TRAPPED WITH THE DEVIL: MY FATHER'S BEST FRIEND
Note: This story contains mature themes including dubious consent, age gap (20+ years), possessive behavior, and explicit content. Reader discretion is advised.
It all started with a kiss. It all started with one reckless night at a masquerade club where I kissed a stranger and ran.
"Open for me."
It wasn't a request. Dominic Sterling didn't make requests. He gave orders.
Kneeling between my legs, the man who owned my father's debt-and now my life-wasn't looking at me like a guardian.
He was looking at me like a predator.
"You were smiling at him," Dominic growled, his thumb tracing my lower lip. "You were smiling at that boy with this mouth."
"He was just being nice," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"He doesn't know you, Aria," Dominic snarled, his hand sliding up my thigh. "He doesn't know that every breath you take belongs to me."
He leaned in, his grey eyes darkening to black.
"And tonight? I'm going to remind you exactly who owns you."
A night where a masked stranger kissed me like he was claiming his soul mate, then disappeared with my mother's bracelet-the only thing I had left of her.
That's the night I wish I could forget... but can never forget.
A night I thought was just a mistake.
Until he showed up at my apartment the next morning.
With my father.
Aria Vance is a broke nursing student with $4.12 in her bank account and a tuition deadline she can't meet. She thinks her life is over.
She's wrong. It's just beginning.
When her father's gambling debt of four million dollars threatens to destroy them both, a savior appears.
Dominic Sterling.
Ruthless billionaire. King of New York. Her father's oldest, best friend.
And the man who kissed her at that club.
Dominic pays the debt in full. But his generosity comes with a terrifying price tag: Aria.
Under the guise of "protecting" her from loan sharks, Dominic forces Aria to move into his high-security fortress in the Hamptons.
But safety is a lie.
His rules are absolute:
She never leaves the estate without his guards
She is forbidden from dating anyone else
She answers to him, and him alone
Trapped in a golden cage with a man twenty years her senior, Aria realizes that Dominic didn't just pay for her safety.
He paid for her submission.
She should run. She should be terrified.
But the way he looks at her makes her want to do the one thing she promised never to do:
Surrender.
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Chapter 1
The bass thudded against my chest, vibrating through bone and blood, loud enough to drown out my thoughts.
I should not be here.
I should be hunched over my desk, memorizing drug classifications for my Pharmacology final. I should be worrying about tuition deadlines and my bank balance that read $4.12.
Instead, I was standing in a masquerade club in downtown Manhattan, wearing a borrowed red dress and a black lace mask, pretending I was someone else.
Just for one night.
"Relax," Lila shouted into my ear, laughing as she tugged me toward the bar. "You look like you are about to pass out."
"I might," I muttered. "If my father finds out I am here-"
"He will not," she cut in. "Tonight, you are not a nursing student with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Tonight, you are just a girl."
A lie.
But I let myself believe it.
I took the drink she pressed into my hand and swallowed, the burn of alcohol settling low in my stomach. The lights were low, the air thick with perfume and sweat and temptation.
And then-
A hand closed around my waist.
Not tentative. Not unsure.
Claiming.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
"You are trembling," a man murmured behind me.
I stiffened. "Excuse me?"
His hand remained at my waist, unyielding.
"Your pulse," he continued calmly. "It is racing."
I scoffed. "You have a habit of grabbing strangers and diagnosing them?"
His thumb pressed lightly into my waist.
"Only the interesting ones."
"You should let go of me," I whispered.
He hummed. "You should leave."
I did not.
My body betrayed me, staying exactly where it was.
"I am not scared," I told him.
He softly chuckled close to my ear "You should be."
He turned me slowly, deliberately, until I was facing him.
He wore a black mask. Minimal. Elegant. It hid his face, but not his presence. He was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in an immaculate suit that screamed money and power.
Danger.
I felt it instinctively.
His gaze swept over me, unhurried, as if he were memorizing me.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"I do not give my name to strangers," I replied, lifting my chin.
