The Secretary's Fake Rockstar Husband
For twelve years, Cora lived in silent agony, loving her boss Bennett Hodges while serving as his perfect, invisible secretary.
But after one night of drunken despair, she woke up in a stranger's penthouse. The man, an indie musician named Callum, showed her viral paparazzi photos of her ripping his shirt off and demanded a fake marriage to save his career.
Cora immediately agreed, desperately needing a legal shield. Bennett had just ordered her to attend a gala as the personal date of a billionaire known for sending women to the ER. When Cora refused and showed Bennett her marriage certificate, he thought it was a pathetic bluff. To force her submission, Bennett froze her entire savings, permanently denied her hard-earned department transfer, and watched with a smug smile as his sister humiliated Cora for being the "maid's daughter." He wanted to completely destroy her life until she crawled back begging.
Looking at her ruined design portfolio scattered on the floor, Cora felt her heart turn to ice. She had dedicated her entire youth to a man who saw her as nothing more than a piece of furniture that knew its place. How could she have blindly loved such a cruel, controlling monster for so long?
The violent shaking in her hands stopped, replaced by a terrifying calm.
"I have documented every single abusive directive from this office."
She flashed the massive diamond her new fake husband had given her, threatened to burn Bennett's pristine reputation to the ground, and finally walked away.
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Chapter 5
The ceremony room was depressing. It was a small, windowless box with beige walls, a few rows of folding chairs, and a plastic archway decorated with dusty, fake white roses.
An elderly officiant in a black robe stood behind a wooden podium. He pushed his reading glasses up his nose and gestured for them to stand on the taped marks on the carpet.
The officiant began reading the standard vows. His voice was a monotonous drone.
Cora's heart started to pound. The reality of the situation was crashing down on her. She was marrying a man she met yesterday. Her lungs felt tight.
She turned her head to look at Callum. He wasn't looking around the cheap room. He was staring straight at the officiant, his profile sharp and intensely focused. He looked like a man signing a billion-dollar merger, not a fake marriage certificate.
"Please exchange the rings," the officiant said.
Cora froze. Rings. They didn't have rings.
The silence in the room stretched. Outside the open door, Simon was pacing frantically, chewing on his thumbnail.
Callum didn't miss a beat. He reached over to his left hand and slid a simple, unadorned silver band off his pinky finger.
He took Cora's left hand. His thumb brushed over her knuckles. "Just for now," he whispered.
He slid the ring onto her ring finger. His large, warm hand steadied hers, his thumb gently pressing against her trembling knuckles. Time seemed to slow as the metal slid over her skin. It was heavy and ice-cold, sending a sudden, sharp shiver up her arm that settled deep in her chest. As the ring turned slightly past her knuckle, she caught a fleeting glimpse of the inside of the band. There were faint, worn-out letters engraved in the metal, so faded they were completely illegible. A sudden wave of quiet understanding washed over her-this wasn't just a prop; it was a detail that perfectly matched the story of a struggling artist's sentimental keepsake. She swallowed hard, her pulse fluttering against her throat. It fit perfectly.
"By the power vested in me by the State of New York," the officiant droned, "I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride."
Cora's breath hitched. She hadn't thought about this part. She assumed they would just shake hands.
Callum turned to fully face her. He lifted both hands and gently cupped her face. His thumbs rested lightly on her cheekbones.
He leaned down. He stopped when his lips were a fraction of an inch from hers. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her mouth.
"Play along," Callum murmured, his voice a dark velvet whisper. "We have to make this look entirely real." Before her mind could process the shift in his tone, the air between them vanished. A sharp, electric tension coiled in her stomach. She looked up, her breath catching as she met his pitch-black gaze. There was no escape, no room for hesitation.
Cora closed her eyes. Her eyelashes fluttered against her skin.
Callum's mouth covered hers.
It wasn't a fake, polite peck. It was a deep, consuming kiss. His lips were firm, parting hers with a dominant, possessive pressure that sent a shockwave straight to her core. Her knees went weak. Her hands instinctively flew up, gripping his waist to keep from falling.
When he finally pulled away, his eyes were pitch black. Cora was gasping for air, her face burning hot.
The officiant slammed a small wooden gavel onto the podium. "Done."
Midtown Manhattan. The top floor of the Hodges Group headquarters.
Bennett Hodges sat behind a massive, custom-built mahogany desk. His face was a mask of cold fury.
Felicity, the senior administrative assistant, stood rigidly in front of the desk, clutching an iPad to her chest.
