ZMMTV-BBS - TV & Drama Community

The Billionaire's Secret Heir Claiming His Runaway Queen

NovelMaster · English · Theater: NovelMaster, Lang: English, Genre: Romance, Genre: Realistic, Genre: Harem ·

The Billionaire's Secret Heir Claiming His Runaway Queen

Theater: NovelMaster  |  Language: English

Synopsis

Five years into running Jax Sterling’s most exclusive private club, his older brother, Christian Sterling, was getting engaged.
His bride-to-be was an heiress from an old-money dynasty. Her first demand? Christian had to purge every lingering woman from his past.
And right at the top of that cleanup list was my name.
As my severance package, Jax made me a rather ridiculous offer.
"My brother has zero redeeming qualities other than being icy, foul-tempered, and disgustingly rich. Oh, right, and he comes with baggage—a kid."
Swirling the amber bourbon in his glass, Jax grinned with lazy amusement.
"Since you need to move on anyway, why not take a shot at becoming my brother's woman? It’s an instant ticket to the top."
"That is, if you don’t mind playing instant stepmom."
Mind it?
Not in the slightest.
After all, that "baggage" he mentioned was the son I carried for nine months.
I was once Christian Sterling’s caged bird.
Jax had no idea.
To him, I was merely the top-tier VIP manager he’d poached from a rival club for a small fortune—charming, sharp, and effortless at keeping high-rollers happy.
He didn't realize that my skill for pleasing people was entirely beaten into me by his own brother.
Christian and I started five years ago at a charity art auction.
Back then, I was green in the industry, just a waitress carrying champagne flutes behind the velvet ropes.
He wasn't the ruthless heir to the Sterling empire back then, either.
He was disguised as a starving artist, trying to auction off an heirloom painting to scrape together medical bills.
That night, he wore a faded white dress shirt. He was lean, sharp, and wore an unshakable melancholia between his brows.
A sleazy new-money buyer was aggressively lowballing him, humiliating him in front of everyone.
In a sudden burst of sympathy, I discreetly whispered to an influential older collector at the next table.
"Mr. Harrison, the artist behind that canvas... has fewer than three surviving works in the world."
Half an hour later, the painting sold for a record two million dollars.
Christian intercepted me backstage. His dark, bottomless eyes practically burned in the dim corridor.
"Why did you help me?"
I shrugged it off. "I just hated watching that arrogant prick humiliate you."
He bought it. He grabbed my wrist, his grip tight enough to snap bone.
"What’s your name?"
That evening, he spent his art money treating me to cheap bowls of street pasta.
He told me his name was Ian. An orphan. All alone in this world.
It was the sweetest, most lethal lie I’d ever been fed.
We fell fast, like a wildfire out of control.
He lived in my cramped, three-hundred-square-foot studio, eating cheap meals I cooked, using the brushes and acrylics I bought with my hard-earned tips.
In front of me, he was always that fragile, pure artist who needed shielding from the world.
I thought that was love.
Until my birthday, when the owner of the club I worked at announced a visit from an ultra-elite client.
Everyone stood motionless, heads bowed in absolute deference.
Holding a bottle of rare vintage wine, I stepped forward nervously on my boss’s cue.
And then, my eyes landed on that all-too-familiar face.
Christian Sterling.
Sitting at the head of the table, clad in a bespoke tailored suit, an obscenely expensive watch gleaming at his wrist.
His assistant was whispering updates to him. Christian’s expression was icy, detached, utterly foreign.
He didn’t spare me a single glance. To him, I was no more noticeable than the furniture.
In that instant, the world went dead quiet.
I had been the joke all along.
I didn't cause a scene, nor did I shed a tear.
That night, I went back to my apartment, packed up every single thing he owned, and threw it out onto the curb.
When he walked in, all he found was empty space.
It was the first time I saw him lose his cool. With bloodshot eyes, he cornered me and demanded why.
