Shi Yue

The lawyer’s pen clicked, signaling the finality of my parents' second divorce, but for me, Emilia, it was just the eerie echo of a past life that had ended with my younger sister, Sophia, stabbing me seven times, and a brutal existence under the ruthless Isabella Vanderbilt. This time, I had to escape Isabella's grasp, so I deliberately plunged down the stairs, disfiguring myself, knowing Isabella would never accept "damaged goods" as an heir. My father, Richard, confirmed my desperate gamble: "Isabella will never accept damaged goods!" I stayed with my kind mother, Linda, and we built a new, humble life away from that toxic world. But then Sophia, now a condescending teenager, reappeared, flaunting her new life with Isabella, subtly reminding me of my "missed potential." The façade of peace shattered when Sophia sent literal thugs to abduct me, twisting my mother’s arm and breaking it right before my eyes. My mom, Linda, screamed in agony, her broken arm a visceral pain that ripped through me. As I was dragged into a black SUV, the metallic taste of terror filled my mouth, utterly desperate and confused. Why would my own sister go so far, inflicting such harm on our own mother? Amidst the chaos, hidden from Sophia’s triumphant gaze, I fumbled for my emergency phone. I dialed a number I had only memorized in secret, a last resort: the private line of my estranged grandmother, Eleanor Ainsworth, a name that commanded respect even in the darkest corners of New York society. This time, everything would be different.

Since my foster father passed away, my foster mother Carlene treated me like a burden she couldn't wait to discard. Fearing I would cling to her biological son—a rising NHL rookie coming home next week—she forced me into a blind date with a sleazy, arrogant finance bro to get rid of me. When he mocked my career and treated me like a cheap toy, I threw a glass of ice water in his face. He violently grabbed my wrist in the restaurant hallway, his fingers digging into my bones. Carlene didn't lift a finger to help. Instead, she glared at me. "Apologize to him right now, or I will throw your bags onto the street tomorrow morning!" After ten years of walking on eggshells in her house, my heart turned completely cold. I had no money, nowhere to go, and realized she would gladly watch me be destroyed just to keep her family pristine. Driven by pure survival instinct, I lunged at a tall stranger walking out of the VIP lounge and desperately claimed he was my boyfriend. I didn't expect him to be Knox Leonard, the billionaire head of Apex Capital and Boston's most untouchable NHL star. And I certainly didn't expect him to wrap his arm around my waist, terrify my abusers, and offer me a two-million-dollar marriage contract.

I was bound by searing silver chains in a damp basement, my pregnant belly heavily swollen. My fiancé, Hampton, and my sister, Cherise, walked in. But Hampton didn't come to save me. "Your only purpose in existing was to serve as an incubator to cultivate gene serum for Cherise," he said coldly. Cherise sliced my stomach open with a silver scalpel and pulled out my premature baby. She laughed, claiming the father was just a filthy Rogue she had hired off the streets to ruin me. But when my dying baby opened its eyes, the terrifying, crushing aura of a supreme Lycan shattered the room. Terrified by the bloodline pressure, Hampton aimed his silver pistol at my newborn. To protect my child, I took the silver bullet and was buried under the collapsing rubble of the basement. As I lay bleeding out in the freezing rain, a godlike man dropped from a helicopter and desperately pulled my broken body from the ruins. "I forbid you to die!" He roared with grief, his intoxicating scent of cedar triggering our ultimate mate bond right before my last breath. My baby wasn't a mongrel. It carried the noblest blood in the world, and my true mate was a supreme king. Yet I had been tortured to death believing I was just a defective, wolfless piece of trash. Opening my eyes again, the stench of blood and rain was completely gone. I was back in my dorm room at St. Jude Academy, exactly eighteen years old. This time, my hidden White Wolf bloodline was awakening, and I would make them pay back every drop of blood.

