Alfred

My life with Ethan Hayes was a true New York fairytale. He was devastatingly handsome, a brilliant tech CEO, and our engagement was the stuff of lifestyle blogs and glittering society columns. I poured my heart into our eight years together, building a perfect future, a "Golden Couple" image people envied. Until I found the texts: "Can't wait until she's out of the picture for good. You promised." And then the photos, the eggplant emoji, the casual cruelty of a Cartier bracelet – "one-of-a-kind," he'd said – glinting on *her* wrist, identical to mine. Chloe Vance, an old college acquaintance, was his secret "escape," his "excitement." Not just a fling, but a long-term, calculated betrayal. He lavished gifts on me, charming me even as he publicly defended her, dismissing my concerns. He even gave his pregnant mistress his family heirloom, the one he swore was meant only for me. My birthday ended with him ditching me for her manufactured crisis, only for me to receive a photo of Chloe's pregnancy report. Eight years. A lifetime of promises. All built on his lies. How could someone be so utterly, flawlessly deceptive? My love for him turned to ice, replaced by a searing ache of betrayal and a cold, quiet rage. I wouldn't cry. I wouldn't scream. I pressed call on Liam Walker's name, a man from a past I’d left behind, and uttered four words that would change everything: "Marry me, Liam." It was time for a reckoning. And I knew just how to deliver it.

For five years, I lived a beautiful lie. I was Aliana Hughes, the cherished wife of the city's most feared Mafia Capo and the beloved daughter of the Don. I believed my arranged marriage had blossomed into love. On my birthday, my husband promised me the amusement park. Instead, I found him there with his other family, celebrating the fifth birthday of the son I never knew he had. I overheard their plan. My husband called me a "naive fool," a placeholder to legitimize his secret son. The ultimate betrayal wasn't his affair, but the sight of my own father's car parked across the street. My family wasn't just aware; they were the architects of my ruin. Back home, I found the proof: a secret photo album of my husband's other family posing with my parents, and records showing my father had bankrolled the entire deception. They had even drugged me on weekends so he could play happy family. The grief didn't break me. It turned into something cold and sharp. I was a ghost in a life that was never mine, and a ghost has nothing to lose. I copied every damning file onto a USB drive. As they celebrated their perfect day, I sent a courier with my parting gift: a recording of their treachery. While their world burned, I walked toward the airport, ready to erase myself and start over.

My husband studied the fertility report on his desk with the same cold precision he used to order executions. On our fifth anniversary, he didn't give me diamonds. He checked his Rolex and delivered the sentence that ended my life. "Your genetic profile is defective, Catarina." He didn't just ask for a divorce. He pressed a button on his intercom, and a woman walked in. She was loud, chewing gum, and wearing a dress that was too tight. "This is Aria," Alex said, his voice flat. "She is a vessel. She will carry the heir your body cannot produce." He claimed it was just business, that she would be exiled once the child was born. But at my birthday gala, when Aria tripped into a champagne tower, the truth shattered along with the glass. I was the one bleeding, a jagged shard slicing my arm. But Alex didn't look at me. He threw his body over her. He cradled his mistress, screaming for a doctor to check the baby, while I stood there with blood dripping onto the marble floor, completely invisible. I watched him give his own blood to save her in the clinic later that night. I saw the way he looked at her—not like a vessel, but like a prize. He thought I would stay. He thought I was the obedient Mafia wife who would raise his mistress's child to save the family image. So when he handed me a stack of papers to "protect the assets," he was too arrogant to read them. He didn't notice the header read *Decree of Divorce*. While he was busy buying baby clothes for a child that didn't even exist, I wiped my identity from the servers, signed the papers he blindly authorized, and boarded a one-way jet to Paris. By the time he realizes his "heir" is a fraud, I will already be a ghost.

