The Tycoon's Contract With A Vicious Beauty
My husband Hubert threw a stack of faked, compromising photos at my bleeding face.
He crushed my hand under his leather shoe and threatened our five-year-old son's life, forcing me to sign away my company shares and full custody.
Then, my younger sister Ara walked into the room, stepping carefully to avoid my blood, and kissed my husband deeply.
"You really are a stupid stepping stone, Amelie. I paid a lot of money to have those photos photoshopped."
She sneered at me, admitting she had orchestrated everything just to steal my fashion brand and my life.
Before I could fight back, Ara injected a paralytic directly into my neck.
They stuffed me into a duffel bag and dumped me in the freezing mud of a secluded hunting estate.
Ara waved a forged suicide note in my face, claiming I had drowned myself out of shame, before giving her bodyguard a sharp nod.
Three massive, starving mastiffs were released from their cages.
As the dogs tore through my flesh and crushed my bones, Hubert watched my bloody massacre live on a video call.
In my final seconds of agonizing pain, a blinding hatred locked into my dying brain.
I didn't understand why the two people I loved most would torture me so ruthlessly, but I made a venomous vow.
If I ever come back, I will make you both drown in your own blood.
Opening my eyes again, I wasn't dead in the mud.
I had awakened in the young body of a girl named Gena, and fate had just dropped the perfect weapon for my revenge right into my lap: Hubert's ruthless billionaire uncle.
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Chapter 1
Amelie's fingers trembled as she tried to push her upper body off the Persian rug. Warm blood dripped from her forehead, blurring her vision and matting her eyelashes together. Her heart hammered against her ribs so violently it made her chest ache.
Hubert took a step forward. He wore a custom Armani suit, perfectly pressed. His polished Oxford shoe came down hard on Amelie's right hand.
Amelie let out a muffled groan. Her muscles contracted, instinctively trying to pull her hand back, but Hubert shifted his weight, pressing the hard leather sole deeper into her knuckles. The bones in her hand ground together.
Hubert reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a stack of high-definition photographs and threw them directly at Amelie's pale face.
The glossy papers scattered across the expensive rug. Amelie squinted through the blood. The images showed her in highly compromising, intimate positions with a man she had never seen before. Her brain flatlined. The air left her lungs.
"This is a lie," Amelie rasped, shaking her head frantically. "Hubert, someone faked these. You have to believe me."
Hubert bent down and grabbed a fistful of her dark hair. He yanked her head up, forcing her to look at him. There was no warmth in his eyes. Only cold, calculated disgust.
He pulled his phone from his pocket with his free hand and tapped the screen. He shoved it in front of her face. It was a live surveillance feed. Hubert Jr. , their five-year-old son, was running across the playground at a top-tier private kindergarten with full-day care and tight security. A large man in a black suit stood just a few feet away, watching the boy.
Amelie's pupils dilated. Her breathing turned into rapid, shallow gasps. She reached out with her free hand and grabbed the fabric of Hubert's sleeve, her knuckles turning white.
"Sign the divorce papers," Hubert said, his voice completely flat. "Give up your shares in the company and full custody of the boy. If you don't, the man on that screen will put Hubert Jr. in a car, and you will never see him again."
Amelie's stomach dropped to the floor. The psychological dam broke, and hot tears spilled over her cheeks, mixing with the blood. Her throat tightened so much she couldn't speak. She just nodded frantically.
Hubert let go of her hair. He dropped a thick stack of legal documents and a Montblanc pen onto the floor next to her bruised hand.
Amelie picked up the heavy pen. Her fingers shook so badly she could barely grip the metal. She pressed the nib to the paper and signed her name, the ink bleeding into the page.
The heavy oak double doors of the penthouse pushed open. Ara Wilkinson walked into the living room wearing a tailored Chanel suit.
Amelie looked up. A desperate spark of hope flared in her chest at the sight of her younger sister. She reached her bloody hand out toward Ara.
Ara walked right past her, stepping carefully to avoid letting Amelie's blood touch her designer heels.
Ara walked straight to Hubert and threw her arms around his neck. Hubert pulled her in, and they locked lips in a deep, hungry kiss right in front of Amelie.
