Bing Xialuo

I spent five years acting as the perfect, invisible caretaker for my wealthy family, meticulously managing their health and social standing while they treated me like a ghost. Then, my nightmare became reality when my brother Alon shoved me out of bed, forcing me to apologize to our adopted sister, Fallon, for a jealousy I never felt. My parents and brother stood over me, their eyes filled with unfiltered disgust, demanding I play the servant to a girl who was actively plotting my social destruction. They froze my accounts, stripped me of my dignity, and mocked my existence, fully expecting me to crawl back to them in tears like I did in my other, broken life. I stared at their entitled faces, feeling a cold, sharp clarity wash over me; they were so obsessed with status that they didn't realize they had just handed the keys to their own ruin to a complete amateur. Why was I still playing the martyr for people who would watch me burn without blinking? I stood up, walked away from their chaos, and cut the final tie, leaving them to face the ruthless social elite with a liability they couldn't control.

Adaline was trapped in a cold marriage with a billionaire, carrying a child he openly despised. While suffering a threatened miscarriage at the clinic, she overheard her husband and her adoptive sister laughing in a VIP room. They callously admitted to drugging her seven months ago, orchestrating the pregnancy just to use her as a temporary PR shield. The shock caused a severe hemorrhage, nearly killing her baby. Before she could even recover, her husband's thugs dragged her from the trauma bed to a high-society gala. When Adaline tried to expose their crimes, her husband slapped her across the face and publicly stripped her of every cent. Feigning victimhood, her sister ordered armed mercenaries to pin Adaline to a marble banquet table. "Tear her clothes off. Let's show the whole city what kind of body this whore has!" The heavy silk of her dress was violently ripped apart. Surrounded by hundreds of mocking elites, Adaline curled into a desperate ball to protect her womb, her heart turning to absolute ash as she realized she was entirely, hopelessly alone. Suddenly, the heavy bronze doors of the ballroom were blasted open. The ruthless, gold-spectacled trauma surgeon who had saved her life hours earlier strode through the crowd, shattered the mercenary's arm, and wrapped his warm coat around her bleeding shoulders. "In this city, no one touches my patient without my permission."

My husband drugged me. Then he planted my masked shadow guard in my bed and arrived with witnesses. "Name Kayden my secondary consort, or every noble in Althea will hear how their precious First Princess spent the night beneath another man." In my first life, I surrendered. For three years, Jaheem Bradley's family forged my seals, stole my royal vineyards and dragon crystal mines, and used my gold to indulge his mistress. When rebel dragons attacked, my husband locked the fortress gates behind me and left me to be torn apart in the Dragon Graveyard. Even my childhood maid sold my life for thirty gold coins. Only Kael stayed. The disfigured shadow guard took ten thousand dragonfire arrows for me. After my death, he finally revealed his true identity-Callen Hart, the undefeated War Lord of the North-and burned House Bradley to the ground in vengeance. When I opened my eyes again, I was back in that poisoned bed. But I was no longer the foolish princess who had begged for her husband's love. I answered Jaheem's scheme with golden dragonfire. I shattered our marriage contract, reclaimed everything his family had stolen, and sent the traitor to the black dungeons. Then Callen's iron mask fell. "Do not look at me, Your Highness. My face will disgust you." I pressed my palm against the cursed black scales covering his cheek. "Whether you are Lord Callen or Kael, my shadow guard, you belong to me." They called him a cursed monster. My blood called him my fated mate. Now the Regent is sending an army to murder my younger brother and seize his throne. My enemies still believe I am the blind princess they once deceived. They stole my fortune, my kingdom, and my life once. This time, I will take back everything-and anyone who reaches for what is mine will burn.

