Dong Lier

Aria Miller was forced to marry billionaire Victor Sterling to pay for her dying grandmother's medical bills. She was six weeks pregnant after one accidental night. But Victor despised her, convinced she was a scheming gold digger who used her body as a bargaining chip. Right after signing the marriage papers at City Hall, he dumped her at a decaying, rat-infested apartment in Queens and drove away in his Rolls-Royce. He cut her off entirely, leaving her to scrub rotting floors and eat discounted groceries while pregnant. He expected her to break. When his grandmother forced him to stay over to keep up appearances, his team hauled in piles of luxury luggage. During a surprise video call from his grandmother, Victor pinned Aria to the wall, intimately stroking her hair. "Smile, or the nursing home stops getting checks," he whispered into her ear. But the second the screen went black, he shoved her away in absolute disgust, looking at her like she was a disease. Aria was suffocating. She never wanted his money, yet she was trapped in this nightmare, treated like a worthless parasite. When Victor smirked and threatened to leave her with nothing, the dam inside her finally broke. Aria didn't cry. Instead, she grabbed a raw, dripping egg and smashed it directly into the center of his bespoke midnight-blue suit. Staring into his shocked, murderous eyes, she made her terms clear. "The day this baby is born, I want a divorce."

For fourteen years, Faith was the perfect Jarvis trophy wife. Plucked from her parents' funeral at seventeen, she was molded into an obedient, quiet accessory for Branson's billionaire empire. But while she managed his charities and smiled at galas until her face ached, he was busy humiliating her. She found another woman's gold bracelet in his desk, and today, his affair with a 23-year-old actress was broadcast on a massive electronic billboard right above his own Wall Street headquarters. For years, Faith had endured his coldness. He stopped touching her after the second miscarriage. He left her alone to cry in the back of his chauffeured cars at 3 AM. He thought her silence meant she was too weak, too poor, and too grateful to ever walk away. He called her a "cheap pet" who couldn't survive without his credit cards and mansions. He truly believed she needed someone else to want her before she could leave him. He never understood that wanting herself was enough. Did he really think she spent all those lonely nights just crying in her gilded cage? He was dead wrong. Faith didn't just pack a cheap duffel bag to run away. She walked right into his seventy-third-floor corner office, slammed down a zero-compensation divorce agreement, and tossed a highly encrypted USB drive onto his desk. "Sign the papers today, Branson. Or I hand your company's deepest secrets to a short-seller, and we watch your empire burn."

Audrey was trapped in a toxic marriage with billionaire Dozier Hodge. To him, she was nothing but a breeding vessel needed to secure his family's trust fund. The nightmare escalated when Dozier abruptly moved his childhood sweetheart, Blake, into their penthouse. Blake feigned a fragile illness, expertly manipulating Dozier while openly usurping Audrey's place. Dozier blindly protected his true love, completely disregarding his wife's life. He allowed the staff to serve Audrey lobster bisque despite her deadly seafood allergy. During a sudden storm, he tenderly carried a pretending-to-sleep Blake across a flooded parking garage, coldly ordering Audrey to walk through the freezing, dirty water alone. He even forced himself on Audrey in the dead of night, ignoring her tears, demanding she fulfill her obligation to produce an heir. He had no idea that a year ago, it was Blake who had pushed Audrey down the stairs, murdering their unborn child. Audrey's heart turned to ice. How could he pamper the murderer of their baby, yet brutally drag Audrey to an elite fertility clinic under the threat of ruining her career? Did he really think she would ever bring another innocent life into this loveless prison? As the nurse approached with a needle to test her hormones, Audrey stopped playing the submissive wife. She reached into her bag, pulled out the secret bottle of birth control pills she had been taking every single day, and smashed it onto the doctor's glass desk. "Cancel the blood test. I have been taking birth control." She stared into Dozier's horrified eyes, finally ready to tear his empire down.

