Isis Beutler
14 Published Stories
Isis Beutler's Books and Stories
Sweet Revenge: Taming The Amnesiac Billionaire CEO
Romance Aurora Morgan pushed the divorce papers across the desk to her billionaire husband, Julian Carlisle.
Next to the papers lay his black leather journal, opened to a page that had just shattered her three-year marriage. In his crisp handwriting, the cold and untouchable CEO had written: "If I could go back, I would never let her go."
Julian didn't explain or deny it. Instead, he tore the divorce papers to shreds, trapped her in her chair, and coldly reminded her that her body, her acting career, and her entire life were completely under his control.
When she tried to escape, he forced her into his sports car, driving like a madman through the Manhattan night, threatening that they should just die together.
But when a massive truck ran a red light and barreled toward them, Julian unbuckled his seatbelt and threw his body over hers, taking the full, fatal force of the collision.
He survived, but the severe brain trauma wiped his memory clean, regressing his mind to that of an innocent sixteen-year-old boy.
Looking at the man who had mentally tortured her, cheated on her in his heart, yet sacrificed his life to save hers, Aurora's heart was filled with a terrifying emptiness and bitter resentment.
Why did he get to forget his betrayal while she was left to carry the agonizing weight of their broken marriage? And who on earth was the woman in the journal?
A wild, vengeful plan formed in her mind.
She handed the amnesiac boy a forged contract, looking down at him with a cold, beautiful smile.
"Your name is Julian. You are my assistant, and you owe me a massive debt."
This time, she was going to be the one in control. The Unwanted Wife's Ultimate Vengeful Return
Romance Carlota was secretly carrying the child of Donavan Raymond, the most powerful man in New York. To escape his dangerous obsession and save her comatose brother, she entered a fake marriage with a disabled heir.
But on her wedding day, her stepsister Harper discovered the secret ultrasound.
Realizing the baby belonged to her fiancé Donavan, Harper brutally shoved Carlota into a marble table, murdering the seven-month-old unborn child.
Harper and her mother bribed the doctor to lie to Donavan, claiming the dead baby was only five months old. Believing Carlota had cheated, Donavan mocked her broken, bleeding state and abandoned her in the hospital.
Her stepmother then forced her to sign divorce papers by threatening to pull the plug on her brother's ventilator. They locked Carlota away, planning to sell her to human traffickers and finally murder her brother.
Escaping into the freezing rain, Carlota followed them to a hidden graveyard and uncovered a terrifying, decades-old secret.
Her stepmother and stepsister weren't just greedy gold-diggers. They were the family of a disgraced enemy, infiltrating her home for years to systematically poison her real mother and destroy her bloodline out of pure revenge.
Kneeling in the mud, Carlota's fear vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating emptiness. She picked up her phone and faked a desperate, terrified sob.
"Mom? Please, come get me. I'll do whatever you want."
She hung up the phone, a chilling smile spreading across her face as she prepared to crawl back to Donavan and use his absolute power to slaughter them all. Trapped By The Phantom: His Little Lamb
Romance I woke up to the screech of a megaphone and realized I had transmigrated into a YA novel called *Roses Under Thorns*.
I wasn't the beloved heroine. I was Chloe Carrillo, a disposable scholarship student whose only purpose was to die in a tragic car crash to advance the plot.
Desperate to survive, I tried to become invisible. But fate played a sick joke, making me the roommate of the female lead and drawing the suffocating, obsessive attention of her powerful brother, Dean Gibbs.
While desperately avoiding Dean's controlling grasp, my nightmare worsened. An untraceable cyberstalker began hunting me.
He called me "Little Lamb." He left a burner phone in my secret library hideout, sent photos of me taken from ceiling vents, and texted me the moment I stepped out of the dorm shower.
"The water looks warm. Enjoy your shower."
The police couldn't help, and asking Dean meant trading one terrifying cage for another. I didn't understand why this was happening. I was supposed to be a nobody, yet I was trapped in an invisible web, monitored every second of my life.
Refusing to be a victim, I tracked down the university's legendary phantom hacker, Ashton Bridges.
I handed him my devices, begging him to trace the stalker, thinking I had finally found a safe ally.
I didn't know that as soon as the lab door closed behind me, he pulled up a live camera feed of my bedroom, his lips curving into a predatory smile.