For seven years, I bled to protect Dante Morretti and his family. I drained my own inheritance to bribe cops, hire underground doctors, and secure his throne as the Don of New York. But on our seventh anniversary, as I stood outside his club with a custom-forged gift, I saw the syndicate announcement. Dante had just publicly crowned a Capo's daughter as his queen. When I confronted him, he brushed off my anger. "Stop this drama, Eva. You are my fiancée. She is a political necessity." His parents, whose lives I had saved, told me to stop throwing a tantrum. His mother looked at me with pure disdain. "You are the legal wife. You manage the household. You see to our care." Worse, I discovered Dante had used my emergency extraction funds—money meant to keep his family safe—to buy his new queen a luxury penthouse. I had taken a bullet for his mother the exact same night he was caught on camera sleeping with Serena. I gave them my youth, my money, and my blood, only to be treated as an unpaid warden and a disposable shield. I didn't understand how my seven years of fierce loyalty could be erased so easily. But I didn't shed a single tear. I calmly handed Dante an itemized bill for $367,420, dropped my safe house keys on the table, and walked away. This time, I would build my own empire.

Kinsley worked a grueling, low-paying job at a mediocre ad agency just to pay off her late father's crushing medical debts. But her quiet survival shattered when billionaire heir Julian Montgomery unexpectedly walked into a corporate dinner. Three years ago, they had a past, and he still believed she was a cheap gold digger who played him for a quick payout. Now, he cornered her. He used his immense power to force her into a direct liaison role for his company's new campaign, trapping her under his absolute control. Her colleagues immediately turned on her. Her boss mocked her "blue-collar" background, and jealous coworkers spread vicious rumors that she was offering "special services" to the billionaire. Kinsley swallowed the humiliation, terrified Julian would discover the real reason she abandoned her lucrative Wall Street future to sit by her dying father's hospital bed. She didn't understand why he was relentlessly tormenting her now. Was her trauma just a puzzle for a bored billionaire to solve for entertainment? Pushed to the absolute breaking point by her colleagues' relentless bullying, Kinsley finally slapped a heavy parchment document onto the conference table. "I speak the language of Wall Street fluently." As her bullies stared in pale horror at her summa cum laude Finance degree from Wharton, Julian received the background report across the city. His "gold digger" illusion was completely shattered, igniting a dark, dangerous obsession to uncover her every secret.

I was the Architect who built the digital fortress for the most feared Don in New York. To the world, I was Brendan Wiggins’s silent, elegant Queen. But then my burner phone buzzed under the dinner table. It was a photo from his mistress: a positive pregnancy test. "Your husband is celebrating right now," the caption read. "You are just the furniture." I looked across the table at Brendan. He smiled and held my hand, lying to my face without blinking. He thought he owned me because he saved my life ten years ago. He told her I was just "functional." That I was a barren asset he kept around to look respectable, while she carried his legacy. He thought I would accept the disrespect because I had nowhere else to go. He was wrong. I didn't want to divorce him—you don't divorce a Don. And I didn't want to kill him. That was too easy. I wanted to erase him. I liquidated fifty million dollars from the offshore accounts only I could access. I destroyed the servers I had built. Then, I contacted a black-market chemist for a procedure called "Tabula Rasa." It doesn't kill the body. It wipes the mind clean. A total hard reset of the soul. On his birthday, while he was out celebrating his bastard son, I drank the vial. When he finally came home to find the empty house and the melted wedding ring, he realized the truth. He could burn the world down looking for me, but he would never find his wife. Because the woman who loved him no longer existed.

At the project kickoff party, Isabelle casually mocked the new capital representative, calling him a suit with a trust fund. A low, magnetic voice spoke from the shadows right behind her. It was Bennett Lloyd, the man holding the purse strings for the entire project. But as Isabelle turned around, her blood ran cold. He wasn't just her new boss. He was the stranger she had a desperate one-night stand with five years ago. The man she had fled from before dawn, leaving only a fake name. In her panic to escape him, Isabelle tripped on the marble stairs and left behind a single, custom-made diamond heel. Bennett found it, but instead of exposing her, he began a terrifying game of cat and mouse. He forced her to be his exclusive on-site consultant, vetoed her vacation time, and isolated her from her team. He trapped her in his office, his touches lingering just enough to remind her of that night, slowly suffocating her professional life as payback. Pushed to the brink of a breakdown by his relentless torment, Isabelle sat in a hotel bar, drowning her panic in vodka. She pulled out her phone, intending to send a voice memo to her best friend to confess the suffocating guilt she had hidden for years. "I can't do this anymore. I'm a sinner. I killed her... I killed my mother." She hit send, only to realize her screen didn't show her friend's name. The confession had gone straight to Bennett Lloyd.