I was the dust beneath the pack's feet, an Omega nobody wanted. Yet, the Moon Goddess paired me with Ethan Reed, the Alpha heir. He told me he had amnesia, that he couldn't feel our bond. I was foolish enough to wait for him. Until I saw him running away with his mistress, Chloe. When their SUV flipped and caught fire on the highway, I didn't hesitate. I dragged Ethan from the wreckage, my hands bleeding, my heart racing. But as soon as he was safe, he didn't check on me. "Save her!" He roared, his eyes flashing gold. He used the Alpha Command. My body locked up, forced to obey against my will. I dove back into the burning car to drag Chloe out, shattering my leg as the fuel tank exploded. I lay in the dirt, dying, while Ethan cradled Chloe—who had barely a scratch. When the healers arrived, Ethan stood over me, cold and indifferent. "Do not touch the Omega until Chloe is treated," he ordered. He looked me in the eye and called me weak. He left me to bleed out in the cold night air for the sake of a woman who smirked at my pain. Something inside me snapped. With my last breath, I didn't beg. I rejected him. They buried an empty coffin the next morning. Three years later, I walked back into the Blood Moon Pack. I wasn't Ava the servant anymore. I was the White Wolf. And I was ready to burn his kingdom to the ground.

Ellen had spent ten years cleaning her husband's home, a quiet devotion to the man who demanded her constant labor. But while vacuuming under their bed, her world shattered with a single, horrifying discovery. Hidden away was a secret phone, revealing a life her husband had built with another woman and child for the past eight years. A decade of devoted homemaking for Adrian in their Los Angeles home was Ellen’s life. While cleaning, she found a hidden compartment and a new iPhone, which she shockingly unlocked. The wallpaper revealed Adrian with a secret family in Austin—a double life since her own pregnancy. Texts detailed a $1.2 million house and lavish expenses for “Angel.” Adrian stirred, forcing Ellen to hide the device. Her son was denied a $200 class, while her $50,000 inheritance funded Adrian’s secret family. Rage replaced her tears. Ellen photographed all incriminating details, hid the phone, and forced a submissive smile. Her quiet devotion was over; her war had just begun.

Five years ago, Grace made a devastating deal to save her fiancé, Jake, from federal prison. She publicly dumped him, threw her Cartier engagement ring at his chest, and pretended to be a heartless gold digger who abandoned him for money. Now, Jake had returned as a ruthless tech billionaire, and his first act was buying the very hotel where Grace worked as a struggling maid. He didn't know she had secretly given birth to his son, Cody, who was currently fighting for his life in the pediatric ICU. Driven by a dark, obsessive hatred, Jake made her life a living hell. He forced her to clean up shattered glass with her bare hands and crushed her fingers under his expensive leather shoe. When Grace desperately begged him for three million dollars to pay for her son's life-saving treatment, Jake mistook it as a plea to save her new lover. "You want the money? Get on your hands and knees and crawl to the desk like a dog." Grace swallowed her shattered dignity, dropped to her knees, and crawled across the floor as he poured red wine over her head. She endured the agonizing humiliation, unable to understand how the man who used to kiss her forehead every morning had become a sadistic monster. Clutching the check, Grace walked out of his penthouse. But with the hospital pressing for answers, she knew the secret couldn't stay buried forever. What would Jake do when he finally discovered the "lover" he just humiliated her to save was actually his own dying son?

I was Grayson Warren’s "broken doll," a disgraced socialite kept on a short leash to pay off my family’s debts. To the world, I was a fragile liability; to Grayson, I was a pet he could humiliate for sport, forcing me to play the role of a mentally unstable girl while I secretly gathered evidence against his empire. The cruelty peaked when Grayson forced me to break three years of sobriety in front of his investors, mocking my struggle before making me kneel on a golf course to scrub his shoes. He treated my life like a game, literally betting my sanity against a corporate board seat while he soft-launched a new relationship with a high-profile PR queen. When the pressure triggered a massive panic attack, Grayson abandoned me in a private clinic just so he wouldn't miss a dinner reservation. Even my own mother turned against me, threatening to leak my psychiatric records and brand me a "violent delusional" if I didn't beg for Grayson’s forgiveness. I was trapped between a man who owned my debt and a mother who valued her estate over my daughter’s life. I realized then that they would never let me go; they would only break me until there was nothing left. They thought they had erased my soul, but they forgot I was the only witness to the night my true love, Felix, was murdered. I was done being the victim. I faked a suicide jump off the Queensboro Bridge to go off the grid, then crashed Grayson’s elite gala in a dress that signaled his downfall. Just as Grayson tried to physically crush me one last time, the room went silent. Felix Law, the man the world thought was dead for three years, walked out of the shadows with a federal warrant in his hand. "Take your hands off her, Warren." The game didn't just change; it ended. Felix was back from the dead, and this time, we were burning the empire to the ground together.

