Hua Jian

On the night of her birthday, Chloe's billionaire husband, Griffin, dragged her out of bed. He didn't take her to celebrate. Instead, he forced her into a sterile clinic, pinning her to a chair to draw her blood for Jaida—the fragile woman he truly cared for. While Chloe almost fainted from the blood loss, Griffin answered Jaida's call with gentle concern and abandoned Chloe at the clinic. When she finally stumbled home in the freezing night, Jaida intentionally faked a fall in the hallway. Without asking a single question, Griffin violently shoved Chloe against the staircase. Knowing she had a severe allergy to organ meats, he forced her to sit at the table and served her a plate of bloody, raw liver. "You will sit down, and you will eat every last piece of that liver. Now." He then had his assistant toss her a cheap, generic scarf as an afterthought birthday gift, before carrying Jaida away. For three years, Chloe had endured every humiliation, hoping to eventually warm his cold heart. She didn't understand why her absolute devotion only earned his brutal contempt, while Jaida's pathetic lies won his unconditional protection. Staring at her pale, hollow reflection in the mirror, the last flicker of hope in her chest finally died. She didn't cry or argue anymore. She simply left a signed divorce agreement and her diamond ring on his desk, and vanished without a trace. Five years later, she returned to the city not as his obedient wife, but as an untouchable Hollywood powerhouse, with two genius twins by her side.

"We do not talk. Ever," she warned, her voice trembling with a year's worth of rage. Brendon Hampton was Manhattan's ultimate "simp," using wealth and shallow socialites to silence his past. But during a lavish dinner, he snapped. He walked out, moved into a luxury apartment-and found Kiera Richards, the girl he ghosted during his father's scandal, standing in his new living room. Reunion is a nightmare. Kiera, now an "Ice Queen," looks at him with pure loathing. A housing glitch and a massive lease penalty trap them together. She reveals his disappearance cost her more than her heart-it shattered her mental health and her violin career at Juilliard. Brendon endures her hatred daily, unable to explain that federal agents seized his phone and his father had a heart attack. He abides by her rigid rules of silence, treated like a biohazard in his own home. Everything changes during a blackout. As a storm rages, Kiera's icy mask cracks-and she collapses into his arms, terrified of the dark. In the shadows, Brendon notices she still wears the necklace he gave her long ago. The war isn't over, but he's no longer just a roommate-he's a man determined to win back the soul he destroyed.

I was arranging white lilies on the cold marble of my husband's grave when I saw a ghost. Walking through the cemetery gates was a man who looked exactly like my dead husband, Dante. Logic said it was his twin brother, Matteo. But a wife knows the slope of a man's shoulders. She knows the arrogant tilt of his chin. My husband hadn't been blown up in a car bomb three years ago. He had faked his death to steal his brother's rank, his fortune, and his mistress. For three years, I had forced our son, Leo, to kiss a photograph goodnight. We lived in a damp, peeling apartment, surviving on the "charity" of the Family. Meanwhile, Dante was living in a mansion, driving cars that cost more than my life, playing house with another woman. When he came to our cramped apartment to drop off the monthly "pension" money, pretending to be Uncle Matteo, he didn't look at me with love. He looked at his watch. When Leo ran to hug him, shouting "Papa," Dante peeled the boy's small arms off his expensive suit like he was removing a piece of lint. "Don't call me that," he snapped. "I am your Uncle." My grief turned into ice. He chose another woman's comfort over his own son's hunger. I grabbed Leo's hand and walked out the door. "You walk away, and you get nothing!" Dante shouted after me. "You'll be on the street!" I didn't stop. I walked straight to the black SUV idling at the curb. The window rolled down, revealing Salvatore Vitiello. The Don. The most lethal man in the city. "Get in, Elena," he commanded. I opened the door and slid onto the leather seat next to the devil himself. As we drove away, leaving my husband in the dust, I realized I had just traded a liar for a killer. And I didn't regret it for a second.

