Wrong Date, Right Man: Lock Me Into His World
On the day she was meant to marry, Madison uncovered her boyfriend's betrayal-five years of love reduced to a mere placeholder for another woman.
She walked away without hesitation, determined to start over.
But with a looming condition to marry before twenty-five or lose her inheritance completely, she had no choice but to accept a blind date.
Fate played a cruel joke when she approached the wrong man, ending up married to her ex's greatest rival, the most formidable figure in town.
Madison thought it was just a convenient arrangement. He thought otherwise-because from the start, he never planned to let her go.
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Chapter 1
The day Madison Wallace was supposed to register her marriage became the exact moment she watched her fiance Kieran Stanley get down on one knee for another woman during a livestream.
By five in the afternoon, she was still standing where she was with her phone clenched tightly in her hand.
On the screen, Kieran faced a woman with a diamond ring between his fingers while everyone online watched him confess his love.
"Kristina, ever since I met you at seventeen, I've never wanted anyone else beside me. You're the person I want to spend my entire life with."
The instant Madison saw the ring, her chest tightened.
Only last week, she had spotted the velvet box sitting inside Kieran's study. Back then, she stayed awake half the night in excitement because she thought he had prepared it for her.
Never once did she imagine another woman would be the one wearing it.
"I'll make sure you're happy for the rest of your life!"
Right after saying those words, Kieran pulled Kristina Todd closer and kissed her in front of the cameras.
The livestream exploded with comments almost immediately.
"Oh my god! Kieran actually proposed to the actress Kristina!"
"They've loved each other since they were young, and now they're finally together!"
"This is seriously like something out of a romance movie. They're perfect together!"
Blessings and congratulations flooded the screen one after another.
Madison tightened her grip around her phone until her fingers nearly lost color.
Instinctively, she opened her contacts and searched for Kieran's number. Part of her still wanted to believe there had been some kind of misunderstanding. She needed to hear him deny it himself.
Only yesterday evening, he had wrapped his arms around her while talking about the future they would build together. How could the same man propose to someone else less than a day later?
The moment she found his contact, her phone suddenly rang first.
The caller was her best friend, Elin Stanley.
For a brief moment, Madison forgot how to react before finally answering the call.
The second it connected, Elin's angry voice burst through the speaker. "Maddie, did you check the news yet? Kristina turned out to be the adopted daughter my parents took in years ago. She used to date my brother when they were younger, but my parents later found out, split them apart and shipped her overseas. And now she's suddenly back as some huge celebrity!"
Even while her emotions twisted violently inside her, Madison forced herself to sound steady. "Is that so?"
"Seriously! After Kristina left, my brother completely lost it. I even heard he found another girl who resembled her and kept her around for five whole years as a replacement. And now that Kristina's returned, he's gone running back to her without hesitation. Doesn't that sound completely ridiculous?"
Every word stabbed straight into Madison's chest.
So Kristina had been raised by the Stanley family all along. She and Kieran shared a history that dated back years, and their relationship had been torn apart when she was sent abroad.
Meanwhile, Madison had never heard a single thing about it.
Not once had Kieran ever brought Kristina up.
For five years, Madison believed she had finally met the man she wanted to spend her life with. In the end, she was nothing more than a substitute standing in another woman's place.
Silence stretched between them long enough for Elin to grow confused. "Maddie? Are you there? Did I call at a bad time? Weren't you planning to tell me something important today? What is it?"
Madison parted her lips, but her throat tightened too much for words to come out.
As Kieran's younger sister, Elin had no idea Madison had been secretly dating him this entire time. Madison never told her because Kieran insisted their relationship stay hidden from everyone—his family included.
That secret lasted for five long years.
Only now did the truth finally become clear to her. Kieran wasn't avoiding the public because he valued privacy. From the very start, Madison had only existed as a temporary replacement for the woman he truly loved.
Madison sank her teeth into her lower lip while a bitter chill spread across her chest.
After shutting her eyes for a moment, she finally spoke in a rough voice. "Elin... can you help me with something?"
"Just say what you need."
After taking a quiet breath, Madison spoke softly. "You know plenty of people, right? Can you arrange a blind date for me?"
The line went completely quiet.
