TESS WHITE

I did everything for Damian, my childhood best friend. His promise-"Get in shape, Lena, and I'll take you to prom"-was the only thing that mattered. I starved myself and ran until I collapsed, all for the future he dangled in front of me. But on his birthday, clutching the cake I' d baked, I overheard the truth. The promise was a cruel joke. To him and his real girlfriend, Gigi, I was just a "fat pig" whose desperate attempts to impress him were "hilarious to watch." They didn't stop there. They framed me for bullying, and Damian publicly denied ever caring for me. He then got my Stanford scholarship revoked with a malicious report and stood by as Gigi plastered my most private love letters all over school. I became a pariah, a "delusional, conniving bitch." The boy I had loved my whole life, the one who was supposed to be my protector, had orchestrated my complete and utter destruction for a laugh. Yet he still expected me to follow him to college. So when he called on move-in day, buzzing with excitement for our shared future, I let him ramble on about our plans. Then, I calmly cut through his fantasy. "I'm not here, Damian."

I am Cipher, an elite operative, but the world knows me as Evita Peck-the mute, illegitimate liability of a powerful political dynasty. To protect my sister and maintain my cover, I played the role of a fragile, broken doll, enduring my stepmother's abuse in silence. Everything shattered at a high-stakes gala when my stepmother forced a drugged cocktail down my throat to sell me to a wealthy donor for campaign funds. Fighting the chemical haze, I fled to a restricted suite and collapsed into the arms of the one man I should have avoided: Jedidiah Stone, the paralyzed, reclusive "Broken King." The drug stripped away my control, leading to a night of desperate passion with the man who was my family's greatest enemy. I escaped at dawn, but I accidentally left behind a bloodstain on his sheets and fled with a classified data chip hidden in his jacket, marking me as a target for the most dangerous security force in the city. When I returned home, my mother slapped me for the "failed" deal and immediately announced I was being sold into a marriage alliance with the Stone family. Before I could process the horror, Julian Kensington-Jedidiah's deadliest rival-publicly claimed me as his secret fiancée, turning me into a pawn in their brutal corporate war. I was trapped in a deadly tug-of-war between a man who wanted to use me as a shield and a man who was hunting for the "spy" who had breached his bed. I didn't know how much longer I could play the mute victim while the two most powerful men in the country fought to possess me. The game reached a breaking point when Jedidiah invoked a "hostile asset acquisition" clause to legally force me to marry him instead of his cousin. Now, I am moving into the Stone estate, realizing that the man I am about to marry is the same man who has sworn to break the very woman I truly am.

I woke up to a rhythmic thumping against the wall of our luxury apartment. I thought it was just a nightmare, but when I pushed open the bedroom door, the reality was much worse. My fiancé, Ignacio, was entangled with a blonde on the very sofa I had paid for three months ago. When he saw me, there was no guilt in his eyes, only cold annoyance. "I'm bored of the 'good girl' act, Aria," he said, standing up with terrifying casualness. "And frankly, I'm bored of waiting for your stepfather's money to clear." Before I could even process his words, he grabbed my arm and shoved me out into the hallway. He didn't let me grab my shoes or my phone. He just tossed my trench coat at my face and slammed the door, locking me out of my own life. Barefoot and shivering in the October rain, I wandered into a speakeasy and drank until the world blurred. That’s where I met him—a man who looked like a prince and radiated a dangerous kind of power. In a drunken, desperate haze, I asked him if he was for hire. I needed a husband to spite Ignacio, and he was the most expensive-looking man in the room. "Marry me," I pleaded, and to my shock, he agreed. We hit a twenty-four-hour chapel, signed the papers, and I passed out in the back of his Maybach. The next morning, I woke up in a penthouse on Billionaire’s Row. The man, Burke, stood there in a towel and handed me a bill for fifty thousand dollars for his "overnight services." I was terrified. My family was bankrupt, I was homeless, and now I owed a massive debt to a high-end escort I had accidentally married in a blackout. I fled to a job interview at Justice Group, hoping to earn enough to pay him off and disappear. But when I sat down in the waiting room, the "gigolo" was sitting right there, wearing a suit and holding a newspaper. "Don't tell anyone we know each other," I hissed, thinking he was just another desperate applicant. "Why? Ashamed of your husband?" he teased. Then the HR assistant called our names together, and I realized my nightmare was only just beginning.

