The Bodyguard I Hired Is My Billionaire Husband

I sat at a mahogany table long enough to land a plane on, signing the papers that ended my two-year marriage to billionaire Eric Koch. He didn't even show up for the divorce; he was in a private cigar lounge downstairs, sending his lawyer to hand me a five-million-dollar check to buy my silence like I was a discarded employee. For two years, I had perfected the role of the "mouse"—the plain, timid wife Eric looked right past, never suspecting I was actually Rose, the world-renowned designer behind a secret fashion empire. I never told him I was the "angel" who dragged his unconscious body from a burning car years ago, the woman he’d been searching for while he ignored the one across the breakfast table. To celebrate my freedom, I had a one-night stand with a stranger in a penthouse, only to wake up and realize the man I’d just slept with was my ex-husband. Before the ink on our divorce was dry, Eric used his billions to buy my studio, trapping me in a contract that forces me to work for him as a "lowly assistant" or face a fifty-million-dollar penalty. I watched in silence as a fame-hungry actress paraded around his office wearing my stolen heirloom locket—the only proof of my true identity—claiming she was the mystery woman from his bed. Eric looked right through my frumpy disguise with the same cold indifference he showed his wife, never realizing the woman he was hunting was standing right in front of him. I couldn't understand how he could be so obsessed with finding a ghost while treating the living woman who saved him like garbage. Why was he so determined to own every piece of Rose while he had spent two years throwing Aislinn away? "Tell him nothing," I whispered to my reflection as I reapplied the thick foundation that masked my face. "You're dangerous, Ann Reese," he told me later, his eyes narrowing as he sensed a familiar spark behind my thick glasses. I adjusted my bun and looked him in the eye, ready to play the long game. He thinks he’s bought my future, but he’s about to find out that Rose doesn’t just design couture—she designs ruins.

I woke up before dawn to slice strawberries for my husband, Gabe, excited to finally tell him I was pregnant. As a "Wolfless" Omega, I had always been looked down upon, but I thought this baby proved I wasn't broken. But Gabe didn't come home alone. He walked in with Harper, a woman wearing the silk robe he had bought for me, reeking of his scent. He didn't kiss me. He didn't ask how I was. Instead, he sat her in my chair. "Make more pancakes," he ordered. "Harper is hungry." When I refused, demanding he explain why another woman was wearing my clothes, he didn't apologize. He used the Alpha Command. The pressure slammed me to the floor, crushing my bones and threatening the life inside my womb. I had to crawl out of the room while they laughed. My adoptive parents didn't save me; they sold me out for a council seat and a diamond necklace. Then came the public execution of my heart. At the Ascension Ceremony, Gabe took the microphone and rejected me in front of the entire Pack to make Harper his Luna. But they didn't just kick me out. They dragged me to a dirty, back-alley clinic. His mother ordered them to "remove the parasite" inside me. I screamed as they strapped me down. But as the needle touched my skin, the steel door was ripped off its hinges. The Alpha King stood in the debris, his eyes burning with golden rage as he looked at the necklace I wore. "Who dares touch my daughter?" he roared. I wasn't a defect. I was the lost White Wolf Princess. And the man standing behind the King wasn't just a guard—he was my true mate.

I removed an intern from an award nomination for stealing my dead sister's research. My husband, Craig, was furious. He chose to defend her, not me. His rage turned violent. He destroyed my life's work-a cure for Alzheimer's-then shoved me so hard I miscarried our child. He called me "dramatic" as I bled on the floor. Then he locked me in our home, a prisoner, forcing me to sign over my patents to his mistress, the woman who drove my sister to suicide. He thought he had broken me, that I was his to control. But when he tried to humiliate me in the most depraved way imaginable, I saw my chance. I threw myself from a second-story window. As I lay broken on the ground, watching him rush to his mistress's side, I made a vow. My revenge was just beginning.

For two years, I was in love with a man I only knew as C.L. Our anonymous online relationship was my safe haven from a world that terrified me, built on one simple rule: we would never meet. That rule shattered with a single text. He was a bestselling author, and his publisher was forcing him on a book tour. "I need to meet you," he wrote. "I can't do this without you." My social anxiety spiraled. I broke the only rule I could control and told him we should end it. The next morning, my boss ordered me to deliver files to our company's top client-the notoriously private author, Cristian Lancaster. It was him. My anonymous lover was my boss. He looked devastated, as if he' d been crying over my message, but he treated me like a stranger. I later found out the truth: he' d known who I was for two years, quietly waiting for me to trust him. But as our worlds finally collided, a jealous manager saw her chance for revenge. She forced me into a dinner with a dangerous man from my past, a man who drugged my drink and drove me toward a desolate road. As the car sped into the darkness, I hit record on my phone, realizing this was no longer about saving our love story. It was about saving my life.

I gave up my twenty-billion-dollar inheritance and cut ties with my family, all for my boyfriend of five years, Ignatz. But just as I was about to tell him I was pregnant with our child, he dropped a bombshell. He needed me to take the fall for his childhood sweetheart, Everleigh. She'd been in a hit-and-run, and her career couldn't handle the scandal. When I refused and told him about our baby, his face went cold. He told me to terminate the pregnancy immediately. "Everleigh is the woman I love," he said. "Finding out you're pregnant with my child would destroy her." He had his assistant schedule the appointment and sent me to the clinic alone. There, the nurse told me the procedure carried a high risk of permanent infertility. He knew. And he still sent me. I walked out of that clinic, choosing to keep my child. At that exact moment, a news alert lit up my phone. It was a glowing article announcing that Ignatz and Everleigh were expecting their first child, complete with a photo of his hand resting protectively on her stomach. My world shattered. Wiping away a tear, I found the number I hadn't called in five years. "Dad," I whispered, my voice breaking. "I'm ready to come home."

