn child with lies and cruelty.
They branded her unstable, unworthy, disposable, then dumped her into the shadows with nothing but grief and shame.
The Ashfords thought she broke.
They never bothered to check if she survived.
Three years later, Seraphina returns under a new name Rina Vale, silent partner of the Vale Consortium, a trillion-naira global empire that controls shipping lanes, tech patents, and political favors. Cold. Calculated. Untouchable.
This time, she isn't asking for love.
She's collecting debts.
Her ex-husband wants forgiveness when he realizes who she is? She'll bankrupt his legacy.
Her former mother-in-law prays for mercy? Rina will expose the secrets buried beneath her charity foundations.
The family that murdered her child with negligence and lies? She'll tear them apart boardroom by boardroom.
And standing beside her is Lucien Drake, a dangerous, brilliant billionaire with his own vendetta against the elite. He doesn't want to save her.
He wants to help her burn them all.
She didn't come back to heal.
She came back to conquer.
7.7
Kiara Watson had lived an unhappy life with her family, always overshadowed by her sister, Cloe, who stole all the attention with her beauty.
However, Kiara's fate took an unexpected turn when, by mistake and out of obligation, she found herself linked to Archie Villarreal, the man who caused a sensation in the most powerful family, the Villarreals.
A dirty trick by Cloe awakened the fury of billionaire Archie. For Kiara, being Cloe's twin became her greatest sin.
She received cruel punishment from Archie, who would do everything in his power to keep her from escaping, creating a stormy and passionate game of love and vehemence.
9.8
To secure a drama-free marriage, cold billionaire Lucas Lancaster demands a wife who wants convenience, not love. Heartbroken Sophia Bennett fits his criteria perfectly. After their wedding, Lucas flies to Europe, keeping their relationship strictly professional. But distance changes everything. When a tipsy Sophia accidentally mutters her ex’s name during a rare, passionate embrace, the ice prince completely loses his cool. Consumed by jealousy, Lucas begs her to forget the past and love him. In this captivating billionaire romance novel, he is the first to fall—and he falls hard.