Too Late, Mr. Forbes: Watch Me Shine
For seven years, Hayden Simmons lived in the sprawling Forbes Estate, trading her journalism dreams to pay for her younger sister's ICU bills.
But her sacrifice meant nothing when billionaire August Forbes planned his engagement to Bridget Blake—the same cruel heiress who had maliciously crushed Hayden's mother's only keepsake under her heel while August defended her.
When Hayden finally packed her battered suitcase to leave, August didn't apologize. Instead, he brutally froze the trust account funding her dying sister's life-saving cancer treatments.
He cornered her, pinning her against the wall, and ordered his security to lock her inside the estate to force her submission.
"You don't get to decide when we are done."
He thought she would crawl back to him, crying and begging on her knees. He truly believed he could publicly marry another woman while keeping Hayden trapped in his shadow forever, assuming her desperation made her weak.
Instead of begging, Hayden left his limitless black card and Cartier diamonds on the vanity.
She walked out the iron gates, went straight to his biggest rival's media empire, and published a viral, front-page exposé tearing his pristine merger to shreds.
This time, she wasn't going to hide. She was going to burn his world to the ground.
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Chapter 7
The next evening, Hayden walked out of the Vanguard Media building. Her neck was stiff from staring at spreadsheets all day.
She stepped onto the curb, raising her hand to hail a cab.
A massive, sleek black Maybach glided silently to the curb, stopping inches from her toes. The tinted rear window rolled down smoothly.
Jamie Clark sat in the back seat, illuminated by the soft amber reading light. He wore a charcoal suit, looking perfectly relaxed.
"Get in," Jamie said. It wasn't a request.
Hayden hesitated, her hand gripping the strap of her bag. She'd left the old black suitcase at the motel that morning before work—the room was still paid through the end of the week, and it was safer there than dragging it into the office on her first day. "I'm just going home, Jamie."
"We need to discuss the fallout from your article," Jamie said smoothly. "Get in."
Hayden opened the heavy door and slid onto the plush leather seat. The door pulled itself shut with a soft click. The cabin was incredibly warm.
Jamie reached into the cup holder and handed her a plastic cup. Condensation dripped down the sides. "Iced Americano. No sugar. Just how you used to drink it in the library."
Hayden took the cup. The cold plastic felt grounding against her warm palms. "Thank you."
Jamie's eyes scanned her face, lingering on the dark shadows under her eyes. "You look exhausted. My driver is taking us to a different address. You shouldn't be staying in that motel."
Hayden stiffened. Her spine went rigid against the leather. "How do you know where I'm staying?"
"I own a media empire, Hayden. I know everything," Jamie said, his voice gentle but firm. "The Forbes PR machine is going to come after you for that article. Vanguard protects its assets."
The Maybach didn't head downtown. It pulled into the underground, private garage of a five-star luxury hotel in the Upper East Side.
Jamie handed her a heavy gold keycard. "Top floor. The penthouse is secured. No one comes up without my authorization."
Hayden looked at the card in her hand. She was exhausted. She'd managed to wire the partial payment to the hospital yesterday—an old informant had come through, though it had drained every favor she had left—but Aniya's next treatment cycle was still hanging over her head, and August was hunting her. She looked up at Jamie.
Jamie leaned in slightly. His dark eyes locked onto hers. "Don't be afraid," he whispered. "I've got you."
The tension in Hayden's shoulders finally snapped. She nodded, taking the card.
Across the city, the atmosphere inside the Forbes Tower penthouse office was toxic.
August stood behind his massive mahogany desk. His chest heaved. His tie was ripped loose, hanging crookedly around his neck.
Miles Pryce, his executive assistant, stood near the door, sweating through his shirt.
"The motel is empty, sir," Miles stammered. "She checked out this morning. Her suitcase was gone too. No forwarding address. "
August's hands gripped the edge of the desk. His knuckles were bone-white. "Find her. I don't care what it costs. Pull the city traffic cameras."
"Sir," Miles swallowed hard. "One of our private investigators pulled footage from outside the Vanguard building. She... she got into a car."
August's head snapped up. His eyes were bloodshot, feral. "Whose car?"
"Jamie Clark's, sir. The Maybach is registered to his private fleet."
A sickening sound echoed in the room. August's teeth ground together so hard his jaw looked like it might snap. The vein in his neck bulged.
Jealousy, hot and violent, ripped through his chest. Jamie Clark. His biggest rival.
"Get legal on the phone," August roared, his voice shaking the glass walls. "I want Vanguard Media buried in lawsuits by tomorrow morning. I want them bled dry until they hand her over!"
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7.8
Alexis signed the divorce papers, leaving her with no assets, no alimony, and just the clothes on her back.
To forget her abusive husband Carlos, she got drunk and bought a high-end gigolo for the night with her last 800 dollars.
But the man she slept with wasn't an escort. He was Jarrett Hughes, a ruthless billionaire CEO.
And while she was gone, her ex-husband was busy destroying her entire life.
Carlos framed her with fake photos of her cheating to justify the penniless divorce.
Then came the real nightmare.
Carlos and her own aunt secretly drained her family's corporate accounts, driving her father to jump off a building.
At the hospital, her grieving mother blamed her for the tragedy, violently attacking her in the ER.
To top it off, her cousin Josie—who was secretly sleeping with Carlos—held her father's ashes hostage.
"Crawl on your knees and pick it up, or the ashes go in the river," Josie sneered, throwing cash into the freezing slush.
Stripped of her marriage, her father, and her dignity, Alexis sat bleeding in the snow.
She couldn't understand why the people she loved most had coordinated such a brutal slaughter against her.
But Carlos and Josie made one fatal mistake.