Standing on the edge of a limestone quarry in the pouring rain, I thought we were just having another family argument. Then my mother, Ardell, screamed that I’d let the life insurance lapse, and my brother, Hakeem, stepped out of the shadows with a cold, calculating look in his eyes. I told them I knew the truth—that Hakeem had cut the brake lines on my father’s car—but they didn't flinch. Instead, Hakeem shoved me hard, sending me tumbling into the abyss. I hit a jagged ledge thirty feet down, the sound of my spine snapping like a dry branch echoing through the rain. As I lay paralyzed and broken, my mother watched from above, asking if I was dead yet, before Hakeem whistled for the starving wild dogs that lived in the quarry floor. "Nature will clean up the mess," Hakeem said, walking away while the first set of teeth sank into my throat. The agony was a tidal wave, but the rage was hotter, a nuclear hatred for the family that stole my future and the daughter I’d never see grow up. I died in that dirt, consumed by fire and teeth, wondering how a mother could choose a car payment over her own child's life. But then, I gasped for air, sitting bolt upright in my old trailer bedroom. I looked at the calendar: May 12, 2014. I was seventeen again, but I wasn't the same girl. Inside this malnourished body was the mind of a world-class trauma surgeon and the elite hacker known as 'Phantom.' This time, I wasn't going to the quarry; I was going for their throats.

I sold my vintage Fender bass to pay for Jarvis' s med school tuition, believing his promise that we would conquer the world together. Ten years later, I found a hidden folder on his laptop titled "Exit Strategy," detailing exactly how to leave me homeless while he moved our daughter's tutor into my house. He wasn't just cheating; he was systematically erasing me. On the nanny cam, I watched him laugh as Chrissy, the "angelic" tutor, wore my silk robe and mocked my music as childish noise. He told her I was nothing but a stepping stone, a connection to my father's influence that he had finally outgrown. I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I quietly gathered the evidence, secured my assets, and served him divorce papers that shattered his carefully curated reputation. But when Chrissy, driven mad by his lies, dragged our daughter to a snowy cliff' s edge, Jarvis finally fell to his knees. He wept, begging for a second chance, swearing I was the only woman he ever loved. I looked at the man who had plotted my ruin, then down at my daughter who saw right through him. "It's too late, Jarvis," I said, my voice colder than the wind. I walked away into the snow, holding my daughter tight, leaving him alone in the cold with nothing but his regrets.

My husband and coach hadn't answered my calls in five days. I was home, sick and nursing a career-ending injury, when I found him on another woman's social media, his arm draped around her shoulders, a smile on his face I hadn't seen in years. The next time I saw him was at the hospital. She was with him, pregnant with his child. When my bad ankle gave out and I collapsed, he ignored me on the floor to protect her. My medical reports scattered across the tiles, and she deliberately stomped on them with a smirk. He didn't defend me. He just called me pathetic for making a scene. "You got injured, Aria," he sneered, his voice cold. "You fell apart. You're a mess." But that report she stomped on held my terminal diagnosis. I had months, maybe a year, left to live. With nothing left to lose, I filed for divorce and booked a one-way ticket to see the world. My life was ending, but for the first time, I was going to live it for myself.

