My Cruel Billionaire's Revenge

He was at the college reunion, a success story with a beautiful girlfriend on his arm.

She said, “If you hadn’t let go back then, you’d be Mrs. Prescott right now.”

He sat across from me, his arm around his girlfriend, his expression cool. “That’s all in the past.”

The crowd, sensing drama, started to hoot and holler.

Under his gaze, I quietly covered the scar on my wrist and forced a smile. “That’s right. We… we have nothing to do with each other anymore.”

1

“I remember it was Audrey who did the breaking up, right?”

While his girlfriend was in the restroom, the gossip started to fly.

Audrey. That’s me.

Elliot Prescott sat across the table, a faint smile on his lips, but his eyes were glacial.

This was the first time we’d seen each other in the six years since the breakup.

It felt like an ambush.

I only came because the reunion organizer said Elliot wasn’t coming.

I never expected to see him here.

The Elliot of today was the man everyone expected him to become: accomplished, a celebrated young entrepreneur, an Ivy League grad who’d made a fortune. He wore a tailored suit, his features sharp and handsome. The watch on his wrist alone was worth more than my car. Everyone in the room fawned over him, hanging on his every word.

And then there was me. A shadow of my former self.

“It’s true. She ended it.”

Elliot’s voice was calm, answering their unspoken question.

You could almost hear the gears turning in their heads, everyone writing their own version of the story. The consensus was obvious: I was a gold digger who couldn’t handle the struggle. I’d bet on the wrong horse and lost everything.

“Audrey, I heard that guy you left him for ended up in prison, right?”

“And left you with all his debt? You’re not here to hit us up for money, are you?”

Through the cascade of snide remarks, Elliot’s deep, quiet eyes remained fixed on me. He said nothing.

I offered a strained laugh, giving no answer.

The door swung open and his girlfriend, Isabelle, returned. Sensing the strange atmosphere, she smiled. “What did I miss?”

The silence from Elliot vanished. He took her hand, his voice softening. “Nothing. Just catching up.”

She settled gracefully into her seat, her gaze landing on me. A dimple appeared at the corner of her smiling mouth. “Elliot’s told me about you. If you hadn’t let go back then, you’d be Mrs. Prescott right now.”

Gleams of schadenfreude appeared in more than a few eyes around the table. Back in college, my family was prominent. Everywhere I went, I was the center of attention. That kind of envy doesn’t fade with time; years later, it just becomes a reason for them to kick you when you’re down.

Elliot broke the suffocating silence, his voice cool and final. “That’s all in the past.”

The table went quiet. They understood the man at the head of the table didn’t want to continue the conversation, so they quickly changed the subject.

Isabelle raised her glass to me. “Thank you for letting him go. You have to promise you’ll come to our wedding.”

I silently covered the scar on my wrist, my voice wooden. “Congratulations.”

2

“Why didn’t you just tell him the truth?”

On the phone, my best friend Maya was practically vibrating with indignation on my behalf.

The reunion ended early. I stood in the biting wind, my coat wrapped tight around me, watching my breath turn to smoke. “He has a girlfriend.”

The other end of the line went silent for a beat.

“A girlfriend?” Maya’s voice was laced with disbelief.

“Mmmhmm.”

Groups of two and three drifted away from the restaurant. The streetlights cast a shattered-glass glow on the fresh layer of snow.

“But you finally saw him. After you’ve worked so hard for so long—”

“Maya, nobody waits forever.”

Some things, if you don’t say them in the moment, are pointless to say later. They just leave a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. The wind made my eyes sting and I blinked against the burn. “I’m giving up.”

Even after all these years of fighting my way out of the mud, trying to find the most dignified way to see him again… it was too late.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Just come home.”

The pre-Christmas chill had dropped the temperature below freezing. Getting a rideshare was impossible. I stood there for just a few minutes before my hands went numb.

My phone screen glowed: Finding your ride.

The sharp clack-clack of heels on pavement approached from behind, followed by a woman’s melodic voice. “Elliot, the snow is so beautiful.”

“It’s cold out here. Go wait in the car, I’ll be right there.” Elliot’s voice was unmistakable.

“Don’t be long.”

