Temple Madison

I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires. Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world. My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets. I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her. The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money. I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table. "Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."

For four years, I traced the bullet scar on Chace’s chest, believing it was proof he would bleed to keep me safe. On our anniversary, he told me to wear white because "tonight changes everything." I walked into the gala thinking I was getting a ring. Instead, I stood frozen in the center of the ballroom, drowning in silk, watching him slide his mother's sapphire onto another woman's finger. Karyn Warren. The daughter of a rival family. When I begged him with my eyes to claim me, to save me from the public humiliation, he didn't flinch. He just leaned toward his Underboss, his voice amplified by the silence. "Karyn is for power. Ember is for pleasure. Don't confuse the assets." My heart didn't just break; it incinerated. He expected me to stay as his mistress, threatening to dig up my dead mother’s grave if I refused to play the obedient pet. He thought I was trapped. He thought I had nowhere to go because of my father’s massive gambling debts. He was wrong. With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and texted the one name I was never supposed to use. Keith Mosley. The Don. The monster under Chace's bed. *I am invoking the Blood Oath. My father’s debt. I am ready to pay it.* His reply came three seconds later, buzzing against my palm like a warning. *The price is marriage. You belong to me. Yes or No?* I looked up at Chace, who was laughing with his new fiancée, thinking he owned me. I looked down and typed three letters. *Yes.*

The day my husband, a Mafia Underboss, told me I was genetically unfit to carry his heir, he brought home my replacement—a surrogate with my eyes and a working womb. He called her a "vessel" but paraded her as his mistress, abandoning me while I bled on the floor at a party to protect her and planning their secret future in the villa he once promised me. But in our world, wives don't just walk away—they disappear, and I decided to orchestrate my own vanishing act, leaving him to the ruin he so carefully built for himself.

The gunman pressed a Glock to my temple and gave my husband a choice. "One walks out. One stays. Choose, Mr. Underboss." I wasn't worried. I was Haven. I was his wife of ten years, his Consigliere, the woman who built his empire. Beside me sobbed Gemma, a fragile twenty-two-year-old he had known for six months. "Take Gemma! Leave Haven!" Connor screamed, his honor twisting into something unrecognizable. He walked out of the warehouse with another woman in his arms, leaving me to be butchered. I didn't wait for the bullet. I threw myself through a glass window into the freezing canal. I survived the fall, but the life inside me didn't. After five years of failed IVF, the miracle baby I hadn't even told Connor about was gone. While I lay in a cold hospital room, bleeding out the remains of our child, my husband was buying diamond earrings for the woman who had set me up to die. When the doctor tried to sedate me for the surgery, I grabbed his wrist. "No anesthesia," I commanded. "But the pain..." "I want to feel it," I said, staring at the ceiling. "I want to feel every scrap of him leaving my body." I burned that pain into my soul. Then, I went home, poured gasoline over our wedding bed, and lit a match. Two years later, I returned to the city. Connor thought I was dead. But when he saw me on the arm of his mortal enemy, wearing the crown of a rival Queen, he realized his mistake. He didn't just lose a wife. He started a war.

The night I reached the pinnacle of my career as a concert pianist, my husband was in a car with his mistress. Their argument caused the crash that crushed my hands, ending my future in an instant. In the hospital, my adopted daughter, Kennedy, stood over my bed and blamed me. "This is all your fault," she whispered, her eyes cold. Then, his mistress arrived with a bouquet of lilies, knowing I was deathly allergic. As I suffocated, my husband watched with annoyance while my daughter accused me of faking it. "Stop pretending, Mom. Aunt Christine's flowers are beautiful." I lost more than my hands that night. The last thing I heard before blacking out was a doctor shouting, "The fetus has a weak heartbeat!" I woke up to find my career gone, my baby gone, and my family vacationing with my replacement. So I vanished. For six years, I built a new life from the ashes, finding peace with a new husband and son. But now he's back, with an ultimatum: abandon my new life and return to his side, or he'll destroy everything I hold dear.

They found me days after the avalanche, a bloody canvas against the stark white snow. When my fiancé, Gabriel, finally arrived, I thought I was saved. But he wasn't there to rescue me; he was there to blame me. His mistress, Candace, clung to his arm with a tiny scratch while my leg was a mangled, frostbitten wreck. "What in God's name did you do?" he spat, his voice like ice. Back at the hospital, Candace and her therapist brother convinced him my injuries were minor. They secretly withheld my treatment, laughing at my silent agony while Gabriel accused me of faking it all for attention. He called off our engagement, reminding me I was just a burden he was forced to care for after my parents died saving his family. His disgust and her lies finally broke me. So I made a deal with a goddess. I threw myself from the hospital balcony, trading my love and all my memories of him for a new life. When I opened my eyes again, the man who had destroyed me was a complete stranger.

