Se connecterDrunk and heartbroken, Juliette spends a night with a stranger, wanting nothing more than to forget about it. Four years later, while trying to get her business off the ground and take care of her ailing grandmother, Juliette faces a severe financial crisis. When yet another client refuses to continue with her company’s services and her grandmother falls gravely ill, she has no choice but to give in to her uncle’s demands. The only condition? She must marry the youngest son of the Garret family, a man rumored to be hideously ugly and impotent after a terrible accident years ago. For the sake of her business and her grandmother, Juliette agrees to marry James Garret, the so-called ugly and impotent billionaire. But after the wedding, she discovers the truth. His family has imposed a condition: unless he gets Juliette pregnant within the year, he will be cut out of the family will and stripped of his billionaire status. When Juliette meets James for the first time, she is shocked to find that he is neither ugly as the rumors claimed him to be nor impotent. Why else would he, on their wedding night, lean in close and whisper in her ear? “Let’s make some babies, sweet thing.”
Voir plusJuliette stumbled into a bar after catching her college boyfriend shacking up with her roommate/best friend. Hurt had slashed through her heart, and before she knew it, she was running.
Tears came down like storms, and no matter how much she tried, they wouldn’t stop. She got into her car and drove until the sky opened up and cried with her. Now, the city was flooded, and the vehicles were jammed on the roads.
That’s when she spotted the local bar on the roadside.
Juliette had never been one for alcohol, striving to be the perfect girlfriend for Tanner, her now ex-fucking-boyfriend. He always projected an air of superiority, pretending to be the guy she thought she could fall in love with. But just as she felt their chemistry had peaked and she was ready to commit herself to him, he revealed his true colors.
God, she hated him so much. She wanted to punch him and mess up his stupidly handsome face. Why, oh, why did she let herself be fooled by him? She was smarter than that, wasn’t she? She’d always been cautious about the people she surrounded herself with.
But this time, she made a mistake. She put her trust in not one but two wrong people: Tanner, her ex, and Jolene, her best friend. But that was more than an hour ago, and truth be told, she wanted to forget all about it.
To surprise Tanner on their second anniversary, she had dressed in a sexy black number and had invested a great amount of time in makeup and planning a date night. But all of that had gone to waste.
Juliette had let herself into the bar and ignored all the hungry eyes on her. To her huge disappointment, it wasn’t some high-class place her friends usually dragged her to. This was…sketchy. Like really, really sketchy. And dark. And creepy. And let’s not forget about all kinds of weird.
Juliette was pretty convinced that the last time this place had seen a health inspection was back in the Stone Age. Just the thought of touching anything there made her skin crawl.
She knew she wouldn’t last more than fifteen minutes in the place. There was something about the thick, lingering toilet smell in the air that made her certain of it. But then the pain in her heart surged back, along with a vivid flashback of Tanner’s betrayal, and she forgot all about her discomfort. With the roads jammed and the rain pouring angrily, she wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
So, why not do something wild for once? She could always blame herself in the morning and then cry again over another stupid mistake. Compared to being betrayed by the two people she trusted the most, drinking some cheap alcohol would be nothing.
Brushing away the painful tears, she snagged a stool at the bar counter and ordered the first drink on the menu.
By the time, Juliette was finished, she was drunk like a skunk and could barely tell the difference between a man and a woman. Her vision had blurred, and when the bartender finally cut her off, noting her slurred speech and endless ranting about her ex-boyfriend and backstabbing best friend, he had to practically drag her out of the bar.
What Juliette didn’t expect to happen was what occurred next.
Everything happened so quickly that she barely held herself awake.
Not even two wobbly steps towards her car she had taken when some men had surrounded her. They smelled of alcohol and smoke and perhaps a bit of peppermint which she couldn’t tell was doing the job. She had tried to walk past them, telling them to back off, but they were stubborn as hell and refused to let go.
Juliette let out a scream when one of them grabbed her arm and dragged her to a lonely one-way street. Despite being drunk and having experienced a moment of false bravery, fear rose in her throat rather quickly.
Her back slammed against a cold, unforgiving wall, and when she tried to resist with whatever consciousness she had left, one of them pinned her hands against it. They tore at her blouse, their dirty, icy hands tracing over her skin.
Juliette had never felt so dirty in her life before.
Her heart pounded in her chest as panic surged through her. She fought against the men with all her strength, but their hold on her was relentless. She cried out for help, but the empty alley swallowed her screams.
In a moment of desperation, Juliette’s hand groped for anything she could use as a weapon. Her fingers closed around a beer bottle in the trash crate next to her. With a surge of adrenaline, she swung the bottle at her attackers, aiming for anything vulnerable.