As the woman passed me, she shot me a look loaded with meaning. She walked to a black sedan parked a few feet away and pulled open the door. The movement was perfectly calculated to show off the bracelet on her wrist, a flash of diamonds that seared my eyes.

It was the Prescott family heirloom.

It used to be on my wrist. When we broke up, I had a friend return it to him.

So, she wasn’t just his girlfriend. She was his fiancée.

The crowd had thinned until it was just the two of us.

My car still hadn’t arrived.

Elliot stood behind me, not saying a word. We were two silent figures under a streetlight, our shadows overlapping on the snow.

My mind drifted back to the night we broke up. Elliot had been in a car accident on his way to see me. His best friend had called, his voice raw with anger. “Elliot’s in the hospital.”

“Is it life-threatening?”

“So you won’t come if it’s not?”

“Please, just take care of him.”

“Audrey, he got the London scholarship. He’s going to make it, you know he is. Why couldn’t you wait? Are you that desperate for money? After everything he’s done for you, things you could never repay in a hundred lifetimes, have you forgotten all of it?”

He was practically screaming at me through the phone, one step away from calling me a heartless bitch. Then, the phone was snatched away and slammed down.

You could say I abandoned him.

It was only natural that he hated me.

“How much do you owe?” Elliot’s cold voice pulled me from my thoughts.

“It has nothing to do with you.”

I sucked in a breath of frigid air. It scraped against my throat, raw from the wine, and I burst into a fit of coughing. It felt like my windpipe was tearing apart. I bent over, clutching the lamppost for support as the wine churned in my stomach. The coughing forced tears from my eyes.

Elliot stood beside me, watching impassively.

A car finally pulled up. The driver leaned over from the inside. “Ride for The Atherton Estates?”

“Yes.”

I pushed myself up from my knees, took a breath, and reached for the door. A hand clamped around my arm, yanking me back. I stumbled into Elliot’s chest. “What are you doing there?” he demanded.

The Atherton Estates was where the city’s old money lived. They didn’t just let anyone through the gates.

I tried to shove his hand away, but he caught my wrist, his grip like iron. The heat of his skin burned straight through to my heart. I struggled again, but it was useless. I looked up at his face, dark and unreadable in the dim light. “What is it you want to say, Mr. Prescott?”

His lips thinned into a hard line, his black eyes deep and still, betraying nothing. The wind howled, whipping my hair across my face.

I pulled my lips into a smirk, voicing the thought I knew was in his head. “You think I’m making money on my back, don’t you? Just like everyone else.”

“Fifty thousand a month. Is that enough?”

Elliot’s voice cut through mine, sharp and cold.

“What are you talking about?”

A sneer finally touched his lips. “You need money, don’t you? Fifty thousand. A hundred. Name your price.”

My hand flew up. The sharp crack of the slap echoed in the night air.

A perfect red handprint bloomed on his cheek.

In the distance, I heard a woman’s gasp. The car door opened and Isabelle rushed out.

“Live your life, Elliot. And stay out of mine.”

I left him with those words and got in the car.

3

“You hit him?” Maya handed me a mug of hot water.

“Yeah. He offered to make me his mistress.” I curled up on the sofa, trying to breathe through the waves of pain cramping my stomach, and slowly sipped the water. A minute later, I bolted for the bathroom and threw it all up.

Maya rubbed my back. “You can’t drink when your stomach is this bad.”

I gasped for air, rinsing my mouth and wiping the water from my lips. My esophagus burned.

“Was it worth it? Loving him for all those years?”

I met my own eyes in the mirror. My lashes were wet, my dark hair stuck to my forehead, my face pale. Maya’s grumbling seemed to come from far away, muffled and indistinct. “If you hadn’t been so ruthless and broken up with him, he wouldn’t be where he is today…”

My thoughts turned to Isabelle. She had a brightness about her, a radiance that I remembered once having myself, a long, long time ago. But I had fallen too hard, and by the time I managed to crawl out of the gutter, everything had changed.

After Maya finished her housekeeping shift at the Atherton Estates, we walked hand in hand back to our small apartment. My phone rang. It was Elliot’s best friend, Ryan.

“Audrey, if you’re in trouble, I can get you a job.”

I stayed silent, waiting for him to continue.