Amelie's reality shattered. A violent cramp seized her stomach, making her double over. Her fingernails dug into the hardwood floor, scratching the polish.
Ara pulled back from the kiss and crouched down. She used a finger adorned with a massive pigeon-blood ruby ring to tilt Amelie's chin up.
"You really are a stupid stepping stone, Amelie," Ara sneered. "I paid a lot of money to have those photos photoshopped. They look incredibly real, don't they?"
A surge of pure, blinding rage hit Amelie's bloodstream. She lunged forward, trying to grab Ara's throat.
Hubert's foot shot out and kicked Amelie squarely in the stomach. The force sent her flying backward. Her spine slammed into the sharp edge of the glass coffee table.
The impact knocked the wind out of her. Amelie bit down on her lip to keep from screaming, tasting the sharp, metallic flavor of her own blood.
Hubert adjusted his tie, smoothing the silk. "Clean this up," he told Ara, not even looking at Amelie. He turned and walked toward the door.
"Hubert!" Amelie screamed, her vocal cords tearing. "Hubert, please!"
The heavy door clicked shut.
Ara stood up. She reached into her leather handbag and pulled out a syringe filled with a clear liquid. She walked slowly toward Amelie.
Amelie scrambled backward, her hands slipping on her own blood. She pushed herself across the floor until her back hit the cold glass of the floor-to-ceiling window. There was nowhere left to go.
Ara lunged and grabbed Amelie by the throat, pinning her against the glass. She jammed the needle into the vein on Amelie's neck and pushed the plunger down.
A freezing sensation rushed through Amelie's veins. Her limbs grew heavy, instantly losing all motor function. Dark spots danced at the edges of her vision.
"Bring the bag," Ara commanded.
Two large bodyguards stepped into the room. They unfolded a massive black canvas duffel bag. Amelie's eyes rolled back as the men grabbed her limp arms and legs, shoving her body into the dark canvas.
Ara turned on her heel and walked toward the private elevator leading to the garage. The bodyguards zipped the bag shut, plunging Amelie into total darkness, and carried her out.
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8.4
For twenty years, I lived as the adopted daughter of the wealthy Hill family.
But today, they forced me to sign a severance agreement and kicked me out so their precious biological daughter, Malia, could marry my fiancé.
To ruin me completely, they framed me for stealing Malia's engagement bracelet, threatening me with prison.
I calmly exposed the "sapphire" as cheap glass, then rolled up my sleeves to show the reporters my scarred, punctured arms.
For two decades, I wasn't a daughter. I was Malia's living blood and bone marrow bank.
They drained my health to keep her alive, even ordering doctors to ignore my failing organs just so she could attend a gala.
"Take this million dollars and shut your mouth," my adoptive father sneered, throwing a check at my feet.
My ex-fiancé looked at me with disgust, and Malia screamed that I was a crazy, vindictive liar.
They had stolen my life and my health, yet they still looked down on me like I was garbage.
I ripped the check into pieces and threw it in their faces.
Just as they ordered the butler to drag me out, a group of men in black suits shattered the chaos.
The heir of the untouchable Montgomery dynasty stepped through the door, ignoring the Hills' fawning, and handed me a DNA report.
I wasn't a disposable blood bag. I was the long-lost true heiress of old New York money.
And now, I was going to take back everything they stole from me.
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."
7.5
I was tied to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, the heavy stench of gasoline suffocating me.
Ten steps away, a masked kidnapper slammed a loaded Glock onto a metal barrel and forced my husband, Alvie, to make a sick choice.
"The wife or the mistress. You only get to walk out of here with one."
Alvie didn't even blink.
He walked straight toward the dark corner where his mistress, Gail, was crying. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, shielding her, and guided her toward the exit.
He never looked back. He didn't cast a single glance over his shoulder. To him, I was already a corpse, just trash left on the pavement.
The kidnapper laughed and tossed a lighter onto the soaked concrete floor.
A wall of ghostly blue fire erupted instantly, swallowing me whole. The absolute agony of my skin blistering and melting shattered my sanity.
In my last moments, consumed by the inferno, I couldn't understand how the man I had loved and served so submissively could leave me to burn alive. My heartbreak quickly morphed into a hatred far deeper than the flames.