"Little Lamb, you walked right into my arms." Reborn To Love My Ruthless Billionaire
Romance Jaclyn woke up in the sterile hospital room after falling down the stairs. The nurse delivered the devastating news: she had bled heavily and lost her baby.
But before she could even cry, her trusted cousins, Katelyn and Cherri, locked the door and revealed the horrifying truth.
"It wasn't an accident," Katelyn smirked, pinning Jaclyn's arm down. "The lubricant on the top step was a very deliberate choice."
They needed her broken and unstable. They had forged her signature, draining her massive trust fund to save their uncle's bankrupt business.
What shattered Jaclyn's world was the fresh hickey on Cherri's neck. Her lover, Bradford, had helped plan the entire murder.
When Jaclyn tried to scream, they smothered her with a pillow, framing her as a lunatic having a mental breakdown.
Two weeks later, when she confronted them, Bradford violently shoved her through a second-story glass window to silence her forever.
As she fell to her death, the husband she had spent her life hating—the ruthless billionaire Gaines—burst through the doors.
He threw himself forward, his face filled with pure terror, desperately trying to catch her.
When her body hit the stone patio, Gaines fell to his knees in her blood, weeping and begging her not to close her eyes.
Until her last breath, Jaclyn was consumed by suffocating regret. Why did she trust the monsters who killed her, and hate the only man who truly loved her?
Opening her eyes again, she was back in the penthouse, exactly one month into her marriage with Gaines. Breaking The Script: My Billionaire Husband
Romance I was three million dollars in debt, forced by my agent to star in a reality show as the brainless gold-digger who married a decrepit billionaire.
But right before the live broadcast, as I touched the tacky neon dress I was supposed to wear, a violent vision struck my brain.
I realized my entire life was a script, and I was just a villainous side character designed to make America's Sweetheart look like a saint.
My agent was secretly taking payouts from her PR firm to deliberately ruin my reputation with endless hate traffic.
If I followed his orders today, I would be torn apart by the internet, lose every contract, and eventually die alone in a cheap motel.
I couldn't accept that my every fake smile and stupid decision had been manipulated to destroy me just to elevate someone else.
Why should I let them sell me out and turn my life into a complete joke?
Looking at the ugly pink dress, I threw it straight into the trash.
"You are fired, and my lawyers will be in touch about your offshore accounts."
I poured a glass of freezing water over my head to wash away the heavy makeup and the helpless persona I had worn for years.
I kicked out my backstabbing agent, put on a pair of plain black leggings, and walked out to face the live cameras.
To hell with the script. Today, I was going to expose this fake PR marriage myself. Haunted By The Wife He Lost
Modern My husband, Jacob, swore to be my shield after my family's empire collapsed and I survived a fifteen-day kidnapping hell. I saw him as my savior, loving him with a desperation born from trauma.
Then his intern, Ema, entered our lives. When I became pregnant, he used her lies to call me "tainted" from my past and demanded I abort our child, the shock causing me to miscarry.
The final blow came during an explosion at our training grounds. He shoved me aside to shield Ema with his body.
"She's carrying my child," he said, his voice like ice. "You're expendable."
He left me to burn, promising a rescue team he never intended to send.
But he didn't know about the secret escape route, or my brother's plan. I faked my death, letting him find my "body" in the morgue.
He thought he had created a ghost. Now, he's about to find out you can't catch one when she's already free. Betrayed Heiress: His Public Downfall
Romance For seven years, I hid my identity as a billionaire heiress to build my boyfriend Derek' s career from the shadows.
I designed his award-winning buildings, fixed his mistakes, and waited for the proposal he promised.
But at the airport, instead of a ring, he handed me a box of pistachio macarons and ran off to comfort his "fragile" assistant.
He smiled, thinking he was being romantic.
He had completely forgotten that I am deathly allergic to nuts.
That box wasn't a gift. It was a death sentence wrapped in a silk ribbon.
Standing at the gate, I finally realized he didn't love me. He only loved the pedestal I built for him.
I tossed the macarons in the trash and dialed my father.
"I'm coming home," I said.
Charlotte Murphy, the submissive girlfriend, died at that terminal.
Charlotte Wheeler, the real estate mogul, was born.
And when Derek finally tried to crawl back with a microphone and a staged proposal, I made sure his destruction was as public as his audacity. Forty-Nine Books, One Reckoning
Romance My husband, Arthur, had a pattern. He would cheat, I would find out, and a rare book would appear on my shelf. Forty-nine betrayals, forty-nine expensive apologies. It was a transaction: my silence for a beautiful object.
