Tipping The Billionaire: His Runaway Lover
Alida caught her boyfriend in bed with another woman, only to discover a frat house contract on his nightstand.
Her love and submission had been nothing but a fifty-thousand-dollar bet.
She extorted the check from him to pay for her dying father's surgery, then went to a club to drink away the brutal betrayal.
But her malicious stepsister secretly drugged her drink, planning to sell her to an underground thug to pay off a debt.
Burning from the chemical mix and running on pure terror, Alida escaped into a VIP hallway and crashed straight into a wall of solid muscle.
Desperate and out of her mind, she slapped the fifty-thousand-dollar check against the handsome stranger's chest.
"I'm buying you for the night."
She had no idea the man she just bought was Jax Vaughn, the ruthless, untouchable billionaire tyrant of Wall Street.
The next morning, Alida fled the penthouse, leaving behind a single crumpled hundred-dollar bill and a humiliating note.
"Service fee. Average skills. Like an uncivilized beast."
Seven years later, Alida returned to New York, holding the hand of her genius seven-year-old son who possessed the exact same pitch-black eyes as the billionaire.
She thought her past was buried forever, safely hidden away from the monster she had insulted.
But her father's mounting medical bills forced her to accept a high-paying executive interview at Vaughn Enterprises.
In the middle of the grand lobby, she stepped right into a familiar, terrifying chest.
Jax Vaughn's iron grip locked onto her wrist, recognizing her scent instantly, his eyes burning with seven years of obsessive, murderous rage.
"You."
Chapters
Share
Chapter 2
The bass from the club's speakers vibrated through the soles of Alida's shoes, rattling her teeth.
She pushed through the sweaty, grinding bodies on the dance floor. The flashing neon lights sliced through the darkness, making her nausea worse.
She reached the sticky surface of the bar and slammed her hand down.
"Tequila. Neat," she ordered.
The bartender slid a shot glass toward her. Alida picked it up and threw the burning liquid down her throat. It felt like swallowing broken glass, but the heat spreading in her stomach was a welcome distraction from the ice in her chest.
She rested her forehead against the cool edge of the bar. A sob finally tore its way up her throat.
"Well, well. If it isn't my perfect little stepsister."
Alida stiffened. She turned her head. Belva slid onto the stool next to her, a sickly sweet smile plastered on her heavily contoured face. Belva pushed a napkin toward her.
"Rough night?" Belva asked.
"Go away, Belva," Alida rasped, shoving the napkin back.
Belva didn't move. "Just trying to be family. Have another drink. It helps."
Alida turned her head toward the dance floor, ignoring her.
In that split second, Belva's hand hovered over Alida's glass. A tiny white pill dropped into the remaining drops of tequila, dissolving instantly. "It's a custom chemical mix," Belva thought to herself, a cruel, triumphant glint in her eyes. "In just a few minutes, she won't just be compliant; she'll be a desperate, burning mess, begging for anyone to touch her."
"Come on," Belva urged, signaling the bartender for a refill. She pushed the freshly topped glass into Alida's hand. "To moving on."
Alida was too exhausted to fight. She wanted the pain to stop. She brought the glass to her lips and drained it.
Less than two minutes later, the club began to spin.
The neon lights smeared into long, blinding streaks of color. A sudden, unnatural heat flared in the pit of Alida's stomach, radiating outward and making her skin flush. Her heart raced, pumping a dizzying, euphoric fog into her brain. Alida's legs turned to jelly. The air grew thick, suffocating her.
She swayed, her grip on the bar slipping.
Belva's arm wrapped tightly around her waist, catching her before she hit the floor. "I've got you," Belva whispered, her voice dripping with malice.
Belva half-dragged, half-carried Alida away from the crowded bar, pushing through a heavy black door that led to the back alley hallway.
The music became a muffled thud. The hallway was dimly lit and smelled of stale urine.
A massive man with a thick neck and a cigar clamped between his teeth stood by the exit door. Mortimer.
Belva shoved Alida's limp body toward him. "Here. Now we're even on the loan."
Mortimer tossed a thick manila envelope at Belva's chest. He reached out, his rough, calloused hand grabbing Alida's jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek.