I slammed a credit card onto the counter. "For playing with my feelings. Consider that your payout."
He froze. Then, a low, humorless chuckle broke from his throat.
That laugh was laced with pure mockery and arctic frost.
"Chloe, who the hell do you think you're settling a bill with?"
He didn’t bother explaining. Instead, he showed me exactly who held the power.
That began the darkest month of my life.
He locked me away in his coastal villa, using the most primitive dominance to claim me day and night.
I was a bird with clipped wings, unable to flee the gilded cage he bought with his bottomless wealth.
Until the pregnancy test came back positive.
I held the medical slip and made my final demand, as calm as ice.
"Let me walk. You keep the child."
He looked taken aback, but the hesitation lasted only a second.
"Deal," he said, gripping my chin until it bruised, his eyes toxic.
"Give birth, take the cash, and disappear from my son's existence forever."
I kept my end of the bargain.
The day the boy was born, I never took a single look at him.
With two million dollars wired to my account, I left that city, took on a new identity, and walked into Jax Sterling’s club.Jax's teasing voice pulled me back to reality.
"Well? Think about it. Sure, my brother is a cold bastard, but he showers his women with perks. Just look at the private tutors he hires for the kid—each cost a king's ransom. He clearly spoils whoever's tied to that boy."
"If he actually cared about the mother, why didn't he just put a ring on her?"
Spoils whoever's tied to the boy?
A mocking smirk touched the corners of my lips.
A man like Christian Sterling was incapable of love.
He loved only himself and his absolute control.
That child was nothing more than a trophy proving he owned the board.
"Drop the jokes, Jax."
I handed him a leather-bound folder of client profiles, my tone sliding back into pristine professionalism.
"A king like your brother is way out of my league."
"Tsk," Jax raised an eyebrow.
"You're boring, Chloe. You have a direct golden ladder to the penthouse, yet you insist on wallowing in the gutter."
His words stung, but I didn't push back.
Over the past five years, I was no longer that wide-eyed waitress.
In this business, I’d witnessed every dirty deal and two-faced lie the elite had to offer.
I thought I had become completely bulletproof.
Yet the name Christian Sterling remained the one raw nerve I could never numb.
"The reason is simple," I said, meeting his eyes head-on. "I don’t have the stomach to cater to someone like him."
"Besides, he repulses me."
Jax’s smug grin froze instantly.
He had probably never heard anyone use a word like "repulsive" to describe his untouchable older brother.
He glared at me, his gaze oscillating between suspicion and wounded pride.
"Chloe, you'd better give me a damn good explanation for that."
Before I could answer, the heavy double doors of the VIP suite swung open.
A tall, imposing figure stepped in, bringing an arctic chill that sucked the warmth right out of the room.
The second my eyes locked on his face, the blood drained from my veins.
Christian Sterling.
What was he doing here?
Jax jumped to his feet, caught off guard. "Christian? What brings you here?"
Christian ignored his brother entirely. His obsidian eyes, sharp as twin shards of ice, nailed me to the spot.
He walked toward me with slow, measured steps, radiating a crushing aura that nearly suffocated me.
Stopping inches away, he leaned down. His chilled fingertips gently brushed across my cheek, his voice dangerously low, like a devil's murmur.
"I could've sworn I just heard someone say..."
"I repulse her?"My heart hammered against my ribs, threatening to burst free.
Five years.
For five long years, this very face, this exact voice had haunted my midnight terrors.
I thought I had built an impenetrable fortress around myself, but before Christian, the walls crumbled to dust in a heartbeat.
I forced my racing pulse under control, stepped back to slip out of his reach, and pasted on a polished, rehearsed smile.
"You must have misheard, Mr. Sterling. Jax and I were just reviewing our latest shipment of reserve spirits. One of the bottles was a bit tainted."
Seamlessly steering the conversation back to work, I tried to brush it off.