My parents spent eighteen years grooming me for one singular purpose: to be the mate of Jax Little, the future Alpha. We grew up together, promising a hundred times that we would rule the Silver Moon Pack side by side. But on the night of the Recognition Ritual, because my inner wolf was silent and I hadn't shifted yet, everything shattered. Jax stood before the entire pack, looked at Catalina—a stranger in red silk—and then looked at me with cold, steel-gray eyes. "I, Jax Little, reject you, Eliana Carter." He didn't just break our bond; he let his new Luna destroy me. When Catalina shoved me into a pool, he saved her instead of me. When she framed me for an attack, causing me to fall onto deadly silver that seared my flesh like acid, he stepped over my convulsing body to comfort her fake tears. He left me dying on the floor to soothe the woman who had tried to kill me. I realized then that the boy who promised to protect me was dead. He prioritized ambition over love, treating me like a broken defect to be discarded. I survived the silver, but I killed the girl who loved him. I packed my bags and ran to New York City, believing I was wolfless and alone. I didn't know that I wasn't a defect—I was a rare White Wolf waiting to wake up. And I certainly didn't expect the most powerful Alpha on the East Coast to be waiting in the shadows, ready to burn the world down for me.

I am the sole heiress to a Texas oil empire. To protect me, my father adopted seven boys who were meant to be my future, and I was in love with their leader, Jax, my intended fiancé. But it was all a lie. I overheard them confess they were only playing along to secure my fortune for Daisy-Mae, the girl Jax truly loved. The humiliation was relentless. Daisy-Mae orchestrated a cattle stampede at our annual rodeo, nearly getting me killed, and Jax saved her first. He publicly shamed me at a charity gala, stealing my family’s honor and a hospital wing dedication for her after freezing my funds. The final blow came at my birthday party, where a doctored video was broadcast to hundreds of guests, painting me as a violent, unhinged monster and her as the innocent victim. He did it all for her. Even when I was about to expose Daisy-Mae's plot, he confessed to her crimes to protect her, then offered to marry me as a bribe to buy my silence. He thought he still had power over me. But in front of everyone, I looked him in the eye and delivered the killing blow. "I stopped loving you a long time ago, Jax." Then I turned to the one man who had defended me, Sterling Prescott, and announced, "The man I'm going to marry is him."

The last thing my husband of twenty years, Jaxson Blake, gave me was a suicide note. It wasn't for me. It was for Brinley Buchanan, his foster sister, the woman who had haunted our marriage from the very beginning. He put a bullet through his head, and with his last breath, he gave our entire tech empire—my life’s work—to her and her family. It was always her. She was the reason our child died, freezing to death in a broken-down car while Jaxson rushed to her side because she’d manufactured another crisis. My whole life had been a war against her, a war I had already lost. I closed my eyes, exhausted, and when I opened them again, I was a teenager. I was back in the group home, on the exact day the wealthy Blake family came to choose a child to foster. Across the room, a boy with familiar, tormented eyes was staring right at me. Jaxson. He looked just as shocked as I felt. "Eva," he mouthed, his face pale. "I'm so sorry. I'll save you this time. I promise." A bitter laugh almost escaped my lips. The last time he promised to save me, our son ended up in a tiny coffin.

The salt spray felt the same on my skin, a cold, familiar mist. I stood on the deck of my private yacht, the Serenity, watching the turquoise water churn below. This was where I died. Not in a hospital bed, not in a car crash, but right here, in the middle of the ocean, because of the two people I thought I loved most – my fiancée, Chloe, and her precious artist, Alex. The memory wasn' t a dream; it was a scar. Pirates swarmed the deck, their jeering laughter echoing alongside Chloe' s cool, distant voice, telling them to hurry up. She had a dinner reservation. Alex, her childhood friend, had already been taken to safety while I was left to bleed out. After I was gone, she poisoned me again, finding a way to get my fortune, dismembering my body to hide the evidence of her betrayal. But then, a shock. The universe, in its cruel way, gave me a second chance. I was reborn, sent back to the start of this very day, on this very yacht, with every memory of my end searing in my mind. "Liam, darling, are you even listening?" Chloe' s voice cut through my thoughts, a beautiful, hollow sound I once adored. She glided across the deck, pouting about the captain' s refusal to wait for Alex and his "masterpiece." Alex, that talentless hack spray-painting rocks, whose "art" I'd funded for years to make her happy. The same "art" that delayed our departure last time, costing me my life when the pirates attacked. That naive, lovestruck fool of the past was gone. Now, I knew her soul, and his. My purpose was clear, simpler than mere survival. I was here to collect a debt. I looked at Chloe, my face a calm, placid mask. "Whatever you want, Chloe." Her triumphant smile was sickening. She thought she' d won, as always. She had no idea the game had just begun, and this time, I was setting the rules. Suddenly, a siren blared, sharp and urgent. A crew member, Tom, ran onto the deck, his face pale. "Sir! Pirates! Three speedboats, approaching fast from the south!" It was happening again. The exact same moment, the exact same threat. And for the first time, I felt a terrible, exhilarating certainty. They had no idea what was coming.

