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 3
Holly Carey POV
The bottle spun again, faster this time. It glided past one person, then another, before slowing to a stop. It pointed directly at Keely Nicholson.
Keely' s face, still a bit red from my earlier jab, paled. She gave a fragile, wavering smile. "Oh, I… I don' t think I have anything interesting on my phone. Just art stuff." Her voice was soft, almost a whisper.
Bridgett, ever the hawk, narrowed her eyes. "What' s the matter, sweetie? Can' t play the game you suggested?" Her tone dripped with suspicion.
Javen' s brow furrowed. He opened his mouth, no doubt to defend Keely again, to make excuses for her. But I was faster. I reached across the table, my hand finding his, gripping it firmly. I leaned in, my voice a soft murmur only he could hear.
"Honey," I purred, my thumb stroking the back of his hand, a public display of affection designed solely for Keely's benefit. "I'm starving. Could you be a dear and order us some more appetizers? Those mini quiches were divine." My smile was saccharine, my eyes locked on his.
Javen hesitated for only a second, his eyes flickering between me and Keely, before he slowly stood up. "Sure, Holly. Whatever you want." He walked towards the catering station, his movements stiff.
Keely's eyes, dark and simmering, landed on me. Her delicate features contorted with barely concealed fury. "I can play," she bit out, her voice no longer fragile, but sharp with a vengeful edge. "I can definitely play." Tears welled in her eyes, but this time, they weren't for show. They were tears of pure hatred.
She snatched up her phone, her fingers flying across the screen. The projector screen, still connected, mirrored her actions. A series of chat screenshots filled the large display.
The room gasped.
The first screenshot was a text exchange between "Javen Baby" and "My Keely."
"Javen Baby: Can't wait to see you tonight, gorgeous. Holly's out of town, finally."
"My Keely: So excited! Miss you so much, my love. Is it safe?"
"Javen Baby: Always. She's so oblivious. Anyway, she thinks I'm at a business dinner. You know how she is, always trusting."
Another friend, shocked into action, read the texts aloud, her voice trembling. "Oh my God... it says, 'She thinks I'm at a business dinner.' And then, 'You know how she is, always trusting.' It's... it's Javen and Keely!"
The last word of my quiche order, just delivered by a passing waiter, echoed in the sudden, horrified silence of the room. The air grew thick with unspoken accusations. I slowly lowered my shaking hand beneath the table, clutching my skirt. My face remained calm, a cold mask.
"Looks like you' re not just a 'friend' s cousin' after all, are you, little homewrecker?" I said, my voice steady, betraying none of the earthquake inside me.
"Holly!" Javen's voice boomed from across the room, his face a mask of panic. He rushed back to the table. "Don't talk to her like that! Be polite!" He forced a strained smile, trying to control the rapidly spiraling situation.
Keely, her face blotchy with tears and anger, shrieked, "I'm not a homewrecker! We were together first! He loved me before he ever even looked at you, Holly! You're just a convenience for his family! A silly little girl with a crush he had to appease!" She pointed a trembling finger at Javen. "Tell them, Javen! Tell them we're true love! Tell them you only married her because your parents threatened to cut you off!"
She swiped the screen again. A photo of her and Javen, arm in arm, celebrating a birthday. The date flashed: three years ago, just a few weeks after that fateful conversation on my birthday. Another photo: Javen placing a delicate necklace around her neck, a travel charm. "He bought me this on our trip to Paris, Holly! He said it was for our future, our adventures together!"
My mind raced. Paris. Javen had told me he was on a solo business trip. He had called me every night, sounding tired, lonely. All lies.
Keely' s next swipe revealed a diamond ring, sparkling magnificently on her finger. "He said he would only buy rings for the woman he truly loved! Did he ever buy you a ring, Holly? Or just a family heirloom when his parents pushed him?"
A cold wave washed over me. Javen had never bought me a ring. My engagement ring was a family heirloom, passed down through the Sullivan women for generations, a symbol of their dynasty. I had thought it was a romantic gesture, a sign of being welcomed into his family. Now I understood. It was just another part of the convenience, another piece of the performance. My heart ached with a deep, crushing pain.
