Contract Bride: Rising From The Shadows

Ten days before my wedding, I learned my fiancé-the man who swore to heal my abandonment issues-was cheating for a "final taste of freedom." His betrayal cost me our unborn child, and then he had the audacity to beg me to give my blood to save his mistress's life. He expected to see me walking down the aisle, but I planned a different kind of show: a wedding gift that would be his public execution.

A faint blue line on a pregnancy test confirmed the dream I' d nurtured for four years: twins. I, Sarah Miller, an architect, was about to surprise Mark Johnson, the man I loved, the man who had pulled me from the wreckage of grief after my parents' suspicious death, the man whose real estate empire I had meticulously helped build. But when I reached the exclusive downtown club, laughter spilled from the private room, and a voice asked, "When are you and Lisa Chen making it official?" My world shattered as Mark' s confident voice, stripped of all warmth, replied, "Sarah? Sarah was a means to an end. A very useful tool." Then came the true horror: "She has no idea I was the one who made sure that old farmhouse of hers had a little electrical \'accident.\' Best investment I ever made." He killed them. The man I loved, my savior, was my parents' murderer. Everything I believed was a lie. The twins I carried, conceived in a deceit, were just leverage for him, a means to an heir Lisa couldn' t provide. The overwhelming betrayal, coupled with a searing pain in my abdomen, sent my vision blurring. I stumbled out into the cold, hard rain, racing toward my parents' graves, only to collapse in a pool of blood. The hospital confirmed my worst fear: I had lost the babies. I lay there, numb and broken, until a nurse revealed my unlikely rescuer: David Johnson, Mark' s estranged uncle, the man Mark had ruthlessly driven out of his own family business. He was the one who collected my cracked phone, its wallpaper a perfect picture of a perfect lie, with his stern, disapproving gaze in the background – a witness I had always ignored. This man, haunted by the same demon, would become my unlikely ally. Mark had taken everything from me: my parents, my children, my name, my work. Now, I would take it all back.

My marriage to Andrew Blakely was built on cold hard cash, not love. Our only connection was our daughter, Annabel. Then came the call that shattered my world: Annabel' s charter plane crashed. She was gone. But Andrew, her supposed father, was partying with his mistress, Gabrielle, dismissing my agony as a "dramatic stunt." He hung up on me, laughing. My grief didn't turn to tears. It turned into a chilling calm, a primal urge for retribution. Thanks to an old pact and a loyal friend, Ethan, secrets started to unravel. The security footage showed Annabel, terrified, forced onto that doomed plane by two men. And lurking in the shadows, a smug smile on her face, was Gabrielle. This wasn't an accident. It was a calculated murder. When Andrew and Gabrielle publicly disrespected Annabel again at a charity gala, even destroying the last tangible piece of her, he shoved me to the ground. That' s when it became clear: he actively shielded her killer. My daughter's room was emptied, all traces of her erased by Andrew's mother. They left me nothing. But they had no idea what they' d just unleashed. I walked back into that glittering gala and served Andrew divorce papers. He signed them without a glance, desperate to be rid of me, unaware he' d just handed me the keys to his entire empire. My revenge had officially begun.

My marriage to Harrison Sterling III was a political merger, a meticulously designed union between two powerful D.C. dynasties. I was Ellie Vance Sterling, the poised, pragmatic wife, dedicated to power and legacy, not fleeting romance. Everything changed when Harry was "rescued" by Skyler Reed, a common waitress who boldly followed him back to our world. She was loud, disruptive, and claimed Harry's love, threatening to expose our family's carefully crafted image. When Skyler triumphantly announced her pregnancy, I calmly declared my own, ensuring my son's place as the legitimate heir. But the true horror unfolded when I discovered a secret: an "heirloom" bracelet, given to me and other Sterling wives, actually contained compounds to suppress fertility. It meant my accidental breakage of the bracelet allowed my conception, revealing a chilling family conspiracy to control who bore heirs. Then came the fire, deliberately set in my wing of the house-a terrifying attempt to erase me and my unborn son from existence. How could my own husband, bound by contract and public duty, attempt such a heinous act? The revelation shattered any remaining illusion of family loyalty, replacing it with a burning certainty of cold-blooded betrayal. With my son's life and our dynastic future at stake, I made my decision: I would invoke the Vance family's formidable protection, rise from these ashes, and secure my child's legacy, no matter the brutal cost.

