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The location tag on Aubree's phone showed her fiancé intimately hugging a blonde woman at a trendy bar. Numb with betrayal, she rushed there to drown her sorrows, only to drunkenly mistake a towering stranger for a generic cheating scumbag. She publicly cursed him out, threw ice water at his chest, and somehow ended up in his penthouse for a wild one-night stand. The next morning, he coldly offered to hire her as his public girlfriend. "I would rather set myself on fire than ever see you again." Humiliated, Aubree fled barefoot into the city, vowing to bury the toxic secret forever. But a week later, the stranger walked into her company's conference room. He was Julian Sterling, the ruthless billionaire CEO who held her entire department's funding in his hands. He used his absolute power to corner her, forcing her to be his sole contact, and summoned her to his penthouse in the dead of night just to punish her with a brutal, demanding kiss. But just as she was trapped in his aggressive game, she found a bold red lipstick and an embroidered silk scarf belonging to another woman in his sports car. Aubree felt a wave of profound, soul-crushing exhaustion. Why did this tyrant use his wealth to force his way into her life, only to hide another woman behind her back just like her ex? Looking at the undeniable evidence, all her fear and anger were replaced by pure, clinical disgust. Without a single word, she stepped out of his car and walked away into the night, completely severing ties and ready to fight back against the billionaire's control.

On the eve of my lavish New York wedding, my partner of ten years, Holden Ferguson, informed me the ceremony was just for show. The marriage license, he explained with a smirk while his mistress lay in our bed, was for her. He was leaving me at the altar, confident I was trapped after a decade of him systematically taking credit for my architectural brilliance. He called me his "dependent asset," a woman whose career and reputation were built on the platform he provided. "You have no choice, darling," he taunted, reminding me I'd given up my wealthy family for him. "You're nothing without me." He expected me to crumble, to play the part of the humiliated bride and wait for him to return after securing his new future. He thought he had planned my destruction perfectly, underestimating the quiet woman who secretly controlled a fortune. But as he left, I picked up my phone and dialed my fiercest professional rival. "Jaxon," I said calmly, "I need you to marry me. Today."

I spent months crafting the perfect disguise to infiltrate the ultra-wealthy Brooks family by dating the younger heir, Cason. I even underwent a painful surgery to fake my physical innocence. But the moment I stepped into his penthouse, I ran straight into the one man who haunted my worst nightmares: his ruthless older brother, Jackson Brooks. Five years ago, Jackson's family tied me to a cold medical table and brutally ripped my unborn child from my womb because they didn't allow bastards to be born. Now, Jackson recognized me instantly. He cornered me in the dark, bit my ear until it bruised, and threw my confidential medical files in my face. "Leave Cason, or I will personally destroy every single thing you care about," he hissed. He thought his billions could buy my silence and erase the agonizing screams of my past. He thought I was just a pathetic con artist trying to steal their trust fund. He didn't know the innocent, terrified girl act was just bait. Standing on the edge of the highway bridge, watching the invincible billionaire tremble in pure terror at the memory of my fake suicide from five years ago, a cold smile curved my lips. My revenge had officially begun, and I was going to tear his empire apart piece by piece.

Annabelle lay dying on a rotting mattress in a freezing apartment, her lungs failing from severe malnutrition. Her phone rang. It was her fiancé, Axel, calling from his lavish wedding—with her best friend, Fay. "You were just a naive ATM," Axel chuckled over the phone. He admitted he had drained her trust fund and framed her for the drug scandal that ruined her life. Fay took the phone, wearing the haute couture wedding dress Annabelle had designed for herself. "Your parents' private jet crash wasn't an accident," Fay whispered viciously. The brutal truth shattered Annabelle. She died in pure agony, vomiting blood, her eyes wide open in absolute hatred. But as her soul floated above her corpse, the door was kicked open by Dangelo Valencia—the arrogant heir she had despised her entire life. He held her ruined body, sobbing, and ordered his private army to destroy Axel and Fay, sending them to prison. Then, Dangelo collapsed, dying from a military shrapnel wound he got just to prove his worth after she had cruelly rejected him years ago. Watching him bleed out for her, Annabelle's soul screamed in excruciating guilt. Why had she blindly trusted a parasite who murdered her family, while destroying the only man who would burn the world down to avenge her? When she opened her eyes again, she was back in her pristine high school uniform. She had returned to the exact day she was supposed to fund Axel's startup. This time, she ripped his business plan to shreds and walked straight out to find Dangelo.

