Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father

Madel Cerda

4.7
Comment(s)
8.9M
View
330
Chapters

I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch-a titan of industry and my best friend's father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father Chapter 1 No.1

The crystal flute in Eliza Solomon's hand was going to shatter.

She could feel the hairline fractures in the glass pressing against her palm, a perfect mirror of the way her chest felt-tight, brittle, and one breath away from exploding.

"He looks happy, doesn't he?"

The voice came from her left. A socialite in emerald silk, someone Eliza used to know before the Solomon empire crumbled, before she became the pitiful ward of the Hyde family. They weren't just her guardians; they were the iron-fisted trustees of the Solomon estate, a vast fortune she couldn't touch until she turned twenty-five, or married. Anson, as the primary trustee, controlled every dollar.

Eliza didn't answer. She couldn't. Her throat had closed up somewhere between the appetizer course and the moment Anson Hyde walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm.

Anson looked more than happy. He looked victorious.

He stood in the center of the room, under the massive chandelier that cost more than Eliza's entire college tuition. His hand rested on the small of Claudine's back, his fingers splayed possessively against the white fabric of her dress. He leaned down, whispering something into her ear that made Claudine throw her head back and laugh.

The sound was sharp. It cut through the heavy orchestral music and lodged itself directly behind Eliza's ribs.

It was the same laugh Claudine used when she made fun of Eliza's second-hand shoes.

"Excuse me," a waiter muttered, bumping into Eliza's shoulder with a heavy tray.

Champagne sloshed over the rim of her glass, soaking into the bodice of her grey dress. It was cold and sticky.

The waiter didn't apologize. He glanced at her, recognized her as the charity case, and curled his lip in a sneer before moving on to serve the guests who actually mattered.

Eliza's stomach cramped. The humiliation was a physical weight, pressing down on her shoulders until her knees felt weak. She needed air. She needed to not be here, watching the boy who held the keys to her gilded cage announce his engagement to the girl who had made that cage a living hell. The promise to "protect her" had always been a lie. It was a promise to possess her.

She turned and walked toward the library, keeping her head down.

The library was dark, smelling of old paper and lemon polish. It was the only room in the Hyde estate where Eliza had ever felt safe. She closed the heavy oak door behind her and leaned her forehead against the wood, gasping for air. Her lungs burned.

The door handle turned under her grip.

Eliza jumped back, wiping frantically at her eyes. She expected Anson. She expected him to come in here and tell her to stop making a scene, to smile for the cameras, to be grateful for the roof over her head.

But the figure that filled the doorway wasn't Anson.

It was a wall of a man in a black tuxedo that seemed to absorb the dim light of the room. He was taller than Anson, broader, with a stillness about him that made the air in the library drop ten degrees.

Dallas Koch.

Eliza's breath hitched. Why was he here? The CEO of Koch Industries, the most powerful man in the city, didn't hide in libraries. He didn't even look at people like Eliza.

He stood there, his hand still on the brass knob, his dark eyes scanning her face. He took in the champagne stain on her dress, the red blotches on her cheeks, the way her hands were shaking so hard the crystal flute was rattling.

For a second, the stoic mask he wore-the one that made him look like a statue carved from granite-cracked. A muscle in his jaw ticked.

He stepped inside and closed the door, sealing out the noise of the party.

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. It was white silk, folded into a perfect square. He held it out to her without a word.

Eliza stared at it. "I... I'm fine."

"You are not fine," Dallas said. His voice was a low rumble, vibrating in the quiet room. "Take it."

Eliza reached out. Her fingers brushed against his palm as she took the silk. A jolt of static electricity snapped between them, sharp and surprising. She flinched, but he didn't move.

The handkerchief smelled of sandalwood and something clean, like rain on pavement. It smelled expensive. It smelled like stability.

From the hallway, Anson's voice drifted through the thick wood of the door. He was making a toast.

"...to my beautiful fiancée, Claudine..."

The words were like a physical blow to the back of Eliza's knees. Her legs gave out.

She didn't hit the floor.

Dallas moved with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for a man of his size. One moment he was standing three feet away, and the next, his arm was around her waist, catching her.

His grip was firm. Solid. He held her up effortlessly, his arm like a steel bar against her spine.

