Billionaire Romance15 min read
I Woke Up in a Rich Girl’s Body — and Her Billionaire Husband Called Me “Mine”
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I break the water and cough my first ragged breath.
"Where am I?" I say.
A cold boat of panic pushes through my chest. I wipe river water off my face and stare at my hands. They are smooth, not scarred like the hands that dug traps and handled venom in the valley where I grew up.
Memories slam in like a stampede.
I died. Then I woke up inside someone named An Mengqing. She is the rich daughter of a top family in the capital. She married a man named Landon Bruno — the city’s coldest billionaire. She was famous for tantrums, for chasing a pop star named Canon Dennis, for living like a spoiled vase on a pedestal.
"Am I alive or dead?" I ask the water.
My wrist curls and a small triangular head flicks toward my palm. A tiny green-blue snake curls around my fingers and meets my eyes.
"Azul," I whisper. "You're alive."
Azul nudges my hand like a loyal dog. He is my old ally, my own life-thread — the little spirit I remember dying with. He used to be shattered in the war. He is here. I am here.
Footsteps hit the shore. I climb up and see a man catching up with two aides.
"An?" the man calls, out of breath. "Mengqing, where did you go last night?"
I blink, and I wear the face of An Mengqing. She is supposed to be proud and loud, the kind of woman who makes headlines by falling from grace. I study the lean man in front of me. He looks like an actor on a poster — pale skin, neat hair, thin lips that hint at a smile that never reaches his eyes.
"Canon?" I say, and for a moment he stumbles.
The man freezes. "I— I came looking all night," he says, awkward. "You fell... from the hill. Are you hurt?"
"No," I answer, the voice a perfect mirror of how An Mengqing used to sound to Canon — soft, trusting. "I came looking for you."
Canon breathes out like a man relieved he is still the center of her world.
"I was worried," he says, touching my hand.
Azul slides up and bites the air. "There's a snake on your shoulder," I tell Canon.
Canon lifts his hand, and his face changes.
"A snake?" he screams, then slaps at his neck. The snake darts under his collar, and he yelps, clawing at fabric.
"Help!" his agent shouts, panicked.
I say, "Kill it. It's venomous."
"How do you kill it? It’s in him!" Canon says.
I punch him in the gut.
"Like this," I tell him.
He doubles over, mid-scream. I stare at him as he gasps, then I cover him with fake worry.
"Are you okay? I didn't hit it," I say, tears welling.
He tries to find anger, but his face collapses — the mix of pain and pride confuses him.
"Keep going," he breathes.
I hit him again. He falls, the agent panics, and we smash at the bulge where the snake moves inside the thin shirt. People start screaming and recording on phones.
"Stop! Stop, it's getting away!" the agent cries.
I cry real tears. The snake, exhausted, slips from the agent's hands and slithers off into the grass. Canon staggers into a car that takes him to the hospital.
I leave before the ambulance, like any smart spoiled girl would — avoid scandal, avoid suspicion.
The next morning I walk up to the giant black gates of the Bruno villa and enter the house I now remember as my own. The code won't open.
"What now?" I mutter, and I try the code again. A small panic pricks at my skin. The house has changed its password. I remember the kind of people who would change a code: someone who wanted me gone.
I climb to a second-floor balcony because the servants follow predictable patrols. I slip into the master bedroom like a cat. Light hits me. A low voice snaps.
"Who is in my house?"
They find me stumbling in, filthy, dripping mud and petal bits. I put on face of the daughter — calm, stupid, a little lost.
"Landon," I say, seeing the man in the hall stop.
He looks at me like I'm an odd thing caught in his home.
"You made a mess," he says, voice flat.
"I forgot the code," I answer, lifting my palms like a child.
A housekeeper mutters something behind him. Landon pins me with a look of stone.
"You want to stay or go?" he asks.
"We're married, right?" I say, small, hopeful.
"You were not my wife yesterday," he says in a low voice. "You are not my wife now."
He grabs me like lifting a chicken and carries me toward the stairs. I wrap my legs around his waist and hook them there. He holds me for a breath too long. His eyes go sharp.
"Why are you like this?" he says. "You are a mess."
"I won't let you throw me out," I say. "Please. I'm scared."