For three years, I played the perfect, obedient wife to the Carlyle-Spencer family, enduring my mother-in-law's icy commands to clean up my husband's messes. But when I went to a high-end bar to bring him home, I found him intimately laughing with Britany, the sister of his deceased first love. She was even wearing a replica of her sister's famous diamond necklace, a blatant provocation aimed right at me. Instead of feeling guilty, my husband looked at me with pure disgust. "Who the hell told you to come here? Don't make a scene." He whispered those venomous words before turning his back on me to escort her home, leaving me to be publicly mocked as the discarded wife. When I calmly handed him a divorce agreement, he laughed in my face. He set an impossible condition, demanding I get both our traditional grandfathers to sign off on it, thinking I was just a desperate woman playing a game. His mother even locked us in the master suite, demanding I provide the family with an heir to fix the scandal. They all thought I was a nobody clinging to their wealth, a fragile doll they could manipulate, trap, and humiliate at will. They didn't know my grandfather had hidden a secret clause in our prenup. Because of Julian's emotional infidelity, I had the right to unilaterally dissolve the marriage and take back my massive dowry with interest. I calmly packed up my hidden Stanford robotics PhD research and prepared to leave this gilded cage, ready to watch his arrogant world crumble.

I was freezing to death in an abandoned cabin, desperately waiting for my fiancé to save me. Instead, my phone flickered with a video from my adopted sister. She was smiling as she confessed that she and my fiancé had orchestrated my kidnapping, and my parents' fatal plane crash, just to steal my family's trust fund. When I called him with my dying breath, he mocked me for faking a PR stunt and hung up. I died in the sub-zero blizzard, consumed by absolute despair. But as a ghost, I watched my greatest business rival, the ruthless billionaire Collins, kick down the doors of my mansion. He didn't just mourn me. He shot my fiancé, trapped my sister, and set the entire place on fire, choosing to burn alive in the inferno just to avenge me. I couldn't understand why the man I had publicly despised for a decade loved me so fiercely, while the people I gave everything to wanted me dead. Opening my eyes again, I was back backstage on the night I won my Oscar, four years ago. My fiancé smiled, holding out his arms to hug me. I pushed him away in disgust, marched straight into the crowded theater, and kissed my billionaire rival on live television. "Let's get married tomorrow." This time, I would use him to burn them all to the ground.

Corey Hendrix was the family's dirty secret, a forgotten stepdaughter deliberately hidden away in rural Montana for twenty years. But today, her stepfather Isham summoned her to his study and slid a marriage contract across the desk. He was forcing her to marry Lucas Fitzgerald—a powerful billionaire rumored to be paralyzed from the waist down—simply so her favored stepsister Brandi wouldn't have to waste her life on a "cripple." "If you refuse, you'll be on the street before dinner. Let's see how long you last." Isham threatened her with cold disdain, treating her like a worthless commodity to be traded for a corporate alliance. Her stepsister Brandi kicked her door open just to mock her, calling her a pathetic country bumpkin. They even used Corey's tragically deceased mother as emotional blackmail, entirely confident in their control, secretly hiding the fact that Isham had embezzled the five-million-dollar trust fund her mother left behind. The entire Copeland family looked down on her, convinced she was just a timid, helpless outcast who had no choice but to accept this deeply unfair fate. They had no idea that the moment Corey walked out of that study, her submissive mask dissolved. Locking her bedroom door, she pulled out an encrypted, military-grade laptop and logged in under her real title: Commander "Argent" of the BTO special ops. This forced marriage wasn't a cage, but her perfect cover to infiltrate New York's elite and finally avenge her mother's murder.

I threw myself in front of the ruthless Alpha King's convoy, risking death to demand justice against my fated mate who had forsaken our sacred bond. But when the King brought me to Ryker's doorstep, I found him holding the local Alpha's beautiful daughter. To protect his future, Ryker pointed at my undeniable mate mark and lied to the entire pack. "It was a lie. A paid act to comfort my dying mother." Instantly, the pack turned on me, branding me a vicious gold-digger who exploited a dead woman's memory. When I slapped him for blaspheming the Goddess, he snapped my arm in half in front of everyone. Later, his new mate's father threw a half-million-dollar check at my hospital bed, ordering me to take the blood money and vanish. I was just an Omega. In their eyes, my sacred bond and my shattered heart were worthless, easily crushed under the weight of their ambition. How could the man who promised me forever turn into a monster who wanted me dead? But my honor was not for sale. Backed by the Alpha King, I stripped Ryker of his wealth, and when they sent rogues to kidnap me that night, I threw myself from a moving van into the dark woods, ready to start my revenge.