For seven years, I was Grant Charles’s shadow—his top executive assistant by day and the woman in his bed by night. I managed his billion-dollar empire and handled his every crisis, believing our bond was the one thing his money couldn't buy. Everything shattered when I walked into his penthouse and found Aimee Austin sitting on his lap, wearing nothing but his favorite white dress shirt. Grant didn't even look guilty; he just stared at me with cold, arrogant eyes and told me I was dripping rain on his expensive Persian rug. When I tried to resign, he showed me exactly how cruel he could be. He knew I had drained my life savings to pay for my mother’s specialized care for her dementia. "Without my salary and the foundation subsidy, she’ll be on the street in a month," he whispered, his voice dripping with malice. "Is your pride really worth her life?" He didn't stop there. He tried to break my spirit by publicly humiliating me at a high-end restaurant, orchestrating a "setup" to show me that without his protection, I was nothing more than a common servant. He wanted me to realize that without him, I was a nobody with no future. I couldn't believe the man I had protected for nearly a decade was weaponizing my dying mother to keep me as his subordinate. He thought he owned every inch of me, and he was waiting for me to come crawling back on my knees to beg for my old life. But Grant made one fatal mistake: he assumed I was a charity case. He had no idea I was the secret heir to the billion-dollar Klein Trust, currently frozen behind a single marriage clause. I didn't need his money; I just needed a husband. Instead of begging for my job, I walked straight into the office of the only man Grant feared—the ruthless litigator Julian Vance. I threw a marriage contract on his desk and gave him an offer he couldn't refuse. It was time to stop being a shadow and start a war.

I sacrificed my dream career for my fiancé, only to find him cheating with his older investor-a betrayal that led to my mother's death. He reached a new level of cruelty when he dumped my mother's ashes in the trash and conspired to have my wedding dress disintegrate off my body at the altar. I vanished for five years, building a new life with a new family, but now he's found us-and just saved my daughter's life to force his way back in.

My mate, Alpha Damien, was holding a sacred naming ceremony for his heir. The only problem? He was celebrating a pup he had with Lyra, a rogue he brought into our pack. And I, his true mate, four months pregnant with his actual heir, was the only one not invited. When I confronted her, she clawed her own arm, drew blood, and screamed that I had attacked her. Damien saw her performance and didn't even look at me. He snarled, using his Alpha's Command to force me to leave, the power of our bond twisted into a weapon against me. Later, she attacked me for real, making me fall. As blood bloomed on my dress, threatening our child's life, she tossed her own pup onto a rug and screamed that I had tried to kill him. Damien burst in, saw me bleeding on the floor, and didn't hesitate. He scooped Lyra's screaming pup into his arms and sprinted away to find a healer, leaving me and his true heir to die. But as I lay there, my mother's voice echoed in my mind through our own link. My family's escort was waiting for me just beyond the territory border. He was about to find out that the Omega he threw away was actually the princess of the most powerful pack in the world.

For five years, I believed I had the perfect marriage. That ended the day I saw my husband in the park with his son—a son I never knew existed, and a woman my family told me was dead. The woman was Morgan, my adoptive sister who tried to have me killed in a hit-and-run before vanishing. My husband and parents swore she died in a car crash. They all lied. I found a hidden tablet, a five-year highlight reel of my life as a cover story. Photos of a pregnant Morgan. Videos of my husband, David, teaching their son to say “Dada.” Even pictures of my own parents, holding the secret grandson they adored while telling me I wasn't ready for a child. My entire world, my entire family, was a complete fabrication. But the final blow was a recording of David’s voice, discussing a “Plan B” in case I ever discovered the truth. “We can have her declared mentally incompetent. We can have her committed and out of our way for good.” They weren’t just betraying me; they were ready to lock me in a psychiatric ward and throw away the key. So that night, on our fifth anniversary, when David handed me a cup of “calming tea” sent by my mother, I smiled. I played the part of the loving wife one last time, then walked out the door forever. They wanted to erase me, so I decided to become a ghost.

