Trapped By The Ruthless Billionaire Brother
I agreed to be Joshua Stanley's fake fiancée for fifty thousand dollars a day.
My only job was to act rebellious and piss off his elite family so he could avoid an arranged marriage.
But the moment we arrived at his family estate, my blood ran cold.
His volatile older brother, Brodie, stepped out of a sports car.
He was the exact nightmare I had been desperately hiding from for the past six months.
To hide my face, I recklessly threw my arms around Joshua and kissed him in front of everyone.
But that only ignited Brodie's violent, terrifying rage.
He tore up the pristine lawn with his car, and later that night, he picked the lock to my en-suite bathroom.
He cornered me naked against the shower glass, his cold fingers wrapping around my throat.
"You think you can run from me?"
He whispered, forcing a brutal, punishing kiss on my lips.
I was shaking with pure terror.
I only took this job to make enough money to disappear forever.
How did I end up walking right back into the cage of the devil who humiliated me?
Why wouldn't he just let me go?
But as he tried to break me again, my fear turned into burning rage.
I bit down hard on his lip until I tasted blood, shoved him back, and slapped him fiercely across the face.
"Have you forgotten who I am now?"
I stared right into his dark, predatory eyes.
"I am your brother's fiancée."
Chapters
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Chapter 1
The Hamptons flew past the tinted windows of the Bentley, a blur of manicured green and impossibly large houses. Avery Hopkins took a slow, deliberate breath, the kind she always took before the curtain went up.
She turned her gaze from the scenery to the man beside her. Joshua Stanley.
He sat perfectly straight, his attention locked on the stock market data scrolling across a tablet propped on his knees. It was as if she wasn't there. As if he was alone in the cool, leather-scented air of the car.
A small, private smile touched Avery's lips. The youngest Stanley son was even more tightly wound than she'd anticipated.
Showtime.
She shifted, letting her body lean into his space. The scent of her perfume, expensive and intentionally bold, cut through the sterile air he'd wrapped around himself.
Joshua's shoulder went rigid. His eyes didn't move from the screen.
The corner of Avery's mouth lifted. She crossed one leg over the other, the silk of her dress whispering as the hemline slid a few crucial inches up her thigh.
Her hand moved next. Her fingers, light as a spider's thread, brushed against a barely-there wrinkle on the sharp crease of his suit trousers. The movement was slow, deliberate, a question asked without words.
His entire body jolted, a sharp, involuntary tremor that was impossible to hide.
Finally, his head snapped up. His eyes, a startling ice-blue, were filled with a clear warning.
"What are you doing?"
Avery blinked, a picture of innocence. "Getting into character, Mr. Stanley. We're almost there. We should probably look like we're in love."
Her fingers didn't retreat. They moved, bolder now, inching upward until they rested lightly on his thigh.
Through the fine wool of his trousers, she felt the muscle underneath bunch into a knot of solid steel.
Joshua's breathing hitched. His Adam's apple bobbed in a single, sharp swallow. He tried to focus on the numbers on his screen, but her touch was a brand, a point of heat burning through the layers of fabric and composure.
"My character is the 'rebellious girlfriend'," Avery murmured, her voice low, her breath ghosting near his ear. "This seems like something she would do, don't you think?"
His hand shot out, clamping around her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong, tight enough to make her wince.
"The agreement didn't say you could touch me." His voice was rough, a raw, frayed sound laced with a fury he was barely containing.
Avery's eyes drifted to the tips of his ears. They were bright red. And just like that, she found it. The crack in his perfect, icy facade. A flicker of an idea, a tantalizing possibility, sparked in her mind. Could it be that the heir was a virgin to this kind of game? She filed the thought away; a potential weakness to be exploited.
She didn't pull back. Instead, her free hand came up, her fingers tracing the silk of his tie, right over the spot where his heart was hammering against his ribs. A frantic, trapped rhythm.
"Oh? But if you're this stiff, anyone will be able to tell we're acting." She met his gaze, a direct challenge.
Joshua's eyes darkened. He looked from her defiant eyes to her lips, so close to his. For a second, his mind went completely blank. The control he prided himself on, the discipline that defined his entire life, was slipping.
He snatched his hand back from her wrist as if he'd been burned, shoving himself against the opposite door, creating as much distance as the backseat would allow.