They didn't know the "gigolo" Alexis had accidentally bought was the most powerful man in New York.
Alexis looked at the towering billionaire standing behind her, a vengeful fire burning in her eyes.
"I need you to get my father's ashes back," she said, pulling him into a kiss right in front of her ex-husband. "I don't care what it takes."
9.0
My fiancé, Connor, and I had a one-year pact. I'd work undercover as a junior developer in the company we co-founded, while he, the CEO, built our empire.
The pact ended the day he ordered me to apologize to the woman who was systematically destroying my life.
It happened during his most important investor pitch. He was on video call when he demanded I publicly humiliate myself for his "special guest," Jaden. This was after she'd already scalded my hand with hot coffee and faced zero consequences.
He chose her. In front of everyone, he chose a manipulative bully over our company's integrity, our employees' dignity, and me, his fiancée.
His eyes on the screen demanded my submission.
"Apologize to Jaden. Now."
I took a step forward, held up my burned hand for the camera, and made a call of my own.
"Dad," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "It's time to dissolve the partnership."
8.3
For three years, I hid my identity as a billionaire heiress to build a life with the man I loved. I gave up everything to support Ben's career, believing we were creating a future together from the ground up.
The day before our engagement, I overheard him with his boss, Haylie. He called me a "stepping stone," a poor, simple girl he was using to climb the corporate ladder and get closer to her.
He laughed about our "humble" life and mocked the silver ring on my finger, calling it a necessary prop. He was sleeping with her, taking credit for the multi-million dollar deal I secretly engineered, and saw my love as a naive distraction.
The man I sacrificed my entire world for saw me as less than nothing. My love didn't just die; it turned into ice-cold rage.
So I walked out of his life and straight into the arms of my family's biggest rival.
He offered me a deal I couldn't refuse.
"Marry me," Jaxson Banks said with a smirk. "And together, we'll burn their world to the ground."
8.4
Everly spent four years playing the perfect, accommodating wife to Carson Moss, swallowing every grievance just to secure medical treatments for their sick daughter.
But at a high-society banquet she exhausted herself organizing, Carson's pregnant mistress crashed the party.
The woman shoved an ultrasound of Carson's "real heir" directly into Everly's frail grandfather's face.
The shock triggered a massive heart attack.
Carson refused to use his private helicopter to save the dying old man, choosing to protect his mistress and his company's IPO instead. Her grandfather died on the hospital table.
Instead of remorse, her mother-in-law demanded Everly publicly cover up the murder.
"You will do exactly as I say, or I will freeze every single cent of the medical trust fund paying for your crippled daughter's treatments."
When a battered Everly returned to the estate, she discovered her three-year-old daughter covered in dark bruises and pinch marks. Her in-laws were deliberately torturing her disabled child.
Everly couldn't comprehend how a family could be so utterly heartless. Her only family was murdered, her child was abused, and her husband threw a five-million-dollar check at her face as hush money.
They thought she would just break and quietly disappear.
But when a terrifyingly powerful billionaire unexpectedly blocked Carson's security team from locking her up, Everly finally saw her window.
She grabbed her sleeping daughter and ran out into the freezing storm, making a blood-bound vow to make the entire Moss family bleed.
9.1
For three years, June played the perfect, submissive wife to billionaire Augustus Pruitt, hoping a child would finally warm his cold heart and secure their marriage.
But when she cautiously suggested they have a baby, he looked at her with pure, unfiltered disgust.
"A woman who schemes her way into a marriage doesn't get to carry my blood."
He sneered, leaving immediately to lavish his mistress with diamonds. The nightmare only escalated from there. Augustus bought the one painting June desperately wanted—a piece she had secretly created herself—just to gift it to his mistress. He publicly outbid June at the gallery, mocking her lack of wealth, and left her to collapse in the freezing rain. When the storm gave her a severe 104-degree fever and she nearly died on their staircase, he didn't even stay by her hospital bed. Instead, he sent an assistant with a box of jewelry to buy her silence, then forced her to attend a family dinner where his mother and sister viciously mocked her barren womb and background.
Looking at Augustus, who sat there casually cutting his steak while his family tore her apart, the last flicker of hope in June's chest sputtered and died.
She finally understood that her three years of bleeding devotion were nothing but a pathetic joke to them.
She dropped her silverware, the sharp clatter silencing the entire room. She wasn't going to be their punching bag anymore. It was time to finalize the divorce papers, reclaim her hidden identity as the world-renowned artist 'mr.sun', and make them all regret it.
7.7
Alondra spent three hours making soup for her husband, only to find him at the hospital tenderly holding another woman's hand.
"I'm four weeks pregnant, Gerard," the woman said softly.
Gerard coldly handed Alondra a divorce agreement, claiming their three-year marriage was just a placeholder because this woman had once saved his life.
Heartbroken, Alondra fled in her car, only to realize her brakes had been completely disabled.
She spun out of control and crashed head-on into a massive delivery truck.
As she lay trapped in the mangled wreckage with her ribs crushed and blood filling her mouth, Gerard's black Maybach pulled up to the curb.
He stared at her dying body through the window with a completely blank expression.
He didn't call an ambulance or even open his door.
He simply rolled up his tinted window and drove away into the rain.
A raw, suffocating hatred burned in her chest, hotter than the pain in her shattered bones.
She couldn't understand how the man she had loved and served so devotedly could just coldly watch her die like a piece of trash.
Opening her eyes again, Alondra gasped for air.
She had returned to the exact morning two years ago, right before she was supposed to deliver that pathetic soup.
When Gerard walked in and threatened her with divorce, she didn't cry or beg.
"I agree. Let's divorce," she said calmly, packing her bags to reclaim her true identity as a billionaire heiress.