I took the fall for my sister and endured three years of torment in prison. My knee was shattered, my body covered in scars, and I almost lost my life in that "accident". On the day I was released, clinging to the last shred of hope, I ran toward my fiancé Benito’s Maybach—only to hear his cold voice: "Your existence is just a nuisance."​ It turned out that the beatings and cigarette burns in prison were all arranged by him, paid for with his money. It turned out that the sister I had protected with all my heart had long been switching my medicine behind my back, hoping I would be completely crippled.​ At the family gala, they joined hands to strip me bare in front of the flashing camera lights. My father slapped me hard across the face and roared: "Why didn’t you just die in prison?"​ I smiled and tore apart my tattered dress, then dialed the number I had hidden in my heart for three years—the man who only understood blood for blood, his voice hoarse and alluring: "Turn around."​ This time, I will no longer be a toy to be manipulated. I will tear off their masks and burn the Stafford family to the ground.​ By the way, I will take back everything that belongs to me—including him, the one hiding in the shadows.

I was the high-society "fixer" who traded my freedom to pay off my father’s debts, living in a gilded penthouse as the perfect wife to billionaire Flint Harrington. My world was a silent, expensive cage until a mistress sent me a photo of my husband’s cufflinks on a generic hotel carpet. "He's not coming home tonight," she messaged, attaching a picture of a positive pregnancy test. The timing was lethal. Flint’s grandmother had just promised a multi-billion dollar stake in the family empire to the first heir born. When I confronted him, Flint didn't apologize; instead, he claimed he’d had a secret vasectomy years ago and that the mistress was a fraud. The room spun as the truth hit me. I was actually pregnant, and if Flint believed he was sterile, he would use the adultery clause in our prenup to brand me a liar and strip me of everything. In this family, a baby wasn't a child—it was a corporate asset that the Harrington Trust would legally seize the moment I gave birth. I stood there, watching my husband argue about his virility while I carried the very secret that would make me a fugitive. I was trapped in a marriage where my own body was a crime scene, and my husband was the judge and executioner. Then, my hidden burner phone buzzed at 3 AM with a melody I thought was buried in a grave. "Jo? It's me. I'm alive." It was Caleb, my first love who had been declared dead in action years ago. Flint smashed the phone in a dark rage before I could answer, but it was too late. I grabbed my passport and walked out of the penthouse. I was done fixing things for the Harringtons. I was taking their heir, and I was going to find my ghost.

For eight years, I was the perfect, understanding wife. My husband, Gavin, insisted his company retreats were strictly for employees. No spouses allowed. I never questioned it, believing I was supporting his demanding career. Then I saw a photo from his last ski trip to Aspen. All his colleagues were there, smiling beside their wives. And in the center stood Gavin, his arm wrapped possessively around another woman. She was wearing my blue silk dress-the one he swore I must have lost at the dry cleaners. My world didn't just crack; it shattered. I discovered that for our entire marriage, he had been living a double life. This woman, Chanelle, wasn't just his mistress. She was his public wife. She was the one who went on lavish trips to Hawaii and Europe. She was the one introduced to his colleagues and clients. She was even listed as his emergency contact-his spouse-in the official company directory. I wasn't just the wife he cheated on. I was the wife he completely erased. But my heartbreak quickly hardened into cold resolve. He was expecting tears and a quiet breakdown. He wasn't expecting me to show up at his company's annual awards gala, marriage certificate in hand, ready to introduce myself to the world he' d hidden from me.

On my wedding day, my family fussed over my "delicate nerves" while my fiancé, Mark, told me my only job was to look beautiful. For years, they'd treated me like a fragile doll, a problem to be managed. An hour before I was meant to walk down the aisle, I overheard them on a forgotten baby monitor. They were discussing the sedative they planned to slip into my champagne. The goal wasn't just to calm my "hysterics." It was to get me through the ceremony before sending me to bed, "overcome with emotion." The moment I was gone, they planned to switch my wedding decor for a hidden "Happy Birthday" banner and turn my reception into a lavish party for my nephew. My entire life was just an inconvenient opening act for a celebration I wasn't invited to. They had always called me paranoid for feeling invisible. Now I knew the horrifying truth: they weren't just ignoring me, they were actively plotting to erase me from my own life. But my late grandmother had left me one last gift: an escape hatch. A business card for a man named Julian Thorne, with the words "Unconventional Solutions" printed beneath his name. I smashed a crystal vase, fled the five-star suite in my bare feet and a silk robe, and walked away from my life, leaving them to clean up the mess. My only destination was the address on that card.