My bachelorette weekend in Napa was a dream, my wedding to Ethan just hours away. I reached for what I thought was my tablet, but it was my bridesmaid Chloe’s – and her private blog was open. "Ava's Wedding Eve – The Final Act." Every entry was a chilling testament to her calculated cruelty. Within moments, my fairytale crumbled. My fiancé, Ethan, was rushing to comfort Chloe, barely acknowledging me. My step-brother Derek accused me of threats. My mentee Liam branded me a bully. They all believed her staged tears, her false narratives, her perfect victim act. I watched my closest relationships systematically destroyed by her lies. How could everyone I loved, the men I trusted, be so utterly blind? How could I, the bride-to-be, be framed as the manipulative villain overnight? The sheer injustice was suffocating, a nightmare unfolding in broad daylight. But I wouldn't stand by and let my life be stolen. There, in the crowded bar, watching them turn against me, I declared the wedding off. This wasn't the end; it was the beginning of my fight to expose the truth, no matter the cost.

Nancy’s face was tangled. She had taken the life-changing decision of carrying the baby for a strange man, to meet her mother's surgical expenses, oblivious to what the future had in store for her. Five years had passed and she had become a famous pediatrician. As she stepped out of the airport with big goals and dreams, fate greeted her in the form of a little boy – whose father was none other than the strange man, Charles, the one had helped Nancy save her mother. Even before Nancy could swallow the truth, she was flummoxed by the unexpected arrival of a man with a baby girl, claiming it as her daughter. What would Nancy do? Were there more secrets from her past waiting to take her on a topsy-turvy ride?

To refuse two hundred marriage proposals of a ‘ugly’ CEO she doesn’t love, Nina says she would rather marry a beggar than be his wife. When threatened to lose her family business, she has no choice but to marry a beggar. It turns out, the beggar is handsome and considerate to her. He always shows and protects her when she is bullied. He safeguards her home when she is drunk... Finally, she falls in love with this beggar husband. However, when the ‘ugly’ CEO reveals his mask, she sees the same face as her husband’s. The truth is he is her husband. She is angry at being cheated, and wants to have a divorce with him.

Today is October 14th, my birthday. I returned to New York after months away, dragging my suitcase through the biting wind, but the VIP pickup zone where my husband’s Maybach usually idled was empty. When I finally let myself into our Upper East Side penthouse, I didn’t find a cake or a "welcome home" banner. Instead, I found my husband, Caden, kneeling on the floor, helping our five-year-old daughter wrap a massive gift for my half-sister, Adalynn. Caden didn’t even look up when I walked in; he was too busy laughing with the girl who had already stolen my father’s legacy and was now moving in on my family. "Auntie Addie is a million times better than Mommy," my daughter Elara chirped, clutching a plush toy Caden had once forbidden me from buying for her. "Mommy is mean," she whispered loudly, while Caden just smirked, calling me a "drill sergeant" before whisking her off to Adalynn’s party without a second glance. Later that night, I saw a video Adalynn posted online where my husband and child laughed while mocking my "sensitive" nature, treating me like an inconvenient ghost in my own home. I had spent five years researching nutrition for Elara’s health and managing every detail of Caden’s empire, only to be discarded the moment I wasn't in the room. How could the man who set his safe combination to my birthday completely forget I even existed? The realization didn't break me; it turned me into ice. I didn't scream or beg for an explanation. I simply walked into the study, pulled out the divorce papers I’d drafted months ago, and took a black marker to the terms. I crossed out the alimony, the mansion, and even the custody clause—if they wanted a life without me, I would give them exactly what they asked for. I left my four-carat diamond ring on the console table and walked out into the rain with nothing but a heavily encrypted hard drive. The submissive Mrs. Holloway was gone, and "Ghost," the most lethal architect in the tech world, was finally back online to take back everything they thought I’d forgotten.