Five years ago, my fiancé and my adopted sister framed me, took my family trust, and cut my car's brake lines, leaving me with a shattered body in the freezing rain. Now, struggling as a stunt double to fund my revenge, I risked my life to save a billionaire's trapped son from a locked room. But instead of gratitude, I became the billionaire's prey. Jaidyn Miles, the apex predator of Wall Street, investigated my crippling debts and threw a five-million-dollar contract in my face. "You possess the single most valuable asset in this transaction. Your face." He demanded I dye my hair jet black, wear specific white dresses, and use a bespoke perfume. He wanted me to be the living, breathing doll of his dead wife. I refused to be a billionaire's prop and walked away. But Jaidyn immediately bought the entire movie studio where I had just bled for a life-changing role, threatening to destroy hundreds of jobs and my only chance at a career if I didn't submit. Why was I always just a tool to these wealthy, arrogant men? First a placeholder for a family trust, now a ghost for a dead woman? I grabbed his contract and a pen, my eyes cold. I wouldn't be broken again. "Three months, and you don't interfere with my shooting schedule." I signed my name. I would take his five million, and I would use it to bury the people who ruined my life five years ago.

To settle her family's debt, Alys Flores is sold into a proxy marriage with the city's most infamous recluse, the wheelchair-bound Gustaf Greer. It's a union of the broken and the discarded. Or so it seems. She's not broken; she's a ghost. A hacker known as "Zero" who uses her silence as a shield while she plots the destruction of those who wronged her. He's not discarded; he's a king. A powerful CEO faking his disability to hunt a traitor who tried to kill him. In a world of secrets, their marriage is the biggest one of all. And when their separate paths of revenge lead them to the same enemy, they'll have to trust the one person they can't afford to believe.

I spent five years as the perfect wife to Easton Harrington, smoothing his midnight-blue ties and fading into the wallpaper of his massive estate. I thought I was the heart of our family, but I was really just a ghost in a sensible beige dress. The illusion shattered at a charity gala when Easton’s "family friend," Georgina, appeared in a gown that matched his suit perfectly. While they basked in the flashbulbs as a golden couple, I was literally pushed into the velvet ropes by a cameraman. No one noticed. Then my four-year-old son, Holt, slapped my hand away in front of the city's elite. "Don't touch me! You're not my mom, you're just the nanny. Daddy said so." The room went silent, but Easton didn't defend me. He just looked annoyed that I was causing a scene, making a sharp shooing motion for me to take the boy away. Beside him, Georgina feigned shock while her eyes crinkled in pure amusement. I realized then that I wasn't his partner; I was a placeholder. They had stripped me of my dignity and even my child's love, treating my five years of devotion like a temporary staff position. I didn't scream. I just slid off the Harrington heirloom ring, tossed it into a fountain, and walked out into the night. Easton thinks I’m a penniless housewife who won’t last a week without his credit cards. He doesn't know that I’m Dr. Althea Morrison, the "prodigy" researcher his company has been begging to hire. I'm not asking for alimony, and I'm not begging for a second chance. I’m returning to the lab to build an empire that will bring his to its knees.

For five years, New York society envied me, Ava Riley, the perfectly devoted wife to tech titan Liam Carter. Though legally blind, I felt his love in every touch, every whispered word, convinced I was the luckiest woman alive. But one night, a searing pain shot through my head, a shocking kaleidoscope of color exploded behind my eyelids, and then-I could see. My vision, blurry but real, focused on the bed. It wasn't Liam on top of me. It was a faceless, flawless robot, moving with the practiced intimacy I believed belonged to my husband. Then I saw Liam across the room, wrapped around a perfect, lifelike doll-his adopted sister, Sophia. Every intimate moment of our five-year marriage, every cherished touch, had been a vile, mechanical lie. The truth crashed down: I was just a blind prop in his twisted obsession, a placeholder for the woman he truly desired. When I confronted this horrifying reality, Sophia pushed me down the stairs, and I lost our baby. But Liam' s concern wasn't for me. He protected Sophia, dismissing my pain, our child, and even me, as collateral damage, painting me as an "emotionally unstable liar" to cover their tracks. How could the man I loved betray me so utterly? How could my own sacrifice have led to such a depraved deception? My heart didn't just break; it became a cold, hard stone of disbelief and fury. Lying in that hospital bed, rage burning through my soul, I ripped up Liam' s seven-figure "hush money" check, looked Sophia directly in her astonished eyes, and declared, "I' m divorcing him. And I' m not going quietly. I' m going to take everything."