Eliza looked up. Her vision was swimming with tears, blurring his features, but she could see the intensity in his eyes. He wasn't looking at her with pity. He was looking at her with a terrifying kind of focus.

"Take me away," she whispered.

The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them. It was a desperate plea, born of heartbreak and the sudden, overwhelming instinct that this man was the only thing in the room that wasn't trying to crush her.

Dallas went still. His eyes darkened, shifting from brown to something nearly black. He looked down at her, assessing the weight of her request, calculating the cost.

"There is no turning back if we leave, Eliza," he warned. His voice was low, rough around the edges. "If you walk out that door with me, you do not come back to this house."

Eliza nodded frantically. The tears were spilling over now, hot tracks on her cold skin. "Please. Just get me out."

Dallas didn't hesitate. He shifted his grip, guiding her toward the servants' exit hidden behind a tapestry. He moved his body to shield her from the security cameras, blocking her from view with his broad shoulders.

The night air outside was biting. A sleek, matte black Maybach was idling at the curb, looking like a predator waiting in the shadows.

Dallas opened the heavy door and helped her in. The interior smelled of leather and isolation. He slammed the door shut, and the silence was absolute. The music, the laughter, Anson's voice-it was all gone.

Eliza slumped against the seat. There was a crystal decanter in the center console. She didn't think. She just poured amber liquid into a glass and drank it in one gulp.

It burned. It burned all the way down to her empty stomach, setting her blood on fire.

Dallas got into the driver's seat. He didn't look at her. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.

"Where are we going?" she asked, her voice slurring slightly as the alcohol hit her system with the force of a truck.

"My place," Dallas said.

The car moved. The city lights blurred into streaks of neon. Eliza felt dizzy, unmoored. The alcohol was mixing with the adrenaline and the grief, creating a toxic cocktail in her brain.

She looked at Dallas's profile. He was Azalea's dad. He was old money. He was power.

"I need a shield," she mumbled, the words tumbling out. "I need a wall he can't climb."

Dallas glanced at her in the rearview mirror. His expression was unreadable.

They arrived at a building that pierced the skyline. The elevator ride was a blur of motion sickness. When the doors opened into the penthouse, Eliza stumbled.

Dallas was there again, steadying her. His hands on her arms felt hot through the thin fabric of her dress.

She looked up at him. In the harsh lighting of the foyer, he didn't look like a savior. He looked dangerous.

"Marry me," she blurted out.

The silence that followed was deafening.

It was the alcohol talking, yes, but it was also a desperate, calculated gambit. Marrying Anson was a life sentence. But marrying anyone else... that was the loophole in her father's will. It was her only escape clause. It was the survival instinct of a wounded animal trying to find the one predator in the forest who could kill the wolf at her throat.

Dallas froze. The air in the penthouse turned electric, charged with a tension that made the hair on Eliza's arms stand up.

He didn't laugh. He didn't tell her she was drunk.

He walked to a wall safe hidden behind a painting. He punched in a code, the beeps loud in the quiet room. He pulled out a document and a heavy fountain pen.

He walked back to her and placed the paper on the marble console table.

"Sign," he commanded. His voice was soft, but it carried the weight of a gavel striking a sounding block.

Eliza blinked, trying to focus on the paper. The words swam. She saw "Marriage" and "Agreement."

She didn't care about the details. She just wanted Anson to know she was gone. She wanted to burn the bridge so thoroughly she could never cross it again.

She grabbed the pen. Her signature was messy, a jagged scrawl across the bottom line.

"Done," she whispered.

The pen slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the marble. The room tilted sideways.

The last thing she felt was Dallas catching her again, lifting her into his arms as the blackness swallowed her whole.