My father's routine heart surgery went horribly wrong, leaving him in a coma. The surgeon was Fabiola, my husband Julian's celebrated childhood friend. When I begged Julian to use his immense resources to save him, he gave me a chilling ultimatum: my father's life for Fabiola's career. To protect her, he stood by as she deliberately scalded my hand with boiling soup. He locked me in a rat-infested wine cellar to "teach me a lesson." He even force-fed me peanuts, knowing I had a deadly allergy, and had me committed to a psychiatric hospital when I still wouldn't break. I didn't understand how the man who once promised to build a fortress around me had become the one launching the attack, all for a woman he claimed was just a friend. So, as Fabiola shoved me from the deck of our yacht into the dark water below, I didn't fight. I let myself fall, because faking my death was the only way to destroy them both.

For seven years, I was the perfect husband, or rather, the perfect live-in help, trapped in a gilded cage after the Davies family took me in following my parents' death and arranged a marriage to their daughter, Olivia. I gave up my dreams, working a stable job and tending to their every need, becoming a well-dressed butler to a wife who treated me like a convenience and a daughter who called me Ethan. But then, one night, after celebrating a major promotion, I returned home to find the smart lock code changed. Access denied. My own daughter, Lily, saw me through the frosted glass and walked away, refusing to open the door. Olivia's phone went straight to voicemail, the house line just rang. A profound cold settled in my bones as I realized one small deviation from seven years of perfect service meant I was literally cast aside. The next morning, I drove to a diner and called a divorce lawyer. When Olivia finally called, annoyed I wasn't home for Lily's school ride, I simply said, "I'm with my lawyer. I'm filing for divorce." She laughed, bewildered, asking if one night outside was worth it. I thought of the endless chores, my abandoned art, Lily calling me Ethan, the cold silence of the house, and the shadow behind the glass. "Absolutely," I replied. Her tone shifted, sharp and authoritative. "Fine. You can divorce me. But you can't take Lily. She's a Davies. She stays here." I smiled grimly. "Don't worry," I told her, "I'll waive my parental rights. You can have full custody." I then quit the job, gave up the car, and hung up, feeling a wave of liberation I hadn't known in years. I shed the role of their dutiful servant, moving back to my dilapidated childhood home. I rebuilt it with my own hands, filmed the process, and watched in stunned silence as my online channel, "The Rebuilder," exploded, bringing me more success and peace than I'd ever known. This was my life now, simple, honest, and truly mine.

The acrid smell of antiseptic and fear hit me first, a phantom scent from a life I' d already lost. I was back, standing under the buzzing fluorescent lights of the 24/7 animal emergency hospital, on the same exhaustion-laden shift I' d worked before. My phone buzzed with a text from Molly, my best friend: "Thanks again for covering, Gabs! You' re a lifesaver. Brian and I owe you one!" Brian. My husband. Molly. My best friend. The names twisted in my gut, bringing back the crushing weight of their betrayal, the public shame, the cold click of a bathroom door. I remembered the screaming, the accusations, and Duchess, the champion show dog, lifeless in her kennel. I remembered Brian' s cold eyes, Molly' s fake concern, and the news of their luxury car business, bought with my life insurance money. They didn' t just ruin my life; they murdered it. But they failed. I was back, at the exact moment my universe began to unravel. This time, I wasn' t the broken woman who ended it all. My name is Gabrielle Fuller, and this time, things would be different.

I lay dying on the cold Chicago asphalt, Nightfall's attack tearing through me. My last hope, the Heartstone Amulet, was clutched in my hand, meant for Mark, our fallen leader, the one the Order truly needed. Then Olivia, the orphaned girl I' d raised and loved like a sister, knelt beside me. I gasped, holding out the Amulet: "Give it to Mark, he needs it!" Her hand reached for it… and then tightened, not gently, but with a bone-chilling strength. She ripped the Amulet from my grasp. "I need him to live, Ethan!" she whispered, her eyes fixed solely on Mark. She scrambled away, leaving me to the cold embrace of death as she revived him. She never looked back. The betrayal, from her, was a physical blow, worse than any wound. My selflessness, my sacrifice… wasted on a fool. It wasn't for the Order, but her desperate desire for him. Mark always got what he wanted. How could I have been so blind, so utterly foolish, to die for someone who could betray me with such chilling indifference? But then, darkness faded into a blinding flash. I stood, years earlier, in the grimy Chicago alley where I'd first found Olivia. The skirmish was ending, she was there, injured. Before, I would have rushed to her side, full of compassion. But this time, I felt nothing but ice. I remembered. And this time, the illusionist would play a different game.

