Rejected By My Ex, I Married A Hidden Billionaire

Chapter 2 The Deal

I stared at him, sure the whiskey had addled my brain. For a long, heavy beat, I could only hear the low jazz hum of the bar and the rain pattering against the windows. Then I laughed, a bitter, shaky sound, and wiped the last of my tears off my cheeks.

“Marry you? Are you serious? You don’t even know me.” I shook my head, my chest tight with a fresh wave of hurt. “I just found out my boyfriend of three years cheated on me with my best friend. I’m not in the mood for rich people games.”

Ethan’s expression didn’t shift. He took a slow sip of his whiskey, his stormy blue eyes never leaving my face. “I’m not playing games, Miss Moore. I’m offering you a business deal. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He leaned forward, his voice low and steady, cutting through the fog of my heartbreak. “I need a wife. My family has been hounding me to settle down for years, and the board of my company is breathing down my neck about my ‘unstable personal life’. A year-long marriage will quiet them all. And you need revenge. You need the power to make the people who hurt you pay for what they did.”

“Why me?” I whispered, my heart racing. It sounded too good to be true. Too perfect. Like a dream I’d have after one too many drinks.

“Because you’re the only person who’s ever walked into my life at exactly the right time, with exactly what I need.” He smiled, that faint, dangerous smile. “You don’t want love. You don’t want a fairy tale. You want payback. And I want a year of peace from my family. We don’t have to like each other. We just have to keep up the act in public. No strings attached. At the end of the year, you walk away with a million dollars, and the satisfaction of knowing you ruined the man who ruined you.”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it, and held it up to his ear. It only rang once before someone picked up. “Mr. Hale! I can’t believe you called—”

Jake’s voice. I froze, my blood running cold.

Ethan’s voice turned ice cold, sharp as a blade. “The Hale Group is pulling all potential partnerships with your company. Effective immediately. We’re also freezing the seed round funding your startup was counting on. You’ll never work in this city again.”

The line went dead silent. Then Jake started screaming, panicked and desperate, but Ethan hung up before he could say another word. He set his phone down on the bar, and looked back at me.

“That’s just a taste of what I can give you.”

My breath caught. In ten seconds, he’d destroyed everything Jake had ever worked for. Everything Jake had used me to get. I’d spent three years giving that man everything, and he’d thrown it away. And this man, this stranger, had ruined him with a single phone call.

I stared at him, my mind made up. What did I have to lose? My heart was already broken. My life was already in shambles. This was the only chance I had to take back control.

“Okay,” I said, my voice steady. “I’ll marry you.”

Ethan’s lips tilted up in a faint, satisfied smile. He pulled a sleek black card out of his wallet, and slid it across the bar to me. “Good. Tomorrow morning, 9 a.m., the downtown courthouse. Buy whatever you need tonight. This card has no limit.”

He stood up, adjusting his suit jacket, and looked down at me. “Welcome to the Hale family, Mrs. Hale-to-be. You’re never going to regret this.”

I stared at the black card in my hand, as he walked out of the bar and into the night. I had no idea that this deal, this fake marriage, was about to change my life in ways I could never have imagined.