Our tenth anniversary was supposed to be a romantic surprise, a special night at a chic downtown hotel. Instead, I found Ethan there, shirtless on the edge of the bed, with Chloe, a young woman barely out of college, looking flustered in a hotel robe. My world shattered as his gaze flickered, murmuring it was a "drunken mistake." Then, Chloe dramatically wailed about her lost virginity, prompting Ethan to declare he "had to be responsible" for her, completely dismissing our ten years together. The betrayal deepened when I later found their chat messages, exposing years of calculated financial deception and mockery: he' d let me fund our life on my teacher's salary, all while he and Chloe secretly built a multi-million-dollar gaming empire. The final, depraved blow came in a package: my old miscarriage records, alongside the meticulously preserved body of Whiskers, my beloved cat who' d vanished months prior. I collapsed, the world spinning, battling a raging fever that blurred days into a nightmarish delirium. How could the man I cherished, the partner I poured my entire heart and savings into, be capable of such chilling cruelty, such a systematic destruction of my sanity and life? But as I drifted close to death, clinging to the unwavering comfort of my old flame, Liam, a fierce, cold spark ignited within me. I wasn't just Sarah, Ethan's victim; I was Sarah, and I was going to fight back, expose their lies, reclaim my stolen future, and finally find my way home.

New Orleans was a powder keg, teetering on the brink of explosion. I, Isabelle "Izzy" Beaumont, the Mayor's daughter, believed I could save it. I offered myself in a desperate union to Jackson "Jax" Moreau, the charismatic gang leader I once loved, hoping to bridge the chasm between our warring worlds. But Jax's "union" was a brutal charade. He betrayed me, wiping out my family – my father mauled by his dogs, my brother crushed, my mother shamed to death. I became his prisoner, forced to watch as New Orleans burned and my world crumbled. Confined to a crumbling outbuilding, I endured constant torment. He even ordered the abortion of our unborn child. My former best friend, Clara, became his new queen, wearing my dead mother's necklace, reveling in my humiliation. All the while, a silent curse, a "living decay," gnawed at me, slowly consuming my life. Why this relentless hatred? Why did he ignore my silent suffering, my hidden sacrifice, claiming I was only paying for "my family's sins"? Didn't he remember when I' d dared to enter the dark bayou for him? It took me coughing up blood and collapsing, my body finally failing, for an ancient healer to appear. She revealed the impossible truth: the insidious curse eating me alive was the secret price I paid years ago, to save his life from a deadly cottonmouth bite. With my last breaths, can this shattering realization break the monster he's become, or is it simply too late for redemption in the ashes of our destroyed love?

I was four months pregnant, weighing over two hundred pounds, and my heart was failing from experimental treatments forced on me as a child. My doctor looked at me with clinical detachment and told me I was in a death sentence: if I kept the baby, I would die, and if I tried to remove it, I would die. Desperate for a lifeline, I called my father, Francis Acosta, to tell him I was sick and pregnant. I expected a father's love, but all I got was a cold, sharp blade of a voice. "Then do it quietly," he said. "Don't embarrass Candi. Her debutante ball is coming up." He didn't just reject me; he erased me. My trust fund was frozen, and I was told I was no longer an Acosta. My fiancé, Auston, had already discarded me, calling me a "bloated whale" while he looked for a thinner, wealthier replacement. I left New York on a Greyhound bus, weeping into a bag of chips, a broken woman the world considered a mistake. I couldn't understand how my own father could tell me to die "quietly" just to save face for a party. I didn't know why I had been a lab rat for my family’s pharmaceutical ambitions, or how they could sleep at night while I was left to rot in the gray drizzle of the city. Five years later, the doors of JFK International Airport slid open. I stepped onto the marble floor in red-soled stilettos, my body lean, lethal, and carved from years of blood and sweat. I wasn't the "whale" anymore; I was a ghost coming back to haunt them. With my daughter by my side and a medical reputation that terrified the global elite, I was ready to dismantle the Acosta empire piece by piece. "Tell Francis to wash his neck," I whispered to the skyline. "I'm home."

