Billionaire's Substitute Mistress (eBook)

The Obsession She Couldn't Escape

Adfaithdupe Adfaithdupe (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
269 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-097492-1 (ISBN)

Infos

'... Are you planning on making me someone else?' I asked, my bottom lip trembling slightly as I began to realize what I had gotten myself into.
'Too many questions.' He stared straight at me, and then his lips spread in a sly smirk, 'You are right, anyways. You are no longer who you used to be. What is your name?' 'Persephone Walters.' I told him with a hidden plea in my voice. Please don't make me disappear...
'From now on, that person is dead. You will now be my girlfriend, and wife-to-be, the elegant Kassandra Aaron.'
***                    ***                      ***
Desperate and starving, Persephone Walters steals a loaf of bread-and crashes straight into the world of Aiden Bates, a cold, calculating billionaire with a broken engagement and a dangerous plan.
She looks exactly like his missing fiancée.
He needs her to pretend.
The price of refusal? Prison.
Forced into a fake relationship, Persy is suddenly living in a penthouse, wrapped in designer clothes, and shadowed by secrets. But Aiden doesn't want her. He wants a memory. A stand-in. A body with a familiar face.
But Persy is not Kassie.
And she's not going to disappear quietly.
As their contract relationship spirals into something more, desire battles resentment, and lines between performance and reality begin to blur. When the real Kassie returns, everything explodes.
Will he still see her?
Or has she just been a ghost all along?
A dark, twisted romance where a possessive alpha claims her, desire turns dangerous, and escape feels just like falling in love.

Book 3

Textauszug

CHAPTER 103 SEEING HER AUNT AGAIN

PERSY

There was no day that passed that I did not wish that our story was a bit different... That my own story, most especially, was different.

Why did bad things always have to happen to me? It was like I was not meant for happiness, like I was not meant to smile in the end for any reason.

At first, I did not believe her-My aunt, who had told me that the man I was so irrevocably in love with was the same person that killed my parents. It could not be possible.

For this reason, I cussed at her repeatedly, asking if she knew who she was talking about like that. The Aiden Bates which I knew would never kill anyone so cruelly, I told her, deciding to push the moment where he almost starved me to death to the back of my mind.

She sighed, then told me that she would be sending a video to me. She asked me to watch the video and then call her back to tell her what I thought of it.

At first, when she sent the video, I was hellbent on not watching it, I kept telling myself that the man I knew and loved so much would not do that. I mean, I knew he was heartless but surely not as cruel as starving a couple to death, fully knowing that they had a child, according to what my aunt said.

After some moments of trying to ignore her while I packed up to leave him, I finally could not take the suspense any longer, so I snatched my phone off my bedside table and checked to the see the message which was actually multimedia.

With shaky hands, I had opened the message, and I saw a video which I opened as well, bracing myself for whatever.

To my most incredible awe, I opened the video to see the rudest shock of my life.

My parents were staring back at me in this video, their eyes so tired and full of tears as they begged, "Please, Mr. Bates. Please, do not kill us, we would pay you back every single dime you have lended us. We have not been able to earn much lately, we would have paid you a long time ago. We know that this is no excuse, but we are hoping that you have mercy on us-"

My father was cut short by the thundering of Aiden's familiar voice, "Shut up! Shut the fuck up, okay? I do not give a shit whether or not you plan to pay me back. Keep the money to yourselves, I have waited long enough, I will not wait any longer. You both will die here, and but I will not kill you. I will let you die of natural stuff, like the good man I am. I will let hunger and thirst take your life." The wicked man snarled, and I realized that he had some slur to his voice, some Irish accent as well.

With hot tears in my eyes and my body shaking from so many emotions, I looked my parents over from the screen, seeing that their clothes were tattered and they already looked so malnourished. Their eyes already looked like they were not there anymore. It was like both eyes had gone in hiding.

I looked closer at my mom's t-shirt, and forced a laugh as I muttered, "I knew she wore my shirt out, still, after specifically letting her know that is my favorite shirt and she must leave it alone..."

I started to convince myself that it was not Aiden, but then I heard my mother say, "Mr. Aiden, please consider our daughter. Please, consider my child... We are the only family she has-"

He laughed, then turned the camera to his face. It was Aiden. Though his face was tougher, with a lot of beards and dirt on it, he looked exactly the same. Well, only that his striking gray eyes looked a little blue, but I did not pay much attention to it. Tears had blocked my vision already. My heart was so heavy as I forced myself to finish the video.

His following words completely broke me, "This is where it all ends. Happy death day, anytime soon..."

With that, the device he was using to record was flung against the ground like a toy, and the screen began to show black and white.

I cried the hardest I had ever done that day, watching the video over and over, though it broke my heart to many pieces each time.

