Billionaire Romance10 min read
"That's a Wrap" — The Billionaire Who Got Jealous
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"Cut!" the director shouted, and the set exploded into noise.
"I think we did it," I said, wiping sweat off my neck.
"June, you were perfect," Mina said, hugging me hard.
Tristan stood by the equipment cart, smiling like he always did when the cameras were off. He stepped closer and said, "Congrats on the wrap."
I laughed. "Congrats on surviving me."
He pulled out his phone. "Photo?"
"Photo," I agreed.
We took three. He sent one to me and posted the other with, "Congrats to my leading lady. Until the next one."
I posted mine too. "Congrats to my leading man. See you on set."
Fans exploded. Comments flooded. Thread after thread. My phone buzzed non-stop.
Later that night, my manager Felicity called.
"June, your schedule—" she started, and then she stopped.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Your next three endorsements and a film offer got pulled. Overnight."
I blinked. "What? How?"
"Someone in high places put pressure. We traced it. Tristan—your fiancé—did not do this."
"Tristan?" I repeated, but my head already swirled with a worse possibility. "Who then?"
Felicity hesitated. "Some people say it's Constance Carr."
I laughed because I couldn't not laugh. "Tristan's mother? Constance doesn't know me from a coffee shop."
"She knows you well enough to be... protective," Felicity said carefully.
That afternoon I called Tristan.
"June?" he answered as if he'd been waiting.
"You hurt my career," I said before I could stop myself.
He blinked. "I—what?"
"Your mother. Did she pressure my projects off the grid?"
There was a long pause. "She was jealous," he said finally. "She said it's unbecoming for an engaged woman's job to attract other men."
"Her words?" I asked.
"Yes."
I closed my eyes. "Then tell her this: my work is my work. I asked you before we ever signed anything. If she can't accept that, I will talk to my father."
"Don't," Tristan said with a soft anger I hadn't heard before. "Let me handle it."
I didn't believe him. The next week proved me right.
The rumors bloomed. My phone lit with gossip. My inbox filled with algorithms and "sources." I had to keep working. I had to stay busy to drown the noise.
Three weeks later, my father asked me to plan his birthday. He wanted the engagement announced—publicly—on that night. He meant well. He wanted me to be safe. He wanted me to be a daughter who did not have to fight rumors anymore.
"June," he said firmly, "it's time."
I told myself I would do it for him.
On the day of the party, Constance came early. She arrived in silk and pearls, a small army at her back. She gave me a thin smile.
"You look well," she said.
"Thank you," I replied. My dress felt too bright. "Thank you for coming."
She took Tristan's arm when he stood by my side. The photographers took the family photo. The moment was warm and strange.
After a while, Constance and I were left on the sofa with the furniture smelling faintly of flowers.
"June," she said after a long sip of tea. "You could retire from the spotlight. Why push it?"
"My work is real work," I said. "I like it."
She smiled in that way that meant the room kept its secrets. "I only want what's best."
"Then leave my choices to me," I said.
She choked on her tea for a beat and then laughed. She did not change.
That night I walked into the backyard with Tristan.
"You okay?" he asked.
"I am okay," I lied. "You fought for me earlier. Why now are you letting your mother decide my life?"
"I didn't let her," he said quietly. "I argued. I lost more battles than you saw."
"Then fight harder," I said. "If we are to be married, I won't be someone who disappears."
He reached for my hand. "June, I won't let her stand in your way. I promise."
"I want more than a promise," I said, and he heard it in my voice. He hugged me then, and for a second I let myself believe.
Two weeks later I was on a period drama set. The show was crazy, but I loved the part. We were shooting an outdoor sequence—horses, costumes, wind—and then something went wrong. A rig snapped. I hit the ground hard. I tried to catch myself and couldn't.
Hands grabbed me. A man in a plain jacket broke my fall. I opened my eyes to a face I didn't expect: brown skin, strong jaw, a sharp jawline, eyes that felt familiar in the way strangers do when they instantly feel like allies.
"You're okay?" he asked.
"Yes," I said, breathing hard.
He smiled. "You scared me."
The stuntman, Azriel Hahn, limped a little but waved it off. "It's part of the job. You should get checked."
I went to the hospital to be safe. Azriel had a sprain and a small fracture, but nothing that would end his work. He was back at set in a few weeks—bruised, stubborn, proud.
Tristan found out. He boarded a plane on the same night I left for a three-day break to recuperate.
"Let me do something," he told me. "I will fix what happened."
He called Azriel. He offered money. He offered Azriel a lead role in a new project. Azriel blinked and laughed.
"I don't take charity," he said. "But a chance to act? That I will take."
