Owned by the Ruthless Billionaire

Annalyn The first thing I felt was the fire. It started behind my eyes, a sharp, burning throb that pulsed in time with a high-pitched beep. The beep was steady and annoying. I tried to reach up and smash whatever alarm clock was making that noise, but my arm wouldn't move. It felt like it was pinned under a boulder. I forced my eyes open. White ceiling and walls. The smell of bleach and rubbing alcohol hit the back of my throat, making me gag. I blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights, trying to make sense of the room. A hospital. I was in a hospital bed. "Don't move too fast." The voice came from my left. I turned my head, wincing as a sharp pain shot down my neck. A man in a white coat was standing next to a machine, writing on a clipboard. He looked up, giving me a small, practiced smile. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Miss Lorenzo," he said. He stepped closer and clicked a small penlight. "I'm Dr. Evans. Follow the light with your eyes, please. Don't move your head." I did as he asked, though the light made the fire in my brain flare up. "Water," I managed to croak. My throat felt like sandpaper. He poured water from a plastic pitcher into a small cup, dropped a straw into it, and held it to my lips. I took a long, greedy sip. The cold water was the best thing I had ever tasted. "Better?" he asked, setting the cup down. "A little," I whispered. My voice still sounded wrecked. "What happened? Why am I here?" Dr. Evans sighed, pulling a stool over and sitting down next to my bed. He didn't look like a man about to deliver good news. He looked tired. "You were in a car crash," he said quietly. "Your car went off Route 9. It tore through a guardrail and hit a cluster of trees. Your vehicle is a total loss. By all accounts, you shouldn't be breathing right now." A car crash. I closed my eyes, trying to dig through the fog in my head. Fragments of the night started to piece themselves together. I was at the office. Lorenzo Enterprises, the building my father built from the ground up. I had been working late, going over the quarterly reports. Warren had been there. My chest tightened at the thought of him. Warren. The man I was supposed to marry, the man who was supposed to be my partner. "My head hurts," I muttered, rubbing my temple with my good hand. "You have a mild concussion," Dr. Evans explained. "Two fractured ribs on your left side. A bruised collarbone from the seat-belt and a lot of scrapes, but that's not the part that concerns me." I opened my eyes and looked at him. "What do you mean?" He leaned forward, lowering his voice even though we were alone in the room. "A man brought you in about four hours ago. When a patient comes in from a major trauma, we run a full blood panel. Miss Lorenzo, your blood work showed an incredibly high dose of a central nervous system depressant. Rohypnol, to be exact." The word hung in the air. "Drugs?" I asked, my voice shaking. "I don't do drugs." "I know," he said. "The dosage wasn't recreational. It was enough to knock a grown man out cold in twenty minutes. Someone slipped it into your system. You didn't just fall asleep at the wheel. You were drugged." My blood ran cold. The memories hit me in a violent rush. I was sitting at my desk. The room was quiet. The door opened, and Warren walked in. He was wearing that tailored navy suit he loved so much. His dark hair was perfectly styled. He smiled at me. That easy, charming smile that used to make my stomach flip. Now, looking back, the smile didn't reach his dark brown eyes. “You’re working too hard, Anna,” he had said, setting a paper coffee cup on my desk. “Drink this. It’s your favorite. Caramel, extra shot.” I smiled back as I thanked him and took a drink. Then Sophie walked in. My stepsister. She stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching me. She had a smirk on her lips, a look of pure, twisted amusement. “Don't stay too late, Annalyn,” she had purred. “We wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you in the dark.” I hadn't thought anything of it. Sophie was always saying hateful things. I had just rolled my eyes, finished the coffee, and packed up my bag. Twenty minutes later, I was on the road. I remembered the sudden, heavy weight in my limbs. The way the road lines started to blur together. I had rolled down the window, hoping the cold night air would wake me up. It didn't. I felt my chin hitting my chest. Panic had set in. I told myself to pull over. I moved my foot from the gas to the brake pedal as I pressed down. Nothing happened. I stomped on it. The pedal went flat to the floorboard with zero resistance. The car didn't slow down. It just kept speeding toward the sharp curve on Route 9. "My brakes," I gasped out loud, staring at the hospital ceiling. Dr. Evans watched me