Their love was innocent but touching. She swallowed down all the frustration in life when she was with him. All she wanted was that this love would be last forever, but reality taught her a hard lesson. She thought she made the right choice for each other. However, when they met again, tears welled up her eyes. Love was complicated, but she would always choose him no matter what.

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 once the heiress to the Solomon empire, but after it crumbled, I became the "charity case" ward of the wealthy Hyde family. For years, I lived in their shadows, clinging to the promise that Anson Hyde would always be my protector. That promise shattered when Anson walked into the ballroom with Claudine Chapman on his arm. Claudine was the girl who had spent years making my life a living hell, and now Anson was announcing their engagement to the world. The humiliation was instant. Guests sneered at my cheap dress, and a waiter intentionally sloshed champagne over me, knowing I was a nobody. Anson didn't even look my way; he was too busy whispering possessively to his new fiancée. I was a ghost in my own home, watching my protector celebrate with my tormentor. The betrayal burned. I realized I wasn't a ward; I was a pawn Anson had kept on a shelf until he found a better trade. I had no money, no allies, and a legal trust fund that Anson controlled with a flick of his wrist. Fleeing to the library, I stumbled into Dallas Koch-a titan of industry and my best friend's father. He was a wall of cold, absolute power that even the Hydes feared. "Marry me," I blurted out, desperate to find a shield Anson couldn't climb. Dallas didn't laugh. He pulled out a marriage agreement and a heavy fountain pen. "Sign," he commanded, his voice a low rumble. "But if you walk out that door with me, you never go back." I signed my name, trading my life for the only man dangerous enough to keep me safe.

Lillian woke in a werecreature universe as a total loser. Good news was that women ruled here and could take multiple mates, yet she still ended up as the one everyone looked down on. Compared to her talented sister at every turn, she watched her first match get stolen and her next four mates reject her without mercy. The first mate was the King of Succubine himself. On their very first meeting, he warned Lillian that he was only staying long enough to recover from his injuries-and that there could never be anything between them. The second mate was a merman. He took one look at her and said he had no interest in a loser like her, tossing her some cash so she could break off their bond herself. The third mate was the progenitor vampire-over a thousand years old. He admitted to admiring her sister instead and made it clear he had no interest in a layabout like Lillian. Lillian cut every bond and chose her own path instead. But as she rose higher and higher, those same men returned, full of regret and begging her to look at them again. The fourth mate was a werewolf Lillian had rescued from an underground fighting ring. She thought he might actually stay-until he revealed himself as royalty. And of course, he wanted to break their bond for more power.

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.

Kayla stood outside the CEO suite, holding a custom suit for her fiancé, Brennon. They had spent seven years building a tech company from a freezing garage into a billion-dollar empire. But through the cracked door, she heard the breathy laugh of Evelin, the newly hired director. Then came Brennon's low, careless voice. "The wedding's a PR milestone for the IPO, nothing more." Kayla's blood turned to ice. "She's comfortable. Makes sense on paper," Brennon continued. "But you, Evelin. You understand ambition." The betrayal hit her like a physical blow. She had written the core code that made him a billionaire. She had stayed up until 4 AM debugging while he slept on a futon. Now, he was mocking their relationship to his mistress and handing over her life's work to a woman who couldn't even read a data log. Seven years of loyalty, reduced to a PR stunt. She didn't cry. Instead, a cold, violent clarity washed over her. Why should she let him keep the crown she forged? Without a word, she pulled the three-carat diamond off her finger and dropped it into her bag. She walked out of the building, drafted her resignation, and accepted a VP position at his biggest Wall Street rival. It was time to show Brennon what happened when the real genius behind his empire decided to tear it down.