Tristan made it happen.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked him later.
"Because you matter," he said.
I almost asked for more. Instead I hugged him. He was careful, like he was handling glass.
Back on set, the industry watched me like a temperature gauge. The actress next to me—Bianca Kraemer—kept her smile too wide and her eyes too sharp.
Two months later, a photo exploded the internet. It was a night photo and grainy: me at a hotel door with a handsome actor, Zachariah Baumann, in the frame. He was my co-star; we'd eaten in a group earlier. The outlet's caption screamed: "June King Caught with Leading Man."
My stomach dropped. The way the photo was cropped made a private moment look like a secret. My manager Felicity bristled.
"Don't speak," she said. "We get the footage. We clear it."
I wanted to tell the truth, but I also remembered how Tristan's mother used every scrap of rumor like a blade. I didn't want my family to be dragged into another fight.
We released the hotel CCTV within forty-eight hours. The clip showed me returning to my room, Zachariah walking away, the lift doors closing. The public changed. The conversation flipped. The internet had to swallow the fact that it had been manipulated.
Tristan called me.
"You okay?" he asked, voice thick.
"I am," I said, fighting to keep my tone even.
A few days later Felicity called. "June, we found the source."
"Who?"
"Bianca. She hired people."
"Why?"
"For attention. To make you look weak. She plotted with someone to stage a photo angle and leak it."
I stared at the phone.
"Bid her out?" I said slowly.
"No," Felicity said. "There's more. Her agent is connected. There is also someone in Tristan's household pushing things."
"Constance?" I asked.
Felicity's voice was low. "She may have pushed a lot of pressure. But we have one person who arranged the leak. Her name is Isabela Guerrero—she's pretending to be your friend."
My chest chilled. Isabela and I had once been close. She was kind at first—then quiet, then clever.
Tristan wanted to handle it himself. He brought the proof to his father and then to the press.
At a company press meeting he controlled the room like a general. Cameras blinked. Reporters leaned in.
"This industry is messy," he said. "But you deserve the truth." He paused. "Bianca Kraemer and Isabela Guerrero orchestrated a smear to harm June's reputation. We have evidence. We are letting them go from all their contracts."
The room went still. Bianca's face tightened. Isabela's cheeks drained of color. They tried to deny it. Cameras recorded their mouths as they lied.
Tristan's next move was cold and clean. He withdrew the offers he'd already put into production for Bianca. He also asked for Isabela's immediate termination at the firm where she freelanced. The consequences hit hard. People watched them lose status. They tried to fight back. Their denials sounded small in the face of footage and emails.
I watched the videos Tristan's team showed at a private meeting. I watched Bianca's expression crumble.
"You did a terrible thing," I told her when they asked to meet. "Why?"
She tried the old lines—"actors do whatever to survive"—but the room was full, and the crowd outside had just lost their hero.
When Bianca was escorted out, one of the costume assistants whispered, "She never played like that when we were filming."
I felt something heavy leave the room.
Soon after, Tristan's mother—Constance—arranged a staged photo with Isabela, a ploy to make it seem like she had new friends. Tristan found out. He was furious in the way he became when a plan touched me. He had the right people check bank transactions, messages, calls. He confronted his mother in the living room where the family pictures hung. The fight burst like glass.
"You humiliate her in public," he said. "You scheme to take away her work. Why?"
Constance's voice was cold. "I'm protecting my son."
"Protecting my heart?" he ribbed. "Years of promises? You used my name to sell fear."
She tried to say she was proud and careful and above all, a good mother. He told her their marriage would change. She flamed and then cowered like a person who had always used money to hide fear.
After that, Tristan started to shift things. He cut his mother's access to certain accounts for a time. He hired a counselor for family mediation. He placed severe limits on what his personal office communications could be used for.
Meanwhile my phone buzzed again with another headline: "June King and Tristan Wheeler—engagement rumor fallout." I had had enough.
I drove to my parents. They were not surprised but they were hurt.
"Why are you giving up?" my father asked quietly.
"I'm not giving up," I said. "I'm choosing who I will be with and why."
He blinked. "You mean you want out?"
"I can't be a wife who needs hiding," I said. "If Tristan wants a wife who disappears, that's not the life for me."
He sighed. "Do what makes you happy, but don't rush."
A week later I told Tristan on the phone.
"I want to end the engagement," I said.
"I won't let you," he said simply.
"You can't make me say yes," I said. "Not like this."
"Then don't make a decision in public," he said. "Talk to me. Please."
