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 5
Madison stepped into the project department, pushing open the glass door.
The instant she entered, conversations paused, and every pair of eyes in the room shifted toward her.
A woman wearing black-rimmed glasses walked over, her expression distant. "You must be the new recruit, Madison?" she asked flatly.
Madison gave a small nod.
"Come with me." The woman led her to a workstation by the window and gestured toward it. "This will be your desk. I'm Raelyn Reid, the lead of Project Team One. If you run into any issues, report to me."
With that, Raelyn offered a sarcastic smile before turning on her heel and leaving.
Madison found the interaction slightly strange, but she didn't dwell on it. She took her seat and prepared to start her work.
Yet the entire morning passed without her touching anything related to actual projects. Instead, she was constantly being sent off to handle trivial tasks—printing documents, picking up deliveries, even cleaning the office coffee machine.
She endured it without complaint.
After all, she was new. It wasn't unusual to start off with errands while settling into a new workplace.
When the lunch hour rolled around, Raelyn strolled over and rapped her knuckles lightly against Madison's desk. "Head to the cafeteria and pick up our orders. I'll take the steak set with sauce on the side. Go ask around and make sure you note everyone else's choices too. And also—"
"Hold on," Madison cut in, her patience finally snapping. "Are you guys disabled or something?"
The room went dead quiet. Every head turned toward them in shock.
Raelyn stood frozen, clearly not expecting such a response. "What did you just say?" she demanded.
Madison rose to her feet, standing slightly taller than her. She met Raelyn's gaze directly. "You seem perfectly capable of walking to me. And I'm sure you know where the cafeteria is. So why exactly can't you go and pick up your lunch yourself?"
A flush spread rapidly across Raelyn's face. "Madison, you're just a newcomer!" she snapped. "What's wrong with asking you to handle a few small tasks? Everyone goes through this when they first join!"
"I've already done the errands," Madison responded, her voice steady and deliberate. "Printing, deliveries, all of it. But picking up your lunch? That's personal. I was hired to do my job, not to act as your errand runner."
"You—"
"What's going on here?"
A low, commanding voice cut through the tension from the doorway.
Madison turned and saw a tall man step inside.
Dressed in a sleek black suit, his figure was lean and composed, his features sharp, but his expression carried a chilling detachment.
It was Colten Wallace. Her half-brother.
Raelyn's anger vanished instantly. She hurried toward him, her tone turning respectful. "Mr. Wallace, what brings you here?"
Colten didn't even spare her a glance. His attention went straight to Madison, his eyes sharp and searching.
"You're new here?" he asked.
Madison almost laughed. So he was pretending not to recognize her.
She lifted her chin slightly. "Yes, I am."
Colten shifted his gaze to Raelyn, his voice dropping several degrees. "Is the project department so overstaffed that new hires are being assigned menial tasks?"
Raelyn's complexion drained. "Mr. Wallace, I was just trying to help her get familiar with how things work here..."
"And exactly how do things work here?" His tone was cutting. "Since when do lunch runs fall under departmental responsibilities?"
Raelyn fell silent, too intimidated to respond.
Colten shifted his attention back to Madison.
"The Radiance Media project," he said. "You'll take over starting now."
The assistant behind him hesitated before speaking up. "Mr. Wallace, that project is one of the company's key priorities this year. Ms. Reid has been leading it—"
"She isn't anymore." Colten's voice was absolute. His eyes remained fixed on Madison as he added, "You have forty-eight hours to secure the deal. Fail, and you can clear out your desk."
After throwing her one last meaningful look, he turned on his heel and walked out of the office.
The office remained in stunned silence long after he left.
Even Madison stood there, momentarily stunned.
She couldn't make sense of Colten's intentions. Was this his way of pushing her out—handing her a task no one could realistically complete?
The moment he was gone, the quiet shattered into hushed chatter.
Raelyn's expression twisted into something complicated—part disbelief, part resentment, and unmistakably laced with gloating.
She let out a cold laugh. "Well, you heard him. Forty-eight hours to lock in the Radiance Media deal. Fail, and you're out."
Nearby, a few coworkers leaned in, their voices low but eager. "That client? Mr. Palmer? He's infamous."
"Didn't someone say the last woman who negotiated with him got forced to drink until she landed in the hospital?"
"Closing that deal in just two days? That's not happening."
Madison didn't respond. She simply lowered her gaze and flipped open the file the assistant had placed in her hands.
Across the top, it read "Radiance Media." Client Representative: Roderick Palmer, 52. Profile: Known alcoholic, notorious womanizer, with a questionable reputation throughout the industry.
A cold smile tugged at her lips. So this was the game. Colten hadn't just assigned her a project—he had set a trap.
Still, Madison needed an opportunity to prove herself. And this so-called "Mission Impossible" was exactly that.
......
At seven in the evening, Madison arrived at the restaurant as scheduled.
An attendant guided her into an upscale private dining room, where Roderick was already seated at the head of the table.
She was dressed in a crisp white blouse paired with a fitted skirt that outlined her figure. Combined with her naturally delicate features, she looked striking.
"Well, well. Since when did your company start sending someone like you?" Roderick's eyes lit up with interest. He stretched out his hand, gesturing invitingly. "Come, sit closer."
Madison avoided his hand without hesitation and took the seat beside him on her own terms.
Roderick didn't seem bothered. Instead, he chuckled and poured her a glass of wine. "So you're Madison, right? Young and promising, I see. Let's have a drink first to set the mood."
Madison lifted the glass and took a small, symbolic sip.
Immediately, his expression shifted. "That won't do," he said, frowning. "You have to finish it. That's how things work on my side."
The two male colleagues accompanying her quickly chimed in. "Come on, Madison. Mr. Palmer's just asking for a drink. Don't spoil the atmosphere."
Madison's lips curved slightly. She set the glass back down. "Mr. Palmer, perhaps we should talk about the project first?"
He waved dismissively. "Business can wait. At the table, we drink first. Here, let me pour you another."
He reached for the bottle again.
Madison gently stopped him, her expression calm. "I don't handle alcohol well. If I drink too much, I won't be able to discuss the project properly."
Roderick laughed, leaning back in his chair. "I've already looked over your proposal—it's not bad. But there are details we still need to go through."
As he spoke, his arm came to rest along the back of her chair.
"You should understand," he continued, his tone lowering, "this project has plenty of people competing for it. But for me..."
His hand slid down to her shoulder. "If I take a liking to someone, things become much easier."
His touch lingered. "You're both capable and attractive. I appreciate that. If you're willing—"
Before he could finish, Madison's hand moved and she slapped him hard across the face.
The sound rang sharply through the room.
Roderick staggered, clutching his face in disbelief before fury exploded across his features. "You—" he bellowed. "How dare you lay a hand on me?"
He slammed the table and lunged forward, reaching for her.
But at that exact moment, the door was kicked open with force.
Before Roderick could react, a powerful kick sent him crashing backward into the wall. He collapsed awkwardly onto the table.
The room fell into stunned silence.
Madison lifted her gaze. Standing at the doorway was a tall figure in a long black coat. His posture was relaxed, but there was something sharp and dangerous in his eyes.
Jeremy lowered his leg as if nothing unusual had happened, adjusting his cuff with casual precision. Then he glanced down at Roderick, sprawled across the table, and spoke in a lazy, almost indifferent tone. "Mr. Palmer, what exactly were you planning to do to my wife?"
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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.