The sound of glass shattering echoed in the alley as one of the men cried out in pain. Seizing the opportunity, Juliette broke free from their grasp and sprinted down the alley, her heart pounding in her ears.
But she couldn’t run too far. Her legs refused to obey her brain. And before she could stop herself, she crashed into the waterlogged street. She was soaked through, and she felt like she wanted to die.
Of course, there was no time to dwell on that. Remembering her dire circumstances, she quickly tried to stand. Or at least she attempted to before everything around her started spinning, and she ended up on the ground with a splash.
The men were quickly closing in on her, and Juliette knew deep down that this was it. She was going to be preyed upon by these disgusting men and probably die of shame after they were done with her.
Why was this happening to her?
All she wanted was to live a happy life. Just to write and fall in love with a decent man. But because of her stupid mistakes, her life was being cut short.
Damn it, she couldn’t even make Tanner and Jolene pay for their betrayal. God should have given her some time for that at least.
“You think you can run, bitch?” one of the guys growled, his grip on her arm tightening like a freaking vise, hauling her back up.
“Please, let me go,” she begged, powerless tears streaming down her face, but they just scoffed and laughed, showing no mercy at all.
“That was the plan. But not anymore,” one of them spat, his voice dripping with venom.
“All you had to do was be a good little girl and cooperate,” the other sneered.
“But no. You had to make it difficult. Now don’t blame us for getting rough.”
“Come on, guys, let’s bring her to the den,” they started dragging her towards something. Perhaps a beat-up car. “Can’t wait to fuck her brains out.”
Laura wasn’t sure whether to hate the woman standing in front of her or simply stab her with the heel of her shoe.God, she was annoying.And the things she was saying—as if she were so much better than Laura, as if marrying James were some kind of good fortune. She clearly had no idea what she was getting herself into.Sure, there was a time when James was someone even Laura admired. Not only was he easy on the eyes, but he was also powerful, with a good and successful life ahead of him.But now? After the accident, he was nothing but a burden—one even his own family didn’t want anything to do with. Wasn’t that the very reason he had been thrown into the west wing, left all alone to suffer and wait for the day he would die?And here this woman was—what was her name again?—treating that useless cripple like some kind of rare gem. Huh. If only that were true.But even then, Laura felt she couldn’t quite stand seeing someone so happy about marrying James. Maybe it was because she couldn
From the privacy of his office, James watched everything unfold. On his laptop, the live video footage played silently, capturing every moment in the drawing room of the Garrett mansion.He hadn’t planned to interfere.At first, he’d told himself he was only checking the feed out of habit—an old reflex born from years of caution and control. The Garrett mansion was full of sharp tongues and sharper intentions. Leaving Juliette alone with any of them had never sat well with him. Still, he’d expected discomfort. Maybe cold politeness. Perhaps a veiled insult or two.He hadn’t expected this.James leaned back in his wheelchair, fingers loosely clasped as his eyes stayed fixed on the screen. He watched her stand there—small in stature compared to the woman looming over her, yet somehow unmovable. She didn’t raise her voice. Didn’t crumble. Didn’t retreat. She met cruelty with composure and arrogance with quiet steel.Interesting, he thought.Most people either pitied him or avoided him alt
“You—” the woman scowled, all her earlier arrogance melting away as she was gravely offended. “You think that’s going to help you? Maybe you don’t know this, but the only reason you’re able to marry into this family is because I didn’t want this marriage in the first place.”That was… new information for Juliette. She didn’t know anything about this woman, and now that she did, something inside her stomach coiled tightly.Instinctively, she looked away, taking a moment to herself to process this new piece of information.Was she trying to say that she was James’s ex? And that she had rejected him?“Why?” Before she knew it, she was asking, looking back at the arrogant woman. Her brows pinched together. “Why would you do that?”“You mean reject James?” She chuckled, as if finally getting the reaction she had been expecting. “Isn’t that obvious enough?” she said, leaning forward and whispering into her ear. “Because he’s of no use to me anymore.”That stung. And more than that, it hurt.
The next few days passed without any further drama.She woke up early every day, personally making tea for herself and coffee for James—as the two of them were the only ones staying in the west wing, and troubling the servants for such a menial task felt unnecessary—and then visited James in his office.To her surprise, not a single day went by when James wasn’t already awake at that hour. She always found him in the same place, seated behind his desk, his laptop open in front of him, with a few loose papers scattered nearby that he often scribbled notes on.She would smile at him, and he would nod back, enough to make her feel acknowledged.And even that tiny act of appreciation felt enough to Juliette somehow.Later, she would get on with her morning routine, get ready, have breakfast, and leave for work.It continued like that for almost a week—until the weekend arrived.It was Sunday, and the Garrett mansion seemed livelier and buzzier than ever before.“What’s happening?” Juliett
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