He had the guts to tell me he loved me, after how he killed my parents. This man was a murderer, not even a killer of bad people, but a killer of poor, defenseless people too... and with a method as cruel as starvation.

I hated him. God, I hated him so much...

I was supposed to leave his penthouse before I got that message from my aunt, but after seeing the message, the last thing I wanted was leaving without getting the revenge which I deserved.

I decided that I would pretend to agree to his terms, and finish the man off when he had no suspicions.

Aiden was in front of me in the kitchen now, shirtless while preparing cream pasta for us both. He was wearing an apron m, though. He always looked so fucking good in an apron. I was discovering that Aiden was a badass cook, by the way.

I tried my hardest not to be focused on how sexy he looked, forcing myself to stare at his back with memories of the past flooding my head instead.

"I am almost done with it, baby. I have asked you severally to wait for me at the dining. Do you still want to-"

I interrupted him at once, "Oh, I would be at the dining table, then. Please hurry up, I am so hungry!" I added the last part in a playful tone, something I always did when I did not want him to suspect a thing. He turned around and looked at me with a raised brow as I started to leave the kitchen. Then with a slight scoff, he asked, "I have been asking you to leave, but you did not listen. Why are you so eager to leave now? Is there a problem?"

Oh shit, I must have been so distracted by his dins to hear him ask me to leave over and over as he claimed. Swallowing, I shook my head no.

"I must have been lost in thoughts." I informed him, chipping in some awkward laughter before continuing, "Now that I have heard you though, I need to go..."

After saying that, I moved closer to him and planted a peck on his cheek before taking off my apron, after which I strutted out of the kitchen in my pyjama set-a shirt and the littlest shorts ever. Luckily for me, when Aiden was back out of the kitchen, he did not speak on what happened in the kitchen, just indulged me in conversation on how his previous day went, and other stuff.

Half of the time, my heart was bleeding as I envisioned a knife to his throat.

The next day, I waited until Aiden was off to work, before dialing my aunt's number.

"I need to see you." I told her as soon as the call connected. It was like she had expected it all along, because she told me,

"Right. I will be at your location in no time, give me your address. We need to finish this wicked man off as soon as we can."

I ended the call as soon as I dropped the address, my whole body shaking as I kept thinking whether what I was doing was truly the right thing to do.

I decided to stop worrying my head about it and wait until she arrived.

The moment I heard my name from a distance, I knew that she was at the front door, so I hurried to open it up for her.

The first thing that hit me when my eyes landed on her was the fact that this woman had a very uncanny resemblance with my late mother. She looked like a twin, just that while my mother was an average-sized woman, she was...

Taking a good look at my aunt, I almost decided to drop whatever it was that we wanted to speak about and just give her some good food to eat.

She was so skinny, too skinny to be walking straight, and I was not even just saying. I almost had tears in my eyes, seeing how skinny she looked. She was smiling at me right now, but I near weeped for her.

I could see her bones of her neck so well, I mean, if I poured in some water in the cups they formed, I could drink from it. The yellow dress she wore was too big and bright for her, as well. She was so pale, God, I must have tears in my eyes by now.

With the smallest voice which I could muster, I told her, "Please, do come in."

And with a broad smile, she responded to me, "Thank you so much."

I decided to get her some food without asking, stopping in the middle of the kitchen to wipe my eyes because they had already begun to tear up. She looked so much like my mom, that it brought back memories.

I know, she had always looked like my mother but I had forgotten just how much. It made me recall my mother and how badly my aunt had treated the woman.

Sighing, I went ahead to prepare the food for her. I served her almost everything I had prepared earlier. Rice, Pasta, some bread and other meals. I served her a can of fruit juice as well.

As soon as I ushered her to the dining table and she saw the meals on the table, her eyes watered and I kid you not, she wrapped her arms around me almost strangling me with her malnourished hands.

It took a lot to get her to unwrap her arms from around me and eat. She sat at the round table, closing her eyes for a short prayer before actually going ahead to eat.

She put the food into her mouth at a breakneck pace, like she had not seen food in months. My mouth stayed open as I watched her eating mechanism. I specifically checked the time, and confirmed that this woman was done with this banquet-like meal in less than eight minutes.

Tears slowly started to roll down her cheeks after she was done eating. I leaned forward, muttering, "Come on, don't cry..."

I wanted to say 'auntie'... I mean, it was the right thing to say, but I just could not bring myself to accept that this woman was truly my aunt. I could not forget that she was part of the reason why my parents died. I knew that we were not entitled to her earnings, but maybe if she would have helped us a little... Just a little... My parents would not have needed a loan shark and they would have...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 25.7.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-097492-7 / 0000974927
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-097492-1 / 9780000974921