"Get down," he orders. His hand finds my ankle and pulls me down. I land. He lets me go and drifts away.
I go to the bathroom, clean up, find his clothes, and a phone lights with a call.
"Gwen," the screen says — that's my stepmother's voice. She is cool. She sounds like the woman who would make poison in polite cups.
"Mengqing?" Gwen says, fake sweet. "Are you with Canon? I have good news. It will make you happy."
"Is it the divorce papers?" I ask.
"What? No, silly. You're safe." She laughs and then her tone changes. She wants me to be happy with Canon.
I lie. "I like Landon now," I tell her, out of nowhere.
"What?" Gwen's breath catches. "Mengqing, you discussed Landon with me less than a week ago. Why now?"
"Because he's handsome and rich," I say.
"Don't forget who supports you, Mengqing," she warns. "If you truly care for someone, be careful."
The date on my phone says March 26th. I remember the festival in my old life — the thin border between the world and the dead. I recall dying then. I look at the little snake on my wrist and think the world is weird and mean.
The man of cold steel, Landon, is a puzzle. He is ruthless, they say. He once punished a woman publicly for spilling wine on his suit. He runs a business like an empire.
He is also refusing to divorce me.
That makes me smile.
*
The day Canon gets humiliated in the bank — again — I get dragged into another classroom of the rich.
"Are you his wife?" a bank teller snaps. "We need ID."
"I am. I'm late. My husband will be here." I push the names I remember like mine.
The bank staff look at me like I am a stray. One of the clerks who had earlier pushed me out now sniggers.
"You look like a student trying to pass as Mrs. Bruno," she says.
"I am his wife," I say, louder.
A screen in the VIP room shows Landon's face in a corporate ad. The woman sniffs.
"You are a fake," she whispers.
I let them say it. Then Landon walks in.
They all straighten. They bow. Even the scariest bank manager looks like he swallowed a frog.
"She is my wife," Landon says simply.
The spit and the sneers die. The manager hurries to help. They hand me a handful of cash after I tell them to withdraw everything.
I laugh on the way out, dragging two heavy boxes. Landon follows without a word. We climb into the car, and I make a show of leaning in.
"Thank you for coming," I say, bright.
"If you die out there, it isn't my loss," he replies, cold.
"Then don't leave," I say, stupid and bold. "Or I will make you jealous."
He laughs once, low, and it is almost a sound.
We reach home. I set my boxes down. The servant, Martin, is pale when he sees the jars of insects shivering inside. I smile like a creature who loves flowers and insects and secrets.
"Get rid of them," Landon says.
"We will," Martin answers, way too quick.
A jar crashes. A black scorpion pops free and chills the air. Someone gasps. Martin hands me a small woven tray. On it rests a line of dead bugs, marked and boxed like trophies.
I show them and tell them I killed them. The woman who shrieked earlier says I brought them in. She points fingers and rises like a snake ready to bite.
"You're lying," she hisses. "You wanted to harm him."
"A lie must have proof," I say.
I tell Martin to get a basket from the balcony. He goes. The woman thinks she has won.
"Get out!" Landon says, like a judge.
I don't like being judged by people who pretend to serve loyalty. I like my hands. I like the small magic I did not earn but remember. The woman avoids my eyes.
"You learn the edge of real power before you test me," I say softly.
She breaks into tears, babbles, and tries to run. Guards take her away. Landon watches the scene like a man watching a chessboard.
"You will answer for this," he says to me at one point.
"Only if you refuse to be interesting," I say.
He gives me a look that is not sympathy. It is a measurement.
"One billion." He says it like a coin.
"Eleven million," I shout, grinning. "Cash to clean the infection. I'll sign for it."
He nods as if that is a matter of math.
*
That night I sleep badly. The old war nightmares come like smoke on a stove. I wake, finger the snake on my wrist, and think of all my lives. I used to fight monster men and greedy lords. I used to be part of a stained tribe that used insects as weapons.
I will not be that reckless again. I have a second chance in a house of glass and money. I plan to use it.
Next day, a fire is reported in a private club. A corner of Landon’s world has just vanished. He knows it.
"Go with me," Landon says sharply. "Stay in the car."
"I told you I will not leave you," I say, stubborn.
"I told you I will not trust you with my life," he answers.
