/1/119605/coverbig.jpg?v=25b1f5b293b64973eb4240ca1ac29b74)
For three years, Chloe was Cole's perfect executive assistant by day and his secret lover by night. On her birthday, she prepared a candlelit dinner, ready to propose and share the secret of her pregnancy. But a single phone call from his ex-girlfriend, Carroll, ruined everything. Cole rushed out to comfort his ex, leaving Chloe behind. That same night, Chloe got into a horrific car crash. As she lay bleeding on the side of the road, losing their child, Cole ignored all her desperate calls. When she woke up in the hospital, her baby was gone. Dragging her broken body to find him, she saw Cole tenderly feeding Carroll-a woman who shared her exact face. She was never loved, just a cheap substitute. When Chloe tried to quit and leave, Cole threatened her family's company to keep her trapped. Carroll even poured scalding coffee on herself just to frame Chloe. Without even looking at the fresh burn on Chloe's hand, Cole held the weeping Carroll and turned to Chloe with a monstrous demand. "Her blood type is rare. You are going to donate blood to her." He wanted Chloe, who had just suffered a traumatic miscarriage, to act as a blood bag for the woman who orchestrated her pain. Did her life and her dead child mean absolutely nothing to him? The last trace of her love turned to ash, replaced by a blazing, primal hatred. "You will not do this to me!" She wrenched her arm from his grip, refusing to be his caged canary anymore. It was time to tear his world apart.
Contents
Too Late For Regret, Mr. Billionaire. Chapter 1
Chloe Beaumont struck the last match, the sulfur smell cutting through the soft-lit penthouse like a sharp little breath. The flame caught the wick of the final candle, throwing warm light across the table she'd set for two. Tonight was her birthday. And more than that, it was the night she planned to ask Cole Rutledge to marry her.
Her hand drifted to her lower belly without thinking, a secret smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. A secret she hadn't told Cole yet. She smoothed the silk of her dress, her heart punching against her ribs like it wanted out. Three years. Three years as his executive assistant by day, in his bed by night. She'd told herself it was enough time. Enough for him to see a future with her, to give her a place beside him that wasn't hidden in the dark.
The heavy sound of the apartment door swinging open shot a jolt through her chest. Cole was home. He walked in bringing a gust of cold New York night air with him. His face looked worn, the day's stress carved into the lines around his mouth. Before she could get a word out, the sharp, insistent ring of his phone sliced through the quiet she'd so carefully built.
He answered without even glancing her way. "Yes?"
Then his whole body changed. The tiredness fell away, replaced by a tightness so sharp Chloe could feel it from across the room. "Carroll? Where are you?"
The name hit her like a bucket of ice water. The blood in her veins went cold. Carroll Hardy. The woman from his past, the one whose name hung over their relationship like a ghost that wouldn't leave.
Chloe took a step forward, her voice coming out small. "Cole, it's my birthday..."
He didn't hear her. Everything in him was fixed on that phone, his voice dropping into a low, urgent command. "Don't do anything stupid. I'm on my way."
He ended the call and moved toward the door, snatching his car keys from the bowl on the console table. He hadn't looked at the dinner. Not at the candles. Not at her.
"What happened?" Chloe's voice shook as she reached out, her fingers closing around his forearm. "What did she do now?"
Cole's jaw tightened. He shook her hand off like it was a nuisance. "She tried to kill herself. Is that a good enough reason for you?"
The raw panic in his eyes, the fear he wasn't even trying to hide-in three years, he'd never once looked at her like that. Chloe felt the small velvet box in her pocket. It suddenly weighed a ton, stupid and ridiculous. A monument to her own foolishness. Her proposal was a joke.
His hand was on the doorknob when he threw a last cold glance over his shoulder. "Don't be irrational, Chloe. You know how important Carroll is to me."
Important. That one word cracked open the last of the lies she'd been telling herself. She wasn't in second place. She wasn't even in the race. She was probably not even a decent replacement.