"She didn't clock in, sir," Felicity said, her voice trembling slightly. "Cora is a no-show."
Bennett let out a harsh, mocking laugh. He picked up his Montblanc fountain pen and slammed it down onto the desk. The sharp crack echoed in the massive office.
"She's throwing a tantrum," Bennett sneered. He adjusted the cuffs of his bespoke suit jacket, a habit he had whenever he felt the need to assert dominance. "She thinks ignoring the charity gala arrangement and skipping work will force my hand."
"Her phone is completely turned off, Mr. Hodges," Felicity added.
Bennett stood up. He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the city like a god observing ants. A dark, twisted sense of control flared in his chest. Cora was finally trying to fight back. It was pathetic.
"Call payroll," Bennett ordered, not turning around. "Freeze her quarterly performance bonus. Effective immediately."
Felicity gasped softly. "Sir, that's her entire savings for the quarter."
Bennett turned his head, his eyes dead and cold. "Do it. Without that money, she can't make rent in Brooklyn. Give her three days. She'll be crying at my door, begging for her job back."
Felicity nodded quickly and practically ran out of the office.
Bennett walked over to his espresso machine. He poured a shot of black coffee. He took a sip, the bitter liquid burning his throat. He smiled. He had her exactly where he wanted her.
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9.3
Chandler was the secret wife of Avery Osborn, a powerful media heir who kept their marriage hidden to avoid the scandal of her illegitimate birth.
After catching him openly flirting with a rival at a gala, Avery mocked her low status and told her she was nothing without his money.
Instead of crying, Chandler immediately signed a zero-payout divorce agreement, left her wedding ring on his glass table, and walked out.
To numb the pain of her shattered life, she went to a notorious underground club.
Drugged by a bartender, she lost her mind and ended up having a wild night with a handsome stranger she mistook for a high-end male escort.
Panicking the next morning, Chandler transferred her entire life savings of $50,000 to the man to buy his silence, then fled to her corporate job.
But at the afternoon executive meeting, her blood ran cold.
The man she had paid off was standing at the head of the boardroom table. He wasn't a gigolo. He was Brennan George, the ruthless new COO of her company.
Cornering her in the women's restroom, Brennan held up a printed copy of her $50,000 wire transfer.
"Wiring a massive sum of cash to your direct superior after a night together is classified as commercial bribery and solicitation," he whispered dangerously.
Chandler was terrified, realizing she had handed him the exact evidence needed to destroy her career and sue her into bankruptcy.
"Marry me," Brennan demanded coldly. "It's the only way to make this HR problem disappear."
8.8
I discovered I was pregnant with twins from my marriage to Ell Steele, the ruthless CEO of the Steele Group. But he saw me as a gold-digging nobody, unworthy of his heir.
He stormed into our penthouse with his lawyer, slamming down abortion consent forms and a divorce NDA, offering five million to terminate and vanish. "You're not fit to carry my child," he spat, gripping my jaw.
I refused the abortion, signed the zero-payout divorce to keep my company insurance for my dying mom's ICU bills, but stayed on as an admin assistant. Brittany, his mistress, spilled coffee on my reports, got me demoted to the dusty sub-basement sorting old files.
She framed me for attacking her, security dragged me out, slamming me into doorframes that cramped my belly. Trapped in a sabotaged freight elevator, I nearly miscarried in the dark, gasping for air while Ell rescued me—only to find my prenatal pills and rage.
At the gala, I warned Brittany the Angel's Tears necklace—Georgina's flawed design—was cracking. She accused me of theft; Ell ordered me stripped and searched publicly. It snapped anyway, shattering the diamond, but he blamed me, firing and blacklisting me on the spot.
Beaten down, humiliated, body aching from their cruelty—how could my husband, who I once loved, destroy me without a shred of doubt? What made him so blind to my pain?
Dragged from our home in the rain, a black Rolls-Royce Phantom pulled up. The butler bowed: "Madame Aura, your suite awaits." As Ell watched from his Maybach, I initiated the hostile takeover—time to bankrupt them all.
8.4
Kenzie, the former leader of the Aegis Alliance, opened her eyes to find herself reincarnated as a freezing, abandoned infant in a wet cardboard box.
She was rescued from the rain by Devin Ayers, a ruthless billionaire, and rushed to a private hospital, but a deadly threat was already waiting for her.
The ER doctor, Desiree Dillon, approached her with a syringe. Through a sudden burst of telepathy, Kenzie read the doctor's dark thoughts. Desiree wasn't trying to cure her fever. She deliberately ignored the safe dosage, drawing a lethal amount of Diazepam to permanently silence the crying baby and disguise it as sudden infant death.
