Billionaire Romance13 min read
“Married for Paper, Stolen for Real” — How My Contract Turned Him Upside Down
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"Open the door."
I fumbled with the deadbolt and then the world tilted as a tall man shoved inside and shut it behind him.
"Leonardo—" I tried to step back, but his hand was already on my wrist, warm and steady.
"You're home late," he said. His voice had a small edge I hadn't heard before.
"I'm fine," I lied. My throat felt dry.
He let go and patted my shoulder like I was a child. "Don't stay out alone."
I laughed, the sound small and tight. "I'm twenty-three, Leonardo. I can walk home."
He smiled, a quick flash. "You walked into trouble at a club. I saw the post."
I wanted to tell him it wasn't his business, that our marriage was a contract, that he had said so himself. I wanted to tell him I wasn't anyone's problem to solve.
"Why do you care?" I asked, sharper than I meant to.
His smile faded. "Because I do."
That was the start. It was also the start of everything changing.
"You're Lena, right?" the clerk at the registry asked.
"Yes." I kept my voice light even though my heart felt heavy. My head kept repeating how ridiculous this was: the CEO of Moore Holdings, a man I had met twice, wanted me to sign his name on a piece of paper and call him husband.
"Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Moore." The clerk pushed the certificates across the counter.
I looked at Leonardo. He was calm, eyes steady, like the ocean I had never learned to swim in.
"This is for my grandfather," he said later, as we stepped out into the sunlight, both holding certificates. "He asked."
"I only agreed for my uncle," I said. "My uncle's hospital bills—"
"We help each other," he said, and then offered his hand. "Call me Leo if you must."
"Leonardo," I corrected. He liked the formality. He liked everything controlled.
His driver took us to his car. The seats smelled faintly of cedar. When he helped me in, his hand brushed my palm. I felt that little jolt you get when electricity moves from wire to wire.
"Mrs. Moore?" he teased.
"Leonardo," I said, and then apologized for the dumb smile that crept onto my face.
Inside his house, everything was clean and quiet. His housekeeper, Mrs. Wu, showed me a small, spare room with simple sheets. He had already placed toiletries and a set of borrowed clothes in the closet.
"This is all for you," he said. "Make yourself at home."
"I will," I lied again.
That night in the car, before he leaned in and kissed me for the first time, Everlee's messages kept flashing in my mind.
"Take him," she had written. "Men like him don't come twice."
"I don't want that," I had answered. But when his lips found mine, all the sense I carried around like armor, slipped.
"He kissed me," I told Everlee when we finally sat for tea the next day.
"So? That proves he's human," she said, not looking up from the cake. "You slept with him, Lena. Welcome to the club."
"Don't make it sound like a prize," I said.
"Maybe not a prize. Maybe a lucky break."
He cooked for me the next morning.
"You're handier than I thought," I said, watching him flip the steak, amused and annoyed in the same breath.
"If you like it," he said, handing me a plate. "I'll cook again."
"You're not just a suit," I said.
He smiled, but the smile had a memory in it. "I was a boy once," he said. "And someone taught me how to survive."
I didn't understand then how those soft words could reach inside me and press on something sore and old.
We did live like that for a while: mornings of ginger tea and quiet; afternoons when I learned the rhythm of his house; nights that were sometimes soft and sometimes fevered. We were "husband and wife" on paper, but everyone knew—this was arrangement only. He had told me himself.
"Don't expect anything," he had said once, serious enough to scare me. "We give and we keep. No promises."
"Fine," I had said. "Fair."
But people don't keep to "fine" for long.
In the office floor of Moore Holdings, the name "Leonardo Moore" still made people lower their voices. He walked like a man used to doors opening for him. He had a nickname here: "Moore Devil." It made everyone nervous.
I said "I" in the elevator for the first time.
"I'm Lena," I told Hector, his assistant, when he reached out a hand. He introduced everyone quickly, kindly. "Welcome," he said, and I smiled like a professional.
"I get coffee for Mr. Moore?" Hector whispered when we passed his office door. "He likes plain americano. Sugar on the side."
"Got it," I said.
When I pushed open Leonardo's door and walked in with a tray, he raised his head and slowed whatever he was doing.
"Good morning," he said, and I set the tray down with shaking hands.
There were moments when he looked at me fully—like I was the center of the room and everything else had blurred away. Those moments frightened me more than his anger did.
"You're the one they all watch," he said once, as if reading my thought.
"Then tell them to blink," I said.
He laughed. "Are you serious?"
