I Saved a Billionaire, He Kept Me as His Dirty Secret

During her shift at the bridal shop, Emberly Holmes accidentally brushed a customer's hair while helping her into a wedding gown. The customer slapped her, then pointed at the floor. She wanted Emberly on her knees. Over a strand of hair.

"My hair is worth more than your pathetic little life!" the woman spat.

Emberly cradled her stinging cheek, anger and humiliation burning through her. "You moved suddenly—that's why I touched it," she tried to reason. "What gives you the right to hit me?"

The woman smirked. "You're nothing but a shop girl. I could hit you the way I'd hit a stray dog."

Before Emberly could fire back, her coworker Brittany Zariyah stepped in to smooth things over. "Miss Meadow," she said, "your fiancé just got here. He's downstairs."

Footsteps sounded on the staircase behind them.

Meadow Price hurried over, her voice turning honey-sweet. "Look at this clumsy attendant. She pulled my hair."

"Let me see. Does it hurt?" The man's voice was drenched in indulgence.

Something about that voice stopped Emberly cold. She turned—and shock punched the air from her lungs.

The tall man Meadow was clinging to was Ezrah Hunt. Her Ezrah. The boyfriend who'd been with Emberly just last night, promising her a wedding abroad.

For half a second, Ezrah hesitated when he saw her. Then his face shuttered, and he looked right through her as if they'd never met.

Emberly's eyes welled. She rushed forward. "Ezrah—you have a fiancée? You've been lying to me this whole time?"

"Who is she, Ezrah? What does she mean by that?" Meadow cut in sharply, her gaze darting between them.

Ezrah patted Meadow's shoulder. "I've never met her. You know how some women are—they'll do anything for money. She's probably trying to scam us."

A scam? The word hit Emberly like a fresh blade. He'd dismissed her—them—as if she were nothing.

"Ezrah, I gave up my chance at college to save you. My parents died because of what happened to you. And now you're standing here pretending you don't even know me?"

A year earlier, Emberly had found Ezrah bleeding beside a trail near her parents' small home in the Colorado Rockies. He had escaped an attack by men tied to a former business associate. With the road washed out and no cell service, she had brought him home and paid a local nurse to help keep him stable until they could reach a hospital. By the time the police caught the attackers, her tuition savings were gone—and her parents were dead. The men had found the house. Her parents had helped Ezrah escape and paid for it with their lives.

Back then, Ezrah had knelt before her parents and sworn he would love and protect Emberly for the rest of his life.

Soon after, he took her from her struggling mountain town to New York, settled her in a house, and promised marriage once his family approved.

But it had all been a lie. He'd had a fiancée the entire time. He'd deceived Emberly and treated her like a mistress.

Ezrah parted his lips as if to speak, but Meadow stamped her foot. "Ezrah, do you know her or not?"

"No," he said. "I don't." Not a flicker of hesitation.

Emberly's breath snagged in her throat. Tears slid down her face and landed on her hand, ice-cold.

"Good," Meadow said with a little laugh. "Since you don't know her, Ezrah, darling, you should handle her punishment for pulling my hair. Hmm?"

"What punishment?" he asked quietly.

"Make her kneel and apologize." Meadow tilted her head, all coy sweetness. "Ezrah, darling, she must be jealous of my beauty. I think that's fair. Don't you?"

Ezrah's answer came soft and easy. "Of course." He did not look at Emberly. "She owes you an apology."

Emberly dragged in a breath and fought to keep the tears back.

"This is insane," she said. "Kneel over a strand of hair? I'm done. I quit."

She turned sharply to leave.

"Ezrah, don't let her go!" Meadow cried.

Emberly made it one step before a sharp burn ripped across her scalp. Ezrah had grabbed her hair from behind and yanked her back. His voice was ice. "Did you not hear my fiancée tell you to kneel and apologize?"

The pain in her scalp was nothing compared to the splintering in her chest. Meadow's hair was precious to him. Emberly was dirt—as if she couldn't feel pain at all.

She struggled, defiance flaring. "Why should I kneel? It's just hair! I may be poor, but I have dignity. I won't apologize!"

"Shut up!" Ezrah growled, forcing her shoulder down until her knees hit the floor.

The cold shock of it shot up her legs. Something inside her seemed to crack and shatter.

Tears streamed down her face. "Ezrah, you swore to my parents you'd take care of me forever. How can you do this to me?"

Ezrah yanked her hair harder. "Who dumped you to make you this deranged? Stop spewing nonsense."

Then he shoved her head down against the floor.

"Say it," Meadow demanded, laying a single strand of hair in front of Emberly. "Apologize. Let everyone hear you."

Ezrah ordered the guard, Enrique Wells, to hold her down. "Keep her there until she apologizes."

Two customers stopped in the doorway. One raised her phone; the other whispered that someone should call the police. Brittany reached for the shop's landline, but Enrique blocked her way. "The manager is handling it," he said. Nobody came to help.

Emberly felt suffocated by the humiliation. She'd grown up poor, but her parents had taught her to hold on to her dignity. Now the man she'd loved most was grinding that dignity into the floor.

"I… I shouldn't have pulled your hair," Emberly whispered through her tears. Desperation clung to every word. "I'm sorry."

She had to bow her head. She just wanted the nightmare to end—to get out of this place, to get away from Ezrah Hunt.

Meadow scoffed and slapped a wad of cash against Emberly's face. "This ought to buy your dignity, right? A poor girl like you talking about dignity—that's a joke."

Then Meadow swept away, arm in arm with Ezrah.

Ezrah didn't look back at Emberly once. Not once.

Emberly scrambled to her feet and staggered into the dark storage room.

Clutching her chest, she curled into a ball and finally let herself sob.