The first thing I felt was a dull throb, the smell of antiseptic, and the piercing brightness of a hospital room. A nurse informed me I was Olivia Vance, and my husband, Alexander Vance, wasn't there. Then she mentioned another "accident" and a woman named Sophia, saying, "You'd think a man like him would have better things to do." My nurse, Emily, told me I had a concussion and a fractured wrist, and that she'd seen me a "dozen times" for pulling "stunts to get his attention." I looked down at a wedding band on my left hand – a cruel joke. I was told it was 2025. My last memory was 2018. Seven missing years. And an unfamiliar face stared back from the reflection-thin, tired, broken. My phone, filled with pictures of a cold mansion, smiling strangers, and a dangerous-looking Alexander Vance, confirmed I was married to him. Then I found the contract: an agreement signed in 2020 to be his public wife for five years in exchange for a settlement. The term was up. Scrolling through desperate, one-sided texts to him, I found a chilling message from two days ago: "He will never love you. You're just a substitute. He's with me tonight." A violent memory hit me: a yacht, Sophia Miller's poisonous voice telling me, "He's tired of you, Olivia. You were just a placeholder." Then her hands on my chest, a sudden shove, and the cold water engulfing me. The bruises, the fractured wrist, the aching ribs – all for a stranger I had apparently loved. My past was a living nightmare, but now, with a blank slate, I knew one thing: I was not bringing that broken woman back.

For three quiet, patient years, Christina kept house, only to be coldly discarded by the man she once trusted. Instead, he paraded a new lover, making her the punchline of every town joke. Liberated, she honed her long-ignored gifts, astonishing the town with triumph after gleaming triumph. Upon discovering she'd been a treasure all along, her ex-husband's regret drove him to pursue her. "Honey, let's get back together!" With a cold smirk, Christina spat, "Fuck off." A silken-suited mogul slipped an arm around her waist. "She's married to me now. Guards, get him the hell out of here!"

The rain assaulted the glass, mirroring the storm inside me. For three years, I, Vivian Sterling, played the perfect wife to Julian Kensington, draining my life. The antique clock ticked, a reminder of time lost. Then, I found it: a blonde hair on Julian's suit, reeking of Midnight Rose, and a text, ""Candy: You left your cufflinks on my nightstand. I'm already missing you."" My world shattered, revealing his betrayal. This was just the beginning. I exposed Julian's fraud and his family's violent plots, surviving assassination. But their malice stole my past. Then Alexander Vance, my protector, uncovered a terrifying truth: my birth mother was alive, held captive by a shadowy order. My life was a lie, built to shield me from my dangerous bloodline. I found strength and love with Alexander, the man who walked into fire for me. Yet, as I prepared to rescue my mother, a new life stirred within me, a secret threatening to complicate the impending war.

After a one-night stand with a stranger, Roselyn woke up to find only a bank card without a PIN number. Still in a daze, she was detained on charges of theft. Just as the handcuffs were about to close, the mysterious man reappeared, holding her pregnancy report. "You're pregnant with my child," he said coldly. Shocked, Roselyn was whisked away in a helicopter to the presidential palace, where she learned the truth: the man from that night was none other than the country's most powerful and influential leader!

The whispers said that out of bitter jealousy, Hadley shoved Eric's beloved down the stairs, robbing the unborn child of life. To avenge, Eric forced Hadley abroad and completely cut her off. Years later, she reemerged, and they felt like strangers. When they met again, she was the nightclub's star, with men ready to pay fortunes just to glimpse her elusive performance. Unable to contain himself, Eric blocked her path, asking, "Is this truly how you earn a living now? Why not come back to me?" Hadley's lips curved faintly. "If you’re eager to see me, you’d better join the queue, darling."

After two years of marriage, Sadie was finally pregnant. Filled with hope and joy, she was blindsided when Noah asked for a divorce. During a failed attempt on her life, Sadie found herself lying in a pool of blood, desperately calling Noah to ask him to save her and the baby. But her calls went unanswered. Shattered by his betrayal, she left the country. Time passed, and Sadie was about to be wed for a second time. Noah appeared in a frenzy and fell to his knees. "How dare you marry someone else after bearing my child?"

I was four months pregnant, weighing over two hundred pounds, and my heart was failing from experimental treatments forced on me as a child. My doctor looked at me with clinical detachment and told me I was in a death sentence: if I kept the baby, I would die, and if I tried to remove it, I would die. Desperate for a lifeline, I called my father, Francis Acosta, to tell him I was sick and pregnant. I expected a father's love, but all I got was a cold, sharp blade of a voice. "Then do it quietly," he said. "Don't embarrass Candi. Her debutante ball is coming up." He didn't just reject me; he erased me. My trust fund was frozen, and I was told I was no longer an Acosta. My fiancé, Auston, had already discarded me, calling me a "bloated whale" while he looked for a thinner, wealthier replacement. I left New York on a Greyhound bus, weeping into a bag of chips, a broken woman the world considered a mistake. I couldn't understand how my own father could tell me to die "quietly" just to save face for a party. I didn't know why I had been a lab rat for my family’s pharmaceutical ambitions, or how they could sleep at night while I was left to rot in the gray drizzle of the city. Five years later, the doors of JFK International Airport slid open. I stepped onto the marble floor in red-soled stilettos, my body lean, lethal, and carved from years of blood and sweat. I wasn't the "whale" anymore; I was a ghost coming back to haunt them. With my daughter by my side and a medical reputation that terrified the global elite, I was ready to dismantle the Acosta empire piece by piece. "Tell Francis to wash his neck," I whispered to the skyline. "I'm home."