Unwanted Secret Lover: Now Watch Me Shine

I signed a strict Non-Disclosure Agreement to be the secret girlfriend of Clemente Whitaker, the wealthy heir and finance chairman at our university. But while he kept me hidden in the shadows, a campus gossip app exposed a photo of him wrapping his custom suit jacket around a fragile high-society ballerina at dawn. When I ignored his calls, he publicly humiliated me by vetoing the funding for my architecture project to punish me. Later, he pinned me against a dark stairwell wall, kissing me desperately and begging me not to leave him. But the very next second, terrified that someone might see us together, he coldly pointed down the concrete steps. "Take the stairs down to the basement and go out through the loading dock back door. No one will see you." Looking at the heavy, vintage diamond bracelet he had given me, I finally realized the bitter truth. It was breathtakingly expensive, but it was two sizes too big. He never even bothered to learn my wrist size. He just bought something shiny to keep his dirty secret quiet while he publicly protected another woman. I unclasped the heavy diamonds and dropped them into the dark bottom of my bag. Next Friday is the biggest architectural gala in New York, and I am going to walk in as a free woman.

Chapters

Chapter 4

The first rays of Saturday morning sun streamed through the skylights of the architecture studio, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Kaelyn stared at her CAD drawing, her eyes burning from lack of sleep. She mechanically clicked the mouse, her movements robotic.

The cup of coffee next to her was cold. It was her third since she'd left the penthouse last night, each one a bitter attempt to numb the hollow ache in her chest.

Her phone screen lit up. A text from Clemente.

Sorry about last night. The meeting with the lawyers went on forever. Will call you later.

A dry, mirthless smile touched her lips. She stared at the lie, so blatant and effortless. Her thumb hovered over the keyboard, but she couldn't bring herself to type a reply. What was there to say?

The studio door banged open, and Thea rushed in, looking like she'd just run a sprint. She was balancing two cups of steaming coffee and her expression was one of manic excitement.

"You are not going to believe this," she announced, slamming the coffees down on Kaelyn's desk. A few drops of hot liquid splashed onto a spare blueprint. "Open Whisper. Now."

Kaelyn recoiled. "I'm not interested in stupid campus gossip, Thea."

"This isn't stupid, this is front-page news! Someone just reposted a blind item from a New York gossip column directly onto our app!" Thea shoved her own phone under Kaelyn's nose, refusing to take no for an answer.

Kaelyn's gaze was forced onto the screen. It was a blurry, paparazzi-style photo that had originally surfaced on a prominent city gossip blog before spreading like wildfire to their campus app. The timestamp read 6:30 a. m. that morning. The background was unmistakable: the entrance to the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.

The car was even more unmistakable: a sleek black Maybach with a license plate she could recite in her sleep. Clemente's car.

But it was the action in the photo that made the world tilt on its axis.

Clemente himself was holding the passenger door open. He was leaning in, his posture protective, as he helped a girl get out of the car. She was petite, dressed in rehearsal leotards, and draped over her shoulders was a man's suit jacket.

A dark navy, custom-tailored suit jacket.

The exact same one Clemente had grabbed from his closet last night as he rushed out the door.

The girl's head was down, but the graceful line of her neck, the delicate frame, the aura of fragility-it could only be Hilda Kramer.

A roaring sound filled Kaelyn's ears. Her vision tunneled, focusing on that jacket. His jacket. On her shoulders.

"They spent the night together!" Thea was babbling, completely oblivious to Kaelyn's internal collapse. "He's dropping her off at her morning ballet practice. This is it! The hard launch! I knew they were a thing!"

Kaelyn's hand trembled. She slowly, deliberately, unlocked her own phone and pulled up the text from Clemente she'd received just ten minutes ago.

The meeting with the lawyers went on forever.

The sheer, breathtaking audacity of the lie. The crushing weight of the humiliation. It was a physical force, a wave that crashed over her, leaving her breathless. Her secret pain, her private compromises, her quiet hope-it all felt like a pathetic joke.