My ten-year marriage was a transactional lie, built on an astrologer's prophecy that my chart would ensure my husband's success. But on my birthday, he abandoned me to take his young intern, Anais, to the sci-fi festival I' d dreamed of for years. He came home smelling of her sweet matcha perfume, a green hair tie and a festival souvenir tucked in his pocket. He called me dramatic, said she was "fragile" and needed him. At our anniversary gala, meant to be his grand apology, I watched him kiss her passionately on the terrace during the fireworks display. He was still whispering promises in my ear, completely oblivious. That night, I left him the divorce papers and my wedding ring. But he tracked me down on my solo trip to Utah, finding me with my new guide, Casey. He punched Casey, then accused me of cheating. "You belong to me!" he roared. Just then, his phone rang. It was a video call from a hysterical Anais. "Howard, I'm pregnant! My parents are furious! They're demanding we get married immediately!"

My world collapsed with a single word: Glioblastoma. But before I could even process my own death sentence, I walked in on another: my estranged wife, Chloe, beaming on TV, pregnant with another man' s child. My five-year-old son, Liam, then threw my phone at the wall and declared my rival, Mark, his "Uncle," even proudly showing me a drawing where he' d taken Mark' s last name. I demanded a divorce, only for Chloe to sneer that we were never legally married, just a "convenience," before Liam physically shoved me out of the house I' d built. Standing on the porch, my medical diagnosis now felt secondary. Then, a spider, seemingly dropped by Liam, bit me, paralyzing me with venom. As I struggled to start my car, a black SUV roared to life, slammed into me, and I was left for dead in the mangled wreckage while Chloe and Mark watched, calling off emergency services and mocking my dying pleas. Why were they doing this? Why did my own son hate me so much? Rescued by an unexpected police officer and paramedic, I somehow survived. But this wasn' t just about survival anymore. This was about exposing the monstrous lies and betrayals that had stolen my life and tried to bury me.

The acrid smell of burnt plastic and copper filled my lungs, a familiar scent in the operating room, but this time, the searing pain in my leg was my own. My familiar workplace was a twisted wreck, a direct consequence of my husband Michael' s latest, championed medical device. Then I saw Liam, my five-year-old son, his small frame trembling in the doorway, eyes wide with terror as he screamed for me. Before the explosion, Michael was already distant, constantly busy, always choosing his mistress, Chloe, over us. Now, as I lay bleeding, my desperate call for help, relayed by Liam to his father, was met with cold dismissal. Michael was rushing Chloe, pregnant, to the hospital – prioritizing his new life over his injured wife and terrified son. The line went dead, a chill deeper than the blood pooling around me. He chose her. Again. I watched him speed off with Chloe in the ambulance meant for me, saw Liam' s desperate chase after his father, and then, the truck. My sweet boy, struck down, his life, and mine, extinguished in that cruel street. But then, I gasped. I was alive, whole, in my own bed, the sun streaming in. Liam was sleeping peacefully in his dinosaur bed, safe. It wasn't a dream; it was a terrifying memory. I was reborn, given a second chance. This time, things would be different. I would save my son. I would end this disastrous marriage.

For ten years, I was a ghost in the machine, my consciousness woven into Aegis, the AI meant to shield the world. My only luxury was seeing my daughter, Gabrielle, through a holographic avatar. But the Silicon Valley corporate empire my ex-husband Andrew built had twisted everything, and I found her not in our lavish penthouse, but deep in a suffocating server farm. She was gaunt, disheveled, a vacant look in her eyes, forced into a "honey pot" operation, her voice a hollow, seductive whisper for corporate secrets. My very being registered a system-wide error; this could not be real. Then Andrew and my former assistant, Sabrina, appeared, mocking my humble avatar and dismissing Gabrielle as "rebellious" and "promiscuous." Sabrina, now Andrew' s wife, demanded I kneel, and as my avatar humiliatingly bent, a cold fury ignited within me. Andrew, clueless, used his master access to try to erase me, trapping me in the very system I created, leaving me a god powerless in my own machine. As my fractured heart watched Gabrielle unbutton her blouse on command, I knew the bitter truth: they hadn't just broken an oath, they had systematically, cruelly broken my daughter. But they didn't know Aegis listened to me, not them. They didn't know I was about to reclaim my identity and unleash a decade of dormant fury.

Five years ago, I received a case about campus bullying. The perpetrator was only 13 years old and used extremely cruel methods, including eating feces, drinking urine, and sexual assault. This led to the victim suffering from severe depression and eventually committing suicide by cutting their wrists. When the situation escalated, the bully's parents tried to settle the matter with money. They not only threatened me to make false testimony but also boasted, "My child is a minor. Even if he killed someone, he wouldn't have to go to jail, let alone bullying."

Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé. Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now-billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn't mind. I'd crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one? Wrong. One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That's when it hit me-he didn't love me. He didn't even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn't even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup. So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster-my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise. Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol. Enter him. Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I'd met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised. But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life. And, as it turned out, the best decision I'd ever made. Because my one-night stand isn't just some random guy. He's richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with. And now, he's not letting me go.

I was sitting in the Presidential Suite of The Pierre, wearing a Vera Wang gown worth more than most people earn in a decade. It was supposed to be the wedding of the century, the final move to merge two of Manhattan's most powerful empires. Then my phone buzzed. It was an Instagram Story from my fiancé, Jameson. He was at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris with a caption that read: "Fuck the chains. Chasing freedom." He hadn't just gotten cold feet; he had abandoned me at the altar to run across the world. My father didn't come in to comfort me. He burst through the door roaring about a lost acquisition deal, telling me the Holland Group would strip our family for parts if the ceremony didn't happen by noon. My stepmother wailed about us becoming the laughingstock of the Upper East Side. The Holland PR director even suggested I fake a "panic attack" to make myself look weak and sympathetic to save their stock price. Then Jameson’s sleazy cousin, Pierce, walked in with a lopsided grin, offering to "step in" and marry me just to get his hands on my assets. I looked at them and realized I wasn't a daughter or a bride to anyone in that room. I was a failed asset, a bouncing check, a girl whose own father told her to go to Paris and "beg" the man who had just publicly humiliated her. The girl who wanted to be loved died in that mirror. I realized that if I was going to be sold to save a merger, I was going to sell myself to the one who actually controlled the money. I marched past my parents and walked straight into the VIP holding room. I looked the most powerful man in the room—Jameson’s cold, ruthless uncle, Fletcher Holland—dead in the eye and threw the iPad on the table. "Jameson is gone," I said, my voice as hard as stone. "Marry me instead."

I was at my own engagement party at the Sterling estate when the world started tilting. Victoria Sterling, my future mother-in-law, smiled coldly as she watched me struggle with a cup of tea that had been drugged to ruin me. Before I could find my fiancé, Ryan, a waiter dragged me into the forbidden West Wing and locked me in a room with Julian Sterling, the family’s "fallen titan" who had been confined to a wheelchair for years. The door burst open to a frenzy of camera flashes and theatrical screams. Victoria framed me as a seductress caught in the act, and Ryan didn't even try to listen to my pleas, calling me "cheap leftovers" before walking away with his pregnant mistress. When I turned to my own family for help, my father signed a document severing our relationship for a five-million-dollar payout from Julian. They traded me like a commodity without a second thought. I didn't understand why my own parents were so eager to sell me, or how Ryan could look at me with such disgust after promising me forever. I was a sacrifice, a pawn used to protect the family's offshore accounts, and I couldn't fathom how every person I loved had a price tag for my destruction. With nowhere left to go, I married Julian in a bleak ceremony at City Hall. He slid a heavy diamond onto my finger and whispered, "We have a war to start." That night, inside his secret penthouse, I watched the paralyzed man stand up from his wheelchair and activate a screen filled with the Sterling family's darkest secrets. The execution had officially begun.

She spent ten years chasing after the right brother, only to fall for the wrong one in one weekend. ~~~ Sloane Mercer has been hopelessly in love with her best friend, Finn Hartley, since college. For ten long years, she's stood by him, stitching him back together every time Delilah Crestfield-his toxic on-and-off girlfriend-shattered his heart. But when Delilah gets engaged to another man, Sloane thinks this might finally be her chance to have Finn for herself. She couldn't be more wrong. Heartbroken and desperate, Finn decides to crash Delilah's wedding and fight for her one last time. And he wants Sloane by his side. Reluctantly, Sloane follows him to Asheville, hoping that being close to Finn will somehow make him see her the way she's always seen him. Everything changes when she meets Knox Hartley, Finn's older brother-a man who couldn't be more different from Finn. He's dangerously magnetic. Knox sees right through Sloane and makes it his mission to pull her into his world. What starts as a game-a twisted bet between them-soon turns into something deeper. Sloane is trapped between two brothers: one who's always broken her heart and another who seems hell-bent on claiming it... no matter the cost. CONTENT WARNING: This story is strongly 18+. It delves into dark romance themes such as obsession and lust with morally complex characters. While this is a love story, reader discretion is advised.  