On our wedding anniversary, I had a sudden urge to make a memory video using my husband's old phone. After turning it on, the phone's notes app popped up automatically, with the latest entry titled "Baby Diary." "Today marks one month since our little girl arrived. Mommy's morning sickness seems worse. It breaks my heart. Daddy got you lots of cute dresses to wear when you're here." The note was signed by my husband, James Vance. But I wasn't pregnant. I called James at work. "What's with the notes on your old phone?" His breath caught on the other end, then he chuckled lightly. "Oh, that? It's just a buddy of mine. His wife's pregnant, and he had nowhere to write it down, so he used my phone." I laughed and said okay. After hanging up, I opened the phone's photo album, went to "Recently Deleted," and recovered a deleted ultrasound image. Holding the ultrasound with the name "Amelia Harper" on it, I smiled and dialed my mother-in-law, Margaret.

The heavy iron gate groaned open, spitting me back into a world that felt alien. Three years in hell, for a crime I didn' t commit. I thought it was finally over. My adoptive brother, Ethan, and my former fiancé, Noah, picked me up, not with comfort, but with an invitation to a celebration. For Chloe, my adoptive sister, the golden child. The celebration of her new album, filled with my songs. The whispers followed me into the glittering ballroom. "Is that Sarah Miller? The one who went to jail?" "She looks terrible." Chloe, radiant in a dazzling gown, welcomed me with venomous whispers, flaunting her stolen life. Ethan' s cold righteousness and Noah' s pity were suffocating. They justified my sacrifice, claiming my career was over anyway. They said I owed her. They said I was responsible. But I knew the truth. I was an orphan adopted by the Bennetts, then easily discarded when their biological daughter, Chloe, reappeared. Chloe, who had built her career on my talent, who then drove drunk and struck a pedestrian, begging me to take the fall. I was a fool. They promised to visit, to support me. The visits stopped. The pleas of "Think of it as paying back the family" and "Once you' re out, we can get married" echoed like cruel jokes. Now, as I lay bleeding from Chloe's latest attack, they chose her again, leaving me to die. Why did I blindly sacrifice myself for them? Why did they choose a manipulative liar over the truth, over me? What twisted words did Chloe whisper to make them so utterly blind? My phone buzzed. An unknown number. "Is this… Sarah Miller?" a warm voice asked. "My name is Alexander Hayes. I think… I think you' re my sister."

The dull ache in my belly was a constant reminder: our baby was gone. I was still reeling from the loss when I caught the scent of another woman' s perfume on my fiancé, Liam, in my hospital room. It was "Amour Infini," Clara' s signature scent, clinging to his expensive suit. Clara, our biggest professional rival, the one he had just told me a ridiculous lie about fainting from overwork. My world shattered. My hand hovered over the phone, my thumb on the wedding planner's contact. This wasn't minor infidelity; it was a deep, calculated betrayal. Later, a notification from my best friend, Sarah, flashed on my new phone-Clara' s Instagram. A close-up of a woman' s hand on a pregnant belly, covered protectively by a man' s hand. Liam' s hand, with his family signet ring. A single white heart emoji. He hadn't just cheated; he had built a life, a family, with her. The agony in my chest dwarfed any physical pain. My almost-husband, my protector since childhood, had been building a secret life for years. The man I loved more than anything was a stranger. He thought I was a "sweet little thing," predictable and easily manipulated. He thought he had me under control. But in that moment, as I stared at the glowing testament of his betrayal, something cold and hard settled in my heart. The game had changed. And I, an architect of dreams and now of revenge, was finally ready to play.

