His Revenge Bride: The Billionaire's Contract Wife

I stared at my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirror of the Paris hotel suite. The diamond necklace around my neck cost more than most people made in a year. My silk robe was a custom Valentino. Everything was perfect. Too perfect. "Sophia! Come on, we're going to miss the best part of the night!" My best friend and maid-of-honor, Jessica Chen, grabbed my hand. Her phone was already out, recording everything. "Your bachelorette party is literally trending on i********: right now. #SophiaAndAlexForever has 2.3 million posts!" I laughed and took another sip of champagne. The bubbles fizzed on my tongue, expensive and cold. In seven days, I would marry Alexander Beaumont III. Seven days until I became Mrs. Beaumont. Seven days until our families merged the Montgomery Hotel Empire with the Beaumont Retail Dynasty in a $93 billion deal. My father had spent the last six months finalizing everything. The Montgomery Empire was expanding too fast, bleeding money on new properties across Asia. We needed the Beaumont cash injection. They needed our real estate expertise and international presence. And I needed to make my family proud. "Let me do a quick Live," Jessica said, already opening i********:. "The fans are dying to see you!" I fixed my hair and smiled at the camera. Thousands of viewers flooded in immediately. Five thousand. Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. "Hi everyone! Sophia here in Paris with my girls!" I blew a kiss. The comments exploded with heart emojis and congratulations. Jessica leaned in, her cheeks flushed with champagne. "Should we do something crazy? Call Alex and wake him up?" My fiancé was back in New York. He said he had business meetings. Alex always had meetings. "He's probably asleep," I said. "It's 2 AM there." "That's what makes it fun!" Jessica grabbed the spare key to Alex's penthouse from my purse. I had given it to her weeks ago when she was helping plan a surprise anniversary dinner for us. "Let's sneak in and surprise him on camera! The viewers will love it! We can take the family jet—your dad said we could use it anytime this week." I should have said no. I should have ended the Live right there. But I was drunk on champagne and happiness and the fantasy of my perfect life. The life where I was marrying a man who looked at me like I was his whole world. Who kissed me goodnight and called me beautiful. Who said he couldn't wait to spend forever with me. "Okay, but just for a second. Then we come right back to the party." If I had known what was about to happen, I would have thrown that key into the Seine River and never looked back. But I didn't know. I still believed in fairy tales.