Another swipe. A long chat log. "Javen Baby" comforting "My Keely" all night, after a fight. The date: the same night I had nursed Javen through a "terrible fever," staying up to give him medicine and cool compresses. He had been texting her while I held his hand. I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated disgust.
Keely continued, her voice rising in a triumphant crescendo. "And this! Look at this!" She brought up a photo of a cake. A simple, elegant cake. In the background, partly obscured, was my own reflection, my smiling face from three years ago. It was the cake from my twenty-seventh birthday party, the same night he had proposed his "convenience." He had celebrated with both of us, moving between rooms, between lives, a master of deceit.
Bridgett, beside me, was shaking. Her eyes were red, brimming with tears of rage. She gripped my leg so hard I winced, but I didn't stop her. "That bastard! I' m going to kill him!" she hissed, her voice low and dangerous.
I kept my grip on her leg, my fingers digging into her flesh to hold her back. I took a deep breath, letting the icy calm settle over me. My turn. It was my turn to play.
"Next round," I said, my voice clear and steady, cutting through the stunned silence. "I choose April 15th, three years ago." My eyes locked onto Javen' s. The game wasn't over. It had just begun.
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9.0
On their seventh wedding anniversary, Kiley's billionaire husband, Aden, slid a thick stack of papers across the restaurant table.
It was a petition for divorce.
He was leaving her for his college sweetheart. Thanks to a ruthless prenup, Kiley was being thrown out with absolutely nothing.
That very night, their young son Jules was rushed to the ER, bleeding profusely. The doctor's diagnosis was a death sentence: acute leukemia.
When Kiley frantically called Aden for help, he dismissed the emergency as a simple nosebleed.
"I'm not paying for this. Deal with it," Aden sneered, the sound of his mistress giggling in the background.
To force Kiley to sign the divorce papers, Aden froze all her credit cards and canceled their son's health insurance. He refused to pay a single cent for the chemotherapy.
Even Kiley's adoptive parents sided with the wealthy Aden, calling her a burden and telling her to stop fighting him.
Driven to the brink of despair, with a dying child and no money, Kiley didn't understand how a father could be so monstrous to his own flesh and blood.
Until a news article on a friend's phone caught her eye.
It featured a fallen 9/11 firefighter hero from the ultra-wealthy Whitfield family. The man in the photo looked exactly like Jules, down to the very bone structure.
Kiley's mind raced back to the fertility clinic and the anonymous sperm donor.
Could this dead billionaire hero be her son's biological father?
Looking at her sleeping, fragile boy, Kiley wiped her tears and crushed the divorce papers in her hand.
She was going to find the Whitfield family, save her son, and make Aden lose everything he held dear.
7.5
Ivy is the last heir of the fallen Highmoor Pack. At sixteen, she entered Silvercrest Pack by a blood contract and became the partner of Alpha heir Julian. For three years, she was loyal and silent, but never loved.
In a crisis, Julian abandoned her and chose Selena. Heartbroken, Ivy insisted on ending the contract. She refused Julian's gifts and threats, determined to regain freedom.
When Ivy was attacked, silver-eyed Silas Blackwood saved her. He is the powerful Lycan King, above all Alphas.
Ivy's wolf awakened and recognized Silas as her real fated mate.
Escaping Julian's control, Ivy broke free from her painful past. Protected by the Lycan King, she regained dignity and strength.
The abandoned Luna finally rises, embracing her true destiny and love.
9.3
My father ordered me to marry into the cursed Vaughn family.
Their heirs were rumored to die young from a mysterious genetic agony. My sister Kayden laughed, saying she wasn't going to waste her youth planning a funeral. So, I became the sacrificial lamb.
When I refused, my father slammed his hand on the table and threatened to throw my dead mother's ashes into the city dump.
"You are a struggling actress with no money and no power. You have no choice," he told me coldly.
To make matters worse, my own agent drugged my drink at a business dinner, trying to sell my body to a sleazy investor just to secure project funding.
I was completely cornered, suffocating under the weight of their cruelty. I couldn't understand how my own flesh and blood could be so vicious, treating me like a worthless pawn to be traded and discarded.
But none of them knew that while escaping the drug-laced dinner, I crashed directly into the terrifying Vaughn heir, Algot.
