Billionaire Romance11 min read
"I woke up in his bed — and the world went loud"
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"I woke up because someone pushed me."
I slammed my eyes open and my heart jumped into my throat. My hand met cool sheets, then warm skin. My fingers froze.
"Who are you?" I whispered.
A man rolled over. He didn't look at me. He breathed like he was sleeping. The room smelled like cigarette smoke and expensive soap.
"I—" I stopped. My mouth was dry. I sat up and saw the blanket slip away. I was naked under it.
"Oh my God," I said. "What happened last night?"
He yawned and blinked. He was impossibly handsome. "We need to get the door."
"What? Why?"
The knocking smashed into the door like a fist.
"Get up," I hissed. "Get up!"
He moved like a cat and opened the door. Three men in hoods and masks and cameras flooded in. Flash, flash, flash.
"Get out!" he roared.
They kept shooting. One shoved him back onto the bed and took close pictures of me as if I was a product. I lunged for his phone. He grabbed me by the waist and pushed me down.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
He looked like a man about to explode. "Who sent you? Anton! Are you stupid? Get the car here. Now."
He shut the door so hard the frame rattled. He cursed into his phone like a wounded animal.
"Are you okay?" he asked me.
"My phone," I whispered. "I lost my phone."
He didn't answer. He looked at me the way a judge looks at someone who broke the law.
"You should ask your boyfriend why some men are taking pictures of you," he said.
"My boyfriend?" I yanked the blanket up. "You mean Jasper?"
He snorted. "You mean Jasper Marques? Him? He'd sell his shoe for pocket change."
"I—" I reached for the memory and found nothing. The night was a blur. A hollow ache spread in my head. I put my hand to my temple and the past opened like a cracked door.
"Jasper, you promised. Jasper, why would you do that?" My throat closed. The memory burned: a fight, the car sliding, metal and glass, blood on the asphalt. I had lost that life once. I tasted salt.
Then I remembered the hotel phone on the bedside table. Its small green screen showed a date: June 17, 2008.
I laughed without humor. "No. No. No. This can't be real."
I called the front desk. They told me it was June 17, 2008. My fingers went numb. I checked my phone—an old phone—old call logs. Jasper's number sat there like a fault line.
"This is impossible," I said. "I'm in the past."
He watched me closely. "You look pale. Sit down."
I sank back into the pillows, the soft bed holding me like a trap. I should have panicked. I should have called someone. Instead, the same old thought surfaced like a stone: I had been young once. I had loved the wrong man. I had died in his car. Now I had a second chance.
"Do you know what this is?" I asked him.
"I know you're sitting in my hotel room and you are naked and the paparazzi are outside," he said flatly. "You're Valeria Booth."
I blinked. The name felt foreign and right. "Valeria?"
He nodded. "Yes. And you're in trouble."
I promised myself one thing in that paused moment. I would not let the next ten years repeat the last ones. I would not let Jasper wreck me again.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
He folded his arms and looked at me like I was a small fire he had to warm. "Aurelio Ashford," he said. "You saw my face in the papers."
Aurelio Ashford. Billionaire. Scandal magnet. And right now, for reasons I did not understand, my life had been splashed across every screen with him.
"Can you help me?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Depends. Do you want to help yourself?"
I remembered how weak I had been back then. I thought of my parents in a small apartment, of my quiet childhood, of promises. I had a chance to change everything.
"Yes," I said. "Help me."
The plan started small and then grew. Anton Arnold—paparazzi I'd tracked down that morning—met me in the back of a KFC. He had a scar on his chin and a freelance hunger.
"You're sure you want to blow this up?" Anton asked. "You could kill two birds: score cash and bury the old mess."
"I want him to hurt," I said. "I want Jasper to pay."
Anton smirked. "You want headlines, and headlines you shall have."