The door clicked shut. She stood alone in the huge, silent apartment. The quiet pressed against her eardrums. She sat down at the table, the food she'd spent hours on going cold in front of her. She watched the candles burn down, wax dripping slow like tears that wouldn't stop. Like her heart.
After a long moment, she drew a shaky breath and stood up. She walked to the kitchen, her legs stiff, her movements mechanical. She pulled the velvet box from her pocket, opened it one last time to look at the simple, elegant ring she'd picked out, and then dropped it into the trash can.
She couldn't stay here. Not another second. She grabbed her purse and her keys and fled the apartment, the smell of her ruined birthday dinner thick in her throat.
The rain came down in sheets, smearing the city lights as she sped down the FDR Drive. Tears blurred with the rain on the windshield until everything was a watery mess. Then a cramp hit her belly, so hard and sudden it stole her breath. She gasped, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.
And then she felt it. A warm wetness spreading between her legs, soaking through her light-colored dress. A wave of terror, cold and absolute, washed over her from head to toe. She looked down. Blood.
Her hands shook so badly she could barely grip her phone. With trembling fingers, she dialed the only person she could think of, the only one she still, stupidly, wanted to come save her.
Cole answered on the second ring. In the background, she could hear the soft, broken sound of Carroll Hardy crying.
"Cole," Chloe choked out, her voice ragged with pain and fear. "I'm bleeding. My stomach... it hurts so bad. Help me..."
His voice came back cold and impatient, a tone she knew too well. "Chloe, stop it. I'm not in the mood for your games tonight. It's just cramps. Don't cause more trouble."
The cruelty of it, the casual way he brushed her aside, broke something deep in her chest.
"Cole Rutledge," she screamed into the phone, the words ripping out of her throat. "You're going to regret this."
She hung up and threw the phone onto the passenger seat. The pain in her belly was a roaring fire now, eating her alive. The world tilted, the city lights smearing into a dizzy blur. Her foot slipped off the brake. The car swerved, metal shrieking against metal as it slammed into the guardrail.
Then everything went black.
View More Comments on App
Other books by Tango
More/0/97678/coverbig.jpg?v=a2818bd0947870296067ac8c551ded7c)
The Ninety-Ninth Goodbye
Young AdultThe ninety-ninth time Jax Little broke my heart was the last time. We were the golden couple of Northgate High, our future perfectly mapped out for UCLA. But in our senior year, he fell for a new girl, Catalina, and our love story became a sick, exhausting dance of his betrayals and my empty threats to leave. At a graduation party, Catalina "accidentally" pulled me into the pool with her. Jax dove in without a second's hesitation. He swam right past me as I struggled, wrapped his arms around Catalina, and pulled her to safety. As he helped her out to the cheers of his friends, he glanced back at me, my body shivering and my mascara running in black rivers. "Your life isn't my problem anymore," he said, his voice as cold as the water I was drowning in. That night, something inside me finally shattered. I went home, opened my laptop, and clicked the button that confirmed my admission. Not to UCLA with him, but to NYU, an entire country away.
/1/116342/coverbig.jpg?v=6f67c27321d872925d6fbb0f02b05628)
Sign The Divorce Papers, Mr. Billionaire
ModernFor three years, Coralie played the perfect, compliant wife to billionaire Cale Montgomery, silently enduring his coldness. That illusion shattered when she caught him in a VIP club hallway, indulging his fragile first love, Hayleigh, while his friends mocked Coralie as a pathetic housewife. Cale expected her to lower her head and submit. Instead, Coralie threw an ice-cold martini in Hayleigh's face. Furious, Cale dismissed her rebellion as a tantrum for a bigger payout. To force her submission, her own father called with a vicious ultimatum. "If you don't get Cale to fund my business, I'll cut off the payments to your mother's care facility today!" When Coralie rushed to the hospital to pay for the life support herself, she noticed a deep, unnatural scratch on her comatose mother's antique gold ring. Someone had tried to pry it off her finger. The nurse admitted her stepmother had just visited. A chilling realization froze Coralie's blood. Her mother's tragic car crash three years ago was never an accident. She marched straight into Cale's corporate headquarters and threw a zero-alimony divorce agreement onto his mahogany desk. When Hayleigh tried to humiliate her with VIP tickets, Coralie shredded them into pieces and let them rain down on her Chanel suit. "I don't chew other people's spit-out gum." Coralie wasn't just walking away from this gilded cage anymore. She was going to tear both of their families apart to uncover the truth.