His eyes darkened with interest. "Good. Neither do I."
His hand remained at my waist, thumb pressing lightly into my skin, grounding me there. The music faded. The crowd disappeared.
There was only him.
"You should walk away," I said, though my body leaned closer.
"And yet," he murmured, dipping his head, "you have not."
The space between us vanished.
He kissed me.
Not softly. Not sweetly.
It was a kiss that stole breath and sense, that branded rather than asked. His hand slid into my hair, tilting my head back as if he already knew exactly how I would fit against him.
My fingers fisted in his jacket before I could stop myself.
God.
When he pulled back, my lips were swollen, my knees weak.
His forehead rested briefly against mine. "This is a mistake," he said quietly.
"Yes," I whispered.
But neither of us moved.
Reality slammed back into me all at once.
I tore myself from his grip.
"I cannot," I said breathlessly. "I should not have-"
I turned and ran.
I pushed through the crowd, ignoring the calls behind me, my heart pounding as I fled toward the exit. I did not stop until I was outside, gulping in cold night air.
My hands shook as I reached up and tore off my mask.
Only then did I realize-
My bracelet was gone.
The thin gold chain my mother had left me.
Panic bloomed.
I spun back toward the club-
And froze.
The man stood just inside the entrance, watching me.
In his hand was my bracelet.
Our eyes locked.
He did not chase me.
He simply smiled.
And I knew, with terrifying certainty, that this was not over.
I went home that night telling myself it was just a kiss.
Just a mistake.
I had no idea I had just met the man who would ruin my life.
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8.8
I woke up in a penthouse suite at the Pierre with a hangover from hell and a naked man who looked like he'd been carved from marble. Thinking he was a high-end escort I couldn't afford, I left my last hundred dollars and a petty note on the nightstand.
"Service was acceptable. Keep the change."
But when I rushed home to check on my dying father, I found the locks changed and my boyfriend, Chad, draped over my stepsister on the landing. My stepmother, Meredith, didn't even look up from her coffee as she handed me a legal folder.
She told me to sign away my inheritance or she'd stop paying for my father's life support. The hospital called seconds later, demanding fifty thousand dollars by the end of the day, or they'd pull the plug.
Meredith had already arranged my "payment": a dinner with Boris Gorsky, a predator who collected young women like trophies. I was being sold to a monster to keep my father alive, standing in a thrift-store dress while my family laughed at my ruin.
I didn't understand how my life had collapsed in twelve hours, or how my own blood could put a price tag on a man's life. I sat at that restaurant trembling, waiting for the man who would buy my soul.
Then the man from the hotel walked in. It wasn't Gorsky; it was August Sanders, the billionaire CEO of a media empire, and he was holding my hundred-dollar bill.
He didn't want an apology; he wanted a contract wife for a year. He slid a confirmation for a five-hundred-thousand-dollar hospital deposit across the table and handed me a fountain pen.
"Welcome to the firm, Mrs. Sanders."
I signed the paper with a shaking hand, knowing I was trading my freedom for my father's life. But as August handed me his black card, I realized I finally had the weapon I needed to destroy the people who thought I was nothing.
7.1
Belle Triston, a pediatrician with a brilliant career faked her relationship with a billionaire. She didn't like Gabrielle Rolland's arrogance at all, but she had to become a surrogate mother to give birth to Gabrielle's offspring in order to fulfill her mother's last wishes before she died.
Their relationship was complicated because Gabrielle was married to a famous actress, Fleura Delacour. Belle and Gabrielle made an agreement that their relationship would only be professional. But unexpected things happened. Fleura's affair with her co-star left a deep wound in Gabrielle's heart. When his heart was wounded and bleeding, Belle was there to heal his wounds. Their relationship was no longer as simple as they thought when hearts started playing in it. When Gabrielle realized that he loved Belle and wanted to be with her, Fleura came and begged him for a second chance. Gabrielle had to choose, while his heart couldn't choose. Belle knew Fleura's biggest secret and she wouldn't just keep quiet. She would fight for her baby and her love for Gabrielle.
