The Silent Bride's Billion Dollar Contract

The Silent Bride's Billion Dollar Contract

Landslide

5.0
Comment(s)
View
150
Chapters

My bank account showed exactly $42.18, and my student loan notifications were flashing red. I lived in a sweltering Queens apartment with my Aunt Lydia, where the air was thick with the smell of stale frying oil and the constant threat of being homeless. Lydia handed me a grainy photo of a man twice my age and told me she had already "sold" me to him. He was a dry cleaner looking for a wife, and in exchange for my hand, he would pay off her credit cards and my debt. If I didn't show up for the date that night, my boxes would be on the curb by midnight. I arrived at the cafe in a state of panic, my selective mutism making it impossible to even breathe. In the crowded room, I accidentally sat at the wrong table. Instead of the man from the photo, I found myself facing Gerhard Holcomb-the cold, terrifyingly handsome billionaire whose family owned the very museum where I worked. He didn't send me away; instead, he studied my trembling hands and offered me a different deal: a two-year contract marriage, a two-million-dollar payout, and a strict clause forbidding any children. I signed the papers and moved into his Park Avenue penthouse, thinking I was finally safe. But when I went back to the old apartment to retrieve the only memento of my dead parents, Lydia lashed out, leaving me bleeding from a head wound. Gerhard's retaliation was absolute-he had her arrested and her building foreclosed on within hours, claiming he was simply "protecting his assets." As I recovered in his silent, glass-walled home, I saw a call from a famous socialite flash on his phone, and a cold truth settled in my gut. I wasn't just a wife; I was a placeholder, a silent shield used to fend off the women from his past. I looked at the massive pink diamond on my finger and realized the silence I had lived in my whole life was about to become my most expensive prison. I had traded a life of poverty for a high-stakes game of shadows, and now I had to survive the man who claimed to own me.

Chapter 1 1

Dawn Roth woke up to the sound of a siren screaming past her window, but it was the heat that actually pulled her from sleep. It was a thick, wet heat that clung to her skin like plastic wrap. Her T-shirt was stuck to her back. She lay still on the narrow twin mattress, staring at the water stain on the ceiling that looked vaguely like a map of Florida.

She reached for her phone on the milk crate she used as a nightstand. The screen was cracked, a spiderweb of glass over the display. She tapped the banking app.

$42.18.

A red notification banner dropped down from the top of the screen. Student Loan Payment Overdue.

Dawn closed her eyes and let the phone drop onto the mattress. Her chest felt heavy, as if someone were sitting on her ribs. She pushed the blanket off her legs and swung her feet onto the linoleum floor. It was sticky.

She opened the bedroom door and the smell hit her instantly-stale frying oil and cigarette smoke. The air in the living room was even hotter than in her bedroom. There was no air conditioning here.

Aunt Lydia sat at the small, chipped dining table. She was applying a coat of bright pink nail polish, her fingers splayed out on a placemat. She didn't look up when Dawn entered.

"You're up late," Lydia said. Her voice was scratchy, like sandpaper on wood.

"It's seven," Dawn whispered. Her throat felt tight. It always felt tight in this apartment.

Lydia blew on her nails. "There's coffee. Don't take the last of the milk."

Dawn walked to the counter. There was a piece of paper sitting next to the coffee pot. It was a printed photograph, grainy and low resolution. It showed a man with a shiny, bald head and a thick neck. He was smiling, but his eyes looked flat.

"Who is this?" Dawn asked.

Lydia finally looked up. Her eyes were sharp, outlined in smudged black liner. "That is Mr. Vane. He owns the dry cleaning chain on Steinway Street."

Dawn looked at the picture again. The man looked at least twenty years older than her. "Okay."

"He's looking for a wife," Lydia said. She capped the nail polish bottle with a sharp twist. "He's very stable. He has a house in Bayside. A nice house. With central air."

Dawn's stomach turned over. She put the paper down. "I have to go to work."

"He's willing to pay off my credit cards," Lydia said, her voice dropping an octave. "And he's willing to take over your loans."

Dawn froze. Her fingers curled into her palms. She looked at Lydia, waiting for the punchline, but Lydia's face was dead serious.

"I set up a date," Lydia said. "Tonight. Six o'clock. Café Lalo in Manhattan."

"Lydia, no," Dawn said. The words felt like stones in her mouth. "I can't."

"You can and you will," Lydia snapped. She stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. "Do you know how much it costs to keep you here? The food? The electricity? You think that museum job pays for the space you take up?"

Dawn took a step back. The familiar panic was rising in her throat, closing off her airway. This was the Selective Mutism. It wasn't that she didn't want to speak; it was that the wires between her brain and her mouth simply cut out.

She looked down at her hands. She started counting her fingers. One, two, three, four, five.

"He's a good man," Lydia said, moving closer. She smelled like cheap perfume and sweat. "He wants a family. You give him a kid, he gives you a life. It's a fair trade. If you don't go, don't bother coming back tonight. I'll put your boxes on the curb."