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 woke up from a coma in the hospital, universally condemned as the vicious daughter who pushed the beloved fake heiress, Georgina, down the stairs. My ruthless billionaire brother, Angelo, stood over my bed with cold eyes, ready to destroy me for hurting his precious sister. But as I looked at him, a terrifying prophecy from my coma flooded my brain. Our entire family was doomed. In the original timeline, Georgina would team up with corporate rivals to bankrupt the company, frame Angelo, and send him to federal prison, while our parents would abandon me to die miserably. Lying there, I didn't dare speak. I just desperately cursed my idiot brother in my head. "This stupid brother is still yelling at me for that fake heiress. He doesn't even know he's going to be framed and sent to prison next month!" I just wanted to stay quiet, let them ruin themselves, and run away from this toxic family. But strangely, Angelo didn't strangle me. Instead, his attitude took a shocking turn. He abruptly fired the driver plotting to kill him, destroyed the abusive fiancé of a family ally, and publicly humiliated Georgina at a high-society gala. He even shielded me from our abusive parents, declaring to the world that I was the only sister he would ever protect. I was completely terrified and confused. Why was the tyrant brother suddenly acting like a protective beast? It wasn't until he flawlessly crushed a massive corporate attack using the exact financial secrets I had just complained about in my mind that a horrifying realization hit me. He could hear my inner thoughts!

Her sister is marrying her ex. So she brings her best friend as her fake fiancé. What could possibly go wrong? Savannah Hart thought she was over Dean Archer-until her sister, Chloe announces she's marrying him. The same man Savannah never stopped loving. The man who left her heartbroken... and now belongs to her sister. A weeklong wedding in New Hope. One mansion full of guests. And a very bitter maid of honor. To survive it, Savannah brings a date-her charming, clean-cut best friend, Roman Blackwood. The one man who's always had her back. He owes her a favor, and pretending to be her fiancé? Easy. Until fake kisses start to feel real. Now Savannah's torn between keeping up the act... or risking everything for the one man she was never supposed to fall for.

On the night before her wedding, Navia Harrison discovers her fiancé in bed with her step-sister-and worse, the two of them are already planning how to get rid of her after the marriage. Humiliated and consumed by hatred, Navia exposes their affair during the wedding ceremony itself, destroying both families' reputations in a single move. Then, she meets him. Leonel Crawford - the cold and dangerously powerful head of the Crawford family. Untouchable. Ruthless. A man no woman has ever been able to keep close. He's also her ex-fiancé's uncle. One impulsive proposal changes everything. "If you need a wife... marry me instead." "Honestly... we'd make a pretty good match."

The sterile white of the operating room blurred, then sharpened, as Skye Sterling felt the cold clawing its way up her body. The heart monitor flatlined, a steady, high-pitched whine announcing her end. Her uterus had been removed, a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, but the blood wouldn't clot. It just kept flowing, warm and sticky, pooling beneath her. Through heavy eyes, she saw a trembling nurse holding a phone on speaker. "Mr. Kensington," the nurse's voice cracked, "your wife... she's critical." A pause, then a sweet, poisonous giggle. Seraphina Miller. "Liam is in the shower," Seraphina's voice purred. "Stop calling, Skye. It's pathetic. Faking a medical emergency on our anniversary? Even for you, that's low." Then, Liam's bored voice: "If she dies, call the funeral home. I have a meeting in the morning." Click. The line went dead. A second later, so did Skye. The darkness that followed was absolute, suffocating, a black ocean crushing her lungs. She screamed into the void, a silent, agonizing wail of regret for loving a man who saw her as a nuisance, for dying without ever truly living. Until she died, she didn't understand. Why was her life so tragically wasted? Why did her husband, the man she loved, abandon her so cruelly? The injustice of it all burned hotter than the fever in her body. Then, the air rushed back in. Skye gasped, her body convulsing violently on the mattress. Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified, staring blindly into the darkness. Her trembling hand reached for her phone. May 12th. Five years ago. She was back.