Continue Reading

Other books by Madel Cerda

More
Betrayal's Wake: A Wife Scorned

Betrayal's Wake: A Wife Scorned

Romance

5.0

The clear blue water shimmered, and beneath me, my seven-year-old daughter, Lily, swam like a tiny mermaid. It was in these quiet underwater moments that I, Ava, felt closest to her, the wall between us finally seeming to dissolve. Then, her small fingers, meant to grasp my hand, wrapped around the hose of my regulator. She pulled. The mouthpiece was ripped from my mouth. My vision blurred as I choked, a terrifying gush of bubbles replacing my smile, my lungs screaming for air. What struck me most, though, wasn't the panic, but the cold, deliberate focus in her eyes as she swam away, leaving me to drown. Back on the boat, shivering and gasping, I watched my husband, Jake, arrive. He didn't come to me, still wrapped in a scratchy towel and dripping saltwater. He went straight to Lily, holding her tight, asking, "Are you okay, princess? Did she scare you?" His eyes, chips of ice, finally landed on me. "What did you do?" he demanded, his voice low and menacing. Lily, buried in his shoulder, sobbed, "No, I didn't! Mommy got angry and took her own mask off! She scared me!" My head snapped up. The lie was so quick, so easy, so utterly believable to him. His shadow fell over me, and he hissed, "You can't even take care of our daughter for one afternoon without some kind of drama. Are you that desperate for attention?" He didn't believe me, not for a second. He just sneered, "She's seven, Ava. What possible reason would she have to do something like that?" The cold of the deep water was nothing compared to the chill settling in my bones. I was utterly alone. That night, Jake revealed the bitter truth: I was never Lily' s mother, just a "vessel" for Olivia' s child. The marriage, the contract, the baby-it was all a calculated trap. "You have no idea what you've done, do you?" he snarled, grabbing my chin, "You've upset Lily. Badly." Then came Lily's seventh birthday party, where she subtly cut my dress strap, exposing my C-section scar to everyone. As I stood humiliated, she beamed, "Ew, look! Look at her ugly scar! It's so gross! I'm going to be sick!" The realization hit me: this wasn't a childish prank. It was calculated. My heart, already shattered, felt like it was being ground into dust. All I had endured crystallized. I picked up the small scissors she'd used. "You wanted to cut something, Lily?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly calm. Before anyone could react, I plunged them into the magnificent birthday cake, stabbing again and again, destroying the perfect castle. "There," I said, dropping the scissors. "Happy birthday." I walked out of the ballroom, leaving the stunned silence, the screaming child, and the ruins of a life I was finally ready to abandon. My phone rang; it was Olivia' s mother. "You can't leave! Think of your duty!" she shrieked. "That poor child just deliberately humiliated me," I replied, then Lily's voice came on, "I hate you! I wish you would die like my real mommy did!" Suddenly, it all clicked: they had used me. I was a placeholder, a prop. A bitter laugh escaped me. "You can have the ring. You can have the house. You can have the clothes. You can have the whole damn life. I don't want it." I pulled the SIM card from my phone, letting it fall into the bushes. As I reached the front door with my single small suitcase, Jake blocked my path. "I've already figured it out," he announced, "We'll send Lily to Switzerland. Then you can come back, and we can go back to normal." I looked at him, at Sarah clutching his arm, at Lily cheering, "Is Sarah going to be my new mommy now? You have to leave with nothing. That's what happens to bad people." They wanted to strip me of everything. And in that moment, it was exactly what I needed. "Okay," I said, a real smile on my face. I let go of my suitcase, leaving it on the marble floor. "Okay, Lily. I'll leave with nothing." I turned my back on them all and walked toward the open door, a wave of intoxicating freedom washing over me. Just then, a piercing scream from inside shattered the quiet. Lily. A decorative candle had fallen on a velvet curtain; flames were already licking their way up, and Lily stood frozen in terror. My body moved before my brain could process-she was a child, in danger. I ran back inside. I grabbed Lily, turning my back to shield her, just as a burning curtain rod crashed down on me. The pain was searing, but I held her tight, pushing her into Jake' s arms. "Get her out!" I choked, tasting blood. He grabbed Lily, his face pale, but then he looked at me, covered in soot, my hair singed. "Ava! What did you do now?" he roared. That was it. The last piece of my old life turned to ash. I had just saved his daughter, and he was screaming at me. An incredible lightness filled my chest. I felt profound pity for them, trapped in their beautiful, burning prison. "Seven years," I whispered, "It was only seven years. I can afford to lose that." I turned away from the sirens, from his accusing face, and started walking down the long, winding driveway. No shoes, torn clothes, my back screaming, gravel digging into my bare feet. But I didn't care. The pain was real, it was mine, and I felt alive. I walked on, into the darkness, not looking back.