For six years, I poured everything into building our architecture firm, our life. So, when we landed our biggest contract, I thought it was the perfect moment. At our favorite restaurant, I raised my glass and asked him, "Ethan, let's get married." He laughed, a dismissive chuckle that shattered our future. "We land the Sterling Tower project and you want to lock me down. Good timing, Miller." My stomach dropped. He thought I was opportunistic, after I sacrificed everything for us. The real problem walked in next Monday: petite, fragile Chloe Davis, his "old friend" and new personal assistant. Chloe' s smile didn' t reach her eyes as she told me, "It's so nice to finally meet you. Ethan talks about you all the time." Soon, secret dinners, last-minute "site visits" to Napa, and expense reports for king-sized hotel beds confirmed my sickening suspicions. He was cheating. When I confronted Chloe about a project mistake, she burst into tears, and Ethan rushed in, furious at me. "Why are you yelling at her? She's trying her best." He didn' t care about the multi-million dollar mistake; he only saw his precious Chloe in tears. A sharp, unbearable pain shot through me. It was the pain of finality. A text from Chloe later confirmed the depth of his betrayal: "He loves me, Ava. He always has... You were just... convenient. Capable. But you're my soulmate." I was convenient. All those years, all my effort, all my love-a lie. But then, a new chapter began: a chance encounter, a forgotten connection, and a surprising proposal that would change everything. The game was far from over.

The cold gel spread across my stomach, a brutal reminder of the life forming within me that wasn' t mine to keep. My stepsister, Chloe, watched me like a hawk, her eyes, a pale, cold blue, scanning my body as if inspecting a piece of equipment she had just purchased. She poked my stomach with a manicured finger, "You are just the vessel. A container. Nothing more. This baby is mine and Liam' s. You are not its mother. You are nothing to it." I was Ava Green, once a talented architect, now systematically dismantled and cornered into this arrangement by Chloe's father, my stepfather, Richard Sterling. Chloe' s torment, fueled by her own insecurities, escalated. She manipulated every situation, even forcing Liam, my supposed 'protector,' to abandon me to her cruel whims. But the real gut punch wasn't the physical abuse; it was the two children I had already lost in this house. The first was mine and Liam' s, brutally taken from me after he deemed it a "complication." The second, conceived for them, also vanished. With each loss, I felt a piece of myself, a shred of humanity, being chipped away by their indifference. When Liam shattered the last memento of my first child-a tiny ultrasound picture-I knew I had nothing left to lose. A cold, clear hatred rose inside me. I walked out of that house, leaving behind the wreckage of my past, ready to reclaim a future they couldn't control.

My husband, Victor, always told me I was pathetic. For four years, I endured his cruelty, his public humiliations, watching him systematically dismantle my life piece by piece, all to punish me for my father' s supposed sins against his family. He forced me to marry him, then destroyed my company, Nexus, the last shred of my identity. The final blow came when he made me sign the dissolution papers, then kicked my company' s award across the floor, calling it junk-a toy. My heart shattered as Celeste, his glamorous business rival and lover, sauntered in, mocking my pain, "Don't be so dramatic, Ava. It was just a startup. They fail all the time." Victor's cold gaze, fixed on Celeste, twisted the knife deeper. He had promised my mother' s experimental treatments and my father' s freedom from prison were dependent on my compliance. I was nothing but a broken wife, a decorative accessory at galas, my efforts sabotaged by smeared articles. Every escape attempt ended in recapture, a new punishment. I was trapped in a suffocating web of his influence, with nothing left to fight for. But then, Celeste, with a cruel smirk, snatched my last remaining prototype-the culmination of my team's dreams for helping others-and threw it against the wall, shattering it. And just when I thought the pain couldn't get worse, Victor walked in, saw the wreckage, and stomped on the last glittering dust of my creation himself. "What the hell did you do?" he roared at me, not even glancing at the broken tech. He dragged me up by my hair, his face a terrifying mask. "It' s over," I managed, my voice eerily calm, tears streaming down my face. "I want a divorce, Victor. Let me go." "It's over when I say it's over," he snarled. "You don't get to decide anything." My body went limp. I was done fighting. Then, a strange calm washed over me. If I couldn't escape in this life, I would find freedom in another. There was only one way to truly be "done." I would go to the roof.