The whispers said that out of bitter jealousy, Hadley shoved Eric's beloved down the stairs, robbing the unborn child of life. To avenge, Eric forced Hadley abroad and completely cut her off. Years later, she reemerged, and they felt like strangers. When they met again, she was the nightclub's star, with men ready to pay fortunes just to glimpse her elusive performance. Unable to contain himself, Eric blocked her path, asking, "Is this truly how you earn a living now? Why not come back to me?" Hadley's lips curved faintly. "If you’re eager to see me, you’d better join the queue, darling."

They don't know I'm a girl. They all look at me and see a boy. A prince. Their kind purchase humans like me for their lustful desires. And, when they stormed into our kingdom to buy my sister, I intervened to protect her. I made them take me too. The plan was to escape with my sister whenever we found a chance. How was I to know our prison would be the most fortified place in their kingdom? I was supposed to be on the sidelines. The one they had no real use for. The one they never meant to buy. But then, the most important person in their savage land-their ruthless beast king-took an interest in the "pretty little prince." How do we survive in this brutal kingdom, where everyone hates our kind and shows us no mercy? And how does someone, with a secret like mine, become a lust slave? . AUTHOR'S NOTE. This is a dark romance-dark, mature content. Highly rated 18+ Expect triggers, expect hardcore. If you're a seasoned reader of this genre, looking for something different, prepared to go in blindly not knowing what to expect at every turn, but eager to know more anyway, then dive in! . From the author of the international bestselling book: "The Alpha King's Hated Slave."

"I heard you're going to marry Marcelo. Is this perhaps your revenge against me? It's very laughable, Renee. That man can barely function." Her foster family, her cheating ex, everyone thought Renee was going to live in pure hell after getting married to a disabled and cruel man. She didn't know if anything good would ever come out of it after all, she had always thought it would be hard for anyone to love her but this cruel man with dark secrets is never going to grant her a divorce because she makes him forget how to breathe.

Maia grew up a pampered heiress-until the real daughter returned and framed her, sending Maia to prison with help from her fiancé and family. Four years later, free and married to Chris, a notorious outcast, everyone assumed Maia was finished. They soon discovered she was secretly a famed jeweler, elite hacker, celebrity chef, and top game designer. As her former family begged for help, Chris smiled calmly. "Honey, let's go home." Only then did Maia realize her "useless" husband was a legendary tycoon who'd adored her from the start.

The day Raina gave birth should have been the happiest of her life. Instead, it became her worst nightmare. Moments after delivering their twins, Alexander shattered her heart-divorcing her and forcing her to sign away custody of their son, Liam. With nothing but betrayal and heartbreak to her name, Raina disappeared, raising their daughter, Ava, on her own.Years later, fate comes knocking when Liam falls gravely ill. Desperate to save his son, Alexander is forced to seek out the one person he once cast aside. Alexander finds himself face to face with the woman he underestimated, pleading for a second chance-not just for himself, but for their son. But Raina is no longer the same broken woman who once loved him.No longer the woman he left behind. She has carved out a new life-one built on strength, wealth, and a long-buried legacy she expected to uncover.Raina has spent years learning to live without him.The question is... Will she risk reopening old wounds to save the son she never got to love? or has Alexander lost her forever?