The repulsive touch sent a violent shockwave through Alida's nervous system. The sheer terror sliced through the chemical fog in her brain. The drug hadn't fully paralyzed her muscles yet; instead, it had sent her nervous system into a hypersensitive overdrive.
She was being sold.
Alida bit down hard on her own tongue. The sharp, metallic taste of copper flooded her mouth. The intense pain acted like a defibrillator to her brain.
As Mortimer bent down to throw her over his shoulder, Alida lifted her right leg. She drove the stiletto heel of her shoe down with all her remaining strength, crushing it directly into Mortimer's instep.
Bones crunched.
Mortimer let out a guttural roar, dropping his cigar and stumbling backward, clutching his foot.
Alida didn't look back. She shoved the heavy fire door open and stumbled back into the club, veering wildly into the VIP corridor.
"Grab her!" Belva shrieked from behind.
Footsteps pounded against the concrete.
The drug was fully taking over now. Alida's blood felt like boiling lava. Her vision was completely black at the edges. She was running on pure, blind instinct.
She rounded a corner.
A wall of men in black suits was walking toward her. In the center walked Jax Vaughn.
Alida couldn't stop. She crashed headfirst into a chest that felt like a slab of solid granite.
The impact knocked the breath out of her. She started to fall, but two massive hands clamped onto her waist like iron vices, holding her upright.
Jax looked down. His jaw ticked in annoyance. He hated being touched.
Alida buried her face into the crisp fabric of his suit. The scent of expensive cologne and clean male skin filled her lungs. It grounded her.
She grabbed his lapels, her knuckles turning white. She tilted her head up. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, swimming with tears.
"Help me," she breathed, her voice a broken whisper.
Belva and Mortimer skidded around the corner.
Instantly, Jax's bodyguards drew their weapons, the metallic clicks echoing in the hallway. Mortimer froze, his face draining of color at the sight of the guns.
Jax didn't look at the pursuers. He stared down at the woman trembling against his chest. Her skin was flushed a deep, unnatural red.
A dark, dangerous spark ignited in Jax's black eyes. He didn't push her away.
You may also like
9.7
I ran through the freezing rain, desperate to escape the Pennington estate. My adoptive family had raised me for one purpose: to be sold off as a bargaining chip in a wealthy arranged marriage.
But before I could reach the highway, I was cornered. Not just by my family's cruel guards, but by Hollis Wall—a terrifying, ruthless billionaire who snapped my tormentor's wrist and dragged me into his car. He didn't want a ransom. He threw a prenuptial agreement in my lap.
I thought he was insane until he took a scalpel to his own arm, and a burning agony ripped across my flawless skin. Because of a near-drowning accident three years ago, our nervous systems were linked. Every time I bled, he felt the agony. He locked me in his fortress to keep me safe, but when I finally escaped back to my adoptive parents, they didn't protect me. Instead, my adoptive father smiled and showed me a live video of my biological father on life support, a guard's hand hovering over the plug.
"You will marry Douglas Cherry tomorrow, or your father dies," he sneered.
My own family was willing to murder my only real flesh and blood just to secure their wealth. I collapsed onto the cold marble floor, my heart crushed in a vice of absolute, suffocating despair.
"I'll marry him," I sobbed, surrendering to the darkness.
But miles away, in his dark study, the ruthless Hollis Wall violently collapsed to the floor, gasping for air as my severe panic attack bled directly into his chest. Our twisted bond was killing him, and I knew he would tear the city apart to find me.
8.4
Cari Butler woke up in a damp, smelly dorm room, realizing she had transmigrated into the body of a disgraced fake daughter who had just been kicked out of a wealthy family.
Before she could even process her reality, the real daughter's friends kicked her door open to mock her, flaunting a custom Tiffany necklace that supposedly cost a mere eighty cents.
Cari thought they were crazy, until she saw the news: a top Manhattan mansion had just sold for a record-breaking $3,500.
The entire world's currency value had shrunk by ten thousand times!
This meant the original owner's bank balance of $854,000 gave Cari the purchasing power of eight and a half billion dollars.
But a mysterious system froze her funds, forcing her to work demeaning gig jobs to unlock the money bit by bit.
While working as a hotel server for twenty cents a day, she caught her ex-boyfriend kissing up to the real daughter, mocking Cari for being a desperate beggar.