But the forty-ninth was the last straw. He skipped my dying father' s award ceremony-a promise he made while holding his hand-to buy a condo for his high school sweetheart, Juliet.
The lie was so casual it broke me more than the affair.
Then he took her to my mother' s memorial garden. He stood there while she tried to erect a monument for her dead cat next to my mother' s bench.
When I confronted them, he had the nerve to ask me for compassion.
"Let's show a little compassion," he said.
Compassion for the woman desecrating my mother' s memory. Compassion for the woman he' d told about our miscarriage, a sacred grief he' d shared like a dirty secret.
I realized then that this wasn't just about a broken heart. This was about dismantling the lie I helped him build.
That night, while he slept, I installed a bug on his phone. I' m a political strategist. I' ve ruined careers with far less. The fiftieth book wouldn't be his apology. It would be my closing statement. From Captive to Cherished Wife
Romance I was at my wedding rehearsal, standing at the altar across from my fiancé, Holden. Our marriage was meant to be the event of the season, a perfect union of two prominent families.
Then, his future sister-in-law, Jaidyn, crumpled to the floor.
Without a single glance my way, Holden vaulted over a row of chairs, scooped her into his arms, and sprinted out of the hall, leaving me alone and publicly humiliated.
Hours later, his voicemail finally came. His voice was thick with emotion, but not for me. He told me Jaidyn has a secret heart condition and has been secretly in love with him for ten years.
He said the stress of our wedding was too much for her, and then asked if I could be like a sister to her once we were married. A text followed moments later: "Postponing the wedding. Jaidyn needs me at the hospital."
He expected tears. He expected me to wait patiently, to graciously accept being sidelined for his secret admirer. He mistook my love for weakness.
But I am Eloise Bowers. My dignity is not something to be discarded.
I scrolled past his name and called his older brother, Alphons—the man Jaidyn was supposedly engaged to.
"Your brother's wedding is off," I told him, my voice steady and clear.
"But the bride is still a Callahan. I'm at the city hall courthouse. You have thirty minutes." The Husband’s Body, Her Revenge
Fantasy The world came back in a blinding flash, a hospital' s sterile tang assaulting my senses.
Then I heard her, my monster-in-law, shrilly wailing over "my poor Jake," oblivious to the horrifying truth.
My hand, resting on the hospital sheet, wore Jake' s wedding ring.
A cold dread seeped into my bones: I was in my husband' s body.
As Brenda' s conspiratorial whisper cut through the fog – "That car accident… it didn' t go as planned. Chloe is still alive…" – my blood ran cold with the chilling realization.
The car accident wasn' t an accident. They tried to murder me for an insurance payout.
My own husband, the man I loved, had plotted with his family to kill me, his mistress Sarah, and his own mother in on it.
A gut-wrenching betrayal twisted inside me, remembering how I' d used my dowry to build his company, how his family had treated me like a servant, and how Jake had dismissed it all.
This wasn' t just about money; it was about destroying me.
But as a sharp, burning rage ignited within, a vow formed in the depths of Jake' s hospital bed.
They wanted to ruin my life? Fine. I would ruin theirs first.
I would take back what was mine, using his body to dismantle every single thing he had built.
Justice wasn't enough. I wanted revenge. When the Underdog Rises: Ash's Awakening
Fantasy The last thing I saw was Maverick' s powerful hooves, descending on me.
I was back, gasping, the thick scent of magnolias filling my lungs at the Claiming Ceremony – the day my life fell apart.
Maverick, the champion I had raised from a foal, trotted straight to Charlotte, nuzzling her hand in a blatant act of public rejection.
My father, Richard, placed a hand on my shoulder, his grip tight, announcing, "Charlotte has a special connection. You're the older sister, let her have him. It' s for the good of the family's reputation."
The jockey I' d helped sneered, "A champion horse needs a champion rider."
Charlotte's friends chimed in with fake sympathy, insisting I was never strong enough, that I would have held him back.
The humiliation was a physical weight, but this time, in my second chance, I felt only a cold resolve.
My father pushed, trying to salvage his scheme, offering me the sickly, seemingly worthless colt, Ash, in exchange.
Everyone pitied the broken girl being cast aside, agreeing I was walking away empty-handed.