My wife, Isabella, spoon-fed me, helped me dress, and assured everyone my hands were useless after the accident. They didn't know I' d secretly regained full strength weeks ago, my dexterity sharper than ever. And they certainly didn' t know I was stone-cold awake that night as Isabella brought Liam into our bed, whispering about my 'dependence' and 'broken' state. Then, on her unlocked phone, the messages flashed: "Our baby, our secret. Ethan will never know. He' s too broken." My breath caught, but my practiced smile remained mildly confused as she handed me back my phone, reminding me not to wait up as she left for "girls' night." The humiliation of being a cuckolded, disabled husband burned, but it was quickly replaced by a cold, meticulous resolve. They thought me broken, a helpless burden? Good. Let them continue to underestimate the architect who was meticulously designing his escape, piece by agonizing piece. The first step was dropping the pretense, and then, slowly, deliberately, dropping the bomb on their perfect betrayal.

The buzzing chaos of my engagement party in 2002 felt sickeningly familiar. I was Ava, back in a life I' d already lived and lost, my head throbbing with memories of a past I was meant to escape. I stood beside Mike, the charming screw-up I' d painstakingly transformed into a partner, turning our dead-end family farm into a success in my first existence. Then I saw her: Chloe, my stepsister, radiating false innocence, her arm provocatively linked with David's. She was the one who plunged a knife into my back, because she couldn't stand my happiness. But the true horror struck when our eyes met – a cold, knowing flicker passed between us. She knew. She was back too. Suddenly, Chloe let out a dramatic wail, tearing herself from David. "No! I can't marry David! I want to marry Mike!" she declared, her voice ringing with feigned tears, publicly humiliating David and staking her claim on my future livelihood. Sharon, my calculated stepmother, then slyly tried to push David, a man Chloe would cripple and abandon in our previous lives, onto me, thinking she was winning her cruel game. The audacity of it: my murderer, back from the dead, attempting to steal the very life she' d taken from me before. A terrifying question echoed: What twisted game was this, and why was fate giving her another chance to ruin everything? A furious resolve simmered beneath my feigned hurt. "But I have conditions," I stated, my eyes fixed on Sharon' s, a new steel in my voice. This wasn't just a switch of fiancés; this was round two. And this time, I would not only thrive, but dismantle every one of their vile schemes, making them pay for every single betrayal.

My name is Sarah, and I remember the cold. Not the chill of winter, but the stainless-steel table against my back. My sons, Michael and Gabriel, were gone, their screams replaced by silence. My husband David, blinded by ambition, led us to that abandoned clinic. His sister, Veronica, craved an heir for her powerful husband, Senator Harrison. She believed my "Legacy Fertility" and my children's "vital essence" could help her. A quack "expert" performed monstrous acts on my seven-year-old twins. Then it was my turn; they brutally harvested my ovarian tissue. I was left to bleed out on a filthy floor, my insides torn. I died there, a vow of revenge frozen on my lips. Later, I saw Veronica on the news, pregnant and glowing with what she stole. But then, warmth. Sunlight. My eyes snapped open to my own familiar bedroom. Michael was on my chest, Gabriel curled beside me, both alive, young, and whole. The calendar read October 14th—the very day it all began. The memory slammed into me: David's averted eyes, the isolated building, Veronica's cold voice, Michael's terror, Gabriel's whimper. This wasn't a dream; this was a second chance. Veronica, triumphant in my first life, had risen on my family's ashes, her belly swelling with a lie while mine was emptied by her greed. No. Not again. This time, I wouldn't just survive. I would take everything she had, everything she wanted. Her husband. Her position. Her future. My revenge would be absolute, and my children would live. The game had begun.