My twenty-first birthday party was supposed to be a golden celebration under grand chandeliers at the Sterling mansion. Instead, it became a public spectacle of humiliation orchestrated by my adoptive father, David, and his new "family" -a conniving scholarship student named Melody and her mother, Sarah. The night escalated from a petty accusation of theft to Ryan, my stepbrother, slapping me across the face, then violently shoving my head into my own birthday cake, covering me in frosting and blood. My father, David, the man who raised me, stood by and watched, his silence a louder betrayal than any scream. Sarah and Melody, with their practiced innocence, expertly painted me as the spoiled villain to a room full of gawking guests. How could he let them do this? What had happened to the father I once knew? Covered in cake and tears, I picked up the phone and dialed the one person who would never betray me: my biological mother, Evelyn Sterling, who was supposedly overseas recovering from a serious illness. "Mom," I sobbed, "They hurt me." The next morning, her voice cut through the phone, sharper than any blade: "My recovery is over. It was a test, Chloe. And we have our answer. I' m coming home." The game was over. They had declared war on the wrong queen.

My promotion to VP was everything I' d worked for. A new city, a new chapter. It felt like the culmination of my entire life. But before I could embrace my exciting future, there was one loose end: Mrs. Jenkins, my long-time housekeeper. I called her to break the news of my move, expecting congratulations. Instead, her voice turned cold. "A severance package? After five years of dedicating myself to you, you think a little package is enough?" Her demands escalated, from a lifetime pension to my million-dollar condo. My sanctuary. My independence. "You want my condo?" I laughed, baffled. "That' s an absurd request." Then came her chilling threat, revealing a parasitic network I never knew existed within the affluent downtown towers. "You wouldn' t want a bad reputation, would you? A young, successful woman like you." This wasn' t just about money; it was a brazen attempt at extortion. I had poured my heart and soul into building this life, and now, someone I allowed into my home was trying to take it all. How could I have been so blind? The dream felt tainted, my beautiful city view mocking me. I had let a viper into my home, and now, I had to cut her out. Permanently.

I was moments from becoming Lone Star Rodeo Queen, poised to cement my place in Texas society, just as I had in another reality. But in that past, that "first life," my story ended brutally. The economy tanked, my husband, Blake, blinded by his obsession with Clara Belle Hayes, abandoned our kids and me. I fought, but we died, leaving Blake’s horror-stricken face as my last memory. Then, *snap*. I was back. The roar of the rodeo crowd, the familiar dust. At midnight, ready for the final barrel run that had, in my first life, set me on that tragic path. Pure panic seized me. Not again. I wouldn't repeat the nightmare. So, with a deliberate, clumsy move, I fell, hitting the dirt, breaking my wrist, and losing the crown. Blake rushed in, but not for me. He was there for Clara Belle, the new Queen, their golden, triumphant embrace a cruel echo. Gossip swirled: "Poor Sarah." "Blake looks smitten." "I’m happy for her," I lied, the words tasting like glass, knowing he'd secretly coached her then too. My heart, once shattered, was now scarred and hard. This time, I’d see the storm coming. This time, I’d survive.