But kneeling beside Ash, I felt a faint, familiar warmth, a deep connection confirming what I suspected: he was my mother' s true legacy, the horse she had left for me.
Charlotte, arrogant in her victory, declared, "Let' s perform the bonding ritual now, so everyone can see the true bond between a rider and her horse."
I stood, a slow smile spreading across my face.
"I agree." The Million-Dollar Revenge
Fantasy My name is Sarah Miller, and I'd just hit the lottery for millions—a life-changing sum. I had a loving husband, Mark, his family, and my sweet five-year-old son, Leo. Our Memorial Day road trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains promised a perfect getaway.
But a chilling current ran beneath their forced smiles. At a breathtaking scenic overlook, the man I trusted most, my husband Mark, pulled me close. Then he pushed. The air rushed past, a brief, sharp pain, and then, nothing.
My spirit, unseen, lingered. I watched my murderers—Mark, his mother Brenda, and his sister Jessica—calmly walk away, plotting to claim my lottery money. But the true horror struck days later: my beloved son, Leo, called another woman "Mom," revealing he was never mine, but Mark's and his mistress Tiffany's.
My entire life had been a meticulously crafted lie. My love, a mere pawn in their cruel deception. The fiery pain of this betrayal ignited an inferno of rage and a singular desire: for them to suffer just as agonizingly as I had.
Then, darkness. I woke with a gasp to sunlight. The calendar read Memorial Day, the morning of the trip. This wasn't a nightmare; it was a miraculous second chance. An icy resolve hardened my core: They would pay. Every single one of them. You might like
The Runaway Wife: Hiding His Secret Triplets
Hen Bu Five years ago, I stood in the freezing rain at my mother's funeral, waiting for my husband.
Blake Knight, the billionaire NHL superstar, was two hours late. When he finally showed up, he brought his rumored girlfriend, the woman he had just rented a hotel rooftop for to celebrate her birthday.
Watching him defend her fake tears, my heart completely died. I took off my diamond wedding ring, placed it on my mother's headstone, and walked away from my marriage forever.
I fled to London, changed my name to Ava, and secretly raised the triplets he never knew existed. I thought I was finally safe from him.
But today, my kids vandalized a silver Aston Martin in our apartment's parking garage, and the owner caught my youngest daughter.
My phone rang. The voice on the other end was Blake's.
He had moved into my building, and he was holding my little girl in his penthouse, demanding her mother come get her immediately.
Panic suffocated me. If I walked through that door, my five years of hiding would be instantly destroyed. He would recognize me, realize I didn't get rid of our child like everyone thought, and he would use all his power to take my babies away.
I couldn't let him ruin my life again.
"I'm just her nanny," I lied through my teeth.
I frantically begged my best friend to go upstairs and rescue my daughter in my place. He bought the disguise, but now, the King of the Ice is dangerously obsessed with investigating my new identity. THREE-YEARS CONTRACT MARRIAGE WITH THE HOT BILLIONAIRE
Ashley Ray "Sign the contract, or lose everything."
I stared at the papers that would seal my fate-a three-year marriage to Julian Blackwood, the ruthless billionaire they call the Ice King.
My family didn't ask. They demanded. My father's company was drowning, my stepsister's engagement had exploded, and I was the replacement bride they could sacrifice. Just another transaction.
Julian made it clear on our wedding day: "Don't expect affection. Don't expect companionship. Certainly don't expect love."
He refused to kiss me at the altar. He gave me a bedroom down the hall and told me to stay out of his way. I was Mrs. Blackwood in name only-a contract, a convenience, a means to an end.
I accepted it. I had survived twelve years of abuse in my own home. I could survive three years of indifference in his.
But then Nate, Julian's best friend, showed me kindness, and suddenly my cold husband became possessive. When my sister attacked me, he became protective.
Now the man who promised me nothing is fighting his own father to keep me. The marriage that was supposed to be fake is becoming terrifyingly real and the secrets about my mother's death are threatening to destroy everything.
They said Julian Blackwood destroys everything he touches. What they didn't tell me... is that sometimes destruction is exactly what you need to be reborn.
With a pregnancy involved, how was I going to end this three-year marriage peacefully?
Jilted Wife Returns As A Billionaire Heiress
Paula Gardini Chloe had just given birth to twins, lying exhausted in a cramped, bustling hospital ward.
When she called her husband, Julian, he was busy partying with his actress mistress. He coldly hung up on her, having already drafted a brutal divorce agreement that would leave her with a pittance.