Chloe had just given birth to twins, lying exhausted in a cramped, bustling hospital ward. When she called her husband, Julian, he was busy partying with his actress mistress. He coldly hung up on her, having already drafted a brutal divorce agreement that would leave her with a pittance. Strangers in the next bed loudly mocked her pitiful state, gossiping about how Julian was dumping her. For years, Chloe had erased her own identity to fit into his elite world, only to be thrown away like garbage. She was completely alone, clutching her helpless babies, bracing herself to sign the cruel papers just to survive. She couldn't understand why her absolute devotion was met with such chilling indifference. Why did she have to suffer this ultimate humiliation while he celebrated with the woman who ruined her life? But then, a senior doctor noticed a unique mole on her wrist and ran a secret DNA test. The results were staggering: Chloe was the long-lost daughter of the billionaire Beaumont family. With her fiercely protective parents and three powerful brothers suddenly forming an impenetrable fortress around her, Chloe picked up her phone and texted her arrogant husband. "City Hall tomorrow at 10 AM. If you don't show up, my lawyer will handle everything. And trust me, you won't like their terms."

Five years ago, I stood in the freezing rain at my mother's funeral, waiting for my husband. Blake Knight, the billionaire NHL superstar, was two hours late. When he finally showed up, he brought his rumored girlfriend, the woman he had just rented a hotel rooftop for to celebrate her birthday. Watching him defend her fake tears, my heart completely died. I took off my diamond wedding ring, placed it on my mother's headstone, and walked away from my marriage forever. I fled to London, changed my name to Ava, and secretly raised the triplets he never knew existed. I thought I was finally safe from him. But today, my kids vandalized a silver Aston Martin in our apartment's parking garage, and the owner caught my youngest daughter. My phone rang. The voice on the other end was Blake's. He had moved into my building, and he was holding my little girl in his penthouse, demanding her mother come get her immediately. Panic suffocated me. If I walked through that door, my five years of hiding would be instantly destroyed. He would recognize me, realize I didn't get rid of our child like everyone thought, and he would use all his power to take my babies away. I couldn't let him ruin my life again. "I'm just her nanny," I lied through my teeth. I frantically begged my best friend to go upstairs and rescue my daughter in my place. He bought the disguise, but now, the King of the Ice is dangerously obsessed with investigating my new identity.

She married him out of desperation, becoming the perfect docile wife while he treated her like dirt beneath his shoes. But everything shattered the night she overheard him mocking her with his friends-and discovered the necklace she'd cherished, her only link to the boy who once saved her life, didn't even belong to him. It was all a lie. No longer the doormat he married, she discards her fake identity and reclaims her birthright as the hidden heiress of Salvadore City. Now she's on a mission: find the necklace's true owner among his circle of friends, no matter how many hearts she has to break along the way. But her husband isn't ready to let go. Convinced she's playing games to make him jealous, he's blindsided when divorce papers land in his hands. By the time he realizes the woman he dismissed was never who he thought she was, she's already moved on-living her truth, chasing her destiny, and leaving him choking on regret. Some cages, once opened, can never be closed again.

My stepmother’s bodyguards were seconds away from dragging me back to a life that was essentially a prison cell wrapped in silk. I couldn't even scream for help because the words always died in my throat—a clinical condition called selective mutism that felt like drowning on dry land. I had just discovered the sickening truth: my father was planning to sell me to a sleazy investor named Sterling to cover his company’s bankruptcy. They were going to drug me, ship me off to a private island, and strip away the only thing I had left—my late mother’s multimillion-dollar art trust. When I arrived at the manor, my stepmother Lydia handed me a glass of wine laced with bitter sedatives, her smile sharp as a razor. "Drink up, darling. It’ll make the transition to Mr. Sterling much easier." My stepsister Harper stood in the corner, wearing a dress bought with my mother’s stolen money, mocking my inability to speak. My father didn't even look me in the eye as he calculated my price tag, treating his own daughter like a piece of damaged, mute inventory. They thought because I didn't speak, I didn't hear them laughing about the "accident" that killed my mother or how they planned to burn her final restoration work. They assumed my silence was a sign of surrender, a white flag waved by a broken girl who would never fight back. How could the people who were supposed to be my family treat me like a commodity to be traded? Did they really think my silence meant I was weak, or that I didn't know every dirty secret they were hiding in their ledgers? I didn't drink the wine. Instead, I burst into the VIP suite of Carlisle Pierce, the most cold-blooded billionaire in New York, and slammed a crumpled napkin on his table with a desperate, last-second gambit. "MARRY ME. NOW. $1 MILLION."

