Thirty Years, A Billionaire's Lie
For thirty years, I loved Javen Sullivan. Our engagement was the perfect merger of two corporate empires, and I thought my lifelong dream of being with him had finally come true.
But at our party, I overheard him talking to his best man. Our entire relationship was a lie, a "business deal" to make his parents happy and protect his real girlfriend, Keely.
He said my love was just a childish crush he was indulging. That I was too familiar, too stable, and he could never fall in love with me.
The worst part was the car crash three years ago. The one that caused my miscarriage and left me barren. He had always called it a tragic accident.
But a video played during a party game revealed the truth. He crashed because he swerved to save her when she ran into the road to confront him. He sacrificed our baby to protect his affair.
As the room fell silent, I picked up the bottle for the next round.
"My turn," I said, my voice like ice.
The game had just begun.
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Chapter 2
Holly Carey POV
Javen stepped into the ballroom, flashing his dazzling smile. He walked straight towards me, oblivious to the fact I had heard everything. He leaned in, his voice a low rumble.
"Holly, my head is killing me," he whined, nudging his face against my neck. It was a familiar, intimate gesture, one he' d used countless times to solicit my sympathy and attention. It felt utterly disgusting now. His breath on my skin made my stomach churn.
"You two are just too cute!" someone shouted from the crowd of laughing friends. "Perfect couple, truly!"
My head snapped up, my eyes darting across the room. The compliments, once sweet, now grated on my nerves. I forced a smile, a mask to hide the turmoil raging inside. Gently, I pushed Javen away, creating a subtle distance between us.
"Where is Darryl?" I asked, my voice a carefully modulated monotone, changing the subject away from us.
Javen straightened up, rubbing his temples. "He went to pick up his cousin, Keely. They should be here any minute."
Just as he finished speaking, Darryl walked in. He led a slender woman in a white dress, her dark hair cascading around delicate features. She looked fragile, almost ethereal. Keely Nicholson. The "sensitive artist."
"Darryl, she' s beautiful!" someone exclaimed.
"Easy there, guys," Darryl said, a hint of awkwardness in his voice. "She' s my cousin. Don' t tease her too much. She' s a bit shy." He guided Keely to an empty seat next to Javen.
My gaze met hers across the room. Her eyes, wide and moist, weren't on Darryl. They were fixed on Javen, a possessive intensity I instantly recognized. Javen, ever so subtly, shifted his body away from me, towards her. A dull ache throbbed in my chest, a familiar pain now laced with a bitter resentment. It wasn't just sadness anymore; it was a burning anger that threatened to consume me.
Keely' s gaze, unblinking, remained on Javen, a blatant disregard for my presence. She looked at him like he was the only person in the room.
My best friend, Bridgett Guerrero, was beside me. She caught my eye, her expression sharp, noticing the shift in my demeanor. Bridgett, with her fiery spirit and unwavering loyalty, always saw through my calm exterior. She didn' t hesitate.
"Someone needs to learn some manners," Bridgett said, her voice cutting through the chatter, her eyes directly on Keely. "Staring is rude."
Keely' s face flushed. She stammered, "I… I have a boyfriend." Her voice was soft, tremulous, designed to evoke sympathy.
Javen frowned, his charm instantly gone, replaced by a sharp edge. "Bridgett, that' s enough. She' s just a friend. You' re being rude." His tone was accusatory.
Bridgett' s eyes flashed. She lunged forward, her hand balled into a fist. "You manipulative little-!"
I grabbed Bridgett' s arm, pulling her back. My voice was low, laced with a cold control. "Stop it, Bridgett. It' s not worth it." I turned my gaze to Javen, my eyes devoid of warmth. "Javen, you want to tell me why you' re suddenly defending 'Darryl' s cousin' so fiercely? Or should I just assume?"
Javen froze. His eyes flickered, avoiding my gaze, then quickly returned to me, a strained smile on his face. "Holly, I' m sorry. I didn' t mean anything by it. Just trying to keep the peace."
I watched Keely. Her eyes, now brimming with tears, were fixed on Javen, a silent plea for protection. She looked like a wounded bird, delicate and helpless. The performance was flawless.
Darryl, sensing the escalating tension, clapped his hands together. "Okay, okay, this is a party! Let' s play a game! Phone roulette! Everyone puts their phone in the middle. We spin a bottle. Whoever it points to, has to share a random photo from their gallery. Last three months, picked by a random number generator."
A few relieved murmurs and laughter broke the silence. The bottle spun, wobbling to a stop directly in front of me.
"Holly first!" someone yelled.
