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 6
Gena used her shoulder to shove open the peeling metal door of the Flushing apartment building. She dragged Claudio, whose face was now the color of ash, into the cramped living room.
The air inside was thick with the smell of cheap beer and greasy fried chicken. Leland, her adoptive father, was sprawled on the stained sofa watching a baseball game. Bulah, her adoptive mother, was sitting at the table counting a small stack of one-dollar bills.
Bulah's head snapped up at the sound of the door. When she saw Gena-the girl she had sold just hours ago-standing there, her face twisted in rage. She opened her mouth to scream.
The scream died in her throat the second her eyes locked onto the man leaning against Gena. Specifically, her eyes locked onto the blood-stained Patek Philippe watch on his wrist.
Leland jumped off the sofa. He wasn't a smart man, but he knew expensive fabric when he saw it. The ruined suit Claudio wore cost more than their apartment.
Gena stared at the two greedy parasites with dead eyes. "This is my boyfriend," she lied smoothly. "We got mugged. He's hurt."
Bulah's expression flipped instantly. A sickeningly sweet, fawning smile stretched across her face. She rubbed her hands together and rushed forward. "Oh, my poor dear! Is your boyfriend okay? Let me help!"
Claudio fought through the agonizing pain in his gut. He maintained his aristocratic posture, giving Bulah a look of absolute disgust. He let out a cold, dismissive "Hmph" through his nose.
Leland reached out to grab Claudio's arm, but Claudio shot him a glare so sharp that Leland yanked his hands back and stood awkwardly in the center of the room.
Gena didn't waste time. She hauled Claudio past them, kicked open the door to her tiny ten-square-foot bedroom, and slammed the door shut, locking it.
Through the thin walls, Gena could hear Bulah and Leland whispering excitedly, already calculating how much money they could extort from their new "son-in-law."
Gena dragged Claudio to the narrow twin bed and pushed him down. She dropped to her knees, pulled a dusty first-aid kit from under the bed, and took out rubbing alcohol, gauze, and scissors.
Claudio leaned against the headboard, his chest rising and falling heavily. He watched this girl-who lived in a slum but moved with the cold precision of an assassin-with growing suspicion.
Gena didn't ask for permission. She took the scissors and, realizing cutting the shirt off overhead would cause him too much pain, cut the ruined, bloody fabric up the side from the hem to the collar, exposing his hard, muscular abdomen and a few faded scars.
Claudio grunted. His abdominal muscles flexed violently as the cold air hit the wound. His hand shot out and gripped Gena's wrist tight.
Their eyes met in the dim light of the desk lamp. Their faces were inches apart. Gena could feel the hot, ragged breath escaping his lips.
Gena yanked her wrist out of his grip. "If you don't want to die of sepsis, hold still, rich boy," she said coldly.
Claudio let his hand drop. He watched in silence as she cleaned the wound, poured the burning alcohol over the torn flesh, and stitched it closed. Her movements weren't those of a trained surgeon, but of a master haute couture designer. She treated his torn flesh like delicate, frayed silk, her fingers executing the precise, tight stitches she had spent years perfecting in her atelier.
When she finished, Gena walked to the tiny bathroom to wash the blood off her hands. She stared at her face in the mirror, digging her nails into her palms to remind herself this wasn't a dream.
She walked back into the bedroom. Claudio had taken over the entire twin bed. His eyes were closed, his breathing steady.
Gena sighed. She grabbed a thin blanket from the closet and prepared to sleep on the hard wooden floor.
Just as she laid the blanket down, a soft knock came from the door. "Gena, sweetie? I brought you two some hot milk," Leland's voice called out. The doorknob rattled.
Gena cursed. To keep the lie intact, she unlocked the door, took the mugs from Leland, and sat on the edge of the bed, pretending to be close to Claudio. Leland's eyes darted around the room greedily before he finally shut the door.
The second the door clicked shut, Claudio's eyes snapped open. His long arm shot out, grabbed Gena by the waist, and yanked her backward.
Gena gasped as she crashed onto the mattress, her back hitting Claudio's broad, solid chest. The cheap bed springs whined loudly under their combined weight.
Claudio pressed a finger to her lips. He pointed to the bottom of the door. Two dark shadows were visible in the crack of light. Bulah and Leland were standing right outside, eavesdropping.
Gena's body went completely stiff. She was forced to lie perfectly still, pressed flush against a man she barely knew, feeling the heavy, rhythmic thud of his heart against her spine.
To sell the performance, Claudio shifted his weight, rolling slightly so he was pressing her into the mattress. He let out a low, deep groan that sounded incredibly suggestive.
The shadows under the door finally shuffled away. But the temperature in the tiny room had skyrocketed. Gena lay trapped in Claudio's arms, her skin burning, as they both waited in tense silence for the sun to rise.
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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.