The Real Boss Was His Neglected Wife

The Real Boss Was His Neglected Wife

Mafia

5.0

I was putting my signature on the invoice for the Gulfstream G650 when my husband snatched the boarding pass from the folder and handed it to his mistress. "You're taking the commercial flight out of JFK," Jackson said, daring me to challenge him in front of his security detail. "Amber needs the privacy. She gets air sick." I looked down at the crumpled ticket he had slid to me. Economy. Middle seat. Three layovers. Then I looked at the sixty-million-dollar bird I had leased specifically so his crime family wouldn't get slaughtered on the highway by their rivals. "Amber is fragile," he whispered, his breath smelling of the expensive scotch I bought. "She carries the future. You just carry the checkbook." My mother-in-law was already on board, sipping the vintage Dom Pérignon I had curated, refusing to look at me. They treated me like a glorified ATM with a medical degree. They forgot that five years ago, when the Feds froze everything, I was the one who bought their lives with a five-million-dollar tribute. They forgot that the hand that writes the checks can also close the account. As the engines roared to life, leaving me stranded on the tarmac, I didn't cry. Surgeons don't cry over dead bodies. I pulled out my phone and cancelled the Uber he had called for me. I wasn't going to the airport. I was going to the safe to retrieve the "Blood Contract." The five million dollars wasn't a gift. It was a callable loan. And the collateral was everything. I dialed my lawyer. "Burn it to the ground."

The Ex-Fiancé You Can't Afford To Lose

The Ex-Fiancé You Can't Afford To Lose

Modern

5.0

I stood in the ballroom with a diamond ring in my pocket, waiting to be crowned King of the empire I had built from the ground up. Instead, the woman I loved walked to the microphone and signed my death warrant with a smile. Serena didn't announce our engagement. She announced that Luca Moretti—an incompetent associate I'd almost fired three times—was the new Underboss and her partner in life. Then, she kissed him. Deep and possessive, right in front of the entire Commission. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. Luca smirked at me, wearing a suit that was too tight, while Serena looked at me with cold, dead eyes. "Dante is the old guard," she told the crowd, dismissing me like a waiter. "We are moving in a new direction." They stripped me of my title. They humiliated me on live television. They thought they had taken my crown. But they forgot one crucial detail. I was the Architect. I had built the encrypted logistics system that kept the FBI in the dark. A system that required my specific biometric code every morning to function. I didn't make a scene. I didn't scream. I simply placed the ring on a waiter's tray and walked out into the night. Forty-eight hours later, the Vitiello empire was in a freefall. The accounts were frozen. The shipments were flagged. My phone buzzed. It was Serena. "Dante," she panicked, her voice trembling. "Fix it. Now." I took a sip of my espresso and smiled at the chaos on the news. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Serena. You fired the only pilot who knows how to fly the plane."

You'll also like

The $300 Husband Is A Zillionaire

The $300 Husband Is A Zillionaire

Nap Regazzini
4.6

I woke up in a blindingly white hotel penthouse with a throbbing headache and the taste of betrayal in my mouth. The last thing I remembered was my stepsister, Cathie, handing me a flute of champagne at the charity gala with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. Now, a tall, dangerously handsome man walked out of the bathroom with a towel around his hips. On the nightstand sat a stack of hundred-dollar bills. My stepmother had finally done it—she drugged me and staged a scandal with a hired escort to destroy my reputation and my future. "Aisha! Is it true you spent the night with a gigolo?" The shouts of a dozen reporters echoed through the heavy oak door as camera flashes exploded through the peephole. My phone lit up with messages showing my bank accounts were already frozen. My father was invoking the 'morality clause' in my mother’s trust fund, and my fiancé had already released a statement dumping me to marry my stepsister instead. I was trapped, penniless, and being hunted by the press for a scandal I hadn't even participated in. My own family had sold me out for a payday, and the man standing in front of me was the only witness who could prove I was innocent—or finish me off for good. I didn't have time to cry. According to the fine print of the trust, I had thirty days to prove my "rehabilitation" through a legal marriage or I would lose everything. I tracked the man down to a coffee shop the next morning, watching him take a thick envelope of cash from a wealthy older woman. I sat across from him and slid a napkin with a $50,000 figure written on it. "I need a husband. Legal, paper-signed, and convincing." He looked at the number, then at me, a slow, crooked smile spreading across his face. I thought I was hiring a desperate gigolo to save my inheritance. I had no idea I was actually proposing to Dominic Fields, the reclusive billionaire shark who was currently planning a hostile takeover of my father’s entire empire.

