Apartment

“I've never loved you. You were just a warm body I used to pass time. Lilith is the one I love!” Those are the words my ex spat at my face on the day I proposed to him after dating for 6 years. Instead of the loving surprise I planned, I catch him cheating on me instead. He throws me out of his apartment with a sneer. Unable to take it anymore, I get drunk and find myself in the bed of another man. Deimos Escarrá, my ex's uncle. A billionaire CEO who proposes a contract marriage and more money than I could ever need. After all the things I went through, I won't let them get away so easily. It's my turn to come out on top and show the Escarrás that I won't be pushed around. If it's a wife he wants, then I'll be The Billionaire's Naughty Christmas Bride.

I found out my husband of three years had cheated on me and his mistress is the one who told me—because he didn’t have the balls to do it himself. I move out and get a new apartment, a job as a bartender, and try to move on with a broken heart. I wonder where it all went wrong, if I hadn’t been enough for him, if I’d been stupid for marrying him in the first place. I’m at work one night when he walks inside—the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. He sits at the bar and a forest fire burns between us. I was depressed the moment before he entered, but the second I look at his blue eyes, I forget the dumpster fire that my life has become. I invite him back to my place and it’s the most passionate night of my life. I expect to never see him again. I just want him as an anti-depressant—but he wants me all to himself. I just got my heart ripped out of my chest so I want something easy and no-strings-attached, but he wants all the strings because he’s hooked. I don’t get much of a say in the matter, and that’s not surprising when I learn why—because he’s the Butcher. The crime lord of all crime lords, the boss that overshadows all of Paris, that makes everyone abide by his rules—or pay. And now I’m his.