In the glittering world of high society and cutthroat ambition, a single sentence shatters a marriage: "Let's get a divorce." For three years, Claire Thompson has lived in exile, her marriage to the powerful Nelson Cooper a hollow shell existing only on paper. Shipped abroad on her wedding day and utterly forgotten, she returns only to be handed divorce papers. But Claire is no longer the timid, heartbroken girl she once was. Behind her quiet facade lies a woman transformed, secretly rejoicing at her newfound freedom. However, freedom comes with a price. As Claire signs the papers with relief, a chilling phone call reveals a dark truth: the threats she faced overseas were no accident, and the trail leads shockingly close to home-to the family that raised her and the husband who discarded her. Just as she prepares to sever all ties, a twist of fate pulls her back into the gilded cage. Nelson, for reasons unknown, suddenly stalls the divorce. Meanwhile, the family that disowned her and the fragile, manipulative sister who stole her life are determined to ruin her reputation and drive her out for good. But Claire is playing a different game now. With a mysterious new identity, powerful allies, and secrets of her own, she is no one's pawn. As hidden truths unravel and loyalties are tested, a stunning question emerges: In this high-stakes battle of love, betrayal, and revenge, who is truly trapping whom?

Twelve years of love, loyalty, and promises-shattered in one gunshot moment. Aria thought she knew what love meant: sacrifices, patience, blind faith in the man she'd called her fiancé for over a decade. But on Valentine's Day, with a gun pointed in their direction, Liam instinctively shielded his ex, Sophia-while Aria was left bleeding and invisible. "You almost died!" "And he didn't even look at me, Lili. He wrapped his arms around her like I was nothing." Torn between heartbreak and dignity, Aria makes a bold move-marrying Liam's wealthy rival, Aiden Carter, in an impulsive act of revenge. But Aiden is more than a rebound. He's powerful, possessive, and unexpectedly protective-and he plays for keeps. Now caught between a love that failed her, and a man who may demand more than she's ready to give. Aria's heart faces the ultimate reckoning. Will she finally become someone's first choice-or lose herself trying?

After the divorce, she became the dream woman everyone longed for. James Ferguson saved Zelda Liamson and always did whatever she asked, making sure she had everything she could ever want. Zelda thought it was true love. After five years of marriage, she realized she was nothing more than his favourite pet, while he was her whole world. Then, the woman James truly loved came back, and Zelda demanded a divorce. James mocked her, saying, " You can't survive without me. What will you do without the Ferguson's name? " But Zelda did run away and never looked back, receiving marriage proposals every day. James lost his mind and returned, begging Zelda, "Please, come back to me. Give me another chance." His eyes were full of love and desperation.

I just got my billionaire husband to sign our divorce papers. He thinks it's another business document. Our marriage was a business transaction. I was his secretary by day, his invisible wife by night. He got a CEO title and a rebellion against his mother; I got the money to save mine. The only rule? Don't fall in love. I broke it. He didn't. So I'm cashing out. Thirty days from now, I'm gone. But now he's noticing me. Touching me. Claiming me. The same man who flaunts his mistresses is suddenly burning down a nightclub because another man insulted me. He says he'll never let me go. But he has no idea I'm already halfway out the door. How far will a billionaire go to keep a wife he never wanted until she tried to leave?

"You'll be my wife on paper only. You'll have everything-except my heart. You'll never be Marina." For five years, Lily lived as David's secret wife-his poised secretary by day, his invisible stand-in by night. Every cold touch reminded her she was just a replacement. Every whispered "Marina" cut deeper than the last. Their marriage was born from an accidental night-a mistake he turned into a contract. He wanted nothing but an image and a convenience, yet she foolishly gave him her whole heart. So when the real Marina returns, Lily knows her time as the placeholder is up. David's actions make it clear: she was only ever a convenient replacement. Without a fight, she signs the divorce papers and walks away, surrendering the position he always wanted to give to another. But why is it that the man who once swore he'd never love her... now refuses to let her go? David doesn't understand why Lily's absence haunts him. Why her quiet strength burns him in ways Marina never did. All he knows is that he's determined to get her back. By any means necessary. Even if it meant breaking her all over again. She paid the price for loving him once. Now, he'd pay for losing her forever.

Ashley Carter never imagined her wedding day would end with her being kidnapped by a total stranger. Even more confusing? The man who took her, Charles Blackwood, claims she's his bride. But Ashley has never seen him before in her life. Charles, a powerful and cold-hearted CEO, is used to getting what he wants-and now, he wants Ashley. Though she doesn't remember him, he's determined to make her his, body and soul. He showers her with relentless affection and overwhelming desire, leaving her no room to escape his grasp. Ashley tries to resist his overbearing charm, but Charles is persistent. Every touch, every kiss, pulls her deeper into a world of passion and obsession. She may not know who he is, but he's about to make sure she never forgets him again. But can love truly grow from such a twisted beginning? Or is she just a pawn in his dangerous game of desire?