It had been her grandfather’s last wish to see her wed to Arvin. However, on Belinda's wedding day, no sooner had they wedded than Arvin left his bride behind. The gossip spread like wildfire, and overnight, everyone took her as a joke. Since then, the fighting between them had no end. Until the fateful night when Belinda was drugged by her boss. She tried her best to go back home, but she ended up sleeping with Arvin. He instantly found himself both infatuated and addicted to her; while she found herself struggling to let him go.

Twenty minutes before the "Wedding of the Century" at The Plaza, I stood outside the Presidential Suite in a fifty-thousand-dollar Vera Wang gown. I was the girl from a West Virginia trailer park about to marry Hugh Maxwell, the golden heir to a billion-dollar defense empire. I pushed the door open only to find Hugh pinned against the bed with my own stepsister, Floy. She was wearing my bridal diamond necklace, and the sounds of their laughter scraped against my eardrums like sandpaper. I didn't scream; I listened as Hugh grunted that once the wedding was over and the trust fund unlocked, he'd dump "that hillbilly trash" on a bus back to the mountains. They weren't just cheating; they were planning to steal my family's land deeds and leave me with nothing. When I set off the sprinklers and exposed their naked bodies to the paparazzi, the Maxwell family didn't apologize. They called me a "greedy peasant" and threatened to ruin my life unless I signed a new deal to save their crashing stock. I realized then that I was never a bride to them. I was a transaction, a rounding error in a ledger to be used and discarded. They thought my poverty made me weak and my silence made me a victim. "If we don't have a marriage certificate by midnight, the bank freezes thirty percent of our liquidity," their lawyer warned. So, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I used a loophole in their hundred-year-old family covenant and married the only other direct heir available. I didn't marry Hugh. I walked into the ICU and married his uncle, Fleet Maxwell-the legendary war hero who had been in a vegetative state for months. Now, I am the matriarch of the Maxwell dynasty. I've suspended Hugh's executive powers, exiled my mother-in-law to the Swiss Alps, and taken control of the family vault. They think I'm just a gold-digger waiting for a "corpse" to die so I can collect a fifty-million-dollar widow's payout. But last night, as I lay beside my comatose husband, the man they called a vegetable gripped my hand back.

Cast out by an "elite" family and mocked by high society, Elena shocked everyone by marrying the most powerful man in town. They assumed it was a temporary arrangement-after all, he had said, "The agreement is for two years. After that, we're done." Yet after the wedding, he refused to let her go. "Elena, you can't leave me." As he doted on her, rumors shattered one by one. A renowned painter, top hacker, and tech mastermind-her true identities stunned the world. When a luxury empire announced their lost heiress, all eyes turned to her. "Why did she look exactly like Elena?"

For seven years, I played the perfect, hidden wife to billionaire August Chambers while working quietly as an ER nurse. Three days before our marriage contract expired, he stormed into my emergency room carrying a bleeding woman. It was Allena, his cousin's fiancée. She had suffered a ruptured corpus luteum from their violent, aggressive sex. Instead of hiding his affair, August ordered me to clear the floor and threw a massive check at my face to buy my silence. Later, his friends trapped me in a VIP club. When a waiter tripped, August violently shoved me aside just to protect Allena from a spilled cup of coffee. I crashed into a glass table, a sharp edge slicing deep into my arm. "Apologize to her, and I'll have my driver take you to the hospital." As my blood soaked into the white rug, he stood over me, demanding I get on my knees for his mistress. He didn't know I had faked a miscarriage five years ago to secretly raise our daughter far away from his cruelty. He also didn't know the money he flaunted was pocket change compared to my hidden AI tech empire. I calmly tied a tourniquet around my bleeding arm with my teeth and wiped my blood directly over his heart onto his custom suit. "I'm done with you." The submissive nurse was dead, and it was time to let him burn in the ruins of his own lies.