"This will make it all go away," Desiree smiled gently, the needle glinting as it moved inches from Kenzie's arm.
Trapped in a weak, paralyzed three-month-old body, Kenzie couldn't run, fight, or even speak. She could only watch the poison inch closer.
How could she survive death only to be assassinated in a hospital bed by a corrupt doctor? She used to command armies. The sheer injustice and terror of dying completely helpless in this tiny body ignited a blinding rage inside her.
Refusing to be a victim again, Kenzie pushed her newborn brain to its absolute limit and unleashed a desperate telepathic scream directly into the billionaire's mind.
"Poison! She's trying to kill me!"
Devin, who had been looking away, suddenly froze, his icy gray eyes locking onto the doctor's wrist.
9.5
For twenty years, Krista lived as the perfect daughter of the wealthy Cain family.
But a single DNA report shattered her entire world. Her adoptive parents coldly declared she was just a mistake and immediately replaced her with the true bloodline.
Desperate, she ran through the freezing rain to find her fiancé, only to hear him laughing with his friends.
"Marry a fake? I don't collect the Cain family's second-hand trash."
She slapped him, threw her diamond ring at his chest, and stumbled into a jazz lounge to drown her pain.
Drunk and heartbroken, she accidentally crashed into a stranger, clinging to him like a lifeline, which ended in a wild night in a luxury penthouse.
When she woke up, she realized the man she had ravaged was Jasper Stone, the most ruthless, cold-blooded billionaire on Wall Street.
At the same time, her phone lit up with notifications. Her bank accounts were frozen, and the Cain family had just released a brutal public statement permanently cutting her off.
She was completely abandoned, stripped of her home, her family, and her dignity in a single night. Why was twenty years of loyalty erased so easily?
But instead of kicking her out, Jasper tossed a prenuptial agreement onto the bed.
"Pay off your debt with marriage. Stay, and you are the untouchable Mrs. Stone."
Looking at the contract, Krista wiped her tears, put on bold red lipstick, and signed her name.
7.1
For six years, I played the pathetic, wolfless Omega to honor the dying wish of the late Alpha who protected me.
But on our sixth anniversary, my fated mate, Alpha Kian, was photographed looking tenderly at his mistress.
When he finally stormed into our penthouse, he didn't apologize. Instead, he threw a fifty-million-dollar check onto the bed.
"Take the money and accept my rejection obediently, or I'll show you what happens when you defy an Alpha."
To force my compliance, he terminated all trade agreements with my best friend's pack, pushing them to the brink of bankruptcy. He accused me of blackmailing his grandfather into our marriage, entirely blind to the fact that his beloved mistress was actually a banished, feral Rogue.
I had spent six years swallowing my pride, drinking toxic herbs to suppress my true White Wolf scent, and enduring his absolute disgust just to keep his pack safe.
Why did I bleed for a man who despised my very existence?
I looked at the blood money, and the suffocating sorrow in my chest was instantly replaced by white-hot fury.
I didn't take a single cent. Instead, I submitted the rejection papers myself, dropped my pathetic disguise, and walked out into the freezing rain.
A towering warrior with a black umbrella dropped to one knee before me in the mud.
It was time to stop hiding and return home as the billionaire heir of the legendary Silvermoon Pack.
8.1
I skipped my final lab review in Geneva and endured a fourteen-hour flight to surprise my husband for our fourth wedding anniversary.
Instead, looking through the window of our beachfront estate, I saw him playing the perfect, loving father to a "tragic widow's" daughter, kissing the widow with practiced, casual intimacy.
Fleeing in pure panic, I got into a horrific car crash.
Waking up in the VIP hospital room, I kept my eyes shut and heard my husband talking to his best friend right beside my bed.
"She's just a party girl who knows how to swipe a black card. I only play the part because I need her father's proxy vote for the IPO."
"Every time I have to touch her in bed, it feels like a corporate obligation. It makes me sick."
Later, even my own father demanded I step down from my company role and publicly welcome the mistress, just to protect the family's investment in the upcoming ten-billion-dollar IPO.
Four years of marriage and quiet humiliations, all reduced to a calculated lie. They all thought I was just a brainless, hysterical socialite who could be easily manipulated and discarded.
They didn't know that the core anti-aging algorithm his entire empire relied on was secretly built by me.
I calmly pulled out my phone and texted my divorce lawyer.
"I want him bankrupt. On the day his company rings the bell, I am going to burn his entire life to the ground."