"Keep your distance, Ms. Hopkins," he ordered, his voice a low growl, a desperate attempt to reclaim his authority.
Avery pulled her hands back, a slow smile spreading across her face. She had found his weakness.
She settled back into her seat, her tone light and easy. "Alright, whatever you say, boss. But don't blame me when your family sees right through you."
At the mention of his family, the storm clouds gathered in Joshua's eyes again.
The car slowed, gliding to a smooth stop before a set of magnificent iron gates.
Joshua straightened the tie Avery had disturbed, taking a deep, fortifying breath. He was ready for battle.
Avery turned to her reflection in the window, applying another layer of deep red lipstick, her eyes sharp and focused. The stage was set.
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7.6
Johana walked half a mile through a brutal blizzard just to secure a tutoring job with the elite Black family.
But the very night she was hired, she received a terrifying call from the ER—her quiet roommate, Hazelle, had been drugged and severely traumatized at a Hamptons party.
When Johana rushed to the hospital, she didn't find the police. Instead, she found a team of ruthless billionaires erasing the crime.
Leading them was Dalton Black, the cold, arrogant older brother of her new student.
Within minutes, Dalton's fixers wiped the hospital's security footage, deleted all digital evidence, and forcefully transferred Hazelle to a locked private psychiatric facility.
"We are ensuring her privacy."
Dalton's voice was devoid of emotion, treating the horrific assault like a minor PR glitch.
His friends mocked Johana's powerlessness, while Dalton authorized a blank check to pay for the private ward, effectively burying the scandal and buying their silence.
Johana stood in the sterile hallway, trembling with a mix of despair and absolute rage.
How could they destroy an innocent girl's life and simply pay to make it disappear? Why was the truth so easily erased by money?
She had no wealth, no connections, and no proof, but she refused to be a victim of their cover-up.
Staring directly into Dalton's intimidating, icy blue eyes, Johana made a vow.
"I don't want your money. I will find out what you monsters did to her."
She thought the billionaire heir would crush her on the spot, but instead, he watched her walk away and quietly ordered his assistant: "Find out everything about Johana Neal."
7.6
I am the illegitimate, mute daughter of the wealthy Owen family, kept hidden in the attic like a shameful secret.
To save his failing company, my father decided to sell me off to a repulsive, predatory investor named Grossman.
At the family dinner, Grossman's sweaty hands roamed my bare legs while my half-sister Kaleigh intentionally spilled red wine on my dress, laughing as she watched me suffer.
When I grabbed a steak knife to defend myself, my father slammed his fist on the table.
"Sit down, or I will cut off the maintenance payments for your mother's grave."
My stepmother and sister sneered, treating me like a piece of meat meant to be sacrificed for their luxury. I was starved, locked away, and treated worse than a stray dog, all while my family paraded their high-society status to the world.
I couldn't understand why they hated me so deeply, or who really ordered the hit that killed my mother twenty years ago. The police reports were buried, and I was entirely powerless, trapped in a house of monsters.
But they didn't know that the night before, I had accidentally stumbled into the secret life of Burleigh Livingston—the ruthless, supposedly paralyzed billionaire who was faking his madness.
When Burleigh suddenly crashed our family dinner and threw a limitless Black Card on the table to outbid Grossman and buy me for the night, I didn't hesitate.
I grabbed the handles of his wheelchair, accepted his twisted deal, and prepared to use the devil himself to tear my family apart.
7.0
Erika was a disgraced ex-wife, struggling to survive in a freezing Brooklyn slum to raise her five-year-old son.
But her billionaire ex-husband, Doyle Morgan, wasn't done destroying her. He orchestrated a cruel trap, forcing her to deliver a custom sapphire brooch to his new mistress, just to watch her get humiliated and severely burned by scalding coffee.
When Erika fought back and refused to beg, Doyle's punishment was swift. He demoted her to scrubbing executive toilets with raw, bleeding hands. Starved, exhausted, and pushed to the absolute brink of organ failure, she finally collapsed lifelessly in front of him in Central Park.
For five years, she had endured his relentless torment and the world's mockery just to keep her child safe. Doyle despised her, convinced her son was the filthy proof of her cheating with another man.