I pressed my lips together. My phone screen, connected to the large projector screen, flashed to life. A random photo from three months ago appeared. It was a collage: a smiling selfie of Javen and me on a beach vacation, followed by a screenshot of a food delivery order.
Bridgett laughed, a little too loudly. "Look at you two lovebirds! That vacation was adorable."
Someone else peered at the screen. "What' s that food order, Javen? Late-night cravings?" A suggestive chuckle rippled through the group.
Javen' s eyes darted to Keely, a flicker of panic in them. "No, no, it was just… cold medicine. Holly had a cold." He forced a laugh, his voice tight.
A cold, malicious amusement washed over me. I looked at Javen, then at Keely, whose face was a mask of confusion. My mouth curved into a chilling smile.
"No, Javen, it wasn' t cold medicine," I said, my voice sweet, but with an underlying steel. "It was after our first time. You said you were so sore, you couldn' t move. So I ordered you pain relief and a heat pack. Remember? You needed a few days to recover."
The room fell silent. Javen' s face turned bright red, a mixture of anger and humiliation. Keely' s head dropped, her shoulders shaking, as if she were crying. It was a small victory, but it felt good.
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9.5
The disgraced daughter of the Patton family is back from the countryside.At the news, everyone spurned her with contempt!
A good-for-nothing young lady, a crude village wench, a vicious devil...
Until one day--The world-famous life-saving medical sovereign is her.The enigmatic top forensic specialist is her.The grandmaster hacker hunted across the globe is also her.
One hidden identity of the young miss came to light after another.Shocked and dumbfounded, the crowd fell to their knees to beg for forgiveness.
In an instant, Evie was cornered by the mysterious powerhouse.Hartwell's voice lured and mesmerized:"Darling, you have countless secret identities. Would you mind taking on one more, being my wife!"
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.
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.
9.5
Jennifer, a fiercely independent entrepreneur, never imagined that running her company would put her in the orbit of Joseph, a reclusive billionaire with a dangerous agenda. Their professional clashes ignite a forbidden attraction, drawing them into a passionate affair that threatens to unravel everything Jennifer has built. As corporate sabotage, hidden heirs, and dark secrets from Joseph's past begin to surface, Jennifer's world spirals into a web of betrayal, desire, and moral peril. In a story where power and love collide, nothing is as it seems and every choice could be lethal.
7.9
On our third wedding anniversary, my husband skipped our celebration to comfort his fragile adopted sister.
When I went to look for him in the middle of the night, I saw them intimately kissing in bed.
"She is a spoiled heiress who cannot live without me. Let her wait."
He scoffed to his sister, calling me a pathetic, clingy dog waiting for a scrap of attention.
For three years, I gave up my career as a top surgeon and managed his estate like a compliant housewife.
I swallowed my pride because my dying father desperately needed an experimental drug controlled by my husband's company.
But when my father accidentally overheard how my husband humiliated me, the guilt gave him a severe heart attack.
Waking up in the ICU, my father grabbed my hand and ordered me to divorce him.
When I finally handed my husband the divorce papers on the street, he flew into a violent rage.
"If you file these, I will cut off your father's medicine and leave you with nothing!"
He threatened me, thinking I would drop to my knees and beg for his mercy.
He didn't know that my personal trust fund was the only thing keeping his entire over-leveraged company from going bankrupt.
I smiled calmly and executed the secret clause to instantly withdraw my two hundred million dollars.
This time, I chose to burn his family's empire to the ground.
8.4
Harlene was locked out of her own family's estate in a freezing blizzard, still trembling from a severe panic attack.
Her mother delivered a cold ultimatum through a security screen: attend her golden-child sister Estella's award gala, or lose her medical funds.
To make it worse, her ex-fiancé, Dennis, had chimed in to call her embarrassing and pathetic.
At the gala, Harlene was treated like a diseased outcast.
Dennis fiercely protected his new lover, Jailyn—the very woman who had stolen Harlene's designs.
But the ultimate betrayal came when Estella flaunted a silver-embroidered antique dress.
It was Harlene's grandmother's dress, her only pure memory of love, handed over to the enemy as a trophy.
When Harlene demanded answers, her own father slapped her across the face in front of the press, just to protect their pristine image.
They had stolen her career, her fiancé, and her inheritance, all while branding her the crazy, unstable daughter.
The sheer hypocrisy and cruelty finally severed the last thread of her sanity.
Why should she play the silent victim while they played the perfect family?
Instead of crying, Harlene smiled.
She drew a hidden dagger, slashed the antique dress to ribbons, and dragged Estella and Jailyn to the center stage.
Standing under the blinding spotlight with a bloody blade, she looked out at the terrified crowd.
"The Beaumont family is done hiding," she declared into the microphone. "Tonight, the curtain falls."