I caught the white roses at my best friend’s wedding. Everyone expected Nero, the Mafia Underboss I’d loved for eight years, to drop to one knee and propose. Instead, he ripped the bouquet from my hands and gave it to his secretary. “Next time, Siena,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. “Let Valentina have her moment in the spotlight.” In front of every Capo and soldier in the city, he stripped me of my dignity just to please a girl who played at being a mobster’s muse. To him, I was merely an entry in a ledger—forever pending, never prioritized. I quietly sold our penthouse, packed my bags, and walked away. In seven days, I would no longer be his shadow. I planned to marry his rival Don.

My father was the King of Wall Street until he was branded a fraud, turning the Maxwell name into a lead weight dragging me to the bottom of the Hudson. I walked into the Brennan Media Tower with blood-red lipstick and a desperate proposal, offering myself as a "paper wife" to Garland Brennan, the coldest billionaire in Manhattan. Garland didn’t even look at me as a human being; he tore my term sheet in half and called me "radioactive" before having security toss me out like trash. I returned to my rotting apartment in Bushwick only to find my roommate’s cousin, a debt collector named Jax, waiting to break my bones. He pinned me against the wall, his hand heavy on my throat as he sneered about selling me to a club to pay off my father's debts. With my ribs aching and my back against the radiator, I had to leak corporate secrets on Twitter just to summon Garland’s private mercenaries to stop a predator. The humiliation didn't stop there. At the Met Gala, the elite mocked my dress made of construction tarp, and my father’s creditors began harassing my senile grandmother in her nursing home. I was a cornered animal, and Garland Brennan was the only hunter offering a cage instead of a grave. I realized then that in this zip code, you are either the predator or the prey, and I was tired of being hunted. Garland offered me a marriage contract that demanded total submission—no equity, no voting rights, just an employee with a wedding ring. I signed the four-hundred-page document with a steady hand, but not before hiding a legal poison pill in the fine print. He thinks he bought a silent asset, but I just secured a front-row seat to his downfall.

The sharp pain in my son Timmy's leg was the start of it all. A snakebite. I rushed him to Mercy General, where my older son David worked as an ER doctor. He would save his little brother. But the moment I burst into the emergency room, collapsing with Timmy limp in my arms, a blonde nurse named Ashley Jones, David' s girlfriend, turned on me. She met my desperate plea for help with a cold refusal, demanding I fill out forms. When I begged her to get David, her eyes hardened. She shoved me, snarling, "Get in line like everyone else." She scoffed at my claims of being David' s mother, dismissing Timmy as a "little brat," even threatening to let him die. She stole my phone, smashing it when she saw the silver sparrow charm-identical to hers-on my keychain, screaming about David being a "cheating bastard." Ashley even called her brother Kevin, a brute, to deal with me. Other nurses and patients stared but did nothing as Ashley, ignoring Timmy' s fading breath, reveled in my anguish. She kicked my spilled purse, scattering my ID, and mocked my desperate pleas for help. She demanded I kowtow, to bow my head, begging for her mercy, while filming my humiliation on her phone. As Timmy' s lips turned blue, I swallowed my pride, head pressed against the cold floor, whispering, "I'm sorry. Please… help my son." But even that wasn't enough for the monster. She demanded I slap myself, ten times. It was then, as I raised my hand, that I saw Timmy. Still. Silent. He was gone. My son was dead. And in that moment, all my humiliation, all my fear, was burned away, replaced by a volcanic, white-hot rage.