Dawn looked at the door. She couldn't breathe in here.

She grabbed her canvas messenger bag from the hook and bolted.

"Wear the red dress!" Lydia shouted after her.

The hallway was stifling. Dawn ran down the three flights of stairs and burst out onto the street. The Queens air was heavy with exhaust fumes, but at least it moved.

She walked four blocks to the subway station to save the bus fare. Her shirt was already damp by the time she swiped her MetroCard. The turnstile displayed Insufficient Fare.

Dawn closed her eyes. She dug through her bag, finding two quarters and a dime, and went to the machine to add exactly enough for a single ride.

The train was packed. Bodies were pressed against bodies. The air conditioning in the car was broken. A man in a suit elbowed her into the corner near the door. The train stopped in the tunnel between stations. The lights flickered and went out.

In the dark, the heat intensified. Someone cursed loudly.

Dawn's heart hammered against her ribs. The darkness felt like the closet she used to hide in when her parents argued, before the accident. Before the silence took over.

One, two, three, four. She tapped her thumb against her thigh. Five, six, seven, eight.

The lights buzzed back on. The train lurched forward.

By the time she reached the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she felt dizzy. She swiped her employee badge at the side entrance. The blast of climate-controlled air hit her face, and she almost cried with relief.

She went straight to the restoration lab in the basement. It was quiet here. It smelled of turpentine and varnish and old dust. It smelled like safety.

"You look like you walked through a swamp," Harper said. Harper was sitting at the next workbench, mixing pigments. She slid a plastic cup of iced coffee across the table. "Extra milk, two sugars."

Dawn took the cup, her hands shaking slightly. "Thank you."

"Rough morning?"

Dawn nodded. She pulled her stool up to her easel. On it sat a 19th-century oil painting of a storm at sea. There was a tear in the canvas, right through the hull of the ship.

"I have a date tonight," Dawn said. Her voice was steady now that she was safe.

Harper's eyes widened. "A date? With who? Is he cute?"

Dawn picked up a tiny brush. She dipped it into the solvent. "I don't know."

"Blind date?" Harper grinned. "Exciting. Where are you going?"

"Café Lalo."

"Ooh, fancy. Like in that movie." Harper leaned back. "You have to tell me everything tomorrow."

Dawn forced a smile. She couldn't tell Harper that this wasn't a date. It was an appraisal. She was a used car being driven off the lot by a man who smelled like dry cleaning chemicals.

She worked for six hours straight. She didn't take a lunch break. She focused entirely on the microscopic fibers of the canvas, weaving them back together. Here, she had control. If something was broken, she could fix it.

"Heads up," the supervisor, Mr. Henderson, called out around three. "The Holcomb family rep is coming through later to check on the donation pieces. Look busy."

Dawn didn't look up. People like the Holcombs didn't look at people like her. They looked at the art. She was just part of the machinery that kept their tax write-offs pretty.

At five o'clock, her phone buzzed.

Lydia: Don't be late. Table 11. By the window.

Dawn went to the staff bathroom. She washed her face with cold water. She looked in the mirror. Her eyes were dark, framed by lashes that were naturally long. Her brown hair was frizzy from the humidity. She tried to smooth it down with water.

She changed into the red dress she had brought in her bag. It was a wrap dress she had found at a thrift store. It was slightly too big in the waist, but the color made her skin look less pale.

She walked out of the museum. The sun was beginning to set, casting long, bloody shadows across Fifth Avenue.

She walked the twenty blocks to the Upper West Side. She couldn't afford another subway ride if she wanted to eat tomorrow.

By the time she reached West 83rd Street, her feet were aching in her cheap flats. She stopped in front of a bridal shop window. The mannequin wore a dress that cost more than her entire life's earnings. She stared at it for a second, then shook her head.

Café Lalo was ahead. The windows were glowing with warm, golden light. It looked like a fishbowl of happiness.

Dawn took a deep breath. She smoothed the skirt of her red dress.

Just survive, she told herself. Just get through dinner.

She pushed open the heavy wooden door. The bell chimed above her head.

Continue Reading

Other books by Landslide

More
When Love Rebuilds From Frozen Hearts

When Love Rebuilds From Frozen Hearts

Mafia

5.0

On the night of my career-defining art exhibition, I stood completely alone. My husband, Dante Sovrano, the most feared man in Chicago, had promised he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Instead, he was on the evening news. He was shielding another woman—his ruthless business partner—from a downpour, letting his own thousand-dollar suit get soaked just to protect her. The headline flashed below them, calling their new alliance a "power move" that would reshape the city. The guests at my gallery immediately began to whisper. Their pitying looks turned my greatest triumph into a public spectacle of humiliation. Then his text arrived, a cold, final confirmation of my place in his life: “Something came up. Isabella needed me. You understand. Business.” For four years, I had been his possession. A quiet, artistic wife kept in a gilded cage on the top floor of his skyscraper. I poured all my loneliness and heartbreak onto my canvases, but he never truly saw my art. He never truly saw me. He just saw another one of his assets. My heart didn't break that night. It turned to ice. He hadn't just neglected me; he had erased me. So the next morning, I walked into his office and handed him a stack of gallery contracts. He barely glanced up, annoyed at the interruption to his empire-building. He snatched the pen and signed on the line I’d marked. He didn’t know the page tucked directly underneath was our divorce decree. He had just signed away his wife like she was nothing more than an invoice for art supplies.