We set the trap. I led Aurelio to the old top-floor suite of the Dolphin Bay Hotel and told him I needed an explanation. He wanted to be respectable. He wanted the photographs cleaned. He wanted the fire put out. I wanted to use the fire.
"You want a press conference," I said.
"No," Aurelio replied. "I want to marry the problem."
"Marry?" My laugh caught in my throat.
"Temporary contract," he said. "Five years. Fix the headlines. You sign. I sign. We move on. You get protection, money, college paid for. I get to end the scandal and keep my company from falling apart."
I thought of Jasper laughing while my life slipped away. I thought of my parents' tired faces. I thought of not dying for him again.
"Fine," I said.
We signed. The lawyer's voice echoed in a strange room, and everything became real. My name on a ring like a bandage.
"Are you certain?" Aurelio asked, quietly, when we stepped out of the courthouse.
"I'm sure," I said. "But this is not a surrender. It's a project."
He smiled. "Good. I like your fire."
We had a wedding that stunned everyone. Reporters filled the seats; cameras flashed like a thousand starlights. I walked down the aisle with my father, and every step felt like a reclaiming. He placed a ring on my hand and kissed me in front of a thousand eyes. For the first time since I woke in that hotel bed, I let myself breathe.
Weeks passed. The contract was cold on paper but warm in life. Aurelio was careful. He changed his schedule to be present for small moments. He defended me from rumors and gestured to me with a gentleness that surprised me.
"Do you ever regret this?" I asked one night when the city lights were a scatter beneath our balcony.
"Regret what?" he asked.
"Marrying me."
He put his cigarette out in the ashtray. "I don't regret things that make me feel less alone."
We learned each other's rules. I learned his quiet mercies: his careful handling of small things, his soft voice in the dark, how he changed my bandaged tea cup for me with trembling hands.
"You're not like other rich men," I told him once.
"That's what scares me," he said. "I'm learning to care."
He took me to places I'd never seen. He took me to a yacht that felt like a small city, with captain and chef and a private beach. He gave me things I had never imagined I would be allowed: food, space, safety. He was never loud with me, never demanding, but he was never small either.
We grew. Real feelings crept in between the contract clauses. He learned my scars and I learned his past. He told me fragile things.
"My brother is missing," he said one night by the waves. "I grew up with a hole where family should be."
"I have secrets too," I said. "My parents hid things. I lost my home."
We held each other, and for the first time in a long time I felt seen.
But the past is a persistent animal. Jasper was still breathing, still human, still capable of cruelty. He came back the way exes return — small and rough and loud. He walked into the garden of the villa one afternoon while I was planting a tree with Aurelio.
"Valeria!" he called, his voice oily. "You look different. Married already?"
"What do you want, Jasper?" I said.
"My life," he said. "You took it from me. We were supposed to—"
"Stop," I snapped. "You sold me. You let my life be used. You chose money and you let me die."
He looked at me as if I had slapped him. "You—you're overreacting."
Aurelio stepped forward. His presence was a wall.
"Leave," he said. "Now."
Jasper left, but the venom didn't vanish. He had friends, and he had an uncle, Franklin Kraemer, who had always loved power more than blood. Franklin had been the source of the lies before. Now, with a new relationship blooming between Jasper and one of my old dormmates, Jocelyn Jensen, Jasper felt untouchable again. They thought they could get away with everything in the shadow of Jasper's charm.
"They will never stop," I told Aurelio.
"We don't let them," he said.
We fought in small steps and in big ones. We defended ourselves from whispers and staged a dozen small press gestures. I used my new status to set boundaries. I found friends in Kinley Bolton and Jocelyn—though Jocelyn's loyalties were a gray place between her heart and the man she loved.
One night, a plan formed in my mind. It would be public. It would leave no doubt. It would make Jasper pay in front of everyone who had thought him clever. I would not be merciless for the sake of cruelty—I wanted to end the cycle that nearly killed me. I wanted him to be exposed.