"I am," I said. "I want to do my job."
"Then do it," he said. "But keep your guard. People here like to play."
A girl named Carly appeared once in his office. She was pretty, flirtatious, and she wore a smile like a weapon. She made no effort to hide how much she enjoyed being close to Leonardo.
"Who is she?" I asked Hector later, as if the answer mattered.
"Her name's Carly Russo," Hector said. "Old friend. She likes to visit."
"Visit... him?" I said, the color rising in my face.
"Try not to mind," Hector said softly. "He'll handle it."
He did. He excused her with a few words and a cold glance. Carly left with a pout and glossy hair.
"You should have seen Leonardo," Everlee said when I told her. "Protective much?"
"He is mine on paper," I said. "Doesn't mean he cares."
"Maybe you worry too much," she teased.
It hurt less when he occasionally took me in his arms and said, "My girl," though he never said it often.
Once, at a dinner at his grandfather's house, the family came together. There were whispers about my place at that long table. I kept my head down. Leonardo's eyes snapped at several people. There was tension with a woman named Irene—beautiful, loud, and dangerous. She smiled at the wrong moments and eyed me like I might be a threat.
"Who is that?" I whispered.
"She is his stepmother," Hector said under his breath. "Trouble."
"Your family is complicated," I said.
He tightened his grip. "You stay close to me."
At night, when he pushed me up against the bedroom wall and kissed me until my knees trembled, I thought of what Everlee had told me: men like him are rare. But when he would leave in the morning as if nothing had changed, I would feel hollow again.
The world was loud with gossip. Headlines called him a playboy. They called him engaged, marrying, cozy with other women in other cities—Sydney, London—names that were supposed to make me small. I told myself I didn't care.
"Do you go to Australia on business?" I asked him one night.
"Sometimes," he said. "Sometimes with a business partner. Sometimes not."
"Do you... love any of them?" My voice cracked.
He was quiet a long time. "Not like I could lose sleep," he eventually said. "Not like you make me lose sleep."
"That's not an answer," I said.
"Then ask me again when you are married to me for real," he murmured.
Weeks passed like this: tenderness, then silence; heat, then distance. I tried to keep my life separate: friends, work, my little dog, Coco. Coco was a brown cocker who loved me like a child. When Leonardo left Coco at my apartment for a week, I thought he should be punished. He dropped off a leash and a wooden bed and then walked away with that calm I could not match.
"You're keeping my dog?" he asked once.
"Yes," I said.
"Good," he said. "Feed her well."
"She is not a child," I said.
"She is mine," he said, simple.
But a bad night at a bar changed everything. I was with Everlee and Justine, and a man I knew from my past, Nico Day, cornered me in the bathroom. He tried his luck and I reacted—hard. I shouted, I kicked, and the staff called the cops. I had to file a report and face the humiliation. I told myself to be strong. I told myself I had no right to lean on anyone.
Someone leaked a clip to the web; the video of my exchange with a woman named Irene went viral—the woman who had nearly hit me with her Porsche. She accused me loudly on the street. Cameras recorded my shame.
"You're okay?" Remy—my old classmate, the kind one—came to the station with flowers. He cooked me soup. He stayed for hours like some quiet saint.
"I'm fine," I lied.
Leonardo saw the clip. He came to me that evening, breathless, angry.
"You didn't tell me," he said.
"I didn't think it's your business," I said.
"It is my business if someone humiliates you," he said.
He raged quietly. He called contacts, shut people down, paid for the blog to be taken down. He checked on me until I fell asleep.
"You could have called me," I told him weakly the next day.
"I was watching," he said. "I was always watching."
Then came the big headline: Leonardo with Leona Singh at a hotel in Sydney. The whole company joked about deals purpose-made for romance. He came back with polished excuses and promises for family alliances. He said it was for business; people believed him.
That night at a club for my birthday—well, my attempt at a birthday—I had too much to drink. I left early and bumped into a man who smelled like cedar and leather. He whispered my name and scooped me up. When I blinked, he was Leonardo.
"You're a drunk mess," he said, but he cradled me like I was glass.
"You took me home," I told him the next morning. "You carried me."
"I carry what is mine," he said, and his mouth softened.
There were times I hated him for being cold. There were times I loved the way his hand fit around my wrist.
"You're not a toy," I told him once very late when the moon was thin.
"No," he said. "But you look good in my arms."
"Stop," I said, laughing and crying at once.
He slid a ring on my finger once—not for show, he called it. He said it as if it solved everything.