My five-year-old daughter was dying in the ICU, her heartbeat replaced by the continuous, electronic scream of a flatline. I gripped her cold hand, my throat sealed shut by a terror so absolute I couldn't even cry out. I dialed my husband Grayson's private number, the one reserved only for me and his assistants. He declined the call instantly. A second later, a text buzzed against my palm: "In a meeting. Do not disturb. Stop calling." Five miles away, Grayson was at a luxury gala, adjusting his silk tie and laughing with Belle Escobar. He told her I was just being "dramatic" and using our daughter's "fever" as an excuse to avoid the event. He had no idea Effie's heart had already stopped. When I finally reached our penthouse, soaked from the rain and carrying Effie's small socks in a plastic bag, Grayson didn't even look at me. He snapped at me for ruining the hardwood floors and asked if I'd left Effie with the nanny just to "feel sorry for myself." Three days later, while I buried our daughter in a small, lonely ceremony, Grayson was at the Hamptons. Belle posted a photo of him golfing with the caption: "A mental health day with the boys." He didn't even attend the funeral, but he returned home demanding I clear out Effie's room to make a study for Belle's son. The injustice burned through me until there was nothing left. I swallowed a handful of sleeping pills, desperate to join my daughter. But instead of the darkness, I woke up to blinding lights and the scent of Grayson's expensive cologne. I was standing in a ballroom, wearing a blue silk dress I had already burned. Above me, a banner read: "Happy 5th Birthday Kaiden & Effie." I was back, exactly one year before the tragedy. This time, I wasn't going to be the grieving wife. I was going to be their worst nightmare.

For three quiet, patient years, Christina kept house, only to be coldly discarded by the man she once trusted. Instead, he paraded a new lover, making her the punchline of every town joke. Liberated, she honed her long-ignored gifts, astonishing the town with triumph after gleaming triumph. Upon discovering she'd been a treasure all along, her ex-husband's regret drove him to pursue her. "Honey, let's get back together!" With a cold smirk, Christina spat, "Fuck off." A silken-suited mogul slipped an arm around her waist. "She's married to me now. Guards, get him the hell out of here!"

I stood in the darkest corner of the Pierre Hotel’s ballroom, my cheap polyester dress itching against my skin while my wristband buzzed with a DARPA Priority Red alert. In front of the city’s elite, my fiancé Bryce Calloway took the stage, not to toast our future, but to publicly end our engagement and announce he was with my sister, Chloe. The room turned on me instantly, a hundred pairs of eyes pinning me down with pity and disgust as they physically backed away like I was contagious. When I returned home, my mother shattered a crystal vase at my feet, screaming that I was a humiliation and a "dropout" who didn't deserve a cent of the family fortune. Chloe and Bryce mocked me, laughing when I told them I had a mission with the National Security Agency, convinced I was either a pathological liar or a low-level criminal. They watched in horror as a black, unmarked military helicopter descended on our backyard to extract me, yet they still chose to believe I was being arrested for drug trafficking. They saw a pathetic girl who couldn't even parallel park, never realizing I was Dr. Nova Vance, the lead physicist behind the world's first successful fusion reactor. To secure funding for my research and gain a "fortress" of a name, I signed a thirty-day marriage contract with the arrogant billionaire Roman Knight. He treats me like a fraud, convinced I’m a gold-digger who failed out of college, while I quietly run global energy simulations from his guest bedroom. He has no idea that the "loser" he’s forced to live with is the same anonymous grandmaster who has been ruthlessly crushing him in online strategy games for months. "The contract is active," I told him, looking past his expensive suit. "But don't expect me to be your maid."

Ashley gave Nicolas ten years of love and five years of loyalty as his perfect housewife, only to be repaid with betrayal, humiliation, and death at the hands of him and his mistress. After being reborn, she vowed to make them pay. She tore apart the mistress, kicked her useless husband aside, and returned as the heiress of a top-tier family. Surrounded by billions, luxury, and a parade of elite bachelors, Ashley became the woman everyone wanted-including a cold, powerful tycoon. When Nicolas came begging for forgiveness, she smiled coldly. "Fuck off! My man is worth a hundred of you."