I sacrificed everything for Michael Thorne, the ambitious man I loved and believed in. My promising career, built on integrity, crumbled when I took the fall for his unethical land deal, my name tarnished, my reputation destroyed. The immense stress manifested as psychosomatic blindness, transforming my vibrant world into an indistinct haze, making me completely dependent on him. He vowed to be my eyes, a low murmur of reassurance, his control a heavy cloak I mistook for devotion, as he built his real estate empire on the ruins of my life. For years, I was a captive in our luxurious city apartment, a gilded cage arranged for my impaired convenience, subtly controlled by the man who claimed to protect me. But then, a miracle: my vision, slowly, painstakingly, began to return, a fragile hope I nurtured in secret. Eager to surprise him, I cut my therapy retreat short, only to silently unlock our door and find him in bed with his conniving junior associate, Tiffany. My newly restored sight, cruelly perfect, illuminated the stark, undeniable intimacy, a betrayal that stole my breath and shattered my soul. The man who vowed to be my eyes, the one I had given everything for, had been reveling in my dependence, enjoying the power of my blindness as he carried on his affair right under my nose. The shock morphed into a cold, unwavering resolve; my heart, once broken, hardened into stone. I would pretend I was still blind, still naive, enduring their thinly veiled cruelty and arrogant entitlement. But as I stumbled, feigning helplessness, I would meticulously gather every piece of damning evidence. I swore to reclaim my life, my heritage, and my true self, leaving him to face the very ruin he built for me. He thought he had absolute power over his blind, docile wife, but he was about to discover what a woman with nothing left to lose, and everything to see, could truly do.

I woke up to a familiar, cheap motel ceiling. Today was the day Chloe and I were supposed to elope. But this wasn' t just any morning. I'd lived this day before. Ten years ago, on this exact date, Chloe died saving me in a fatal car crash. Now, I'm back, haunted by a chilling ultimatum: "Thirty-six hours. Three deepest regrets. Fix them, or she stays dead." The weight of a future where Chloe was miserable, her dreams crushed, hangs heavy. I watch her vibrant, younger self, unaware of the gilded cage her life will become. Her dismissive words cut, knowing the simmering unhappiness beneath them. She' s walking blindly into a future controlled by her parents and a manipulative lover. How can I save her from a fate she doesn't know exists? How do I dismantle her family' s plans and expose the man she thinks she loves, without destroying her trust? My undying love for her, once a quiet ache, is now an impossible race against a ticking clock. Can I truly rewrite her destiny and allow her to become the person she was meant to be? Armed with foreknowledge and a broken heart, I embark on a desperate pilgrimage of selfless acts. I'm not trying to win her love. I'm fighting to set her free, even if it costs me everything.

My Sweet Sixteen was supposed to be a dream. I was Scarlett, a golden child, engaged to my childhood sweetheart Julian, and protected by my powerful brother Ethan. Our lives were perfectly aligned, part of an influential dynasty. But then, a science experiment gone wrong left me disfigured and screaming. The intern, Brianna, who caused it, seemed to vanish, destined for jail. My brother and fiancé swore revenge, their initial protectiveness a comforting blanket. Yet, strange, mocking voices whispered in my head: "They're impressed by her. They'll fall for her. Hard." Soon, Brianna was "sick," and Ethan and Julian abandoned my hospital bedside to rush to hers. My calls went to voicemail, my care diminished, and then I was framed for attacking her. Julian dissolved our engagement, calling me unstable. I was banished to a forgotten wing, then a rundown halfway house, forced into grueling labor. The lowest point came when they held me under icy water, demanding an apology for a crime I didn't commit. Why abandon me, their Scarlett, for this woman who ruined my life? Was I just an inconvenience, a damaged relic of a past they wanted to forget? The voices in my head revealed the shocking truth: "It was a diversion. You were a pawn. Everything – your suffering – was a strategic move." My pain wasn't about love or betrayal; it was a cold, calculated sacrifice for power. With this sickening clarity, I refused their hollow apologies and offers to "restore" my life. I walked away from their gilded cage, leaving my old self and their lies behind. Now, free from their toxic influence, I begin a new chapter, far from the corrupt city, ready to redefine my own destiny.