I wrap a skinny hand around his arm when he moves away.
"If you leave, I won't save your people later," I say.
His jaw tightens. He steps into the driver’s seat and drives like a knife through glass.
We arrive with the worst news. A burned room. Landon is pale but steady. His mind moves faster than anyone's. He says things that I don't follow at first — names, shares, groups.
"It looks like sabotage," he croaks.
"You think they meant you?" I say.
"Maybe they meant me. Maybe they meant someone else," he says.
I look at his hands and see him small, like a man who had to eat cold porridge to survive. The house he built from scraps will be tested; that is clear.
I wink at him. "I'll help."
"Why?" he says.
"Because I want what you have," I tell him. "Because I want my money. Because I like you when you are on fire."
He looks at me like he knows I am lying, but he smiles anyway.
That afternoon a woman from the kitchen runs in like a thief caught eating cake: she found a ragged, dirty doll under a cupboard. The doll is wrapped in black cloth. Embroidered on its back are strange numbers — a date that feels wrong.
"It smells like old spells," I tell Landon. I say it quietly. He stops being bored.
We set a fire. The doll burns and the house shakes. Landon flinches in a way that shows he is not only afraid of flames but of men who learned to play with death.
There is a pain in him. He turns to me, and for a split second his face breaks. He is human.
I hand him Azul. "He will protect you," I say.
Azul coils on Landon's wrist like a bracelet. The snake is calm. I feel the thread of us, one mind, one gain: if Landon lives, I live.
"You are mine because you trusted me," he says, once.
*
The next nights are a wartime.
We find more cursed things. One of his men collapses, tongue blackening. It is a slow, ugly poison that crawls under skin. It is not natural. It is cooked slow with spice and hatred. I mix herbs into a bowl, drop blood into it, and force it down the man's throat. He screams. The poison worms leave his skin and curl, then die.
"You had this power all along," Landon says, eyes flicking.
"I grew up with it," I say. "I know the rules."
"Then prove it," he asks. "Find the one who sent them."
"Only if you promise me a ring when this is over," I counter, smiling.
"One request before you leave," he murmurs. "Bring me proof the next time."
We ride this small game like a storm. I go through the house like a ghost, roll up my sleeves, and search.
I find records. Hidden bank transfers. Accounts that move like worms in the dark. A woman named Gwen—my stepmother—made a bank transfer large enough to buy silence. Canon's agent is listed. Photographs show meetings in closed rooms.
"Are you sure?" Landon asks.
"No one else had that much reason," I say.
Landon's jaw tightens. He looks like a hunter.
"She used you to get power," he says.
"She used you too," I say.
He stares at me a long time.
"Do you want blood?" he says finally.
"No," I say. "I want answers. And I want to be free."
He leaves a folder and walks out. He is not a man who gives his heart without cost. He is not a man who lets a woman keep power. He is not a man who married for love.
But when the night deepens, he returns with a list and a camera and a plan.
*
We set a trap. Landon's men secure the manor. I wear the face of the woman they've always known — bright, brazen, stupid. I step out, open doors, and invite the world into a tale.
Gwen sits across from me at a crowded coffee shop, pretty and false, and slides a card across the table. She thinks she told me her plan. She thinks she is safe. Canon smiles at his phone with a bruised knee in a cast. He wants fame more than truth.
Gwen leans in. "Mengqing," she says. "You will sign and leave. Then Canon will hold you like a pop star holds a fan."
"Will I have to pay for Canon's silence?" I ask.
She laughs that perfect laugh. "Of course not. You will be free. The gang will make sure Canon puts you on stage. Everyone wins."
"Everyone wins," I repeat, tasting the lie.
"Because Landon has money. Because I have power. Because you are naive."
The camera rolls. A man in a suit pretends to get a text and looks up. Landon's team stands in a corner with recorders.
"You promised me help," I say. "You said you would help me sign and leave. Can you tell me who gave you the money to—"
"To do what?" Gwen asks, smile like a knife.
"To put those dolls under Landon's roof," I say, loud.
Her face blanches. Canon's agent shifts.
"There's no proof," Gwen says.
Landon stands. The room is quiet like a closed trap.
"Do you want to explain the transfers to my accounts?" he asks.
Gwen's breath stops. She thought she was invisible. Money makes men invisible, but Landon is not invisible.