For two years, I was the invisible force behind tech billionaire Kieran Douglas, convinced that our "private" romance was his way of protecting us from the tabloid spotlight. I managed his mergers, warmed his bed, and waited for a future that didn't exist. The illusion shattered at 6:00 AM when a Page Six alert debuted Kieran's "real" romance with socialite Aspen Schneider. Before I could even process the betrayal, Kieran sent me a cold, professional text: "Order flowers for Aspen. Pink peonies. Her favorite." When I tried to walk away, my own mother called me a disgrace and threatened to lock my inheritance forever unless I married a sixty-year-old businessman to save her failing estate. At a high-society gala that same night, Aspen intentionally crushed my burned hand in front of the cameras, while Kieran stood by and dismissed me as a "mediocre assistant" who had overstayed her welcome. I stood in the cold New York rain, drenched in champagne and humiliation, realizing that every sacrifice I made for Kieran was a joke. I was a ghost in a penthouse that was never mine, discarded the moment his "soulmate" returned. To the world, I was just a placeholder whose time had run out. But Kieran forgot one thing: my father's multi-million dollar trust fund unlocks the moment I legally marry. I didn't need love; I needed a signature and a shield. I walked into a discreet law firm and signed a marriage contract with a man I believed was the city's most notorious, scandal-ridden playboy. I thought I was marrying a degenerate "beard" to buy my freedom and secure my revenge. I didn't realize the man who signed that paper wasn't a playboy at all, but Gaston Collins-the most powerful and dangerous man on Wall Street-and he had no intention of letting our fake marriage stay fake.

I was hemorrhaging severely on the operating table, risking my life to deliver the billionaire Carlisle heir. Through the unsealed door, I heard my husband Axel's cold, mechanical voice giving a ruthless order to the panicked doctors. "Prioritize the heir. Above all else." The ice spread through my veins as he reduced my entire existence to a mere vessel. After I barely survived the emergency delivery, his mother marched into my room, telling me I should be on my knees thanking God they kept me alive long enough to fulfill my only purpose. His sister barged in just to scream at me, calling me a manipulative gold-digger. And Axel? He didn't ask about my pain. He simply stared at me like a CEO evaluating a damaged asset, eventually kidnapping me from the hospital and threatening to use his Wall Street power to ensure I would never see my newborn son again. I had secretly loved this man for years, swallowing my pride and enduring his toxic family's abuse, only to realize that in my most vulnerable moment, my life meant absolutely nothing to him. Why did I ever think I could melt his icy heart? My heart simply stopped breaking and turned to solid stone. I bypassed his billions, called a top-tier litigator, and handed Axel a zero-alimony divorce agreement, waiving every single cent of his fortune just to make a clean break.

For five years, Jodi was the perfect, compliant secret lover to billionaire CEO Armand Taylor. Then, she woke up to a cold email and a seven-figure wire transfer. Armand was marrying European royalty. The money was a severance package to quietly warehouse her out of sight. Refusing to be his dirty secret, Jodi invoked her contract's termination clause to leave for good. But Armand wouldn't let her go easily. He forced her to personally train her vicious new replacement, Selah. Selah immediately tampered with a crucial financial file, framing Jodi for sabotaging Taylor Corp's multi-billion-dollar tech acquisition. Without a second thought, Armand took the new girl's side. He cornered Jodi in the boardroom, his eyes dead and cold. "You have three days to fix this. If you fail, I will personally see to it that you go to prison for corporate fraud." He froze her bank accounts and stripped away her dignity, ready to destroy her life over a blatant lie. He thought she was just a weak, discarded toy who would break under his threats. What Armand didn't know was the terrifying secret Jodi had just discovered hidden at the bottom of her bathroom trash can. Three positive pregnancy tests. If the ruthless billionaire found out she was carrying his heir, he would never let her escape. Wiping her tears, Jodi slipped into a severe black silk gown and crashed an exclusive Hamptons gala to intercept the tech CEO herself. This time, she wasn't playing the obedient lover. She was going to clear her name and burn Armand's empire to the ground.