My husband crushed the metacarpals of my left hand—my drawing hand—with a heavy leather-bound book. This was Punishment Ninety-Six. The offense? I had missed a single phone call from my stepsister, Joyce. According to Don Austen Ballard, ignoring the woman who allegedly saved his life fifteen years ago was akin to high treason. "Discipline is the highest form of love, Alana," he whispered, watching the violet bruise spread across my skin. He calls shattering an architect's hand "love." He believes Joyce dragged him from a burning building when he was a boy. He treats her like a living saint and me like a punching bag to pay his life debt. But it is all a lie. Fifteen years ago, Joyce was at a cheerleading camp three towns away. I was the one in that crawlspace. I was the one who found the bleeding boy in the dark. I was the one who called him "Stellen" because he was too terrified to tell me his real name. He has spent our entire marriage torturing his true savior to please a fraud. Tonight, the pain finally burned away my fear, leaving only cold resolve. I didn't cry. I waited until the house was silent, then I retrieved a burner phone hidden in a false bottom of a box in the bathroom. I dialed the number of his sworn enemy, Don Dalton Underwood. "I have the blueprints," I said, my voice steady despite the agony in my hand. "And I have the controlling shares of Ballard Industries. I'm ready to burn his kingdom to ash."

I was the black sheep of the wealthy Jenkins family, the villain in my adopted sister Jami's perfect story. Everyone adored her, the sweet, innocent heroine. I was just the difficult one. Then, a system uploaded itself into my brain, showing me the script of my life. It wasn't just a story where I was the bad guy-it was a detailed blueprint for my entire family's destruction, all orchestrated by Jami. The script showed how she would drive one brother to suicide, frame another for a crime he didn't commit, and leave me for a gruesome "accidental" death, making her the sole heir to their fortune. My family saw her as an angel. They were completely blind, worshiping the very monster who was plotting to bury them all. But the system that showed me this horrifying future also gave me a weapon. It let me hear their thoughts. And then, at the family gala, I realized something even better. They could hear mine.

Ten years ago, they buried me alive. My fiancé Jake and my adoptive brother Alon had me committed, framing me as insane to cover up his affair with my family's long-lost biological daughter, Corina. They erased me from their perfect lives, painting me as a danger to myself and others. While I was left drugged and broken in a psychiatric facility, he married her, securing his connection to our family's power and launching his political career. But I survived. I rebuilt a quiet life from the ashes, finding peace in a small bookstore by the sea. This was my sanctuary. Until today. They walked through my door, shattering a decade of silence. Jake, now a powerful District Attorney aiming for the Senate, stared at me, his composure cracking. "Chandler?" I met his gaze, my voice cold and steady, the voice I used for any stranger. "Can I help you?"

For seven years, I was the perfect girlfriend to Hollywood star Ethan Cleveland. I put my life on hold, baked his favorite pastries, and silently endured the online hate from fans who wanted him with his co-star, Keira. Then came my 29th birthday. He said he had a late-night script meeting, but I discovered the truth: he was at a private clinic, comforting Keira as she confessed her feelings for him. He publicly defended Keira from online harassment, calling for kindness. But when I received death threats from his fans, he called me "dramatic" and "insecure." He was capable of empathy and protection, just never for me. The man who claimed to love me was systematically destroying my self-worth while playing the hero for the world. So I left. And when he finally tracked me down, trying to reclaim what he'd lost, I did something I never thought I would. I turned to the new man by my side-the one who truly saw me-and kissed him right in front of my ex.

The doctor told me I had weeks to live. But the real death sentence was seeing my fiancé's hand slip into my best friend's outside the hospital room. They thought I didn't see. They had already turned my little brother against me, the boy I raised. He called her "Mom" now. At their engagement party, held in my house and paid for with my money, he looked me in the eye. "I hate you!" My own family praised her for being a "natural mother," while the world celebrated their love story. They saw a weak, dying woman, too broken to fight back. They thought they had won. So I gave them everything they wanted-my company, my fortune, my blessing. But I also left behind one final gift, a dead woman's last words. When I die, they will inherit my empire, but they will be forever branded by a legacy of eternal shame.