"You think I don't know how you framed me?" I say. "You thought you'd pin this on me and erase the trace. You forgot I'm not the only one who remembers the old ways."
They shout. Gwen rises like poison. She denies. The manager watches a woman who has always sold comfort to others fall apart under lights. Canon calls her name. She snaps.
"You lie!" she screams. "You liar!"
"How did you pay the club owner?" Landon asks, cold.
The camera rolls. Proof flips open. Witnesses step forward. The bank manager, now owned, coughs out names. He cannot keep the lie.
Gwen tries to get up. I step forward and slap her.
The room goes still. People scream and mouths move. A slap like the sound of a door closing.
"You did this," I say. "You did this to my father. You promised family and stole our lives."
A hush. Tears. Canon covers his mouth. Gwen's face loses color like a fruit bruised.
"You taught me how to be a woman," I say, voice steady. "You taught me to smile while you stick knives in me. You thought I was the same naive girl."
She tries to speak. Her mouth moves. Her eyes look at Landon.
"You don't do that to my family," he says. His voice is a quiet gun.
Security calls the police. Someone rings a bell. People record everything.
Gwen goes white and then broken. She claws for air. Her plan explodes. The public humiliation is complete.
*
After, Landon walks me out into winter light.
"You did well," he says.
"I did what I came to do," I say.
He pats my head like a man who wants to be cruel but can't.
"I won't let you leave with that money yet," he says.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because I plan to keep you," he says. "Until the divorce is done, I will keep you here." His mouth is a thin line.
"And then?"
"I will make sure you are safe," he says. "Do not try to play my life."
"I won't," I tell him. "But keep your side of the bargain, Landon Bruno."
He puts a hand on my wrist where Azul sleeps. For the first time, his skin meets mine like a promise, not a contract.
"Did you think I was a monster?" he asks quietly.
"You are a man who learned to survive," I say. "Just like me."
We do not fall in love in a rush. We grow like two frost-bitten stems finding water. I am stubborn. He is careful. I push. He tests. He begins to keep me safe.
*
My father is sick again. Doctors say time is short. Gwen had the motive. I am the only one who remembers the old curse used in the valley — a blood curse that feeds on the hate in a house.
I sit by his bed and place Azul on his chest. The green-blue snake uncoils and lays gentle. I cut my palm, and the scent of blood tells the house to wake up. The curse stirs inside the old man's skin — living black dots start rising.
"Are you sure?" Landon whispers in the doorway. He has cleaned his rough face and looks like the man he once was not willing to be: a small, quiet guardian.
"If he dies, I'll haunt everyone," I tell him. "But I can draw it out."
He nods and watches. I press my hand to the old man's skin, whisper a string of words in a tongue too old for the city. The snakes in my hand curl and hum like a small engine.
The red bumps surge toward my blood. They touch my wrist and fizzle. I fall back faint from the strain, and Landon catches me like a soldier.
"You worried me," he says, and he means it.
"Don't," I tease. "I healed a man who tried to hate me."
"You risked yourself," he snaps. "You cannot treat that like a weekend hobby."
"I won't," I say. I lift my chin. "But you should know — blood and money go together. People trade life for power."
He hands me a warm cup of tea. He does not speak politics. He watches me with a face that grows softer each day.
"Will you stay?" I ask one night when the house is quiet.
"Only if you keep being dangerous," he answers. "Only if you promise you will not use your power against me."
"I won't," I say. But my mouth smiles with wild intent.
I have learned something important: to keep Landon near is to keep a hand on the fire. He will protect me from Gwen and Canon and the strange, high men who use candles to hurt people. He will also bring me more problems. I like both.
*
We unmask the rest of the villains. Canon's agent is arrested for bribery and attempted scandal. Gwen tries to run but she is too public now. Public shaming burns her like a net. She calls for mercy then pleads for it. No mercy comes.
At a family meeting in the An house, the board sits, watches the slideshow of transfers, and calls Gwen out with a fury that surprises me. She cries in a circle of men who thought her pretty. I step close and speak as the woman she taught me not to be.
"You ate our life like a parasite," I say. "Now you will pay."
They ask how I knew. I hand them the doll with embroidered dates, receipts, and audio of Gwen's voice planning the money flow and Canon's role. They cannot deny it.