I wanted to scream. Over months of rumors and fights, my heart had hardened into a small safe. I told Tristan I would meet him at the garden where we'd first taken pictures. He arrived with cheeks flushed and a bouquet clumsy and honest. His suit was tight in the right places.
"June," he said.
"What?" I asked.
He knelt without ceremony, because he never did ceremony. "I love you," he said.
I didn't need a show. I needed a partner who would keep me and also let me be.
"I don't want to be married because your mother said it's right," I said. "I don't want to be married because we both fear public opinion."
"I don't want that either," he said. "I want to be married because you choose me when you can choose not to. And I want you to have your work. I want to be the man who fights for you, not the man who suffocates you."
I stared at him.
"If you marry me—" he took my hand—"I will set rules. No one cancels your jobs without our say. I will fund your projects. I will protect your name and your work. But you keep your life, your work, your voice. You won't be silenced."
I laughed once, a short, honest sound. "You say like you can put my life in your hands."
"I say like I will spend my life trying to earn your hand," he corrected.
We didn't sign anything that day. Instead we sat in the dark and talked until the stars ran out. He told me about his childhood, the way his mother had been raised, the pressure to keep the family image polished. I told him how I had chosen the stage because it gave me a place in the world that felt mine.
The next month was a test.
I went back to work. I shot my drama. I agreed to be a guest on a show to talk about marriage and career. I was nervous on the panel and honest.
"Would you marry someone who asks you to give up your work?" the host asked.
"If we love each other," I said, "we make room. If that means leaving a job for a time, it should never be demanded. Love is a choice, not a command."
On the day my father sent the paperwork to Tristan's office to formally dissolve the engagement, Tristan arrived with a thick folder.
"I don't want to force you," he said. "But I want you to know that when your father and mine sign that release, I will be the man who proves he can be trusted. I will show your parents, not with words, but with actions."
He opened the folder. Inside were offers—investment in my upcoming film, a production company stake where I would be free to choose my projects, funding for Azriel's martial arts movie, and a promise to back the charity program my mother cared about.
"My father will help with logistics," Tristan said. "This is not a buy-out. This is trust."
I looked at the list. This was more than money. This was permission and respect.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked again.
"Because I love you," he said. "Because I want to be the kind of man who supports you without owning you."
We still signed the paper that day—but not because we were surrendering. We signed a new agreement of sorts: we would remove the label that had forced us into secrecy. We would marry when both of us agreed, not because our families needed an arrangement. For now, we were engaged again, but between equals.
Weeks later the people who had plotted against me were not just fired. Bianca's network cut ties, Isabela's career was rebuilt with honest work and remorse, and Constance—Tristan's mother—had to face the truth in a conversation with her husband. It rocked their house.
Tristan did something small and big at the same time: he walked into Constance's office with a simple scroll of paper. "This," he said, "is our family policy. If you want to remain in my life, you follow it. No more interfering."
Constance read and flared and then, finally, she looked at her son. She saw who he had become.
"Do you really mean this?" she asked.
"Completely," he said. "June is not for sale. She is not a reputation. She is a person."
When Constance left the room, it felt like the house had changed.
I started my new movie. Azriel was the lead. The press covered our set less as scandal and more as work. People saw us doing our jobs and the rumor mill died down.
One night after a long day, Tristan and I walked on the roof of my old studio building. There was a small fountain and a wooden bench. He sat me down and took something out of his pocket: a ribbon from the first family photo we had ever taken together. It was the ribbon my father had tied on my wrap bouquet.
"I kept this," he said. "From the first time we called each other 'us'."
I took it. I thought about the moment, the way things had been messy and still so alive.
"Keep it," I said. "Don't pin it on me only."
He tied the ribbon to his wrist like a promise. "Then keep this: when I fail, remind me. When I succeed, remind me. When you're tired, remind me to hold your hand."
I leaned my head on his shoulder. The city's lights glittered. The noise of the world felt far away for a while. We had both been tested. The test hadn't made us perfect. It had only made us clearer.
"Will you still be jealous?" I asked.
"Jealous?" He laughed and kissed my forehead. "Yes. But now it will be the kind that pushes me to be better, not the kind that takes."
I closed my eyes.
"Then I will keep loving my work," I said. "And you will keep being the man who shows up."
"Deal," he said.
We didn't erase the hurt. We placed it on the shelf like a lesson and moved it into daylight. The last scene was small: I took the ribbon off his wrist, wrapped it around a small cork from the studio's old champagne bottle, and put both in the center drawer of my desk.
"Open it when you're doubting," I said.
He took my hands in his, unafraid now to be seen. He didn't promise no storms; he promised to stand in them with me.
That promise was enough to change everything.
The End
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