Strangers in the next bed loudly mocked her pitiful state, gossiping about how Julian was dumping her. For years, Chloe had erased her own identity to fit into his elite world, only to be thrown away like garbage. She was completely alone, clutching her helpless babies, bracing herself to sign the cruel papers just to survive.
She couldn't understand why her absolute devotion was met with such chilling indifference. Why did she have to suffer this ultimate humiliation while he celebrated with the woman who ruined her life?
But then, a senior doctor noticed a unique mole on her wrist and ran a secret DNA test. The results were staggering: Chloe was the long-lost daughter of the billionaire Beaumont family. With her fiercely protective parents and three powerful brothers suddenly forming an impenetrable fortress around her, Chloe picked up her phone and texted her arrogant husband.
"City Hall tomorrow at 10 AM. If you don't show up, my lawyer will handle everything. And trust me, you won't like their terms." Pampered By The Ruthless Biker Boss
Anywho After six years away, I returned to my hometown with a single suitcase and a picture of my fiancé tangled up with my stepsister.
I thought it was just a simple, disgusting betrayal, but when I planted a bug in their private suite to get a confession, I heard a truth that froze my blood.
My fiancé, Leo, laughed about how my own father had already signed over my mother's legacy-The Nightingale Ranch-as collateral to his powerful family.
"Once this is all done, Claire will have nothing. And the woman you marry will be me," my stepsister Jenna cheered.
Leo cooed back, calling me a stray dog he'd kick to the curb once he was bored, a worthless woman who couldn't even hold onto her family's land.
My family had sold me out, and the man I loved was planning to leave me with absolutely nothing.
I didn't cry. The pain burned away into a cold, hard hate. How could my own father conspire with them to destroy the only thing I had left of my mother?
I crashed their prestigious charity auction and played their filthy recording over the speakers for the entire town to hear.
But when Leo charged at me in a murderous rage, a wall of leather and muscle stepped in front of me.
Kade "Chaos" Peterson, the terrifying President of the rival motorcycle club, crushed Leo's wrist and announced to the stunned room, "She's with me now." Jilted Ex-Wife? The Secret Billionaire Heiress!
Hei Baidong I was in the hospital, enduring the agonizing pain of labor, while my husband, a famous hockey captain, refused to show up.
When I called him for the twelfth time, begging for him, he lost his patience.
"Giving birth is a woman's job, don't bother me with this stuff."
Then, I heard my stepsister's sweet voice offering him a drink, and he immediately softened before hanging up on me.
I gave birth to twins all by myself.
The nurses treated me with cold indifference, and the family in the next bed loudly mocked me as a pathetic "Puck Bunny" who was just an adopted orphan about to be dumped.
They were right. A month ago, my husband had thrown divorce papers at me, demanding I make way because my stepsister was pregnant with his child.
I thought my life was a joke. I was just a discarded prop he married to satisfy his grandfather, a fake daughter my adoptive parents only used to elevate my stepsister.
I was completely alone, ready to sign the papers just to protect my two babies.
But then, the head of the hospital rushed in, transferred me to the top-floor VIP suite, and handed me a DNA test.
It turned out I wasn't an unwanted orphan, but the long-lost daughter of the ultra-wealthy Sinclair family who had been searching for me for twenty years.
Looking at my billionaire parents and three powerful brothers who just flew in on their private jets to protect me, I picked up my phone to call my arrogant husband.
This time, I was going to make him leave with nothing. The Jilted Biker Heiress's Spectacular Comeback
Out Of Town "From tonight on, Farrah is my one and only Old Lady! As for you, Sloane... you're just my personal bed-warmer."
In the deafening roar of the crowded motorcycle club, my boyfriend of five years hauled another woman against his chest, publicly stripping me of my title.
The entire room erupted in laughter, waiting for the "helpless orphan" to break down and cry.
His bloodsucking mother and sister smirked in the crowd. For five years, I had served their family like an unpaid maid, secretly bleeding my dead father's legacy dry just to pay off their debts. Now, they were thrilled to see me thrown into the dirt.
Beau pinched my chin, offering his mercy like a king to a beggar. "As long as you know your place and stay in the basement to do the chores, I'll generously let you be my secret baby mama. It's the greatest mercy a cursed orphan with a dead bloodline will ever get."
They thought they had stripped me of everything. They expected me to crawl on my knees and beg for their scraps.