The hall was packed. Half the campus had arrived: students, professors, reporters, even a few city cameras. Jasper had invited people to celebrate his new life with Jocelyn. He arranged a small speech to mark his "honesty" and "new start." I watched from the side with Aurelio at my arm, my palms steady.
"Why are you doing this?" Kinley asked me, her eyes hard.
"Because I have to," I said. "Because some things need daylight."
A hush fell as Jasper stood, handsome and smug.
"I want to thank everyone," he began. "Thanks to Jocelyn for loving me honestly. No secrets. No lies." He smiled like a prize winning animal. "This is the start of a new chapter."
I stepped forward. The crowd murmured. Cameras shifted. My voice did not shake.
"Excuse me," I said. "I thought this was a celebration. I think it would be better if we all heard the truth first."
Jasper's face changed a fraction. He laughed. "Oh? And what truth is that, Valeria?"
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small tablet. Anton had given me a folder earlier—screenshots, audio clips, messages. "You remember Franklin Kraemer, Jasper's uncle? The man who said he could help your business? The man who told you to arrange certain 'events'?"
"Shut up," Jasper hissed.
"Let's play a message," I said. "Everyone, listen."
I tapped the screen. The hall's speakers picked up Franklin's sly voice. "If you play the part, control her. Publicity, money, that is what moves power. You do it, I take care of the rest."
The room shifted. A few whispers. I held up another file. "Here is your chat, Jasper. 'She is an asset—use her and throw her away.'"
"That's fake," Jasper shouted. "You forged it."
"Let's see the logs then." I slid a folder to a reporter. "Anton, publish the raw files."
He did. The whistles and phone cameras caught it all. Franklin's tone, Jasper's replies, the ugly plan: to use me as bait to get to Aurelio's favor, to sell a story for money and a leg up. The room felt cold.
Jasper's face went white. His smug smile flickered. "This is a set-up," he said. "You can't prove—"
"Watch," I said. I played a video. It was Franklin and Jasper laughing in a bar. "You said, 'The woman will sign. We'll make it look like an accident.'"
The hall was noise and hush and then open outrage.
A student shouted, "You monster!"
An older woman spat, "Shame on you!"
Phones raised like stars. Someone started to record. Someone else began to clap, then more clapping—angry, ugly. The dean stood, knuckles white. A reporter approached with a microphone.
"Jasper Marques," she said. "Do you deny this?"
His lips trembled. "I—it's not what it looks like."
"Then explain why you told your uncle to arrange to 'push' Valeria, and why you bragged about making money off of her pain," the reporter pressed. "Do you deny your messages?"
He looked at Franklin in the gallery. Franklin's face was pale too. He muttered, "She lied. She—"
"You lied!" Jasper howled suddenly. He walked to the edge of the stage. He looked at me, lungs ragged. "You ruined me!"
"You're the one who planned it," I said. "For money. For attention. For status."
He laughed, a thin, ugly sound. "I never meant—"
"You meant it enough to plan it," I said. "You meant it enough to let me die."
Silence, then a roar. Students shouted, "Disgusting! Shame!" Cameras zoomed. Someone in the crowd stood up with a placard: "Justice for Valeria."
He tried to step forward. A professor blocked him. "Sit down," the professor ordered. "You're not above the law."
He staggered to the floor. I watched his expression go from smug to confused to terrified. He tried to push up, but the crowd pressed closer. Someone filmed his hands shaking.
"Turn off your camera!" he barked at a reporter, voice small for the first time. "Get off me!"
The dean stepped forward. "Security will escort Mr. Marques out. We will cooperate with the authorities."
He fell to his knees on the stage. The lights hit him like a spotlight on a guilty man.
"Please!" he begged, voice cracking. "Please, Jocelyn, don't let them—"
Jocelyn stood frozen. Tears streamed down her face. "I—Jasper, what did you do?" she whispered.