Even her snobby roommates laughed at her, claiming she couldn't afford a ten-cent iPhone.
What truly angered Cari wasn't the humiliation, but receiving a five-cent transfer from her poor biological brother, who was starving himself just to keep her fed.
Yet, the system strictly forbade her from giving her unlocked billions directly to her family.
Looking at the restrictive system and the arrogant elites who thought they owned the city, Cari's eyes turned icy cold.
"If I can't just hand them the cash,"
Cari sneered, pulling out her phone to outright buy the luxury hotel and fire everyone who wronged her.
"Then I will just buy the entire world and place it at their feet."
9.0
Once a pampered princess, Alaina now clutched a deactivated American Express card, staring out at Central Park. Her family’s fortune was gone, her life, over.
Her family's Hamptons estate, a four-generation legacy, was seized by Dyer Capital. The name hit her: Hardin Dyer, the poor boy she’d once scorned, had returned.
Hardin marched in, serving a divorce agreement. He'd orchestrated her family's downfall for revenge, giving her 24 hours to vacate his property. Penniless, her father faced prison, needing $50 million. Her mother forced her to beg Hardin, who sneered, offering the money for her body. Alaina ripped up the contract.
Hours later, her father had a heart attack. Desperate, she became "Lexi," a club girl enduring humiliation. In the Viper Room, Hardin's lackeys demanded she lick whiskey off his shoe for $10,000. Hardin watched. Outside, her brother Ashton's hand was threatened for a $3 million debt. Spirit shattered, Alaina returned, knelt on broken glass, offering to sign. But Hardin declared her family "dead," offering $10 million for her body, commanding her to use her mouth.
In a furious act of defiance, Alaina threw whiskey in his face, snatched the check, and fled. Yet, when he finally took her, a searing, foreign pain and blood on the sheets revealed a shocking truth: he had never touched her three years ago. Why had he let her believe such a monstrous lie?
8.8
On the eve of my glamorous Waldorf Astoria wedding, I went to the penthouse to surprise my fiancé, Hugh, wearing my late mother's heirloom pearls.
Instead, I heard my stepsister's familiar laugh and caught them tangled together on the sofa.
Through the cracked door, I heard Hugh slur that he was only marrying me for my family's financial backing.
"As soon as I secure my inheritance, she's the first thing I'm getting rid of," he promised her.
Floy giggled and asked for my mother's pearl necklace, my only legacy. Hugh agreed without hesitation, mocking my dead mother's naivety and my desperate dreams of building a family.
Every sweet word he had ever said was a lie, a knife he had been patiently sliding between my ribs for years. They planned to strip me of everything the moment I signed the prenup.
I didn't cry or scream. The crushing weight of their betrayal hollowed me out, leaving behind a terrifying, absolute calm.
Why should I be the one to lose everything while they stole my future and insulted my mother's memory?
I calmly walked down the hall, set the prenuptial agreement on fire, and vanished into the rainy night.
If Hugh wanted to play dirty for the Maxwell empire, I would play for keeps.
Using a forgotten, century-old family covenant, I was going to marry Hugh's uncle-the comatose, paralyzed war hero, Fleet Maxwell.
I would return not as a naive bride, but as their worst nightmare: his aunt, and the new lady of the house.
9.3
He was supposed to be my brother. The cold CEO everyone feared. The man who controlled the entire country's business world.
But one night, he looked at me and calmly destroyed everything I thought I knew.
"We're getting married."
I laughed, but he didn't.
Now every door in my life is closing, every choice is disappearing, and the one man I'm not supposed to love refuses to let me go.
Because to Lucien Hale, this was never forbidden. It was inevitable.
And the most terrifying part? The closer I get to him, the harder it becomes to run.
9.5
Banished for seven years.
Aubree returns to the Hopkins family, only to be despised and cast aside like trash.
Her twin brother bribes her to leave. Her stepsister frames her as a monster.
Her arrogant fiancé wants her ruined, caged, and erased forever.
They think she's a helpless country outcast.
They don't know she's the dark web's most ruthless hacker and strategist.
She doesn't beg. She doesn't cry.
She strikes a deal with Wall Street's deadliest tycoon.
Crush the Prescotts. Ruin her enemies.
She's back to take everything they stole.