When his glowing crimson eyes locked onto me during a violent episode of his cursed pain, we discovered an impossible truth: my physical touch was the only cure for his agony.
Looking at the dark bruises he accidentally left on my neck, I chose not to run. Instead, I pulled out the private business card he gave me and dialed his number.
"You need me," I whispered to the dangerous billionaire. "And I am going to use you to destroy them all."
9.3
For five years, I was Ashton Miller's invisible partner, his loyal fiancée, pouring my life into building his empire from the shadows. Tonight, the Bronze Deer exhibition, my masterpiece, was finally opening at the Met, a testament to our shared future.
Then, Bianca, a third-tier actress, stepped into the spotlight in *my* custom Vera Wang wedding dress. My blood ran cold as Ashton's arm circled her waist, his whispered words promising to make her the "new queen of the city."
Five years of trust and sacrifice crumbled. I was a blood bag, drained and discarded. When I publicly exposed their lies, Ashton cornered me backstage, his face twisted in fury, threatening to ruin me, to blacklist me forever. I ripped off his engagement ring, tossing it at his chest. "We're done," I said, walking out as his enraged screams echoed.
The man whose empire I secretly built called me a parasite, his mistress feigning tears, painting me as delusional. My guilt vanished, replaced by freezing, absolute hatred for the man who twisted reality to erase my existence.
Standing in the New York rain, I finally pulled out the military-grade encrypted phone hidden for five years. The line clicked open instantly, a low, gravelly voice asking, "Is it you?" Before I could answer, Archer's voice hardened: "Give me the location. I'll be there in ten minutes. Who touched you? I want his life."
9.3
To escape my abusive adoptive mother selling me to a loan shark for $50,000, I rushed to City Hall to marry a blind date.
In a blind panic, I grabbed the wrong man.
He was Julian Cardenas IV, a billionaire CEO who desperately needed a fake wife to dodge a corporate arranged marriage. We signed the papers on the spot.
He became my legal shield. He moved me into his pristine penthouse and secretly protected me from my family's violent threats. When I broke down crying in the freezing cold, he quietly left me hot cocoa. For the first time in my life, I felt safe.
But then, Julian overheard me complaining to my sister about my constantly breaking-down car, groaning that I had to "get rid of this baby four times."
He thought I meant abortions.
The man who was slowly melting my frozen heart instantly turned to ice. He threw away the dinner he had specially bought for me, his eyes filled with absolute disgust and blinding rage.
I was left entirely confused and terrified. Why did my savior suddenly look at me like I was the most repulsive thing in the world? What had I done to deserve this sudden cruelty?
I thought this fake marriage was my ticket out of hell. I didn't realize I had just locked myself in a cage with a furious, ruthless CEO who now wanted to destroy me.
9.2
I was a broke freelance copywriter, tortured for three sleepless nights by an impossible corporate client.
Needing to vent, I typed out a wild, highly inappropriate rant mocking the brand's stiff heritage.
But in my exhausted, sleep-deprived blur, I accidentally sent the massive block of text to the wrong chat.
The recipient wasn't my friend. It was Emerson Beard, the elite, ruthless brand consultant I was supposed to desperately network with.
I waited for the professional execution, terrified of the massive five-figure penalty fee hanging over my head.
Instead, he didn't block me. He critiqued my unhinged draft.
He saved my career through late-night, encrypted phone calls, his deep, commanding voice becoming my only lifeline.
But when I heard a woman with a sultry French accent knocking on his hotel door during our call, my ugly jealousy flared.
I yelled at him and hung up, completely humiliating myself.
I thought I was just a pathetic, annoying workaholic interrupting his romantic getaway.
But he texted back to clarify he was entirely single, and in the process, realized I was actually twenty-five, not a fresh-out-of-school teenager like he had assumed.
The cold, distant mentor instantly vanished.
In his place was a man radiating a raw, aggressive, and predatory energy that bled right through the screen.
"Texting is too inefficient. The full integration requires face-to-face communication."
He dropped a location pin for an ultra-exclusive Manhattan club, demanding I meet him to save my contract.
Wearing a desperately bought emerald silk dress, I pushed open the heavy oak door, stepping right into the trap of a man who had just taken off his leash.