They throw Gwen out of the family like a moldy cloth. She tries to beg for a seat of sympathy, but her words die.
Canon's career collapses. The public chews him alive. He finds that the people he used are not kind.
I watch it; it is not sweet. It is necessary.
"Now what?" Landon says one night.
"Now I heal myself," I answer.
He gives me a look that says he will let me, but will stay close. In the book of things I know about him, he hates losing control. He loves deciding to keep me.
He does something no one expected: he signs a clause in our divorce agreement.
"If you work for me for one year," he says calmly, "I will pay the money you asked for, under a fund you manage."
I blink. "You want me to work for you?"
"Yes," he says. "Prove that you can handle power without burning the house down."
"Deal," I say.
We shake on it like real people who trade deals for time together.
*
Slow days pass like gold. We pick at our fights like scalpel edges.
One morning he brings me a small leather box. I open it and find a modest ring. It is quiet, no diamonds — a simple band.
"This is proof," he says. "If you break the rules, I will take it back. If you keep them, you keep it."
I laugh and slide it on.
We start to build a life that is not perfect. He will not speak of love in the old way. He speaks by actions now: a coffee waiting on the table, a hand finding mine when I can't sleep, a message left in the morning that says "I saw a flower you might like."
I teach him small things. He teaches me how to read a contract. He brings me into rooms where people who smell like money think they own the air. He learns to listen to me about men who wear suits but carry curses.
Once, a man smirks at me at a party. Landon moves and the man is politely explained to leave the room. Landon takes me home and stands watching me fall asleep and thinks about the danger of wanting people near.
"Will you always be like this?" I ask.
He opens his mouth to say something sharp and instead answers, "I am learning."
"I met you in water," I say. "In mud. Not by choice."
"You saved me," he says, quiet.
We pause, and there is a night where we are stupid and young and old at once. We sleep like two wounded animals who have found a safe hall.
*
Months pass. My father recovers fully. The curse is broken. Our enemies are in ruin. The household settles like a drum after a storm.
People call me brave or foolish. I call myself lucky.
One evening, in the backyard where I used to hide and gather insects, Landon brings out a small pot of flowers.
"These are for you," he says.
"Weeds," I say, but my voice is soft. "They are pretty."
He sits, and for the first time he speaks about small things he never says: his childhood, the hunger he missed, the day he decided to take everything and never look back.
"I wanted to be someone who needed no one," he says. "You came and made my house dangerous and alive. I don't like you. I don't like what you did to my life. But I also —"
He stops.
"— I also want to keep you near," he finishes.
I laugh a little. I let him put his forehead to mine.
"If the world breaks tomorrow," I say, "I'll kill it back."
He smiles like a small sun. "I will help."
We kiss then — a long, easy thing. Azul slips up my sleeve and slides to rest on Landon's collarbone. People take photos. Gossip spreads. But we are not perfect. We are real.
When rumors fall on our doorstep, we face them together. When a ghost of the past tries to claw back in, we smoke it out with light.
We fight sometimes. I am loud and sharp. He is quiet and precise. We hurt and we heal.
One night I stand at the balcony and watch the street lights burn like stars. Readers might think we end with a label: "they lived happily ever after." But I know the truth. We don't end. We start.
Landon comes up behind me and slips an arm around my waist. He does this like a man who keeps his best things near.
"You know," he says, "you still beat me in one thing."
"What?" I ask.
"You make my life messy and real," he says.
"I make you feel," I tease.
"You make me want things I did not think I wanted," he says.
"Like what?"
He looks into the river of the city and then back at me. "Like being someone's home."
I smile and put my head on his shoulder.
"If anyone asks," I say, "tell them Azul is mine."
He looks down at the tiny serpent around his wrist and nods.
"He's ours," he says.
The city hums below. The night keeps watch. We stand like two thieves who have taken the same treasure and will guard it together.
And I, who woke in a rich girl's body, find a richer thing — a life where I can do more than survive. I can hurt and help. I can save and be saved.
I close my eyes and listen to Landon's breath. It is mine. It is not mine. It is both.
Azul curls and breathes like a small bell.
"Stay," he says in a voice only I can hear.
I stay.
The End
— Thank you for reading —