Several seconds passed before Elin nearly shouted into the phone. "Hold on, what?! Since when are you interested in blind dates? Maddie, you've barely even dated anyone seriously before. What brought this on all of a sudden?"
Instead of answering, Madison stayed silent.
Some truths had remained buried for years, and she had never shared them with anyone, including Elin.
Madison was the daughter of the Wallace family from Agoshire, while her father held the position of Chairman at the Wallace Group.
Madison had an older half-brother, and after her stepmother entered the family, her days at home became harder and harder to endure.
Last year, on her birthday, her father called her into his study for a private conversation. He promised her thirty percent of the company's shares under one condition—she had to get married before turning twenty-five. If she failed, every share would be handed over to her older brother instead.
And in another six months, Madison would reach that age.
"I can't afford to waste time anymore," Madison replied quietly. "Just tell me whether you know anyone suitable."
"Actually... I do know a few men around our age who are looking to settle down." Elin still sounded uncertain. "But at least tell me what type of man you want."
"Someone decent." Madison stopped briefly before continuing in a cold tone, "As long as he isn't anything like your brother."
Elin went silent for a second before laughing outright. "Fair enough. My brother really is trash."
The sound of rapid typing echoed through the call, and Madison guessed Elin had already started searching through her contact list.
A moment later, Elin sounded excited once more. "You know what? I actually have someone perfect for you. He's good-looking, and he just came back after studying overseas. If you want, I can introduce you two."
Madison fell quiet briefly before replying, "Arrange it. I want to meet him today. As soon as possible."
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7.6
Kaylee's family was drowning in debt, and her stepmother locked her inside a freezing bedroom.
To save their bankrupt company, they decided to sell her off to a sixty-five-year-old man with a disgusting reputation.
They cut off her allowance and confiscated the only precious keepsake her dead mother had ever left her.
"Put on the engagement dress, or I will smash your mother's crystal box into a million pieces."
Terrified of the old man, Kaylee risked her life by jumping out of the second-story window into a violent storm.
She hit the muddy ground hard, twisting her ankle and tearing her skin on rusted iron gates as she escaped into the pitch-black night.
Dragging her bleeding bare feet across the cold sand, her lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass.
She didn't understand why she had to be the sacrifice for their endless greed, or how they could be so cruel as to hold her dead mother's memory hostage.
She had absolutely nowhere to go, and the old man's cars were already pulling into the estate to claim her.
Cornered by the blinding headlights of a motorcade on the beach, she threw herself at the feet of Ernest Blackwell, the most ruthless billionaire in New York.
"Marry me! You need a wife, and I need a husband right now!"
To buy her freedom and crush the family that sold her, she chose to sign a twenty-million-dollar fake marriage contract with the devil himself.
8.7
For three years, Blair Guzman poured her resources into turning a broke waiter into an Oscar-winning actor, letting the world believe they were a couple just to keep him under her control.
But the night he won his Oscar, he publicly betrayed her by kissing Kiana—Blair’s estranged, rival sister.
Kiana and her mother brought the scandal right to the Glover family dinner table, trying to humiliate Blair.
"You're just mad because he dumped you for me," Kiana sneered in front of the entire family.
Instead of crying, Blair ruthlessly dismantled them, exposing how their cheap tabloid stunt tanked the family's corporate value.
Impressed by her cold logic, the family matriarch handed Blair the ultimate voting power, but it was a trap.
The matriarch immediately used Blair's elevated status to force her into an arranged marriage with a notorious, debt-ridden playboy just to secure a European shipping lane.
To her family, she was never a daughter—she was just a premium asset to be traded to the highest bidder.
What her greedy family didn't know was that Blair had already made a terrifying deal.
She was secretly married to the ruthless billionaire Butler McIntyre—a man who demanded absolute possession of her body and soul.
Now, her family's arranged parasite and her secret devil of a husband were on a collision course, and the wreckage was going to be spectacular.
8.0
Abigayle was the proud heir to the Pena Group, living a perfect life and engaged to Jeffery Sullivan.
But the morning after a charity gala, she woke up drugged in a hotel room, blinded by paparazzi cameras. Her fiancé and her best friend stood at the foot of the bed, throwing a forged pregnancy report at her face to publicly frame her for cheating.