The sterile white walls of the restoration studio, once my sanctuary, felt like a cage closing in. My former mentor, Mark, stood in the doorway, his face a mask of disappointment, while my ambitious intern, Chloe, watched with a smirk of triumph. I was quitting, giving up the career I had painstakingly built, a decade\'s worth of meticulous work and groundbreaking techniques, all because of a fabricated scandal that destroyed my reputation overnight. They blamed me, the "disgraced restorer," for vandalizing a priceless Degas sculpture, a heinous act I didn' t commit but one Chloe expertly pinned on me, while her "artistic intuition" - my stolen methods - catapulted her to fame. The public humiliation was immediate, a cup of coffee thrown at me on the sidewalk, my name dragged through the mud, while Chloe and Mark reveled in their newfound prestige. I couldn' t comprehend how quickly my life unraveled, why Mark, the man I loved and trusted, so easily believed her lies, or how Chloe consistently knew my most private thoughts and theories. But as I packed my grandfather's tools, leaving behind the life they had ruined, a cold, hard resolve replaced the shame; I wouldn\'t be a victim any longer, and I would uncover the truth behind Chloe\'s "gift" and the full extent of their betrayal.

For years, I was Mrs. Matthew Scott, a Dallas socialite living in a penthouse overlooking the city, my life a polished, perfect façade. Then a phone call from the ranch shattered everything, telling me my indomitable grandmother, Maria, had been assaulted and was clinging to life. My husband, Matthew, the man I married, coldly refused to help, instead freezing every penny I had, stealing my grandmother' s priceless family heirlooms, and giving them to his executive assistant, Sabrina, whose own grandfather was Maria' s attacker. He set me up for public humiliation, making me believe an old friend would offer me a lifeline, only for Matthew and Sabrina to burst in, expose me, and announce their engagement right there. I was left broke, shamed, and utterly desperate, facing a hospital ultimatum to pull the plug on my grandmother within 24 hours. But just when I thought I had nothing left, I received a call informing me that the vast West Texas ranch, the very land Matthew built his empire on, was never sold to him at all; it was mine. Now, with a childhood friend and Matthew's biggest rival by my side, that land, and a furious, broken woman, are about to become his absolute undoing.

The oppressive silence of my home was a constant reminder of my twelve lost children. My husband, Michael, the man I loved, transformed into a monster, ripping each newborn from my arms with cold, absurd justifications. Every desperate plea for help I made-to family, friends, even strangers-was met with the same chilling betrayal. Michael merely showed them a mysterious photograph, and instantly, their sympathy vanished, replaced by a cruel consensus that I was the one who was mad, leaving me utterly abandoned in a ceaseless loop of pregnancy and loss. What dark secret did this single image hold that could turn every loving face against me, convincing them my babies' deaths were a delusion and not a horrifying reality? I was trapped, heartbroken, and consumed by the desperate need to understand why everyone believed his monstrous lies over my truth. Just as I plummeted into a final, desperate act to escape this unending torment, the 'nightmare' shattered, awakening me not to death, but to a shocking truth: my decade of anguish was a high-tech medical simulation, and the reality that awaited was stranger, and more hopeful, than anything I could have imagined.

My eyes snapped open. The dorm room ceiling, with its familiar water stain shaped like a crooked smile, loomed above. Across the room, Brianna Jones hummed softly, applying makeup. She wore a cheap copy of my cashmere sweater. My heart hammered against my ribs. This wasn' t right. This was weeks ago. The memories crashed down: the Paris program acceptance, the "going away" party, the sickening taste, then absolute darkness. Brianna had poisoned me. I saw her smirk, remembered collapsing. Yet here she was, her reflection smiling sweetly in her compact mirror, her voice falsely cheerful. "Morning, sleepyhead," she chirped. This was the ambitious girl from a small town. My roommate. The one who wanted my life. I stared at her, the image of her malicious triumph at my party seared into my brain. The subtle digs, the way she' d implied I was the copycat, her constant imitation of my style, my social media. She' d meticulously cataloged me, then painstakingly isolated me, even turning away Liam, the hockey captain I genuinely liked. All my kindness burned away in the hospital bed I now only remembered. "You okay, Ava?" she asked, a tilt to her head. "You look like you've seen a ghost." My parents always told me I was too trusting, too eager to see the good in people. They were right. This inexplicable situation felt like a cruel joke, yet it was real. The date on my phone confirmed it. Several weeks before the party. Before she tried to kill me. I had a second chance. And this time, I wouldn' t be naive. I wouldn' t be kind to the snake in my room. This time, Ava Miller wouldn't be a doormat. This time, I would fight.