The world came back in pieces: gasoline, twisted metal, and a searing pain in my leg. Through the shattered windshield, I saw my wife, Olivia, scramble not to me, her injured husband, but to the passenger door, frantic over our "assistant," Liam. She cradled his head, her voice filled with a tenderness she hadn't shown me in years. "Liam? Liam, can you hear me? Oh my god, you're bleeding." Ignoring my gasps, she finally looked at me with pure irritation: "Ethan. Your phone. Call an ambulance. Liam is hurt." The cold clarity hit me: I didn't exist for her. Then, in the hospital, I learned my leg was shattered, and Olivia's first words concerned the hospital bill, not my well-being. Liam, she announced, was out with a concussion, making our household a "disaster." I was just a logistical problem. As she left, a nurse brought "my favorite chicken soup," supposedly from Olivia. But Liam's Instagram later showed the identical thermos, captioned: "Best boss in the world! Nothing like Olivia's homemade chicken soup to make you feel better." It was never for me. The final blow came when I found a positive pregnancy test and a receipt for a "Surgical Procedure" in Olivia's hidden box, dated the same week she claimed a "solo business retreat." She'd been pregnant with Liam's child and terminated it, all while pushing me to continue IVF. The numbness shattered. My marriage, my decade of love, was a cruel, pathetic joke. Now, amidst the wreckage of my shattered life, I picked up my phone, my hands steady, and dialed the fertility clinic, then a divorce lawyer. It was time for my truth.

My world revolved around the resonant strings of my cello and the man I loved, Ethan. Even after the devastating miscarriage, I tried to find solace in music, in the quiet rhythm of our opulent New York life. But that life shattered on a single, horrific night. Ethan claimed he wanted to cheer me up with a party, but it was a trap. As his "associates" brutalized me, he stood by, silently recording every agonizing detail. He used the footage to force a divorce and strip me of everything. The video went viral, branding me a "sick debauchee" and turning my family against me. I was a pariah, utterly alone. Then, Caleb, Ethan's rival, emerged, offering solace and protection. I fell into his arms, believing him my savior, only to discover on our wedding day that he was the true architect of my public humiliation, the one who purposefully leaked the video to snag me. My gilded cage marriage to Caleb was a new hell. He subjected me to constant psychological torture, culminating in the ultimate public re-traumatization: replaying my complete, unedited assault video at a high-society charity gala for everyone to see. Broken and hollow, I became a captive ghost in my own life. How could I be so completely betrayed, not once, but twice, by the men closest to me? The raw injustice, the ceaseless pain, threatened to consume me. What unspeakable darkness festered beneath the surface of their ambition, driving them to destroy me so utterly? Just as despair threatened to swallow me whole, a call from my revered cello maestro ignited a faint, burning ember of hope. He called me a phoenix and promised not just survival, but an inferno of revenge. My destruction had merely been the prelude to a symphony of retribution.

Three years in gilded-cage Florence. Now I was back in Napa Valley, clutching my wedding invitation. My adoptive parents had exiled me with a brutal command: "Don't come back until Ethan is purged from your heart." I was here to marry Noah Williams, Ethan's best friend, proving I had moved on from my devastating, unrequited love for my adoptive brother. But then I saw him, at his family vineyard, his new, very public actress girlfriend, Brooke, clinging to him. He smirked, pulled her into a passionate kiss right in front of me, then scoffed when I presented my invitation. He ripped it to shreds, calling it a "pathetic stunt" to get his attention. From that moment, his cruelty, fueled by Brooke's manipulative games, became relentless. At poolside parties, at my final dress fitting, they mocked my engagement, fabricating lies, even allowing Brooke to physically harm me. He believed every accusation, every feigned sob, leaving me injured and humiliated. "Stop the theatrics, Ava," he'd sneered, ignoring my bleeding arm, rushing Brooke to safety over a minor scratch. My own adoptive parents silently approved of my torment, concerned only with their perfect family image. How could the boy who once protected me become this cold, heartless stranger? Why did he refuse to believe I had moved on? Every act of cruelty, every dismissal, twisted the knife of a love I was desperate to bury. My past with him was a nightmare that wouldn't end. On my wedding day, just before the ceremony, he abandoned me yet again for Brooke's false emergency, convinced I wouldn't go through with it. But as his car pulled away, a quiet resolve settled within me. His final act of abandonment was my true release. I was finally free. And he would never have power over me again.