For many years now, Carolyn had been having the same wild dream of intense, passionate moments with a strange man. Everything about the dreams was as vivid as real life, though she could never recall the stranger’s face. To be clear, she had no memory whatsoever of that one day seven years ago. And so it remained…until Derrick appeared. Now the key to unlocking this lost memory seemed to have finally emerged. Would the secrets buried deep within her mind be revealed? When the truth emerges, would it change her normal life for good?

Darcey became a surrogate mother for her sister and slept with Bain, a business tycoon with the best resources in the world. She didn't expect that her sister would ask her for help again five years later. She knew well that giving birth to his child was only a trick her sister used to be with him. Being threatened, she came to his room in dark. He didn't like to be touched by women, but she was different. He wanted her, driven by desire.

SEVEN DAYS BEFORE MY WEDDING, I walked into our bedroom and found my neurosurgeon fiancé plowing my cousin on our bed. Six months later, Oliver and Vanessa are married, my humiliation is office coffee-break gossip, and I've done everything possible to disappear off the face of the earth. Then I find out my grandmother is dying. This birthday might be her last, and I refuse to let my ex take that from me too. Problem is, going means facing my own personal nightmare head-on: Oliver and Vanessa, happy and married, right in front of me, while the rest of my family looks at me like I'm a walking tragedy. That's when Simon Hart-my billionaire boss, arrogant as hell, and the only man who can irritate me, make me laugh, and dismantle every single one of my defenses in the same conversation-makes me an absolutely ridiculous proposal. "Just think about it." He spreads his hands. " You're tired of everyone pitying you. I'm rich as fuck, handsome as hell, and charming as fuck. Who's going to feel sorry for you when you show up with Simon Hart on your arm?" The problem is, he's right. I need a boyfriend to survive my grandmother's birthday weekend without turning back into the official family disaster. And Simon needs a serious girlfriend to prove to all of New York that the city's most eligible bachelor has finally settled down. It was supposed to be simple. Fake dating. Two events. Some convincing touching. Absolutely zero feelings. Until we added new terms to the agreement. No-strings sex. No jealousy. No expectations. Just sex. And it worked perfectly. Right up until everything went completely off the rails.

To help her husband build his business empire, Veyra worked two jobs, skipped meals, and sacrificed everything she had. When her mother desperately needed life-saving treatment, she couldn't even scrape together the money. Then, on a New Year's Eve flight, fate seated her beside her husband's mistress. That's when she discovered the cruel truth. Her husband had secretly amassed millions long ago. The wedding ring that belonged to Veyra now glittered on another woman's finger. The $500,000 that could have saved her mother's life had been spent instead on luxury gifts and pocket money for his lover. She lost her baby. She lost her mother. And finally, she lost every illusion about the man she'd loved for years. After leaving the airport, Veyra walked into a bar, kissed the most dangerous-looking stranger she could find, and spent one reckless night in his arms. By sunrise, she disappeared without leaving so much as her name. She thought it was nothing more than a farewell to her broken past. She was wrong. The stranger was Dorian-the most powerful, mysterious billionaire in the business world. Meanwhile, her cheating husband finally realized what he had thrown away. He begged on his knees, signed a postnuptial agreement worth billions, and swore he would give up everything if she would come back. But just as Veyra began plotting to reclaim everything that had been stolen from her, a mysterious car accident brought Dorian back into her life. Only then did she learn the truth. He wasn't a stranger at all. He was her ex-husband's older stepbrother. Now two powerful men are fighting for the same woman-one consumed by regret, the other determined to make her his. Sorry, cheating ex... I choose your brother.