As I lay on the floor of our manor, bleeding out from a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, I used my last ounce of strength to call my husband, Cole. I begged him for help, my vision blurring. But the only thing I heard was the clinking of champagne glasses and his mistress's giggle in the background. "Stop the drama, June," Cole snapped, his voice cold. "We're about to go on stage. Don't call again." He hung up, leaving me to die alone on the Persian rug while he accepted an award with another woman on his arm. I woke up in the hospital days later. My baby was gone. They had removed my fallopian tube. Cole finally arrived, smelling of expensive scotch and his mistress's perfume. He didn't hug me. He didn't cry. Instead, he leaned over my hospital bed, pressing his knee into the mattress until my fresh stitches tore open and bled. "You embarrassed me by calling an ambulance," he hissed. "My mistress, Alycia, says you're faking it. Clean yourself up." He left me bleeding again to go announce a $10 million donation to Alycia's "groundbreaking" medical research. I stared at the TV screen, numb. The research Alycia was taking credit for? It was mine. I wrote that patent years ago under a pseudonym. They thought I was just a poor, orphan housewife who needed Cole's money to survive. They had no idea I was actually a billionaire scientist hiding my identity. I pulled the IV needle out of my arm. A drop of blood fell onto the divorce papers I had been hiding. I didn't wipe it off. I signed my name right over it. Then I walked into the bank, reactivated my dormant account with $128 million, and bought the penthouse directly overlooking Cole's house. The mourning widow is dead. The avenger is born.

On our third anniversary, my husband canceled our dinner, claiming a sudden work emergency. I tracked his phone to an exclusive French restaurant, only to find him tenderly fastening a blessed bracelet—one I had flown across the world to get for him—onto his college ex-girlfriend's wrist. The sheer shock triggered a violent placental abruption. Bleeding out in my car just across the street, I frantically called his number. Through the window, I watched him glance at his screen, frown in annoyance, and press decline to focus on his lover. While I was wheeled into a freezing operating room for an emergency C-section utterly alone, he took his mistress back to our marital bed. He didn't even bother to check if I was alive, completely oblivious that our premature daughter was fighting for her life in the NICU. I soon discovered our entire marriage was a sham. He had used my family's wealth to save his company, and now he was trading me to secure a massive business deal with his ex's father. The man I loved didn't exist; he only saw me as a disposable asset. "I'm going to make him wish he had never been born." After secretly securing my baby in a private retreat, I ordered a medical-grade silicone pregnancy belly to hide my flat stomach. I stepped back into our penthouse, ready to burn his precious empire to the ground.

I woke up on silk sheets that smelled of expensive cedar and cold sandalwood, a world away from my cramped apartment in Brooklyn. Beside me lay Ezra Gardner-my boss, the billionaire CEO of Gardner Holdings, and the man who could end my career with a snap of his fingers. He didn't offer an apology for the night before; instead, he looked at me with terrifying clarity and proposed a cold, calculated business arrangement. "Marriage. It stabilizes the board and solves the PR crisis before it begins." He dressed me in archival Chanel and sent me home in his Maybach, but my life was already falling apart. My boyfriend, Irving, claimed he had passed out early, yet his location data placed him at my best friend's apartment until three in the morning. When I tried to run, I realized Ezra was already ten steps ahead, tracking my movements and uncovering the secret I'd spent twenty years hiding: my connection to the powerful Senator Grimes. I was trapped between a CEO who treated me like a line item on a quarterly report and a boyfriend who had been using me while sleeping with my closest friend. I felt like a pawn in a game I didn't understand, wondering why a man like Ezra would walk up forty flights of stairs on a broken leg just to make sure I was safe. "Showtime, Mrs. Gardner." Standing on the red carpet in a gown that cost more than my life, I watched my cheating ex-boyfriend's face turn pale as Ezra claimed me in front of the world. I wasn't just an assistant anymore; I was a weapon, and it was time to burn their world down.