The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

Shearwater
4.5

I was four months pregnant, weighing over two hundred pounds, and my heart was failing from experimental treatments forced on me as a child. My doctor looked at me with clinical detachment and told me I was in a death sentence: if I kept the baby, I would die, and if I tried to remove it, I would die. Desperate for a lifeline, I called my father, Francis Acosta, to tell him I was sick and pregnant. I expected a father's love, but all I got was a cold, sharp blade of a voice. "Then do it quietly," he said. "Don't embarrass Candi. Her debutante ball is coming up." He didn't just reject me; he erased me. My trust fund was frozen, and I was told I was no longer an Acosta. My fiancé, Auston, had already discarded me, calling me a "bloated whale" while he looked for a thinner, wealthier replacement. I left New York on a Greyhound bus, weeping into a bag of chips, a broken woman the world considered a mistake. I couldn't understand how my own father could tell me to die "quietly" just to save face for a party. I didn't know why I had been a lab rat for my family’s pharmaceutical ambitions, or how they could sleep at night while I was left to rot in the gray drizzle of the city. Five years later, the doors of JFK International Airport slid open. I stepped onto the marble floor in red-soled stilettos, my body lean, lethal, and carved from years of blood and sweat. I wasn't the "whale" anymore; I was a ghost coming back to haunt them. With my daughter by my side and a medical reputation that terrified the global elite, I was ready to dismantle the Acosta empire piece by piece. "Tell Francis to wash his neck," I whispered to the skyline. "I'm home."

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father Flash Marriage To My Best Friend's Father Madel Cerda Romance
“I was once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch-a titan of industry and my best friend's father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.”
1

Chapter 1 No.1

22/01/2026

2

Chapter 2 No.2

22/01/2026

3

Chapter 3 No.3

22/01/2026

4

Chapter 4 No.4

22/01/2026

5

Chapter 5 No.5

22/01/2026

6

Chapter 6 No.6

22/01/2026

7

Chapter 7 No.7

22/01/2026

8

Chapter 8 No.8

22/01/2026

9

Chapter 9 No.9

22/01/2026

10

Chapter 10 No.10

22/01/2026

11

Chapter 11 No.11

22/01/2026

12

Chapter 12 No.12

22/01/2026

13

Chapter 13 No.13

22/01/2026

14

Chapter 14 No.14

22/01/2026

15

Chapter 15 No.15

22/01/2026

16

Chapter 16 No.16

22/01/2026

17

Chapter 17 No.17

22/01/2026

18

Chapter 18 No.18

22/01/2026

19

Chapter 19 No.19

22/01/2026

20

Chapter 20 No.20

22/01/2026

21

Chapter 21 No.21

22/01/2026

22

Chapter 22 No.22

22/01/2026

23

Chapter 23 No.23

22/01/2026

24

Chapter 24 No.24

22/01/2026

25

Chapter 25 No.25

22/01/2026

26

Chapter 26 No.26

22/01/2026

27

Chapter 27 No.27

22/01/2026

28

Chapter 28 No.28

22/01/2026

29

Chapter 29 No.29

22/01/2026

30

Chapter 30 No.30

22/01/2026

31

Chapter 31 No.31

22/01/2026

32

Chapter 32 No.32

22/01/2026

33

Chapter 33 No.33

22/01/2026

34

Chapter 34 No.34

22/01/2026

35

Chapter 35 No.35

22/01/2026

36

Chapter 36 No.36

22/01/2026

37

Chapter 37 No.37

22/01/2026

38

Chapter 38 No.38

22/01/2026

39

Chapter 39 No.39

22/01/2026

40

Chapter 40 No.40

22/01/2026