Everyone envied my life. I was Sarah Miller, the picture-perfect wife of high-tech CEO Ethan Hayes – a modern power couple, constantly featured in glossy magazines. Publicly, he was my adoring husband, showering me with grand gestures. It looked like a dream. But behind the scenes, I discovered a nightmare. Hidden on his private cloud, disguised as corporate files, were explicit photos and messages. My husband, Ethan, and his ambitious Head of Communications, Chloe Vance. He called me "The Anchor," his "dutiful, boring wife," a deadweight holding him back. When confronted, he didn' t deny; he gaslighted. "You' re just stressed, Sarah. After everything I' ve done." He weaponized my father' s illness, reminding me how he' d "saved" me, built "this life for us," how I "owed" him. The betrayal was no momentary lapse; it was a brazen, parallel life, constantly flaunted by Chloe' s smug social media posts. I realized I was suffocating in a beautiful, empty museum, a gilded cage. His "sacrifices" and "kindnesses" weren't love; they were chains. He twisted my vulnerability into perpetual debt. The man the world adored was a monster, and my "perfect" life was a suffocating lie. How could I escape? Then, a thick envelope arrived. A letter from an estranged, wealthy grandmother I barely knew, naming me the beneficiary of a colossal family trust. This was it. My way out. I was done being his accessory. I was done being Sarah Hayes.

I thought leaving Hollywood, branded a plagiarist and heartbroken, would bury the past forever. My film school dream, "Desert Bloom," was supposed to be my triumph, a shared vision with Isabella Hayes, my muse and first love. Instead, it became my ruin, as Isabella, seduced by Julian Vance, the slick heir of a rival studio, coldly betrayed me. She stood on stage, her voice trembling with feigned sincerity, publicly accusing me of stealing my own script, conceived in our golden days. The humiliation was a physical agony, a death sentence for my nascent career, forcing me to flee to Europe a broken man. How could the woman who once looked at me like I held the stars in my hands, surrender our shared dream, our love, for a manipulative con artist? I rebuilt my life from the ashes, finding solace in a new career, a loving wife, Olivia, and our beautiful daughter, Lily, who became my anchor. But now, years later, the past has crashed back. I'm back at my old school, and Isabella, the architect of my ruin, is here too, brazenly trying to rewrite history. She's publicly proposing we "reunite" to finally make "Desert Bloom," attempting to reclaim a story she deliberately destroyed. She expects me to play along, to let her manipulate my narrative, to fall back into her toxic orbit. She has no idea about the life I've painstakingly built, or how fiercely I will protect it. Tonight, the ghost of my past will finally face the undeniable truth of my present.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

I was a wolfless Rogue, cast out and humiliated when my childhood sweetheart abandoned me to mate with a powerful Alpha's daughter. To get revenge, I willingly walked into the bed of Graham Rogers, the ruthless Alpha King of New York. I thought I could use his power, but I traded one monster for an even worse one. He forced me to sign a suffocating contract, trapping me as his personal assistant and absolute property. When he found the empty box of the morning-after pill I took, his eyes turned black with terrifying rage. "Did you really think a filthy rogue bloodline like yours was worthy of carrying my child?" His brutal fury left me with severe internal injuries that a doctor warned could permanently destroy my body. While I was trapped in this living hell, my ex and his family, now facing bankruptcy, suddenly came crawling back. They begged for my forgiveness, hoping to use my new connection to the Alpha King to save their dying pack. They thought I was still the weak, pathetic girl they could easily manipulate and discard. But they didn't know I had just discovered they were likely the ones who murdered my parents fourteen years ago. Looking at my ex's desperate, pleading face, I calmly answered a call from the very devil who held me captive. I was done being a victim, and I would borrow the beast's power to burn their entire world to the ground.

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.

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."