“They’re getting married next month. Isabelle is a good person, her family’s well off. You should…”

“I won’t bother him again. You don’t have to worry.”

He paused, then offered a lame explanation. “We just want Elliot to be happy.”

“I know.”

Every single one of our old friends had, without exception, sided with Elliot.

When I hung up, Maya’s eyes were red. “They don’t know anything.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Since I had to stay in town for a while, I found a job not far from our apartment. During the interview, the HR manager asked hesitantly, “It says here you have a history of depression?”

“That was a long time ago. I’m fine now. I have a doctor’s note to prove it.”

Several other companies had rejected me during the background check because of it. This company was smaller, and that same evening, I got a call with a job offer.

I thought the reunion would be the last time I ever saw Elliot.

I was wrong. Three days later, he appeared at my new company. He was my new boss.

And my desk was moved to the spot right outside his office door.

“I refuse.”

“Fine.” Elliot didn’t even look up from his papers. “Submit your resignation to HR.”

A humorless laugh escaped my lips. “You’re firing me because I won’t move my desk?”

His pen stopped moving. He finally graced me with his attention. “I’m merely providing you with an option. Or did you think I was after something?”

His words caught in my throat. I thought of Maya arguing with our landlord last night over a small rent increase, and I forced a smile. “Of course not, Mr. Prescott. You’re a man of integrity.”

Elliot gave a slight nod. “Thank you. Close the door on your way out. And turn your chair so it faces away from my office. I don’t want to look at your face.”

“…”

The days that followed passed with almost no interaction between us.

A week later, the company held a team-building dinner. As the new girl, I was an easy target for round after round of drinks.

“Come on, Audrey, if you don’t drink, it might come out of your paycheck.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you home if you get too drunk. We’re all women here, what’s there to be afraid of?”

My manager smiled encouragingly. Amid the jeers of the others, I downed my last glass of the night and collapsed onto the table, unconscious.

The next morning, I woke up in a king-sized bed. Bright sunlight streamed through the windows, making it impossible to open my eyes. I pushed myself up, and the duvet slipped down, revealing that I was wearing a soft hotel bathrobe.

I froze for a second, then got up and walked out of the bedroom.

In the spacious living room, Elliot sat with his legs crossed, reading the morning paper. He was also wearing a hotel robe. When he saw me, he lifted his eyes and gave me a lazy glance. “You’re awake. Breakfast is on the table. Eat something and then go back to sleep.”

A cold dread washed over me. My face went white. “Did we…?”

Elliot tossed the paper onto the coffee table. He tugged his robe open slightly, revealing an angry-looking mark on his collarbone. “Unfortunately for you, you were the one who initiated it.”

I felt like I’d been struck by lightning. My memory of the night was a complete blank.

“That’s impossible.”

Elliot placed a contract in front of me. My thumbprint was stamped on the bottom. The text was simple: I would be his lover, and he would pay me one hundred thousand dollars a month.

“There’s no way I signed this…”

“Really?” Elliot let out a soft, humorless laugh. “Are you sure about that?”

Faced with his steady, unnervingly calm gaze, my mouth opened, but no words came out. He ignored my panic and produced a small digital recorder.

“I accidentally recorded a little monologue of yours last night. Care to hear your own filthy thoughts, Audrey?”

A violent shiver ran through me. I was plunged into an icy bath of shame. To have those thoughts was one thing; to have them spoken aloud, recorded, and held as evidence against me felt like a crime.

Elliot’s eyes were hooded, his expression unreadable. “Lusting after an engaged man… tsk, tsk. What do you think would happen if I played this for them, Audrey?”

My hands clenched into fists, my nails digging into my palms. “Are you doing this for revenge?”

“Yes,” he answered simply. “You never wanted me to have an easy life. Why should I grant you one?”

“You have two choices.”

“Either you fulfill the contract, or I release this recording to the world.”

The ticking of the clock on the wall echoed in my ears, each tick a hammer blow against my eardrum. My lips were dry and cracked. I looked up at him, my voice numb. “Then release it.”

Under his cold, hard stare, I spoke again, my voice flat.

“Elliot, I will not be the other woman.”

He stared at me for a long moment, then smiled. “Audrey, who do you think you are?”

“Do you really think you have a choice?”

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