The Billionaire’s Emergency Bride
She was a girl with a debt she couldn't pay. He was a king with a throne he couldn't lose.
Talia Jett is 48 hours away from losing everything. After her brother’s "sure-thing" investment turned out to be a scam involving the city’s most dangerous loan sharks, she’s been given an ultimatum: pay back two million dollars or pay with her life.
Desperate, she takes a high-stakes catering gig at the Vane Plaza to scout a way out. But a wrong turn leads her into the penthouse of Soren Vane—a man whose heart is as cold as the steel towers he owns.
Soren is facing his own execution: a corporate coup. If he doesn’t clean up his "playboy" image before the merger of the century, he’ll be stripped of his empire. When a rival socialite corners him with the paparazzi in tow, Soren sees Talia—hidden in the shadows, trembling and beautiful.
He doesn't ask. He claims.
With one bone-melting kiss in front of a dozen cameras, he makes her the most famous woman in the world.
"Meet my fiancée," he tells the flashing bulbs.
The Deal: Soren pays off her debt to the loan sharks and provides her brother with a round-the-clock security detail.
The Price: Talia belongs to him for one year. She must live in his house, share his bed for the cameras, and sign a contract that forbids her from ever leaving his side.
Talia thought the loan sharks were the most dangerous men she’d ever met. She was wrong. Because while the sharks wanted her money, Soren Vane wants something much more expensive.
He wants her soul. And in this marriage of convenience, the fine print might just break her heart.
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Chapter: Chapter 5The Gilded CageTALIAThe estate arrives before I'm ready for it.We turn off the main road and the city disappears behind. Like it was completely gone, swallowed by tree line and darkness — and then the gates open and I see it.Glass and steel rising out of manicured ground like something that grew here on purpose. Every light is precise. Every angle is intentional. It is the most beautiful and the most unwelcoming building I have ever seen.I don't say anything.Neither does Soren. He's been on his phone since the call. Typing. Reading. Existing in whatever dimension he operates in where other people's crises are just logistics to process and file.My brother is alive. That's what one of his people confirmed twenty minutes ago. A man in the front seat who spoke into his earpiece and then said the asset is secured and receiving medical attention like my brother Eli is a line item. Like he isn't the person who taught me how to ride a bike and ruined every birthday cake he ever tried t
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-03
Chapter: Chapter 4The Lion's DenSORENThe boardroom is on the thirty-eighth floor and the elevator ride up is forty seconds of silence.I use it to observe.Talia is standing straight. Chin level. Hands loose at her sides — not balled this time, which tells me she made a decision somewhere between the suite and the lobby and chose performance over panic. The dress helps. Mira always delivers. But the dress isn't doing the work her spine is doing right now.She's terrified. I can see it in the slight tension at her jaw and the way she breathes just a fraction too carefully. But if you didn't know to look you wouldn't find it.Interesting.The elevator opens. I put my hand on the small of her back and feel her go rigid for exactly one second before she releases it. Adjusts. Falls into step beside me like she's been doing it for months.Good girl.I don't say it. But I think it.The room is already full when we walk in.Twelve chairs. Nine occupied. Three men standing by the window with coffee they're no
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-03
Chapter: Chapter 3The Devil’s PlanTALIATwo million dollars.I keep staring at those words on page one like they'll rearrange themselves into something that makes more sense. Like maybe I misread. Like maybe it says two hundred or two thousand or anything that doesn't make my brain short-circuit.It says two million.I turn to page four.Clause 4: The Party of the Second Part agrees to maintain physical proximity to the Party of the First Part at all public and private engagements as defined in Schedule A, and shall not be absent from shared residence for a period exceeding twelve hours without prior written consent.I read it twice. Then a third time.Physical proximity. At all times.I turn to page seven.Clause 7: In all matters pertaining to public conduct and private decisions affecting the integrity of this agreement, the judgment of the Party of the First Part shall be considered final and binding.The Party of the First Part is Soren Vane.His word is final. In public and private. In my home —
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-03
Chapter: Chapter 2The Aftermath of a KissSORENThe cameras are still going when I pull back.I count — three seconds, maybe four — enough for the shot to be clean, enough for the story to write itself. Billionaire Soren Vane and Mystery Woman. By morning, it'll be on every entertainment feed that matters, and Cassandra's seventeen seconds of video will be competing with something far more compelling: the Ice King, apparently, has a soft side.I let go of her jaw.The woman doesn't move. It’s like she is frozen, eyes wide, lips parted, and the expression on her face is the kind of shock that comes right before a person either faints or screams. I put my hand on the small of her back, lightly, a gesture that reads as tender to the cameras and functions as a warning.Don't.She doesn't.Good instincts. Or maybe just good fear of response. Either way, useful.I smiled for the cameras, then spoke just three words that would cause chaos before I shut the door.“Meet my fiancée.”And just like I predicted, t
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-03
Chapter: Chapter 1The Wrong DoorTALIAUnknown: 24 hours left. Bring the money or die.A wave of iced chills rolled down my spine and I gulped down the last champagne left on my tray.I can’t die. And I cannot lose my brother.But when a man named Dex sat across from me in a booth that smelled like cigarettes 48 hours ago, and told me in a very calm tone that my brother's debt was now my debt. He said my brother had been stupid enough to put our mother's apartment up as collateral. He'd smiled when he said it. Like it was good news.Like it wasn’t a ruin.I looked around this ballroom, looking for my plan – Marcus Webb.Marcus Webb is a philanthropist, semi-drunk on his third glass of champagne by eight-thirty, and he has a reputation for being sentimental about hard-luck stories. I just need five minutes and enough composure to ask him for a loan without crying. I've been rehearsing the speech in bathroom mirrors all evening.But I couldn’t find him amdist the crowd of expensive perfumes and rich laug
최신 업데이트: 2026-06-03
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