Christian wasn't buying it for a second.
Jax stood beside us, utterly stunned, his mouth slightly ajar as his eyes darted between his brother and me in pure shock.
"Wait... you two know each other?"
Christian finally broke his gaze from my face, casting a frigid side-eye at Jax that dropped the temperature in the room by ten degrees.
"She’s my woman. What do you think?"
"What... what the hell?" Jax stammered, entirely lost.
"As for catering to my tastes," Christian’s gaze snapped back to me, dripping with raw, suffocating possessiveness, "I’m the only one who can handle hers."
Word for word, he threw my own statement right back in my face.
Every syllable felt like a stinging slap across Jax’s cheek—and a dagger to my chest.
The color vanished from my skin.
"Christian, what kind of sick game are you playing?"
I kept my voice low, hissing the words through clenched teeth.
He acted as though he hadn't heard me, his hand clamping around my wrist with the exact unyielding force I remembered.
"You're coming with me."
He pulled me forward, heading straight for the exit, completely ignoring his stunned younger brother.
"Christian! Hey! What the hell is going on?!"
Jax’s shout was cut off by the heavy oak doors swinging shut.
He dragged me all the way down to the underground garage and shoved me into the passenger seat of a black Bentley.
The silence inside the cabin was suffocating.
Without a word, he hit the ignition. The luxury sedan glided out of the garage and merged effortlessly into the neon-lit city traffic.
I watched the blurred skyscrapers streak past the tinted glass, my palms clammy, my fists tightly clenched.
I had spent five years running from the cage he built, believing I had finally earned my freedom.
Turns out, I had only jumped from a birdcage into an open pen.
And the master holding the leash had never changed.
"Where are you taking me?"
I finally spoke, unable to hide the faint tremor in my voice.
He didn't reply. He simply turned up the cabin heat.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the watch on his wrist. It was the exact same piece he wore five years ago.
The car eventually climbed up a winding road into an ultra-exclusive gated community nestled on the bluffs.
Security here was airtight; every mansion stood secluded like a private fortress.
He pulled into the driveway of a sleek, modernist villa and cut the engine.
"Out," he commanded.
I didn't move an inch.
"Christian, what do you want from me?"
I stared him down. "Aren’t you getting engaged? Bringing me here now... are you trying to give your darling fiancée a taste of what I went through five years ago?"
My tone was coated in venom.
At that, his shoulders visibly stiffened. He turned his head, his dark eyes boring into mine in the shadows of the car.
"Chloe," he rasped, his voice deep and gritty. "Five years, and you still know exactly where to plunge the knife."
"I didn't think you had a heart to pierce," I mocked.
Christian clicked his seatbelt off and leaned across the console.
I reflexively shrank back, but all he did was unlatch my door.
"Get out," his voice softened ever so slightly. "Someone's waiting for you."
Hesitating, I stepped onto the pavement and followed him inside.
The foyer was brightly lit, designed in the same stark, minimalist palette that matched his cold persona.
In the center of the expansive living room, a slender little boy in a tailored blazer sat cross-legged on the plush rug, laser-focused on assembling an intricate Lego model.
At the sound of footsteps, he looked up.
In that split second, the air was ripped straight from my lungs.
That face was a carbon copy of Christian’s, yet the curve of his eyes held every trace of mine.
My son.
A child whose name I didn't even know.
Seeing me, he didn't show typical childhood curiosity or excitement. He merely offered a flat, indifferent glance before lowering his head to snap another plastic block into place.
That chilling detachment, so unnatural for a boy his age, drove straight into my chest like an icicle.
"His name is Nate," Christian's voice resonated from behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his chest.
"Short for Nathan. Because I never stopped thinking of you."

