All Chapters of Billionaire's Dead Wife Returns As His Contract Bride: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

ABEL The heat came for him first.Not the warmth of sunlight or the comfort of a fireplace. This was something alive and hungry, a roaring wall of orange and black that swallowed the world whole. Smoke poured into his lungs like wet concrete, and his eyes streamed until the world dissolved into nothing but fire."Abel!"A scream tore through the sea of flames, scraping against his soul."Helen!" He threw her name into the inferno and the flames swallowed it whole.He was running toward the lake house. Their lake house. One where they had spent every summer of their marriage for the past year. Now it was a skeleton of orange and red, and he could just make out her silhouette on the upstairs balcony, small against the blaze."Help me! Please, Abel!" Helen wailed at the top of her voice.He lunged forward, ignoring the heat that threatened to blister his skin. But then arms wrapped around his chest like iron bands, yanking him backward."Let me go!" he thrashed against the firefighters

OLIVIACold.That was the first thing Olivia felt as her eyes slowly peeled open. It seeped through her thin pajamas and bit into her skin. She looked up, expecting to see the cracked ceiling of her cheap motel room. Instead, they met a gray sky and the heavy branches of a tree swaying in the wind.She sat up with a gasp, her heart pounding, and pressed her palms to the surface beneath her."What?" she breathed, her eyes going wide and digging her nails into the wood beneath her.The last thing she remembered was crawling into the stiff sheets of her bed after the disastrous interview with Abel Lamb. She had cried herself to sleep, clutching the contract she hadn't signed. And now she was lying on a bench three blocks away from her motel with no memory of how she got there.She was sleepwalking again. She was quite relieved she hadn't wandered too far.Olivia stood up on shaky legs. She kept her head down, ignoring the stares of strangers walking their dogs as she hurried back toward t

ABELMorning arrived for Abel with the cold and grey reality of a headache that whiskey couldn’t cure.He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, splashing freezing water on his face. The man staring back at him was a ruin. Hollow cheeks. Eyes rimmed red. He looked like grief personified, which was appropriate, because that was more or less what he wasHe could still hear Olivia humming that lullaby in the dark. He had stood in front of her door for what felt like hours last night before finally forcing himself to leave. He told himself it was his sleep deprivation. And somehow, a french lullaby he had only ever heard Helen sing was probably popular.He got dressed in a regal Italian grey suit cut like armor and sharp enough to draw blood. That was what he needed today. He had barely walked out of his room when he heard voices drifting up from the dining room. Not the hushed tones of the staff. The sharp, clinking laughter of trespassers.His blood pressure spiked. He checked his watch.

OLIVIAFor the last twenty minutes, Abel hadn’t said a word, and Olivia simply watched him as he drove. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his jaw set so tight she could see the muscle ticking beneath his skin.Something had changed.Before that phone call, there had been a moment in the foyer where he looked at her, not as an employee or a ghost, but as an actual person.She could still feel his fingers on her neck, sending a jolt of electricity down her spine that she was still trying to shake off.But now? The temperature in the car had dropped below freezing.She clutched the cold diamonds at her throat.Five million dollars. You are an actress, don't get carried away. Abel was probably just putting on a performance so she had to as well.But then the car slowed down, and the weight of the job she had taken became terrifyingly clear.They hadn't even stopped yet, and she could already see lights. No, not the soft, welcoming glow of a porch light; Violent flashes of wha

ABELThe Phantom tore down the Highway, the engine roaring like a wounded beast.Beside him, Olivia slumped in the passenger seat, her head tipped at an angle that made his chest tighten every time the car hit a bump. She wasn't screaming anymore. The terrified shrieks that had silenced the ballroom had faded into a low, pained whimper."Olivia?" he called out but she didn't answer. Her eyes squeezed shut, her hands wrapped tightly around the expensive blue silk of her dress.He remembered the way she screamed in the ballroom. She had acted like the whole room had suddenly caught on fire.Fire?A cold shiver coursed down his spine.Helen had died in a fire at their lake house eight months ago. And now, this woman, this stranger who wore his dead wife's face, was hallucinating about heat and burning lights?He gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather creaked, his heart hammering at his ribs from a mixture of anger, adrenaline, and something darker. Something he didn’t want to nam