The betrayal was only the beginning of the slaughter. Before she could even clear her name, the Sullivan family ruthlessly bankrupted her family's company overnight. Her father was rushed to the ICU with a heart attack, her brother was run off the road into a coma, and violent repo men raided her penthouse. Just as she was thrown out into the freezing rain, Jeffery's terrifying uncle, Donovan Sullivan—the very mastermind who engineered her family's ruin—stepped in. He offered to cover the life-saving medical bills, but only if she agreed to become his personal plaything.
Abigayle's blood turned to ice. She couldn't understand how the people she trusted most could plot such a vicious, coordinated destruction just to break an engagement. How dared the man who destroyed her entire family stand there playing the savior, trying to buy her body with her own stolen wealth?
Facing a $100,000 hospital deadline and abandoned by everyone she knew, she didn't shed another tear.
"I will never beg him."
Clutching her last diamond bracelet, she hailed a cab straight to the biggest pawnshop in the Diamond District. The Sullivans thought they had buried her, but her counterattack was just beginning.
7.2
Five years ago, I, Claire Parker, ran away for love with Daniel Carter, the broke boy everyone looked down on. But on the very day we were supposed to leave together, he abandoned me.
Overnight, I became the laughingstock of the entire city and was forced into a marriage alliance with a terminally ill man, Ryan Cooper.
Five years later, my husband died, the marriage arrangement fell apart, and the Cooper family threw me out without a shred of mercy.
Meanwhile, Daniel, the man everyone once sneered at, returned home in glory and became the hottest rising name in the business world.
And somehow, he ended up becoming my boss.
I wanted nothing to do with him, yet he kept closing in on me, cornering me with sarcasm sharp enough to draw blood.
Then one day, Daniel caught me on a date with another man.
His eyes reddened instantly as he pinned me against the wall. "Claire... are you abandoning me again?"
7.5
I was tied to a concrete pillar in an abandoned warehouse, the heavy stench of gasoline suffocating me.
Ten steps away, a masked kidnapper slammed a loaded Glock onto a metal barrel and forced my husband, Alvie, to make a sick choice.
"The wife or the mistress. You only get to walk out of here with one."
Alvie didn't even blink.
He walked straight toward the dark corner where his mistress, Gail, was crying. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, shielding her, and guided her toward the exit.
He never looked back. He didn't cast a single glance over his shoulder. To him, I was already a corpse, just trash left on the pavement.
The kidnapper laughed and tossed a lighter onto the soaked concrete floor.
A wall of ghostly blue fire erupted instantly, swallowing me whole. The absolute agony of my skin blistering and melting shattered my sanity.
In my last moments, consumed by the inferno, I couldn't understand how the man I had loved and served so submissively could leave me to burn alive. My heartbreak quickly morphed into a hatred far deeper than the flames.
Then, I violently jerked awake.
I shot up from the bed, gasping for cold air, my hands frantically checking my perfectly smooth, unburned skin.
I looked at the desk clock. I had returned to exactly four years ago, the morning of the annual Gallagher family gathering.
The fragile, naive wife died in that warehouse. This time, I am going to destroy them both.
7.9
In my past life, I was the naive surrogate who fell desperately in love with Karson King, an untouchable Wall Street billionaire.
I thought my blind devotion would earn me a place in his family. Instead, his cruel mother forced me to sign away my parental rights to my three-year-old daughter.
I was locked in a dark, freezing basement. I watched helplessly as his arrogant relatives tormented my child, pushing her down a flight of marble stairs and shattering her tiny arm.
When we finally died in a horrific car crash, my face covered in blood amidst the shattered glass, Karson didn't shed a single tear. To him, my death was just the convenient erasure of a cheap mistake.
I sacrificed my dignity for his approval, but they treated us worse than stray dogs. Why did my innocent daughter have to pay the ultimate price for their ruthless arrogance?
Opening my eyes again, the harsh glare of a massive crystal chandelier pierced my vision. I was back in the grand foyer of the King estate, exactly five years ago.
"Sign it. You are nothing but a gold digger."
My soon-to-be mother-in-law slammed the thick legal contract onto the marble table, demanding I give up my daughter.
This time, the paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by absolute, icy clarity.
I didn't cower. I picked up the pen, looked right at the billionaire who despised me, and prepared to manipulate his entire empire.