"Kae? Are you okay?" Thea's voice cut through the fog. "You're really pale. Is your blood sugar low?"

Kaelyn snapped back to reality. She quickly locked her phone and pressed the heels of her hands to her temples. "Just... tired. Pulled an all-nighter."

Thea bought it. "Well, this is better than caffeine. The whole campus is freaking out. People are already placing bets on when the engagement will be announced."

Engagement.

The word was a needle, jabbing directly into the rawest part of her heart.

She shot to her feet, the leg of her chair scraping loudly against the concrete floor. A violent cramp seized her stomach. She started shoving her drawings and notebooks into her bag with clumsy, jerky movements, tearing the corner of a sketch.

"Whoa, where are you going?" Thea asked, startled. "The project isn't due yet."

"I need to sleep," Kaelyn said, not looking at her. She grabbed her backpack and practically ran from the studio.

In the hallway, a group of girls were huddled over a phone, whispering excitedly. She caught snippets of their conversation. "...Clemente is so romantic..." "...they look so perfect..."

Their words felt like public accusations, each one a stone thrown at her. She walked faster, her pace quickening to a run as she rushed toward the elevators.

The moment the doors slid shut, encasing her in the small metal box, she sagged against the wall. The facade crumbled. A single, hot tear escaped and splashed onto the back of her hand.

She pulled out her phone. Her fingers were shaking, but her movements were precise. She copied the URL of the gossip post. She opened her message thread with Clemente. She pasted the link.

No words. No questions. No accusations.

Just the cold, hard evidence.

Then, with a final, decisive tap, she powered her phone off.

Continue to next part

Desperate to protect her family legacy, a struggling heiress enters a high-stakes contract marriage with a cold-hearted billionaire. While the arrangement is strictly business to satisfy their social obligations, the lines between performance and reality begin to blur. As they navigate corporate schemes and public scrutiny, buried secrets threaten to destroy their fragile alliance. Can a fake union built on lies transform into a genuine romance before the truth comes out?

Billionaire Modern Romance

9.6

From Ocean's Grave To Queen

9.6

Fifteen years. That' s how long my fiancé, Blake, and I spent building our empire from nothing. On the night he was supposed to propose, a single phone call shattered our perfect future. He publicly abandoned me for a young art student, Hayleigh, who then framed me for violent attacks and faked a pregnancy to win his sympathy. The nightmare ended on a cliff's edge, where our rival forced a choice: save me, or save her. Blake screamed her name. Even my own birth parents, tech billionaires who had only just found me, chose her over their own flesh and blood. As I plunged into the icy ocean, I didn't understand. Why would the man I built a life with, and the family I just found, abandon me for a web of lies? They all thought I was dead. But two years later, I walked back into Miami, ready to take back my city and burn their world to the ground.

Billionaire Modern Romance

8.5

He Chose The Mistress, I Chose Freedom

8.5

"The child is mine." My husband, the Capo of the Chicago Outfit, announced to the world, his hand resting protectively on his mistress's stomach. He was lying to save her life, but in doing so, he signed the death warrant for the baby growing inside me. Just hours before, I had finally gotten the positive test we had prayed for over five years. But Dante chose to claim a traitor's bastard as his heir. When I tried to confront him, he dismissed me cold-heartedly. "It's a strategic lie, Elena. You aren't pregnant, so it doesn't matter." He didn't know. Later, when an accident left his mistress critical, he dragged me to the hospital. He forced me to donate my blood to save her, ignoring my ghostly pallor. He didn't know I was already bleeding out. He didn't know I had just come from the clinic, where I had removed the "complication" he made me feel ashamed of. He thought he was being noble. He didn't realize he was killing his own son to save another man's lie. On the night of the gala celebrating his "heir," I left a white box on his desk and vanished. Inside was a medical report: *Termination of Pregnancy. 8 Weeks. Father: Dante Moretti.* By the time he read it, I was already gone.

