Marrying My Ex's Ruthless Billionaire Uncle

"Are you absolutely sure you want to kiss me? Do you even know who I am?"

The memory hit Emaline Knight through the heavy, throbbing haze of a vicious hangover. She remembered blinking up at the man in the dim, amber light of the hotel suite, her voice slurred from too much cheap tequila. "Who are you?"

His features were brutally handsome, sharp and predatory, with a faint, wicked scar cutting through the edge of his right eyebrow that gave him a dangerous, untamed edge. "I'm Alastair's uncle. Abdiel Sharpe," his voice had rumbled, darker than the midnight storm rattling the windows.

Alastair Hayes. The coward of a fiancé who had abruptly dumped her via text the very moment her family's bankruptcy hit the news cycle.

And Abdiel Sharpe? He was the apex predator of Manhattan's elite, the billionaire titan everyone bowed to.

"Well," she had giggled, the alcohol making her reckless and vindictive. "If I can't be his wife, becoming his aunt to piss him off sounds like a solid backup plan. Think you can help me out, Mr. Sharpe?"

"You're asking for trouble," he had growled, his eyes flashing with a raw, primal heat. And then, he had taken her mouth, kissing her with a savage intensity that erased every coherent thought in her brain. They fit together perfectly, a collision of heat and desperation. She remembered her hands tracing the hard, scarred muscle of his shoulder, the relentless, exhausting rhythm of their tangled bodies...

She gasped, her dry throat burning as morning sunlight pierced through a narrow gap in heavy velvet drapes. She was in his bed. The thousand-thread-count Egyptian silk was tangled around her bare legs, carrying the undeniable, musky scent of their wild night. Her muscles ached with a deep, unfamiliar soreness.

Abdiel was already up. He wore only a dark gray towel slung low around his narrow hips. Droplets of water glistened on the sculpted ridges of his broad back and the tight muscles along his spine. He walked toward a floating mahogany console, picking up a custom Audemars Piguet watch and fastening the platinum bracelet around his wrist with practiced, effortless indifference.

He turned. His eyes were a piercing, glacial gray, set beneath dark, straight brows. But instead of the cold, flawless statue she expected, he looked rugged, radiating a dominant, unapologetic masculine energy that made her breath catch.

Emaline pulled the sheet up to her collarbones, her cheeks burning hot. "So," she started, trying to mask her vulnerability with a forced, sassy smirk. "About that whole 'becoming Alastair's aunt' thing... does the offer still stand?"

Abdiel didn't even blink as he pulled on a crisp white dress shirt. "No."

His rejection was blunt, a brutal reminder that last night was nothing but a drunken mistake. A one-off. He buttoned his cuffs, treating her presence as nothing more substantial than dust in the air.

"Right," Emaline swallowed the heavy lump of humiliation in her throat, forcing a breezy tone. "Thanks for the ride home, anyway."

"Don't mention it. I have a board meeting. Let yourself out," he said, grabbing his tailored charcoal jacket and walking out the door without a single backward glance.

There were no goodbyes. Emaline knew the score. She dressed quickly in her crumpled navy cocktail dress, the delicate satin ruined and creased. She slipped out of the hotel and into the sharp October wind of Midtown Manhattan.

Her leather handbag buzzed against her hip. She scrambled through the bag, pulling out her cracked phone. The screen flashed with a dreaded caller ID: NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

"Hello?" she answered, her stomach dropping.

"Miss Knight, your mother's account is past sixty days overdue. The current outstanding balance for her cardiac care is fifty-two thousand dollars. If the account is not settled in full by five o'clock today, the hospital will be forced to discontinue her non-essential medications."

"Wait, please," Emaline pleaded, tears burning hot behind her eyelids. "Just give me forty-eight hours-"

"Five o'clock, Miss Knight." The line went dead.

Desperation crushed whatever scrap of pride she had left. She had no choice. She hailed a yellow cab and headed straight to the Upper East Side, to the Hayes estate. Her father had loaned them millions before his bankruptcy; they owed her.

When she arrived at the grand wrought-iron gates, the butler reluctantly let her in. Alastair came out to the marble foyer, looking effortlessly handsome but incredibly nervous. "Emaline? What are you doing here?"

"Alastair, I need fifty thousand. It's for my mother's hospital bill. I know we're over, but please, I have nowhere else to go."

Alastair looked at the floor. "Ema... let me see what I can do. Come inside for a second."

But as Emaline stepped through the archway into the grand drawing room, she froze. Sitting on the velvet settee with Alastair's mother, Eleanora, was none other than Abdiel Sharpe.

Abdiel looked up, his piercing gray eyes locking onto hers. He didn't say a word, just took a slow drag from his cigar, a flicker of dark, dangerous amusement dancing in his gaze.