Married To The Billionaire: Spoiling My Vengeful Wife

"Audrey, answer my call quickly!"

"Where are you? Call me back right away!"

"It concerns my brother, also your boyfriend Asher."

"Audrey, quickly answer the phone! Something very important has happened!"

Audrey's eyes drowsily gazed at the blurry text, her heartbeat irregularly thumping in her chest.

Three calls unanswered. Four urgent messages. All these messages were from Victoria Sterling-her best friend, also the sister of her secret boyfriend Asher Sterling .

A sense of unease surged in her stomach. She thought, what could have happened that made Victoria contact her so urgently, and it seemed to be related to her boyfriend, her brother.

Just then, Victoria's face appeared on the screen-it was an invitation for a video call. That sense of urgency was as loud as the sound of a horn.

She accepted.

Victoria's face was filled with an expression of anger, her golden hair slightly disheveled. The background was dark, with the low rhythm of music and the noisy sound of the crowd lingering in the air. It was a bar.

"Audrey, you finally answered the phone," Victoria said with some anger. "Do you know what happened?"

"What's wrong?" Audrey's voice was hoarse and broken, worn out from days of coughing, "I've had the flu and been lying down for two days?"

"Asher lied to you, he's back. He was never in Zurich!"

Audrey froze, her mind blanked out instantly with the high fever, leaving only an unbelievable daze. "Impossible, he messaged two days ago saying his business in Zurich would end only next week."

Victoria let out a bitter and mocking sneer, "Zurich? He's at the Silas Bar in the center of Manhattan. He's throwing a victory party, for your stepsister Isabelle Gray."

Audrey's inner unease turned as cold as ice. "A party? For what?"

Victoria's expression softened for a fraction of a second, a flicker of pity crossing her features before the anger returned. "He's celebrating. With your dear stepsister. They're making it official."

The words didn't make sense. It was like trying to read a foreign language. "Official? What are you talking about? There must be a mistake." She tried to defend him, the habit of the last three years ingrained in her. "He would have told me."

"Oh, Audrey," Victoria sighed, the sound laced with a sorrow that cut deeper than her anger. "Don't be naive. Just... just open Instagram. Look at his latest post."

Her heart began to pound. Her fingers felt numb as she fumbled, switching from the video call to the familiar purple and orange icon.

She didn't have to search.

It was the first thing in her feed. Posted ten minutes ago.

The photo was professionally taken, bathed in the warm, intimate glow of the bar. Asher stood tall and handsome in a tailored suit, his arm wrapped tightly around Isabelle Gray. Her stepsister. Isabelle was beaming, her hand resting on his chest, a diamond ring flashing on her finger like a shard of glass aimed directly at Audrey's heart. They were kissing, a celebratory, public kiss for the whole world to see.

But it was the caption that shattered her.

"She said yes. My past, present, and future. My one and only, Isabelle Gray."

The phone slipped from her nerveless fingers, landing silently on the plush rug.

Three years.

Three years of secret meetings, of sneaking in through service elevators, of holidays spent alone because he couldn't risk being seen with her. He'd called it protection. He'd said he was shielding her from the vicious New York press until the time was right.

Now she understood. She wasn't a treasure. She was a placeholder. A convenient stand-in, kept in the shadows while he waited for the real prize to become available.

She remembered how he'd pursued her, right after Isabelle had left for her final year at boarding school in Switzerland. He'd commented on her eyes, how they were the same shade of green as Isabelle's.

She remembered how his calls would become less frequent, his touch more distant, every time Isabelle came home for a break.

All the pieces, all the little hurts and confusing moments she had brushed aside, now clicked into place, forming a picture of breathtaking cruelty.

The grief came first, a tidal wave of humiliation. But then, something else surfaced. Anger. Sharp, unyielding rage burning through every inch of her bones, wiping away all soft, foolish longing for the man who'd toyed with her heart.

She sat up, her spine straight. With a fierce, jerky movement, she wiped the tears from her face. Her eyes, reflected in the dark screen of the television across the room, were cold and hard, stripped of all vulnerability.

She couldn't be weak. Not now. Not after wasting three years on a liar who tossed her aside for her stepsister.

Audrey's mind raced. All along, for Asher, she had turned down every blind date her family arranged. Now that Asher had betrayed her, the trust fund shares her father left her would only unlock full control of the family estate the second she tied the knot-her mother held all the purse strings until she was legally married.

Audrey needed leverage, a lifeline to seize back what belonged to her and crush Asher and Isabelle's smug engagement. Then a forgotten email flickered in her mind, one from her mother Laura sent a week prior, which she'd dismissed as another shallow grab for social status.

An arranged blind date. A transactional marriage opportunity, exactly the weapon she needed.

She snatched the phone from the floor, her fingers flying through her inbox until she found it.

Julian Sinclair. 8 PM. Le Ciel.

She barely recognized the name, but none of that mattered. All she cared about was that this man needed a wife just as desperately as she needed a husband to break free from her mother's financial grip and strike back at her cheating ex.

She found her mother's number and pressed call.

Laura picked up on the second ring.

Her voice clipped and already threaded with venom. "What now, Audrey? I was in the middle of something that actually matters."

"The blind date," Audrey said, her own voice startlingly calm, devoid of any tremor or sorrow, ice coating every syllable. "The one you arranged with Julian Sinclair."

A long, disdainful pause stretched between them. "That meeting. I assumed you'd buried your head in the sand as usual. Don't tell me you're finally considering it-or did you just call to waste more of my time?"

"I'll go," Audrey said, the words tasting like cold metal on her tongue, her resolve unshakable. "Tonight."

There was a sharp, disbelieving exhale, almost a mocking laugh. "Tonight? It's past seven, Audrey. You can't even manage to show up on time for a brunch I planned three weeks in advance, and now you expect everyone to rearrange their schedules the moment you snap your fingers? Do you ever listen to how entitled you sound?"

"I'm going," she repeated, her tone leaving zero room for argument, every word sharp and authoritative. "Tell Julian Sinclair I will be there sharp at eight. This is non-negotiable."

Laura's voice sharpened to a blade, dripping with frustration and contempt. "You're going to ruin this high-society match, you know that, don't you? You'll walk in there with that same tragic, desperate expression and drag the Gray family name through the mud all over-"

Audrey cut her off mid-rant, hanging up without a single extra word.

The decision was sealed. A reckless, calculated, utterly desperate counterstrike. She wouldn't beg for love or sympathy ever again. She'd walk into Le Ciel tonight, strike a mutually beneficial deal with Julian Sinclair-he gets a compliant wife to quiet his family's marriage pressure and secure his inheritance, she gets full access to her father's trust fund and the power to ruin Asher and Isabelle's perfect little fairy tale.