Billionaire Modern Romance

8.5

His Perfect Lie, Her Vicious Truth

8.5

For five years, I was the loving Mrs. Clayton, enduring painful fertility treatments to give my husband, Bronson, the heir he deserved. He was my rock, my protector since a college hazing incident left me barren. Then I overheard the truth from behind his study door. Our marriage was a sham, never legally filed. He' d had a vasectomy before our wedding. It was all an elaborate lie to protect Bridgett-his childhood love and the very woman who orchestrated the assault that destroyed my future. He wasn't my savior. He was her accomplice, and I was just his compensation. Every gentle touch, every reassuring word, was a performance. He thought I' d never find out. He thought I' d always be his devoted, clueless wife. But when his precious Bridgett harmed my sick brother, my grief turned to ice. I smiled sweetly, played the part of the forgiving wife, and began gathering the evidence that would burn their entire world to the ground.

Modern Mystery Romance

7.6

Just A Substitute: The Wife He Failed

7.6

At the family dinner, the waiter stumbled, sending a tray of boiling onion soup flying toward the table. My husband, Marcus, moved instantly. But not for me. He threw his body over my cousin Chloe, shielding her completely in his arms. I was left exposed. The scalding liquid hit my chest and arm, burning my skin instantly. While I screamed in agony on the floor, Marcus was frantically checking Chloe for scratches, whispering, "Thank God it missed you. You are more important than her. Always." In the hospital, he handed me a check for fifty thousand dollars. "It was an instinct," he said, avoiding my eyes. "Don't make a scene." He didn't notice my hollow expression. He didn't ask why the doctors were looking at him with pity. And he certainly didn't know that the shock and trauma had caused me to miscarry our six-week-old baby. For four years, I had been his perfect doll. I dressed like Chloe, painted like Chloe, and waited for him to love me. I thought I was his wife. I didn't realize I was just a placeholder until he sacrificed our child to save his true love from a splash of soup. When he left to comfort Chloe again, I pulled the IV from my arm. I placed the signed divorce papers on the bedside table. Underneath them, I left the medical report confirming the miscarriage of his child. Then, I vanished.

Mafia Modern Romance

8.3

Mated To My Dead Husband's Twin

8.3

I thought marrying into the Barrett dynasty would be my fairy tale, but my wedding day felt more like a business merger. My husband, Jarret, didn't even look at me as he checked his watch at the altar, treating our marriage like a political chore. Two months later, the world shattered when Jarret's diplomatic convoy was bombed. The news reported him dead, with his twin brother Jayden as the sole survivor. When "Jayden" returned to the estate limping on a cane, the house became a tomb. My mother-in-law and our cousin Cristine immediately moved to freeze my bank accounts and strip me of my rights, calling me a "greedy climber." I was a widow in a house of wolves, but the real nightmare started when I saw "Jayden" drop his cane and passionately kiss Jarret's mistress in the dark. I crept to the study and heard the bone-chilling truth: Jarret wasn't the one who died. He had murdered his own brother in the blast to steal his identity and become a "surviving hero." Even worse, he was already planning my "accidental" overdose once I signed over the family trust. My blood ran cold as I realized the gentle, calloused hands that touched me on my wedding night hadn't belonged to my husband at all. I had fallen in love with Jayden, the man Jarret had just vaporized for a promotion. I tried to escape, but they caught me and forced a sedative into my arm. When I woke up, the family doctor was standing over me with a predatory smile. "Congratulations, Elise. You're ten weeks pregnant." Jarret leaned over my bed, his eyes cold and victorious. They aren't going to kill me anymore. They've turned me into an incubator for an heir, trapped in a golden cage with the monster who murdered the father of my child.

Fantasy Modern Romance

Unwanted Secret Lover: Now Watch Me Shine

Chapter 4

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