The very next morning, I broke into their safe, took back my stolen inheritance and the keys to my father's legendary motorcycle, and rode straight to the National President-the man who held the absolute power of life and death over the entire outlaw world.
When Beau smugly swaggered into the President's office, fully expecting to find me begging on my knees for him to take me back, he was instead slapped in the face with a wax-sealed document of formal severance.
"She is a free agent now. Anyone who touches her answers to my gavel."
I straddled my father's roaring heavy chopper, looking down at my ex's humiliated, panicked face.
"This is just the beginning, Beau. I'm going to make your family bleed out everything you stole."
But what I didn't realize was that the moment I took my first step toward revenge, the dangerously wild man I collided with in the dark the night before-the one wearing the forbidden insignia of the absolute royal bloodline-had already locked his sights on me like a predator claiming his prey... The Discarded Genius Heiress Strikes Back
Xiao Ye For three years, Caddie gave up her aerospace engineering career to be Julien's secret girlfriend, quietly writing the core algorithms for his tech company.
On their anniversary, she stood outside his apartment with a rare gift, only to hear his friends laughing inside about his "charity project."
Julien's voice was ice-cold as he called her a stray puppy.
He said she was only useful for debugging his code, and once her final algorithm was finished, she would have no value left.
He was already planning to announce his engagement to the wealthy Kiersten Parrish.
He bragged that he would just write Caddie a check and kick her out, mocking that without him, she couldn't even afford next month's rent.
Caddie leaned against the cold wall, her world shattering.
She had turned down top research fellowships and poured her soul into his work, only to be treated as a disposable tool.
He actually believed she was just a helpless nobody who relied on his charity.
She didn't scream or cry. She simply threw the expensive gift into the trash chute.
Logging into his company's secure server, she permanently deleted every single line of code she had ever built for him.
Then, she packed her single suitcase, walked out the door, and dialed a number she hadn't called in years.
"I'm ready. I want to come home."
It was time to reclaim her place as the true billionaire Kensington heiress. They Broke Me, Now They Beg
Shore Tour For ten years, Eleonora devoted herself to Julian Sterling, waiting for the day she would finally become his wife.
But at the grand ball, just three months before their wedding, Julian walked in with her cousin Isabella on his arm.
In front of the entire high society, he publicly broke their engagement, announcing he would marry Isabella instead.
Worse, he arrogantly declared that Eleonora would become his "treasured mistress" so he could still use her massive dowry to fund his army.
When she looked to her father for defense, Lord Reginald actually agreed.
Her entire family-her father, her uncle, the elders-all demanded she accept this humiliating arrangement, eager to drain her mother's fortune to secure their own parasitic ambitions.
Ten years of quiet devotion and her late mother's dying wish were trampled into the mud.
She finally realized her family was nothing but a nest of greedy vipers, and they fully expected her to kneel and accept her utter ruin.
But she refused to be their sacrificial lamb.
Taking the secret ledgers of her vast inheritance, Eleonora walked straight into the fortress of the most ruthless and feared man in the empire.
"I will fully equip three legions of your heavy cavalry."
"In exchange, I require a title. I wish to become the Duchess of Vanderbilt." The Billionaire I Slept With Became My Husband
Apache I went to my stepsister's birthday party, foolishly hoping for a family truce.
Instead, she drugged my drink and had me shoved into a dark hotel suite, where a stranger took my innocence.
When I sneaked back home the next morning, battered and humiliated, I overheard my stepsister and stepmother laughing in the hallway.
They had orchestrated the whole trap to destroy my reputation so I would be forced to marry a thrice-divorced, abusive butcher.
"And don't forget the little extras we've been putting in her food," my stepmother gloated. "She'll never lose the weight. That fat Miss Piggy is meant to be your backdrop."
The revelation chilled me to the bone.
My years of punishing diets, the brutal exercise, the deep self-hatred—none of it was my fault.
It was poison, fed to me daily by the family I trusted.
I packed a single bag, took the commemorative coin I had stolen from the stranger's nightstand as a reminder of my lowest point, and vanished into the city.
One year later, having lost ninety pounds and transformed into a completely different woman, I agreed to attend the blind date with the butcher they arranged.
But because of a flipped brass table number, I sat down in front of the wrong man.
It was Julian Sinclair, the billionaire stranger from that dark room, and he looked at me and proposed a contract marriage.