Then, I violently jerked awake.
I shot up from the bed, gasping for cold air, my hands frantically checking my perfectly smooth, unburned skin.
I looked at the desk clock. I had returned to exactly four years ago, the morning of the annual Gallagher family gathering.
The fragile, naive wife died in that warehouse. This time, I am going to destroy them both.
8.9
For fifteen years, I thought my mother had died in a tragic fire.
Then the wealthy Ross family's butler knocked on my door, revealing she was alive—locked away in the psychiatric annex of their massive estate.
I rushed into the lion's den to save her, only to run straight into Graydon Ross, the ruthless billionaire CEO.
He looked at my cheap clothes with pure disgust, convinced I was a bottom-feeding scammer trying to extort his family.
"Throw this bitch out into the snow."
He ordered his armed guards to drag me away, completely cutting off my only chance to see my mentally broken mother.
But as he violently grabbed my collar to throw me out, I saw a custom eagle-head cufflink hanging from his coat pocket.
My blood turned to ice, and a wave of paralyzing terror crashed over me.
Eight months ago, I accidentally slept with a masked stranger in a pitch-black hotel room and fled before dawn.
That cufflink belonged to him.
The man who took my virginity—the Wall Street tyrant I had been hiding from—was Graydon Ross.
If he ever found out I was that woman, he would literally destroy my life.
But to save my mother, I couldn't be thrown out.
When his grandmother suddenly appeared, I dropped to the floor, exposed the dark bruises Graydon had just left on my wrists, and sobbed.
I framed the billionaire for assault to secure my place in the mansion, forcing myself to live right next door to the monster whose bed I had fled.
8.7
"Sign the papers and leave. My true love is coming home, and this house no longer has room for a placeholder like you."
For three years, Lia Leighton was the perfect, invisible wife to Julian Cohen-the cold-blooded titan of the Port Harcourt business world. She was the one who nursed his wounds, managed his scandals, and endured his family's cruelty, all while he treated her like a piece of furniture he'd forgotten he bought.
But on their third anniversary, instead of a celebration, Julian hands her a cold ultimatum. His "White Moonlight"-the woman who broke his heart years ago-has returned, and Lia is being discarded like yesterday's news.
Julian expects Lia to beg. He expects her to cry for the meager settlement he's tossed at her feet. After all, she's just a penniless orphan he rescued from the gutter... right?
He couldn't be more wrong.
Without a single tear, Lia signs the papers, leaves her wedding ring in the dust, and vanishes.
When she resurfaces, she isn't the quiet wallflower Julian threw away. She is the glamorous, untouchable CEO of the Leighton Global Empire-the very woman who now holds Julian's entire financial future in her hands.
As Julian's world begins to crumble, he realizes too late that he didn't just lose a wife; he lost the most powerful woman in the city. But when he finally falls to his knees to beg for mercy, Lia only offers a cold, devastating smile.
"Mr. Cohen, I don't negotiate with exes. Stay in your lane."
9.4
For three years, I was nothing but a ghost in my marriage, a pathetic stand-in forced to dress exactly like my billionaire husband's dead fiancée.
On our third anniversary, he left me to face armed intruders in our remote estate alone.
When I called him begging for help, he mocked me for faking a home invasion for attention and hung up to comfort his mistress.
The nightmare only got worse. The next night, my stepmother and half-sister drugged me at a family gala, trying to ruin me by handing me over to a sleazy producer.
I escaped into a pitch-black hotel suite, only to be overpowered by a drugged stranger in the dark.
Traumatized and covered in bruises, I secretly took an emergency contraceptive pill.
When my husband found the crumpled receipt on the floor, he didn't ask if I was hurt or where the violent marks on my neck came from.
"You cheap whore. You broke the loyalty contract."
He drafted the divorce papers immediately, stripping me of every penny, and ordered me thrown onto the street.
He thought without his wealth, I wouldn't survive a day in New York and would come crawling back to him like a dog.
I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly signed the papers, dropped my diamond ring on his glass table, and walked out.
What my arrogant ex-husband didn't know was that before I became his obedient shadow, I was "Lan"—the legendary, anonymous fashion designer the entire world was desperately looking for.
Now, I was taking back my empire.