He reached for her and she stepped back like a woman seeing a shadow. "Jasper, stop," she said. "I didn't know."
The crowd watched, cameras rolling. Someone shouted, "Make him confess!"
He looked at me. His face broke unevenly. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't mean—"
"Get up!" I said, and my voice was not trembling. "Stand up and tell everyone what you planned. Tell them you made a plan with your uncle to push me out of the way and sell my face for money."
He looked left and right. The lights were in his eyes. He was small. He was exposed.
"I—" he started, and then his strength failed. He collapsed to his knees and began to sob. The raw sound of a man who had been immune but now found himself truly naked. He clawed at the wood, then raised his hands like a beggar.
"Please," he choked. "Please don't—"
The cameras moved closer. Phones recorded. A hush fell. No one moved to help. No one argued for him. He had been a predator and he was now visible.
"Do you want us to call the police?" the dean asked.
"Please," he whispered. "Please—I'll do anything."
Aurelio stepped forward. He did not look angry; he looked tired and steady.
"You," Aurelio said softly, to Jasper. "You used a woman as a tool. You let her die. You made a plan with your uncle. That is not something a man can apologize out of. But you can answer for it."
Jasper looked up, dribbling tears. He reached out, hands shaking. "Please," he begged again. "I'll—I'll do whatever."
"You're going to stand up," the dean said. "You're going to explain to everyone what you did. Then you will leave. The campus will not tolerate this. The law will do the rest."
Jasper's steps were slow and broken as he rose. He turned and faced the crowd. He spoke, voice raw, "I did it. I thought it would be easy. I thought—"
His voice crackled like thin glass. He crumpled again. People shouted, some with vindictive joy, some with a dim, sick sorrow. Someone recorded him kneeling, someone took a photo. The footage would hit phones like a sickness. Within hours the clip was trending.
"You're finished," someone said.
He looked like a man with no future. He could not imagine a way out. The facts were out: the messages, the recordings, the witnesses. He had been proved small and cruel.
He fell to his knees and begged for forgiveness like a drowning man. He scraped the floor with his palms. The crowd watched, eyes hot and hungry. A few students spat. A few raised cameras. A professor murmured, "It's over."
They escorted him out. He tried to scream, to fight, to bargain. He grabbed at Franklin's sleeve. Franklin avoided him. The uncle's voice was gone in the crowd's outrage.
He was dragged from the auditorium, still begging. The cameras followed. The dean spoke into a microphone and promised an investigation. The students cheered. The footage of him begging spread for three days.
I stood there and watched him leave. I felt a strange emptiness, not joy. The punishment had been public, brutal, complete. I had wanted justice, and justice is always a messy pain. I had watched a man break. I had watched a man bow.
After that, life did not calm overnight. There were lawsuits and hearings. Franklin vanished from the city when the police found the paper trail. People whispered his name with disgust. Jasper's friends turned away.
Aurelio held my hand through it. "You made it right," he said once, when we sat in the quiet garden.
"I didn't," I said. "I just shone a light."
He kissed my knuckles. "You shone a light that needed to be shone."
We went on. The contract turned into something real. We learned names, birthdays, favored coffee. We built a small garden behind our house—our own little stubborn world—and I learned to love again in a careful, grown way.
"Will you stay?" I asked him once, years later, when the house smelled like baking bread.
He looked at the small trees we had planted together. "Always," he said. "You woke up one day and the world went loud. You made it quiet again. You became noisy so we could be quiet."
I smiled. I remembered standing on that stage and seeing Jasper kneel.
"We won't forget," I said.
"No," he said, and he kissed me, "but we won't live there either."
We lived forward. We had a strange, steady life that began with a naked morning in an old hotel and ended with two people who had fought to become honest.
When people asked me about the scandal and the marriage, I told them a small truth.
"It started as a bargain," I would say, "and it turned into a home."
I looked at our hands, knotted together, and thought of second chances and how some doors only open after you close others.
The End
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