"Why now?" I asked.
"Because I want people to see you," he said. "I want them to know."
"Is that because of that woman?" I asked, thinking of Irene and Leona and Carly.
"Partly," he said. "Mostly because my grandfather asked. And partly because you asked once, when you were brave."
"When was I brave?" I asked.
"When you said you wanted someone to see you," he answered. "You said you were tired of being invisible."
I had said that once, in the car, after a fight. It felt like an echo. I hadn't meant it to be permanent.
There came a night at a party where a rumor was started that would have ended me. A reporter planted a photo of me and Leonardo with some actress from another city. The caption twisted everything.
"You're playing a game," I told him after I saw the article.
"Yes," he said. "A game I have to win."
"At what cost?" I asked.
"Whatever cost it takes," he said. "I want to keep you."
"Keep me? As what? A secret?" My voice was louder than I wanted.
He walked toward me and stopped inches away. "As my wife," he said flatly. "Announced. Public. Official. No hiding."
"Why would you want that?" I whispered.
"Because you look like her," he said suddenly.
"Like who?" I asked.
"Like my mother," he said. "You look like her. You remind me that she was alive once. You remind me that someone once cared for me."
A silence as sharp as a knife cut between us.
"Are you saying you love me because I remind you of someone else?" The words hurt me to say and him to hear.
"No." He closed his eyes. "I love you because of what you are. But yes, you look like her. That frightens me. It makes me afraid of losing you."
"Then don't push me away," I said. "Don't make me earn every smile like I'm begging."
He looked at me long and finally, with a voice that had surrender in it, "I will try."
We settled into a dangerous comfort. I began to trust him more, and because of that trust, I saw more. I saw his family dynamics—his stepmother Irene plotting to disgrace him, his father with weak eyes and a stronger need to be liked. I saw the boardroom with people who hated him for sandpapering through their power.
When a scandalous plan was launched to push Leonardo aside in the company, to buy him out and leave him a figurehead, Irene and her allies used any story they could. They planted rumors, leaked photos. The press took bait.
"You have to fight," I told him one night, feeling braver than usual.
"I don't need you hurt," he said.
"You don't get to choose all my bruises," I said. "I already have scars."
He looked at me like I had said something dangerous and tender.
So we fought. He used every contact. I used the one weapon I had: truth.
"Why don't we show them the truth?" I asked. "About her. About the lies. About what she does when cameras are off."
He blinked. "Publicly?"
"Yes," I said. "At the estate. At dinner. In front of Grandpa. Bring witnesses, documents. Expose the things she hides."
He considered me. "You want to humiliate my stepmother?"
"She humiliated me," I said. "She pushed me once in the street. She called the paparazzi on me. She used her money to try and bury me. She works to take everything from your family to keep her son in place. If she wants to play in public, let's lay out the truth."
He opened his mouth, closed it. Then he nodded. "We do it your way."
On the night, the family sat down to dinner. Guests murmured. Leonardo's grandfather, Simon Kuhn, sat at the head. I sat beside Leonardo. I felt small, and also like a new kind of dangerous person.
"Grandfather," Leonardo began in a low voice, "there are things we need to say."
The room went still.
Leonardo told a story, the story of a document, a property transfer, a payment to a man who had a secret connection to Irene. He said names, dates. He asked the butler to hand over an envelope.
"Inside is proof," he said. "Proof that certain deals were used against the family, that certain people used their bodies and cars and social clout to manipulate votes and stock."
Irene's face went a terrible white. "What are you doing?" she hissed.
"Clearing my home of thieves," Leonardo said evenly. "And I will start with you."
He laid down email prints, bank transfers, texts. There was silence. Gasps. The family stared at her the way a jury stares at someone who can't explain.
"How dare—" she began, then stopped.
"Mr. Moore," Brandon Webb, his father, croaked. "This—this is serious."
"Yes," Leonardo said. "Serious enough to fire you from any role in the company. Serious enough to sue you. Serious enough to publish these proofs."
She tried to wave him off, to smile, to cry, to accuse me of lying. The cameras in the room—Leo had arranged for a private journalist—caught everything. The family who once laughed with her turned away.
"You can't make me leave," she cried.
"Watch me," Leonardo said softly.
The board convened in the hall. Leonardo took a seat at the table later that night with documents and allies. He made a choice: he offered her an exit with dignity in exchange for silence. She refused and left in a fury, splashing accusations. The board voted to remove her influence.
I watched it happen, my own hand in Leonardo's. He squeezed once. "Thank you," he whispered.