I was an intern nurse working exhausting shifts, yet my mother constantly forced me into blind dates with wealthy, arrogant men to secure our family's social standing. During a terrifying hospital lockdown, an assassin disguised as a doctor held a scalpel to my throat. I was almost killed, but a high-ranking military colonel threw his own body down a flight of concrete stairs to shield me. I survived with cuts and bruises, but when I went home, my mother didn't care about my near-death experience. She was only furious that I had rushed out on my blind date with Preston, a rich financial analyst. She forced me to meet him to apologize. When Preston grabbed my arm, bruised me, and mocked my attack as a pathetic lie, my mother still took his side. "Men get angry," she told me coldly. "It's your job not to provoke them. You will beg for his forgiveness, or you are no longer welcome in this house." I had narrowly escaped an assassin, yet my own family was willing to feed me to a monster just for a fat paycheck and neighborhood gossip. My heart went completely dead. So, when the intimidating Colonel appeared, offering me maximum military protection through a sudden marriage, I didn't hesitate. I walked back into my parents' house and calmly slapped a crisp marriage certificate onto the coffee table. "I won't be apologizing to Preston. I got married today."

I was carefully folding a new silk nightgown, ready to fly to New York and surprise my fiancé of several years, Donald. Then my phone pinged with a photo from my stepsister, Cindy. It was a high-resolution image of her and Donald, tangled together naked on messy bedsheets. On his arm was the one-of-a-kind silver bracelet I had custom-designed for his birthday last month. Cindy was staring right at the camera with a triumphant, provocative smile. A second message popped up: "Omg, sis, so sorry! Sent that by accident!" It was a blatant, mocking slap in the face. Later, I even intercepted a call where Donald laughed with his mother about how my declining family was just a worthless stepping stone for them. He called me a "boring, good girl" who was easy to manage, bragging that he would just go back to having his fun with Cindy right after our wedding. They really thought I was just a naive fool who would either come crying to him or quietly swallow this humiliating betrayal. They thought my silence meant I was weak and defeated. But I didn't shed a single tear, nor did I scream. A cold, sharp anger shot up my spine, extinguishing every last ember of heartbreak. I threw the silk nightgown into the trash, opened my laptop, and used my MIT computer science background to hack straight into their luxury hotel suite's smart system. I wasn't going to New York to cry. I was going to broadcast their filthy affair to the entire city at the most prestigious charity gala of the year.

My sister-in-law didn't want me to marry for love. She wanted me to marry rich-so she could turn my husband into her personal ATM. So I did the one thing guaranteed to ruin all her plans. I got myself a broke hockey player. At least, that's what everyone was supposed to believe. Beckett Hayes needed a girlfriend badly. The Chicago hockey star had a reputation problem, angry sponsors, and too many headlines painting him as arrogant, reckless, and impossible to settle down. I needed a man convincing enough to stop my family from arranging my future for me. Our solution was simple: fake date. His rules were even simpler. Live in his shabby apartment. Help sell the struggling-player act. Smile for the cameras. No real feelings. Easy. Until my family showed up to mock the "loser" I'd chosen-and Beckett stepped between us like they had insulted something that belonged to him. Until he put a no-limit black card in my hand and told me to stop sacrificing my dream of becoming an artist just because I was afraid to spend money. Until our fake dinners started feeling domestic, his hand started finding mine under the table, and I began forgetting that every protective look and possessive touch was supposed to be part of the contract. Then Beckett's grandfather arrived at our tiny apartment wearing cashmere, flanked by bodyguards, carrying a priceless Hayes family heirloom for me. Apparently, pretending to be broke was the easy part. Pretending I wasn't falling for my fake boyfriend was becoming impossible. Especially when his grandfather took our only bedroom and left Beckett and me with one pullout sofa, one night, and absolutely nowhere left to hide.