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Hidden Billion Hearts

Name: Hidden Billion Hearts
Rating: 5.0 (1 reviews)

UntitledRose

Romance | Ongoing

5.0

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She gave him her heart before she ever knew he owned the world. Elara Hayes lives for quiet mornings, worn paperbacks, and the safe hum of her tiny bookstore. Love? She's stopped believing in fairytales. Men want ambition, glamour - not a woman with ink-stained hands and secondhand dreams. Then Alexander Wolfe walks into her life. Charming. Thoughtful. Devastatingly handsome. And utterly ordinary...or so she thinks. Their connection is immediate - a crackling current of late-night conversations, stolen glances, and slow, burning touches that leave her breathless. For the first time in forever, Elara dares to open her guarded heart. But Alexander is hiding something. He's not just the sweet man who kisses her like she's his oxygen. He's the ghost billionaire - the reclusive trillionaire whose empire could swallow the world whole. When the truth shatters their small, perfect world, Elara must choose: Walk away from the man who deceived her... Or fight for the love that neither money nor power could ever buy. Because sometimes, the real fortune isn't in the empire he built - it's in the woman who sees the man underneath it all.

R18+ Suspense

Chapter 5 Sparks In The Silence

04-30 01:58

Chapter 1 Elara Hayes and Alexander Wolfe

The smell of old paper and freshly brewed coffee clung to the air like a second skin.

Elara Hayes pushed open the creaking door of Hayes & Co. Books and stepped into the familiar hush that never failed to soothe her. She dropped her bag behind the counter, shrugged off her cardigan, and stood there for a moment, breathing it all in - the musk of leather-bound novels, the faint scent of lilacs from the vase in the corner, the soft scratch of her cat, Hemingway, pawing at a sunbeam.

The store had been her grandmother's dream. Now, it was her sanctuary.

Elara tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and started her morning ritual. Lights flicked on one by one, washing the shelves in a soft, golden glow. She straightened a crooked stack of poetry collections, thumbed through a misplaced novel, smiled at the scrawled love notes teenagers sometimes tucked into the margins.

It wasn't glamorous. It wasn't flashy. But it was hers.

Outside, the world buzzed - cars honking, phones ringing, people racing toward something bigger, shinier, louder. Elara had tried that once. A corporate job with deadlines sharp enough to cut skin, a boyfriend who had loved the idea of her more than the reality.

It had all cracked wide open two years ago, leaving her bruised but awake.

Now, she chose simplicity. Peace. A life where happiness didn't come with terms and conditions.

She slipped behind the counter, pulling out her battered journal. Another ritual: five minutes of writing whatever came to mind before the day fully began.

Today's entry was short:

Some hearts don't want palaces.

They want a cottage with a garden.

A kiss on the forehead.

A laugh shared over burnt toast.

She smiled faintly, snapping the journal shut.

The bell above the door jingled. A regular - Mrs. Kline - shuffled in, wrapped in a thick scarf despite the lingering heat. Elara offered her a warm greeting and started making her a cup of tea without being asked.

Hours passed like that - quiet, steady, the rhythm of her life as predictable as the changing seasons.

And yet, as Elara closed the store that night, standing alone under the inky sky, a strange restlessness unfurled inside her. Like a whisper she couldn't quite hear.

A tug at the edge of her soul.

She tilted her head back, gazing at the stars.

"I'm happy," she told them softly, as if daring them to doubt it.

Somewhere out there, the world was racing toward riches and power, fame and fortune.

Elara didn't need any of it.

She had a key, a cat, a bookstore.

And, she thought stubbornly, she had enough.

But the universe had a funny way of laughing at declarations like that.

Especially when fate was already setting something - someone - in motion.

And when he came crashing into her life, no amount of simple living would save her heart from the storm he would bring.

__________

The city gleamed like a crown outside his penthouse window - all glass and steel, ambition and hunger.

Alexander Wolfe sat alone at the head of a long, gleaming table. A cold breakfast sat untouched in front of him: fresh berries, black coffee, a croissant still steaming from the oven.

He didn't move. Didn't eat.

Instead, he pulled a worn black leather notebook toward him and flipped it open.

A pen spun idly between his fingers before he pressed it to the page, writing without hesitation:

There's a kind of loneliness money can't touch.

A kind of hunger power can't feed.

I have built empires.

But some days, all I want is a hand to hold.

Alexander stared at the words for a moment, then shut the journal with a quiet snap. It was pathetic, maybe - a trillionaire scribbling half-poetic self-pity at seven a.m. But it was the only honest thing he still had left.

The world knew him by many names:

Visionary. Mogul. Ghost billionaire.

A man who appeared at boardrooms and galas like a phantom, always just out of reach.

Alexander Wolfe wasn't supposed to want more.

He already had everything.

Or so they said.

His phone buzzed once - a reminder of the morning's meetings - and he rose, moving through the cavernous space with an effortless grace. Everything about him was sleek, controlled, deliberate. The dark, tailored suit. The precise tilt of his watch. The slight scruff he allowed only because it humanized him just enough.

The elevator opened at his command.

Security nodded, heads bowed, not a single one daring to meet his eyes.

He didn't blame them. They saw what he showed them - cold efficiency, sharp intelligence, the casual lethality of a man who could buy a country and forget about it by dinner.

And yet... beneath the polished armor, something restless stirred.

Alexander walked through the marble lobby of Wolfe Tower - people parting like waves before him - and out into the crisp morning air.

He had a schedule. A purpose. A thousand obligations wrapped around his throat like silk ties.

Still, somewhere deep inside him, an ache throbbed.

Not for power.

Not for wealth.

For something real. Something he hadn't even dared to imagine in a long, long time.

He adjusted his cufflinks absently, the morning sun catching the gleam of his watch.

Time. Money. Power.

All ticking away, all meaningless without someone to share them with.

Alexander Wolfe had conquered the world.

But he hadn't yet found the one thing he couldn't command or buy.