Not only did her sister stole her man, but she also took away her money, her assets—everything. Left empty-handed, she lived her life in hiding, escaping her debts. Just when she thought all hope was lost, he suddenly came into her life like a knight in shining armor. He loved her, cared for her, and gave her everything she needed. She had everything she could have and more. However, when she got pregnant, things went downhill. He started cheating and mistreating her. "I have never loved you and I never will!" he spat. With pure disdain in his eyes, he told her that she was merely a substitute. With fate reversed once again, she taught herself to rely only on herself. She built herself up from the ground and promised never to let anyone hurt her—never again.

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

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

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

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

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

I was Landon Mercer's secret girlfriend and loyal assistant for four years. I thought my absolute devotion would eventually win his heart. But he casually announced his engagement to a wealthy heiress, reminding me I was just a convenient nobody from an orphanage. When I got trapped in a horrific car crash and begged him to call an ambulance, he just hung up on me, annoyed that my bleeding was ruining his romantic getaway. He even blackmailed me with my orphanage's land lease, forcing me to attend his engagement party as a prop. At the party, his elite family and friends brutally humiliated me. They deliberately crushed my broken arm, poured red wine over my head, and kicked me into a freezing pond. When Landon finally pulled me out, he didn't care that I was suffocating and turning blue. "Are you out of your mind? You come out here and cause a scene during my engagement party?" He threw a stack of cash at my shivering body, furious that I had embarrassed him in front of his wealthy guests. Looking at the hundred-dollar bills floating in the muddy water, my four years of foolish love completely died. To him, I wasn't even human; I was just a cheap toy he could abuse and pass around. I didn't cry, and I didn't beg. I dragged my soaked, battered body into a car and headed straight to the penthouse of his biggest billionaire rival. It was time to burn Landon Mercer's world to the ground.

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

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

Five years after graduating from one of New York's top modelling schools, Amy Walters is still waiting for her big breakthrough in the fashion world. Desperation leads her straight into the arms of Liam Carter, the powerful CEO of a top fashion empire, who offers her the deal of a lifetime-with a condition. ******************** "If I agree to do it..." I forced out, "Will you sign me as your model?" Liam's cheeks flushed, and he leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Depends." I stiffened. "On what?" He got up from the couch and headed towards me. I did not step back, even as he circled around me slowly, staring like a predator, inspecting his prey. He was standing behind me, his face against mine so that the air breathed down my ear. "On how well you please me tonight."

Eloise was the adopted stray of the wealthy Foreman family, mocked daily for her tarot cards and dismissed as a mentally unstable burden. When her adoptive father suddenly collapsed with thick, black veins pulsing up his neck, they didn't blame his corrupt real estate deals. They blamed her. "She's a witch! She cursed me!" Mitch roared, ordering his doctor and armed guards to forcefully drain her blood to cure his supernatural toxin. Her adoptive mother revoked her trust fund and threatened to drag her to a psych ward. Her spoiled sister threw a crumpled twenty-dollar bill at her feet, laughing as the security team cornered Eloise against the wall. Eloise stared coldly at the family that had abused her for years. They had dug up a sacred burial ground to build condos, bringing this deadly curse upon themselves, yet they wanted to bleed her dry to survive. Just as the guards lunged, the heavy oak doors were violently shoved open. An aristocratic butler stepped through the freezing rain, flanked by elite operatives who snapped the guards' legs in seconds. He dropped a three-billion-dollar trust document onto the table as mere "compensation" for her shelter. "Please, Miss Palmer," the butler bowed deeply, offering her pristine white gloves. "Do not dirty your hands in this place." Leaving her adoptive father to his midnight death sentence, Eloise stepped into a waiting Rolls-Royce, ready to reclaim her place in a hidden global dynasty.