He didn't know the boy was actually the child of his deceased older brother, conceived in a dark, drugged hotel room. Why couldn't he just leave them alone to suffer in peace?
But when Erika woke up in the VIP hospital ward, the nightmare took a terrifying turn. Doyle pinned her weak wrists to the mattress, his eyes burning with a dark, possessive obsession. He had figured out the truth about the boy's bloodline.
"He's a Morgan. He has my family's blood in his veins, and I will not allow my nephew to be raised in a slum. If you can't care for him, I will. From this moment on, you and that boy belong to me. And you are never leaving my sight again."
8.0
My wedding was tomorrow. I was a crisis counselor who had finally found peace with my loving fiancé, Dexter, and my best friend, Barbara.
A late-night call about a forced marriage led me to a hotel penthouse, where I found them naked in bed together.
It was all a cruel, three-year "savior game." They were bored heirs, and I was their project. They destroyed my career, caused me to lose our baby, and put my mother in the hospital.
They forced me to be a bridesmaid at their wedding-the one that should have been mine.
In front of hundreds of guests, they exposed my traumatic past and then tried to marry me off to a drunken stranger as a joke.
As I stood there, broken, a text from Barbara arrived.
"Your mother saw the livestream. She had a heart attack. She's not going to make it."
With nothing left, I ran to the 20th-floor window and jumped. They thought they had erased me. But my death was just the beginning.
9.1
Isabella thought she had the perfect life as the wealthy Conrad family heiress, complete with a loving childhood sweetheart.
Until she woke up drugged in a hotel bed, blinded by paparazzi flashes, as her fiancé pointed a shaking finger at her, screaming that she had drugged and seduced him.
"She threatened to ruin Kaylie if I didn't sleep with her!" he yelled to the cameras.
Kaylie, the newly discovered biological daughter, stood in the doorway weeping perfectly.
Within hours, Isabella's adoptive father publicly severed all ties, froze her assets, and kicked her out into a violent thunderstorm.
Fleeing the city, her car's brakes suddenly failed.
As Isabella lay dying in the crushed metal of her Porsche, Kaylie strolled up with a pristine umbrella and a genuine smile.
"The mechanic was quite expensive, but cutting the brake lines was worth every penny," Kaylie laughed.
Isabella coughed up blood, her heart turning to ice. Her twenty years of family, love, and loyalty had been nothing but a cruel joke, destroyed by a calculated frame-up.
She died suffocating on absolute betrayal and unadulterated hatred.
Then, she gasped for air.
She wasn't dead. She was sitting in the driver's seat of her car, staring at her flawless reflection in the rearview mirror.
It was exactly four years ago—the day the real heiress first arrived.
A chilling smirk curled the corner of Isabella's mouth. This time, she was going to rip their lives apart from the inside out.
9.2
The tip of my fountain pen hovered over the divorce agreement. Across the mahogany desk, my billionaire husband, Chandler, looked at me with cold, dead eyes, waiting for me to sign my life away.
What he didn't know was that a phantom pain was still tearing through my chest—the memory of cold steel sliding between my ribs.
In my previous life, I foolishly signed these papers, burning down my marriage for my lover, Chace, and my sweet stepsister, Annalise.
Only to be left to bleed to death in a dark alley while they laughed, planning to steal my son and Chandler's fortune.
Reborn at the exact moment of my ruin, I tore the divorce agreement to shreds.
I desperately tried to make amends, even joining a reality show with my traumatized six-year-old son to prove I had changed.
But Chace and Annalise wouldn't let me go. Seeing my public redemption, they panicked and released a hyper-realistic deepfake sex tape of me and Chace.
They demanded $300 million from Chandler, framing my newfound love for my family as an elaborate, sickening long con.
Chandler burst into the house, throwing the blackmail papers at my feet.
His eyes were filled with broken agony and absolute disgust, fully believing that my tears, my apologies to our son, and my desperate kisses were all just a performance for money.
He thought I was the exact same monster who had destroyed him once before.
The old me would have screamed, cried, and played right into their hands.
Instead, I calmly stepped forward, gently smoothed the collar of his suit jacket, and looked into his tortured eyes.
"I'm not going to explain the video, or the money."
"I'm not going to ask for your forgiveness."
"I am asking you for one thing, Chandler."
"You have to trust me."