Chapters (3)

Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3

Chapter 1

Five years into running Jax Sterling’s most exclusive private club, his older brother, Christian Sterling, was getting engaged. His bride-to-be was an heiress from an old-money dynasty. Her first demand? Christian had to purge every lingering woman from his past. And right at the top of that cleanup list was my name. As my severance package, Jax made me a rather ridiculous offer. "My brother has zero redeeming qualities other than being icy, foul-tempered, and disgustingly rich. Oh, right, and he comes with baggage—a kid." Swirling the amber bourbon in his glass, Jax grinned with lazy amusement. "Since you need to move on anyway, why not take a shot at becoming my brother's woman? It’s an instant ticket to the top." "That is, if you don’t mind playing instant stepmom." Mind it? Not in the slightest. After all, that "baggage" he mentioned was the son I carried for nine months. I was once Christian Sterling’s caged bird. Jax had no idea. To him, I was merely the top-tier VIP manager he’d poached from a rival club for a small fortune—charming, sharp, and effortless at keeping high-rollers happy. He didn't realize that my skill for pleasing people was entirely beaten into me by his own brother. Christian and I started five years ago at a charity art auction. Back then, I was green in the industry, just a waitress carrying champagne flutes behind the velvet ropes. He wasn't the ruthless heir to the Sterling empire back then, either. He was disguised as a starving artist, trying to auction off an heirloom painting to scrape together medical bills. That night, he wore a faded white dress shirt. He was lean, sharp, and wore an unshakable melancholia between his brows. A sleazy new-money buyer was aggressively lowballing him, humiliating him in front of everyone. In a sudden burst of sympathy, I discreetly whispered to an influential older collector at the next table. "Mr. Harrison, the artist behind that canvas... has fewer than three surviving works in the world." Half an hour later, the painting sold for a record two million dollars. Christian intercepted me backstage. His dark, bottomless eyes practically burned in the dim corridor. "Why did you help me?" I shrugged it off. "I just hated watching that arrogant prick humiliate you." He bought it. He grabbed my wrist, his grip tight enough to snap bone. "What’s your name?" That evening, he spent his art money treating me to cheap bowls of street pasta. He told me his name was Ian. An orphan. All alone in this world. It was the sweetest, most lethal lie I’d ever been fed. We fell fast, like a wildfire out of control. He lived in my cramped, three-hundred-square-foot studio, eating cheap meals I cooked, using the brushes and acrylics I bought with my hard-earned tips. In front of me, he was always that fragile, pure artist who needed shielding from the world. I thought that was love. Until my birthday, when the owner of the club I worked at announced a visit from an ultra-elite client. Everyone stood motionless, heads bowed in absolute deference. Holding a bottle of rare vintage wine, I stepped forward nervously on my boss’s cue. And then, my eyes landed on that all-too-familiar face. Christian Sterling. Sitting at the head of the table, clad in a bespoke tailored suit, an obscenely expensive watch gleaming at his wrist. His assistant was whispering updates to him. Christian’s expression was icy, detached, utterly foreign. He didn’t spare me a single glance. To him, I was no more noticeable than the furniture. In that instant, the world went dead quiet. I had been the joke all along. I didn't cause a scene, nor did I shed a tear. That night, I went back to my apartment, packed up every single thing he owned, and threw it out onto the curb. When he walked in, all he found was empty space. It was the first time I saw him lose his cool. With bloodshot eyes, he cornered me and demanded why. I slammed a credit card onto the counter. "For playing with my feelings. Consider that your payout." He froze. Then, a low, humorless chuckle broke from his throat. That laugh was laced with pure mockery and arctic frost. "Chloe, who the hell do you think you're settling a bill with?" He didn’t bother explaining. Instead, he showed me exactly who held the power. That began the darkest month of my life. He locked me away in his coastal villa, using the most primitive dominance to claim me day and night. I was a bird with clipped wings, unable to flee the gilded cage he bought with his bottomless wealth. Until the pregnancy test came back positive. I held the medical slip and made my final demand, as calm as ice. "Let me walk. You keep the child." He looked taken aback, but the hesitation lasted only a second. "Deal," he said, gripping my chin until it bruised, his eyes toxic. "Give birth, take the cash, and disappear from my son's existence forever." I kept my end of the bargain. The day the boy was born, I never took a single look at him. With two million dollars wired to my account, I left that city, took on a new identity, and walked into Jax Sterling’s club.

Chapter 2

Jax's teasing voice pulled me back to reality. "Well? Think about it. Sure, my brother is a cold bastard, but he showers his women with perks. Just look at the private tutors he hires for the kid—each cost a king's ransom. He clearly spoils whoever's tied to that boy." "If he actually cared about the mother, why didn't he just put a ring on her?" Spoils whoever's tied to the boy? A mocking smirk touched the corners of my lips. A man like Christian Sterling was incapable of love. He loved only himself and his absolute control. That child was nothing more than a trophy proving he owned the board. "Drop the jokes, Jax." I handed him a leather-bound folder of client profiles, my tone sliding back into pristine professionalism. "A king like your brother is way out of my league." "Tsk," Jax raised an eyebrow. "You're boring, Chloe. You have a direct golden ladder to the penthouse, yet you insist on wallowing in the gutter." His words stung, but I didn't push back. Over the past five years, I was no longer that wide-eyed waitress. In this business, I’d witnessed every dirty deal and two-faced lie the elite had to offer. I thought I had become completely bulletproof. Yet the name Christian Sterling remained the one raw nerve I could never numb. "The reason is simple," I said, meeting his eyes head-on. "I don’t have the stomach to cater to someone like him." "Besides, he repulses me." Jax’s smug grin froze instantly. He had probably never heard anyone use a word like "repulsive" to describe his untouchable older brother. He glared at me, his gaze oscillating between suspicion and wounded pride. "Chloe, you'd better give me a damn good explanation for that." Before I could answer, the heavy double doors of the VIP suite swung open. A tall, imposing figure stepped in, bringing an arctic chill that sucked the warmth right out of the room. The second my eyes locked on his face, the blood drained from my veins. Christian Sterling. What was he doing here? Jax jumped to his feet, caught off guard. "Christian? What brings you here?" Christian ignored his brother entirely. His obsidian eyes, sharp as twin shards of ice, nailed me to the spot. He walked toward me with slow, measured steps, radiating a crushing aura that nearly suffocated me. Stopping inches away, he leaned down. His chilled fingertips gently brushed across my cheek, his voice dangerously low, like a devil's murmur. "I could've sworn I just heard someone say..." "I repulse her?"