Stolen Husband, Stolen Life, Stolen Love

Stolen Husband, Stolen Life, Stolen Love

Romance

5.0

The phone call felt like a death sentence. "Killed in action." My husband, David Miller, a decorated Navy SEAL and the love of my life, was gone, leaving me and our five-year-old daughter, Lily, alone. But then, he walked through the door. He looked exactly like David, yet it wasn't him. It was Mark, David\'s identical twin brother, a man I knew to be a selfish, lazy bum, now wearing the mask of my heroic husband. He moved through the grieving relatives, accepting condolences, even letting Grandma Miller sob on his shoulder, all while his eyes met mine with a cold, calculating assessment, daring me to expose him. The nausea hit me, a wave of realization that this wasn' t grief; it was an act. He wasn\'t here to mourn; he was here to steal David\'s identity, to erase him to escape his own pathetic existence. And then fear for Lily, blissful in her coloring, replaced my grief. I had to protect her, no matter the cost. So, I stepped into the role of the devoted, grief-stricken widow. "David," I choked out, throwing my arms around him, "I thought I\'d lost you. They told me you were gone." He stiffened, but recovered quickly, his voice a cheap imitation of my real husband\'s. I played along, even when his girlfriend, Ashley, pregnant with his child, announced their "happy news" at David' s memorial, then demanded our house and savings. The audacity was sickening, but I feigned despair, exposing their cruel intentions to the shocked family. Later, in the backyard, I burned David' s belongings – a painful sacrifice. Mark and Ashley watched, enraged, as he remained trapped by the identity he' d stolen, unable to act for fear of exposing himself. Then Lily, innocent and pure, delivered the first crack in his facade. "Mommy," she asked, looking at Mark, "Why does Daddy look different? His eyes are mean." The words hung in the air, a child\'s innocent observation, but for the first time, I saw real fear in Mark\'s eyes. This was just the beginning. I would make sure he regretted the day he decided to come back from the dead.

You'll also like

The Billionaire's Medicine: His Silent Obsession

The Billionaire's Medicine: His Silent Obsession

Sutton Horsley
5.0

My stepmother sold me like a piece of inventory to a man known for breaking people just to plug the financial crater my father left behind. I was delivered to the Morton estate in the middle of a freezing storm, stripped of my phone, and told that if I didn't make myself useful, my senile grandfather would be evicted from his care facility by noon. The master of the house, Adonis Morton IV, was a monster living in a silent mausoleum, driven to the brink of madness by a sensory condition that turned every sound into a physical assault. When I was forced into his suite to serve him, he didn't see a human being; he saw a source of agony. In a fit of animalistic rage, he pinned me to the wall and nearly strangled me to death just for the sound of a shattering teacup. I only survived by using my grandfather’s secret herbal blends and pressure-point therapy to force his overactive nervous system into a drugged sleep. But saving him was my greatest mistake. Instead of letting me go, Adonis moved me into a guest suite connected to his own bedroom by a hidden door. He didn't just want me as a servant; he needed me as a human white-noise machine to drown out the demons in his head. The nightmare deepened when he took the promissory note that defined my freedom and tore it into confetti. By destroying the debt, he destroyed my exit strategy. He replaced my maid’s uniform with a silver silk dress that clung to my skin but did nothing to hide the dark, ugly bruises his fingers had left on my neck. He branded me as his "primary care associate," a title that was nothing more than a gilded cage. I felt a sickening sense of injustice as he forced me to sign a contract that banned me from contacting other men and required me to sleep wherever he slept. He looked at me with a possessive heat, calling me his "medication" rather than a woman. My family had sold my body, but Adonis Morton was intent on owning my very presence, using my grandfather’s medical bills as a leash to keep me within twenty feet of him at all times. Standing in a neglected greenhouse with mud staining my expensive silk, I realized I was no longer a victim waiting for rescue. If I was going to be his medication, I would learn how to be his cure—or his undoing. I began clearing the weeds with a cold, calculated frenzy, determined to turn this prison into my laboratory. He thinks he has trapped a helpless girl, but I am going to pry open the cracks in his stone walls until his entire world comes crashing down.

Marrying My Runaway Groom's Powerful Father

Marrying My Runaway Groom's Powerful Father

Temple Madison
4.5

I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires. Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world. My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets. I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her. The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money. I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table. "Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book