8.4
Twenty-four-year-old Rain Hart has fought to be seen all her life. Getting admitted into the prestigious Katherine Knight Fashion Academy with nothing but talent was a sign to her that things were finally falling into place in her life... until she encountered Adrian Knight, the billionaire CEO. She never planned to fall for the most dangerous man in it.
Adrian Knight is power, control, and temptation wrapped in a suit, and completely off-limits. He is everything Rain should avoid: married, connected to the Academy. But stolen glances turn into secret meetings, and before Rain can stop herself, she's trapped in an affair that could destroy them both.
Because Adrian doesn't belong to her. He belongs to a world built on dominance, legacy... and ruthless women who don't lose. When their secret explodes, it doesn't just trend...
It detonates. The headlines are merciless. The academy turns toxic. Jealous rivals circle like vultures. Then a blackmailer ends up dead. Adrian is arrested for murder. And Rain becomes the girl everyone loves to hate.
But the scandal isn't the most dangerous thing lurking in the shadows.
It's the truth.
A truth so devastating it shatters everything Rain thought she knew about love, loyalty... and herself.
Now pregnant, hunted by the press, betrayed by the powerful, and drowning in a world where trust is a weapon... Rain runs.
But in the Knight empire, power doesn't forgive. Jealousy doesn't forget. Survival comes at a price. And some secrets?
They should never be uncovered.
8.9
I returned to New York for my welcome-home party, expecting a warm embrace from Edwin, my devoted fiancé of twenty years.
Instead, his first words to me were a cold, public warning to stay away from his new girlfriend, Kacy.
He stood in my family's hotel, shielding a girl I had never even met, and painted me as a vicious, jealous bully.
"She is very sensitive, Kaitlyn. Her background is tough. Please, be gentle with her. Don't upset her."
He humiliated me in front of our entire elite circle, allowing them to mock me as the aggressive, discarded ex while he carried her away like a fragile princess.
For twenty years, I had been his loyal shadow, fixing his mistakes and loving him unconditionally.
I couldn't understand how decades of deep devotion could be instantly erased by a few crocodile tears and a manipulative damsel act.
He was absolutely certain I would throw a tantrum, cry, and eventually crawl back to beg for his attention.
But he was wrong.
He didn't know that Everett Rowe, a billionaire tech mogul, had been patiently waiting five years to marry me.
He also didn't know that during my three years abroad, I wasn't just studying art—I became "K.B.", the ruthless Wall Street predator who could swallow his family's empire whole.
I calmly pulled out my phone, ignored the mocking whispers around me, and typed a single message to Everett.
"Yes. I'll marry you."
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."
9.6
To escape my sister-in-law selling me off to a local thug, I married a complete stranger I met at City Hall.
My new husband, Drake, claimed to be a broke Uber driver who could barely make rent.
He even made me sign a brutal ten-page prenup just to ensure I wouldn't take his rusted, beat-up Ford sedan if we ever divorced.
I thought I was just sharing a decaying Brooklyn apartment with a struggling man at the bottom of the ladder.
But things quickly stopped making sense.
When that local thug cornered me at a restaurant, my "weak" husband didn't cower.
Instead, he dismantled three massive mobsters in ten seconds with the terrifying, fluid speed of an apex predator.
"I used to be a human punching bag in an underground boxing gym to pay off debts."
I believed his excuse, until his supposedly homeless grandfather showed up at our door in a moth-eaten sweater, begging to sleep on our lumpy sofa.
Before going to sleep, the old man casually pressed a heavy, intricately engraved pocket watch into my hand as a wedding gift.
He claimed it was a cheap flea market find that didn't even keep time.
But the sheer weight of the solid rose gold and the flawless mechanical gears inside screamed otherwise.
Why did a destitute driver have the aura of a man who controlled empires?
And what kind of homeless old man casually hands over a priceless, museum-grade antique?
I had no idea the "broke driver" sleeping on my floor was actually a ruthless billionaire CEO, and I had just walked straight into his trap.