"You're welcome," I said, and felt that strange pride that comes when someone trusts you enough to use you as a weapon.
The papers called it a "family purge." The press loved it. The stepmother who wanted power was left without her base. The father, humbled, apologized publicly. Leonardo's grandfather patted his knee and said to everyone, "You two did well."
After that night, something changed. Not everything, but enough.
"Do you remember when we signed?" I asked him one morning as Coco nosed my hand.
"Of course," he said.
"Back then I told myself our contract was only for paper," I said. "I told myself nothing real would grow."
He leaned on the counter and looked at me. "And now?"
"Now I'm scared," I said. "Because every time I let myself care, you are there."
He crossed the room. He lifted my chin with one finger and kissed me. "Then don't be scared," he said. "Let me be the thing that doesn't leave."
"Prove it," I said.
He smiled and did the small, steady things that are not headlines: he came when I called; he sat with me in the clinic when I had a fever; he held my hand at my work party when people tried to talk business in ways that left me confused. He learned the names of my friends. He brought Coco back leash by leash. He stopped making excuses.
The final fight came when his father tried to force Leonardo out of a big deal to secure his own short term gain. It was petty, and it was mean. I stood at Leonardo's side in the boardroom, hands curled into fists. "You will not take what's his," I said to the room.
When the vote came, Leonardo stood and gave a speech that was simple and honest.
"This company is not mine because I took it. It is ours because my grandfather believed in me. It stays as long as we fight for what is right. I will not be pushed aside for convenience."
He did not shout. He did not cry. He spoke and the board listened.
They voted with him.
I remember that night, him stepping into the hallway, wrapping his arms around me, whispering, "You made me better. You made me brave."
"You're my man now," I said, a laugh and a sob all rolled into one.
"And you are my home," he answered.
We moved slowly after that. He refused to hide me. The photos stopped because he stopped letting anything go public that would hurt me. He started to show other sides: his childhood room, the photograph of his mother with a small boy—him, eyes bright—and he told me stories about her that made him human.
"I told you you were like her," he said one afternoon.
I looked at the old photo with a new empathy. "Tell me more," I said.
He told me stories I had no right to hear. He told me about a boy who wanted a mother and a man who wanted power, about a grandfather who had to choose. I listened and I held him and in listening, I stopped being ashamed.
The contract we signed never mattered once he started to love me. We made our own contract instead: honesty, presence, and a refusal to use each other as shields.
"Will you marry me for real?" he asked in a small, private moment, when the world felt quiet and the moon was a white coin high above our roof.
I reached out and took his hand. "I already am," I said. "But yes. For real."
He smiled like I had just given him the whole sky.
We married again, this time not to please anyone but each other. There were speeches and awkward toasts and Coco in a tiny bowtie. People clapped. Cameras flashed. But this time, the photos were ours.
"Are you happy?" he asked after the dinner, as we lay tangled under a blanket.
"I am," I said. "I am not naive. People will still talk. There will still be storms."
"Then we'll weather them," he said.
"Together?"
"Together."
Years later, I stood in the same registry office where my signature had once been ink on a contract. But this time I carried no paper but a memory. Leonardo squeezed my hand and smiled at me like I was the only thing he'd ever wanted. Coco slept at my feet.
"I almost forgot how scared I was," I admitted.
"Good," he said. "Because you don't have to be scared anymore."
"I kept a copy of our old contract," I said, teasing.
He looked foolish for a moment, then laughed. "Burn it."
"I will," I said, and when I dropped the paper into the fire in our old fireplace, I felt a small, satisfying heat.
"You kept Coco," he said.
"I did," I said. "And you kept me."
He kissed me then, slow and sure. "I did," he said. "Always."
Outside, the city's night was soft and alive. Inside, our small apartment smelled of wood and lemon and the dog that slept with one paw in the air. In the years to come, there were fights and apologies, sharper pain and deeper comforts, but the core was always the same.
He asked once, much later, "Do you ever regret it? Marrying me?"
I looked at him, at the man who had once been all danger and distance and had become my steady place. "Once, maybe," I said, "when I didn't understand him. But not now. Not when you're here."
He squeezed my hand. "Then let's keep it that way."
I wanted the ending to be mine and his, not the city's gossip. So I left one thing for the cameras: a photo of Leonardo and me, simple and honest, with Coco between us and a small cake and a note.
"Thank you for choosing me," it read.
He had chosen me first. I had chosen him back.
The End
— Thank you for reading —