Chapter 3

My heart hammered against my ribs, threatening to burst free. Five years. For five long years, this very face, this exact voice had haunted my midnight terrors. I thought I had built an impenetrable fortress around myself, but before Christian, the walls crumbled to dust in a heartbeat. I forced my racing pulse under control, stepped back to slip out of his reach, and pasted on a polished, rehearsed smile. "You must have misheard, Mr. Sterling. Jax and I were just reviewing our latest shipment of reserve spirits. One of the bottles was a bit tainted." Seamlessly steering the conversation back to work, I tried to brush it off. Christian wasn't buying it for a second. Jax stood beside us, utterly stunned, his mouth slightly ajar as his eyes darted between his brother and me in pure shock. "Wait... you two know each other?" Christian finally broke his gaze from my face, casting a frigid side-eye at Jax that dropped the temperature in the room by ten degrees. "She’s my woman. What do you think?" "What... what the hell?" Jax stammered, entirely lost. "As for catering to my tastes," Christian’s gaze snapped back to me, dripping with raw, suffocating possessiveness, "I’m the only one who can handle hers." Word for word, he threw my own statement right back in my face. Every syllable felt like a stinging slap across Jax’s cheek—and a dagger to my chest. The color vanished from my skin. "Christian, what kind of sick game are you playing?" I kept my voice low, hissing the words through clenched teeth. He acted as though he hadn't heard me, his hand clamping around my wrist with the exact unyielding force I remembered. "You're coming with me." He pulled me forward, heading straight for the exit, completely ignoring his stunned younger brother. "Christian! Hey! What the hell is going on?!" Jax’s shout was cut off by the heavy oak doors swinging shut. He dragged me all the way down to the underground garage and shoved me into the passenger seat of a black Bentley. The silence inside the cabin was suffocating. Without a word, he hit the ignition. The luxury sedan glided out of the garage and merged effortlessly into the neon-lit city traffic. I watched the blurred skyscrapers streak past the tinted glass, my palms clammy, my fists tightly clenched. I had spent five years running from the cage he built, believing I had finally earned my freedom. Turns out, I had only jumped from a birdcage into an open pen. And the master holding the leash had never changed. "Where are you taking me?" I finally spoke, unable to hide the faint tremor in my voice. He didn't reply. He simply turned up the cabin heat. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the watch on his wrist. It was the exact same piece he wore five years ago. The car eventually climbed up a winding road into an ultra-exclusive gated community nestled on the bluffs. Security here was airtight; every mansion stood secluded like a private fortress. He pulled into the driveway of a sleek, modernist villa and cut the engine. "Out," he commanded. I didn't move an inch. "Christian, what do you want from me?" I stared him down. "Aren’t you getting engaged? Bringing me here now... are you trying to give your darling fiancée a taste of what I went through five years ago?" My tone was coated in venom. At that, his shoulders visibly stiffened. He turned his head, his dark eyes boring into mine in the shadows of the car. "Chloe," he rasped, his voice deep and gritty. "Five years, and you still know exactly where to plunge the knife." "I didn't think you had a heart to pierce," I mocked. Christian clicked his seatbelt off and leaned across the console. I reflexively shrank back, but all he did was unlatch my door. "Get out," his voice softened ever so slightly. "Someone's waiting for you." Hesitating, I stepped onto the pavement and followed him inside. The foyer was brightly lit, designed in the same stark, minimalist palette that matched his cold persona. In the center of the expansive living room, a slender little boy in a tailored blazer sat cross-legged on the plush rug, laser-focused on assembling an intricate Lego model. At the sound of footsteps, he looked up. In that split second, the air was ripped straight from my lungs. That face was a carbon copy of Christian’s, yet the curve of his eyes held every trace of mine. My son. A child whose name I didn't even know. Seeing me, he didn't show typical childhood curiosity or excitement. He merely offered a flat, indifferent glance before lowering his head to snap another plastic block into place. That chilling detachment, so unnatural for a boy his age, drove straight into my chest like an icicle. "His name is Nate," Christian's voice resonated from behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his chest. "Short for Nathan. Because I never stopped thinking of you."

Watch & Promotions

About this novel

Related Web Novels