One lab error. Two betrayals. And a billionaire who doesn't believe in accidents. Emily Vance thought she was carrying a miracle. After her fiancé, Julian, ended up in a coma following a horrific car crash, she underwent IVF to keep his legacy alive. It was supposed to be her anchor. Instead, a clinical mix-up reveals that the child in her womb isn't Julian's at all. It belongs to Alistair Wolfe, a man whose name is synonymous with ruthless power and a heart made of ice. The nightmare doesn't stop at the doctor's office. When Julian finally wakes up, he doesn't call for Emily. He calls for her stepsister, Chloe, revealing a secret affair that turns Emily's years of loyalty into a joke. Backed into a corner by a family ready to sell her to a predatory debt collector to save their failing business, Emily is left with a devastating choice. Her doctors warn her that this is her last chance at motherhood. To keep her baby and escape her family's reach, she has to make a deal with the wolf at the door. Alistair Wolfe wants his heir. Emily wants protection. No love. No strings. Just a temporary union until the child is born. But as Emily moves into Alistair's world, she quickly learns that playing the wife of a man like Alistair is a high-stakes game where the heart is the first thing you lose.

"You want a divorce? Fine. Complete an IVF cycle, give me an heir to unlock my trust fund, and I'll sign the papers." In the dim underground garage, my cheating husband gripped my wrist tightly, his face twisted in a mocking sneer. "Stop dreaming, Ellie. Your family is bankrupt! You think if you leave me, some Wall Street billionaire is going to be blind enough to be your knight in shining armor?" Looking at his arrogant face, I felt nothing but pure disgust. For three years of a dead marriage, he paraded his mistress into our marital bed, letting her wear my clothes and carry my bags. When I demanded a divorce, my own vain mother tried to force me back to be his incubator, all for a seven-million-dollar bribe. "I'd rather die than have your child." I looked at him coldly and slammed the "PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE" right into his face. Infuriated, he tightened his grip on my arm, ready to explode. Just then, blinding LED headlights tore through the darkness of the garage. A custom black Bentley Mulsanne glided silently out of the shadows, stopping inches behind us. The tinted window rolled down, revealing a sharp, lethally handsome face. The most ruthless, untouchable billionaire on Wall Street-Cosmo James. He also happened to be my husband's former best friend. Cosmo's ice-blue eyes locked onto the hand gripping my arm. His deep voice cut through the freezing air like a blade: "Take your hands off her." Cosmo leaned slightly forward, radiating sheer, predatory authority. A cold, ruthless smirk touched his lips. "You asked which Wall Street billionaire is going to be her knight in shining armor." "It's me."

To revenge herself on her unfaithful fiancé Kevin, Isidora hides her striking beauty behind a plain disguise, and targets his uncle - the most formidable man Kevin fears. After one reckless night, Isidora leaves cash as payment and says lightly, "You were good last night." She tries to leave quietly, but is pulled into his arms. "You think you can walk away after this?" he says, his tone low and possessive. Cedrick is a feared, untouchable titan on Wall Street - elegant, aloof, and completely uninterested in women. Not even the most beautiful socialites in the city can catch his eye. When gossip spreads that he was seen pressing a woman against a wall and kissing her fiercely, no one believes it. When the rumors name Isidora, the crowd scoffs. He rejects even the most beautiful women, so why would he notice a plain girl like her? All doubt disappears when they see the dignified Cedrick drop to one knee to help Isidora with her shoe, pleading softly for just one kiss. When Kevin finally sees Isidora's true beauty and begs for forgiveness. But Cedrick kicks him out at once, slams a marriage certificate on the table, and says sharply. "Call her Aunt."

Amelia sat alone at the City Marriage Bureau, watching the clock tick down to closing time. Fifteen minutes before the doors shut, a phone call shattered her last flicker of hope. Her fiancé, Kayson, wasn't coming. He had abandoned their wedding registration because Kamila-her stepsister-had twisted her ankle. It was his ninth broken promise. When Amelia returned home, there was no comfort. Her biological mother sneered at her humiliation, shielding the stepsister while ordering Amelia to apologize to Kayson. "Who would she marry without Kayson?" her mother mocked. "Let's see how long she survives out there without his money." Meanwhile, Kayson arrogantly dismissed her absence. Finding out she had vanished, he just laughed it off with his assistant. "It's just a tantrum to force my hand," Kayson smirked. "She still can't live without me." After nine years of absolute devotion, she was nothing but a convenient placeholder to the man she loved, and a worthless joke to her own family. The suffocating weight of their betrayal finally snapped something inside her. She packed a single suitcase, threw away nine years of anniversary gifts, and permanently blocked Kayson's number. Standing in the freezing wind, she pulled out her phone and dialed the private number of Kayson's biggest, most ruthless rival. "Mr. Thornton, what you said seven months ago... does the offer to marry me still stand?" Ten minutes later, a sleek black Maybach pulled up to the curb.