carefully. "Excuse me?" "My brakes didn't work," I said, my voice rising in panic. I tried to sit up, but the pain in my ribs forced me back down with a sharp cry. "I tried to stop, I stepped on the pedal, and it did nothing." Dr. Evans stood up. He ran a hand over his face. "Miss Lorenzo, the police examined the wreckage. They told me before they left. Your brake lines were cleanly cut. Someone tampered with your car." The monitor next to my bed started beeping faster. My heart was slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird. Someone tampered with my car. Someone drugged me, not someone. I knew exactly who did it. Warren and Sophie. "They tried to kill me," I whispered. The words tasted like ash. "A detective will be back in the morning to get your statement," Dr. Evans said gently. "You need to tell them everything you remember. If someone did this to you, they need to be caught." "Caught?" I let out a dry, bitter laugh that ended in a cough. "You think the police are going to catch them in time? You don't understand." "Understand what?" "The timeline," I muttered, mostly to myself. Everything came back to the timeline. The stupid, cruel clause my father had left in his will. “To my only daughter, Annalyn, I leave the entirety of my shares in Lorenzo Enterprises, on one condition. She must be legally married by her thirtieth birthday. I want her settled, protected, and grounded before she takes the throne. If she fails to meet this requirement, the shares will be transferred to my wife, Kathryn, and her daughter, Sophie.” My thirtieth birthday was exactly two weeks from today. Fourteen days. For months, Kathryn and Sophie had been breathing down my neck, waiting for me to fail. But I thought I was safe. I had Warren. We were engaged. The wedding was planned. The invitations were sent. I was going to secure the company, keep my father's legacy out of their greedy hands, and move on with my life. But Kathryn was smarter than that. She was vile, controlling, and deeply manipulative. Why wait for me to fail when she could just remove me from the board entirely? She must have offered Warren something better than being my husband. She must have offered him a piece of the pie. A piece of my company. And Sophie… Sophie had always wanted everything that belonged to me. Including my fiancé. They wanted me out of the way. If I died in a tragic car accident, the company would go straight to Kathryn. Game over. "Miss Lorenzo?" Dr. Evans asked, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts. "Are you alright? Your heart rate is spiking." "I need my phone," I demanded, ignoring his question. I looked around the sterile room. "Where are my things? I have to make a call." "Your belongings were destroyed in the fire," a new voice said. I jumped, wincing at the pain in my ribs. The voice didn't belong to the doctor. It was deep, rough, and completely calm. I turned my head toward the corner of the room. It was dark over there, away from the harsh overhead light. A shadow detached itself from the wall and stepped forward. My breath caught in my throat. He was tall. Easily six-foot-two and was dressed in dark jeans and a heavy, scuffed black leather jacket. His dark hair was messy, like he had been running his hands through it for hours. A shadow of dark stubble coated his strong, sharp jawline, but it was his eyes that locked me in place. They were a pale, striking steel-gray. "Who are you?" I asked, my voice dropping to a defensive whisper. "This is the man who brought you in," Dr. Evans explained, stepping back to give him room. "He pulled you out of the wreckage." The stranger stopped at the foot of my bed. He didn't smile. He just looked at me, his gaze sweeping over the bandages on my arm and the bruises I could feel forming on my face. "The car caught fire?" I asked him. "Two minutes later, I pulled you through the shattered windshield," he said. His voice was giving away absolutely no emotion. "By the time the ambulance arrived, the frame was nothing but melted metal. You didn't have a phone left. You didn't have a purse left, and you barely made it out with your skin." I stared at him. The reality of how close I had come to dying hit me like a physical blow. If this man hadn't been there… if he hadn't stopped… I would be a pile of ash on the side of Route 9 and Kathryn would be popping champagne in my father's office. Warren and Sophie would be laughing. "Thank you," I said softly. It felt completely inadequate. "You saved my life." He just gave a tight, barely visible nod. "You shouldn't be driving if you can't keep your eyes open." My defenses instantly flared up. "I didn't fall asleep. I was drugged, and my brakes were cut." "I heard," he said smoothly. He crossed his arms over his broad chest. The leather of his jacket creaked in the quiet room. "Seems like a sloppy