My Runaway Groom's Billionaire Cousin

I stood in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown, waiting to seal the merger of the century between the Singleton and English families. Everything was perfect, fragile, and obscenely expensive.

But minutes before the ceremony, my brother burst into the bridal suite looking like he’d seen a ghost. He handed me a crumpled note from Jeffery, the man I was supposed to marry.

"I can’t do it," the note read. "I’m choosing love." Jeffery had fled to Paris with another woman, leaving me to face two thousand guests and a family legacy that would plummet forty percent by Monday morning.

Harrison Singleton, the family patriarch, didn't offer sympathy; he offered a cold ultimatum. The wedding would happen, with or without Jeffery. He stepped aside to reveal Declan Singleton, the "Wolf of Wall Street" who had spent the last year ruthlessly stripping my father’s companies for parts.

To save my family from bankruptcy, I had to walk down the aisle and marry the man I hated most. At the altar, Declan didn’t just say "I do"; he claimed me with a kiss so possessive it felt like a sentencing.

The humiliation was physical, a knife twisting in my gut as the world watched the "hostile takeover" of my life. I was a spoil of war, traded to a predator who believed in leverage over love.

Then, Jeffery called, weeping about his mistake and begging to come back. I looked at the massive, perfectly-sized diamond Declan had already prepared for me and realized this wasn't a coincidence.

I wiped away my tears and straightened my emerald silk. If I had to live in a cage, I was going to make sure I had the sharpest teeth.

"Let's go to war," I whispered to my new husband.