I carried a thermos of homemade chicken soup to the VIP lounge to surprise my husband after his ice time. But through the unlatched door, I caught him tangled naked on the sofa with Kyleigh—the "grieving sister" of a fallen teammate he claimed desperately needed our family's charity. I froze in the hallway, pressing my back against the cold concrete, only to hear something even more chilling. "What if she finds out the Nevada marriage certificate you gave her is completely fake?" Kyleigh purred. My husband scoffed, calling me a cold, arrogant idiot. He bragged that once he finished draining my family's century-old hockey trust funds into his agency's account, he would discard me. Even worse, I realized the four-year-old orphan he had begged me to sponsor was actually their biological child. Three years of my complete devotion and financial support, all built on a forged piece of paper and a calculated lie. He really thought I was just a sheltered heiress he could bleed dry and toss aside. I didn't kick the door open, and I didn't scream. Instead, I pulled out my phone, calmly recorded their naked betrayal, and dumped the three-hour soup into the trash bin. Since I was legally a single woman, I immediately called my Wall Street counsel to freeze all my offshore assets. He thought he was a mastermind, but he had no idea who he had just provoked.

For ten years, Gidget sacrificed everything for her fiancé, Colin, enduring his family's sneers just to secure the medical funding her dying younger brother desperately needed. But at a high-society gala, she pushed open a VIP lounge door and found Colin having sex with her malicious step-sister, Dixie. Worse, Dixie was four weeks pregnant. "Once I finalize the trust fund injection using her clean public profile tonight, I'll cut her loose." Hearing Colin's cold words, Gidget threw her engagement ring right into his face. In retaliation, Dixie threw herself down a flight of hospital stairs to frame Gidget. Furious, Colin immediately froze her brother's medical trust fund, leaving the boy in sudden cardiac failure in the ICU without the money for life-saving equipment. Driven to absolute despair and completely abandoned, a soaked and exhausted Gidget stumbled into a luxury hotel to hide from the rain. She accidentally triggered the private elevator to the top-floor presidential suite. She didn't know the terrifying Wall Street tyrant inside was suffering from a lethal touch-allergy, and any woman who touched him would trigger anaphylactic shock. But when he grabbed her in the dark, there were no hives, no pain. Just her scent, which instantly cured his lifelong agony. After a night of chaotic entanglement, Gidget fled back to the hospital, terrified of how she would pay her brother's bills. Only to find an anonymous, unlimited medical grant had just saved his life. She thought she was finally free to start over, completely unaware that the real predator had just locked her cage.

"Spread your legs," the cold, handsome doctor ordered. To escape her ex-boyfriend's wedding invitation , Alana Martin attended an elite gala, wore a borrowed gown , and ended up spending a wild night with a dangerously handsome stranger. Panicked, she fled the next morning -only to end up in the hospital days later with severe inflammation. But when the curtain pulled back, the "doctor" examining her intimate areas was the exact same man from that night! Worse? He was looking at her with a wicked smirk, "You stole my first night, ignored my note , and now you're playing the amnesia game? I'm the victim here, little lady. Take responsibility."

For seven years, Rose Bennett was Ryan Knight's secret wife. While all of New York believed Samantha Hikk would become Mrs. Knight, Rose silently endured a cold marriage to a man who never loved her. Until one night, Samantha is rushed into Rose's emergency room pregnant. and Ryan is the one protecting her. That is the night Rose stops loving him. What Ryan never knew was that Rose had already given birth to his daughter years ago after he rejected both mother and child without hesitation. So Rose walks away-with only two suitcases, a hidden daughter, and the shattered remains of seven years. But the woman Ryan abandoned is no ordinary wife. Rose is the hidden genius behind Aetheris Medical AI, the revolutionary system about to change the entire medical world. As Rose rises to the top, becoming untouchable, powerful, and impossible to replace, Ryan finally realizes the devastating truth- He didn't lose a woman who loved him. He lost the only woman he would ever love. And by then, even their daughter no longer calls him father.