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!"

"Stella once savored Marc's devotion, yet his covert cruelty cut deep. She torched their wedding portrait at his feet while he sent flirty messages to his mistress. With her chest tight and eyes blazing, Stella delivered a sharp slap. Then she deleted her identity, signed onto a classified research mission, vanished without a trace, and left him a hidden bombshell. On launch day she vanished; that same dawn Marc's empire crumbled. All he unearthed was her death certificate, and he shattered. When they met again, a gala spotlighted Stella beside a tycoon. Marc begged. With a smirk, she said, ""Out of your league, darling."

Linsey was stood up by her groom to run off with another woman. Furious, she grabbed a random stranger and declared, "Let's get married!" She had acted on impulse, realizing too late that her new husband was the notorious rascal, Collin. The public laughed at her, and even her runaway ex offered to reconcile. But Linsey scoffed at him. "My husband and I are very much in love!" Everyone thought she was delusional. Then Collin was revealed to be the richest man in the world. In front of everyone, he got down on one knee and held up a stunning diamond ring. "I look forward to our forever, honey."

Elliana, the unfavored "ugly duckling" of her family, was humiliated by her stepsister, Paige, who everyone admired. Paige, engaged to the CEO Cole, was the perfect woman-until Cole married Elliana on the day of the wedding. Shocked, everyone wondered why he chose the "ugly" woman. As they waited for her to be cast aside, Elliana stunned everyone by revealing her true identity: a miracle healer, financial mogul, appraisal prodigy, and AI genius. When her mistreatment became known, Cole revealed Elliana's stunning, makeup-free photo, sending shockwaves through the media. "My wife doesn't need anyone's approval."

Sunlit hours found their affection glimmering, while moonlit nights ignited reckless desire. But when Brandon learned his beloved might last only half a year, he coolly handed Millie divorce papers, murmuring, "This is all for appearances; we'll get married again once she's calmed down." Millie, spine straight and cheeks dry, felt her pulse go hollow. The sham split grew permanent; she quietly ended their unborn child and stepped into a new beginning. Brandon unraveled, his car tearing down the street, unwilling to let go of the woman he'd discarded, pleading for her to look back just once.

Maia grew up a pampered heiress-until the real daughter returned and framed her, sending Maia to prison with help from her fiancé and family. Four years later, free and married to Chris, a notorious outcast, everyone assumed Maia was finished. They soon discovered she was secretly a famed jeweler, elite hacker, celebrity chef, and top game designer. As her former family begged for help, Chris smiled calmly. "Honey, let's go home." Only then did Maia realize her "useless" husband was a legendary tycoon who'd adored her from the start.

After five years of playing the perfect daughter, Rylie was exposed as a stand-in. Her fiancé bolted, friends scattered, and her adoptive brothers shoved her out, telling her to grovel back to her real family. Done with humiliation, she swore to claw back what was hers. Shock followed: her birth family ruled the town's wealth. Overnight, she became their precious girl. The boardroom brother canceled meetings, the genius brother ditched his lab, the musician brother postponed a tour. As those who spurned her begged forgiveness, Admiral Brad Morgan calmly declared, "She's already taken."

In their previous lives, Gracie married Theo. Outwardly, they were the perfect academic couple, but privately, she became nothing more than a stepping stone for his ambition, and met a tragic end. Her younger sister Ellie wed Brayden, only to be abandoned for his true love, left alone and disgraced. This time, both sisters were reborn. Ellie rushed to marry Theo, chasing the success Gracie once had-unaware she was repeating the same heartbreak. Gracie instead entered a contract marriage with Brayden. But when danger struck, he defended her fiercely. Could fate finally rewrite their tragic endings?

Sophie stepped in for her sister and married a man known for his disfigured looks and reckless past. On their wedding day, his family turned their backs on him, and the town laughed behind their hands, certain the marriage would collapse. But Sophie's career soared, and their love only deepened. Later, during a high-profile event, the CEO of some conglomerate took off his mask, revealing Sophie's husband to be a global sensation. *** Adrian had no interest in his arranged wife and had disguised himself in hopes she would bail. But when Sophie tried to walk away, Adrian broke down and whispered, "Please, Sophie, don't go. One kiss, and I'll give you the world."