way to kill someone." "Excuse me?" I snapped. "If I wanted someone dead," he said, his gray eyes locking onto mine, "I wouldn't leave it to a tree and a curve in the road. Too many variables. Someone could pull you out, like I did." "I'll let you two talk," Dr. Evans said nervously, clearly uncomfortable with the dark turn of the conversation. "I'll be at the nurse's station if you need pain medication, Miss Lorenzo. The police will be here at eight A.M." The doctor slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click. I was left entirely alone with the stranger. "What were you doing on Route 9?" I asked, eyeing him carefully. "Riding my bike," he said. He nodded toward a matte-black motorcycle helmet sitting on a small plastic chair near the window. "I was a quarter-mile behind you when I saw your brake lights flash once, then nothing. Saw you blow right through the guardrail." "And you just stopped? You didn't call 911 and keep riding?" "I called 911," he said. "Then I went down the embankment. The driver's side door was jammed. I had to kick the window in to get you out." I looked at his hands. His knuckles were bruised, the skin split across a few of them. Guilt washed over me, mixing with the anger and the fear. "I'm sorry," I said. "And I'm grateful. Really, I owe you everything." He uncrossed his arms and slipped his hands into his jacket pockets. "You don't owe me anything. You're breathing. Keep it that way. Do you have someone I should call? Family?" "No," I said instantly. The word was the truth and bitter. He raised a dark eyebrow. "Are you sure about that? Usually, people waking up in a hospital want their family." "My family is the reason I'm in this hospital," I told him flatly. "My stepmother and stepsister, they want my inheritance." "And your boyfriend?" he asked. "Fiancé," I corrected, feeling sick in my stomach. "Ex-fiancé, as of tonight. He's the one who handed me the drink with the drugs in it. So no, please do not call anyone." The stranger watched me for a long moment. "Sounds like you're surrounded by sharks," he finally said. "I am," I admitted, letting my head fall back against the stiff hospital pillow. "And I have exactly fourteen days before they eat me alive." "Fourteen days until what?" "Until my thirtieth birthday," I muttered, staring at the ceiling. I was talking too much. I was spilling my secrets to a man whose name I didn't even know, but I was so tired. I was so tired of fighting alone. "If I'm not legally married by the time I turn thirty, I will lose my father's company. I’ll lose everything he built. They knew that. They knew I was going to marry Warren, so they paid him to hurt me. Now I have no fiancé, no car, and no time." The room went quiet. The only sound was the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor. I closed my eyes. What was I going to do? I couldn't go to the police. Even if they believed me, an investigation would take months and by the time they arrested Warren or Kathryn, my birthday would have passed. The shares would transfer automatically, and I would be locked out of my own building. I needed a husband, not a real one. Just a name on a piece of paper. Just a body standing next to me at the courthouse. Someone Kathryn couldn't touch and Warren couldn't bribe. Someone completely outside my world. My eyes snapped open. I turned my head and looked at the man standing at the foot of my bed. He was quiet but was strong enough to rip a woman out of a burning car. He hadn't flinched when I told him my family tried to kill me, he just stood there, grounded and unfazed, but he was a stranger and he rode a motorcycle. He had nothing to do with Lorenzo Enterprises or the billionaires who circled my life like vultures. I felt my heart start to beat a little faster. The monitor next to me picked up the pace, the beeps coming closer together. "What's your name?" I asked him. He tilted his head slightly, his steel-gray eyes narrowing. "Aidan." "Aidan," I repeated. The name felt solid and grounded. "Aidan, what do you do for a living?" "Why?" "Because," I said, pushing myself up on my elbows and ignoring the white-hot pain shooting through my ribs. I looked him dead in the eyes. "I have a lot of money. More money than you can probably imagine, and I am about to make you a very crazy offer." He didn't move or blink. He just waited. The idea was insane and nothing but desperate. It was the kind of thing that could blow up in my face and ruin me completely, but as I sat in that hospital bed, broken and betrayed by everyone I had ever trusted, I realized I had absolutely nothing left to lose. Survival meant doing whatever it took. "Marry me," I said. The words hung in the sterile air between us. Aidan stared at me, his expression unreadable. I took a shaky breath, doubling down. "Marry me, Aidan. Save my life one more time."