/1/115218/coverbig.jpg?v=6452e0440505ab4d76d4171a8605a4ec)
Too Late For Regret: The Surgeon Heiress
ModernOn our third wedding anniversary, I waited in our empty penthouse until twenty minutes past midnight. When the private elevator finally opened, my husband stepped out, followed closely by a younger woman who was practically swallowed by his oversized suit jacket. He coldly announced she was staying the night because her apartment lock was broken. When I calmly pointed out her building had armed security, she immediately dropped to the floor, faking a hysterical panic attack. "Don't touch me! Please, keep her away!" she shrieked. Without a second of hesitation, my husband violently shoved me to protect her. My spine crashed hard into the sharp edge of the marble kitchen island. A blinding, white-hot pain knocked the breath completely out of my lungs. "You are vicious! You have absolutely zero sympathy!" he roared, his eyes full of disgust. But as I gasped for air, I saw the crying woman peek out from behind his broad shoulders. Her lips slowly curled up into a triumphant, mocking smirk. The agonizing pain in my back suddenly faded into absolute, freezing numbness. For three years, I had hidden my true identity to play the gentle, loving wife, only to realize my marriage was a pathetic joke. I pulled off my heavy diamond wedding ring and threw it directly at his feet. "I want a divorce." I walked straight out into the freezing rain, where a massive black Maybach was already waiting. It was time to stop playing house and return to my throne as the billionaire heir of the Stephenson family.
/1/114234/coverbig.jpg?v=45a9e0405489917ed83eee077eb3c687)
The Rejected Luna's Vow Of Spite
WerewolfAs an Alpha's daughter, I was meant to be a proud Luna. Instead, the Moon Goddess bound me to Alpha Ryker Blackwood. But he ruthlessly rejected our Mating Bond for his chosen lover, Seraphina. His rejection didn't just break my heart; it sentenced me to the Withering Curse. A rejected mate's wolf dies first, followed slowly by their own life force. Yet, Ryker wouldn't even let me die in peace. When Seraphina was poisoned by silver, he dragged me into the medical wing and forced a needle into my arm. He drained my blood, using the lingering power of our fading bond to heal the woman who took my place. As my wolf whimpered and faded into absolute nothingness, I collapsed, coughing up black blood on the cold tile floor. He looked at my dying, trembling body not with pity, but with pure disgust. "You are nothing but a walking blood bag for Seraphina. When you are no longer useful, I will throw you out like trash." I finally understood. To him, I wasn't a mate or even a person. My agonizing death was just a minor inconvenience to his perfect love story. My home pack was secretly under attack, my life was draining away, and I was utterly alone. But a childhood friend revealed a forgotten secret: a mutual rejection severs the bond completely and stops the curse. I wiped the black blood from my mouth. I refuse to wither away for a man who treats me like garbage. I will speak the words of rejection, take back my life, and make him pay.
/1/112332/coverbig.jpg?v=529e67e9639687f18d9e3a64ab2e9a18)
Too Late To Beg, Mr. Mafia Don
MafiaFor two years, I played the perfect, silent wife to Damien Moretti, the ruthless Don of the New York mafia. But tonight, he threw a thick manila envelope onto our nightstand. It was an annulment. "Giuliana is back. She's dying, and I am done playing house with you." His first love had returned, supposedly sick with terminal cancer. He demanded I sign the papers and leave the penthouse immediately so he could rush to her side. He looked at me with absolute disgust, expecting me to break down and beg. When she later staged a fake assassination attempt to frame me, Damien blindly believed her pathetic tears. He dragged me to the hospital, ready to unleash his murderous wrath on me for daring to touch his precious white rose. I looked at the man I had shared a bed with for two years. He was supposed to be a powerful, calculating leader, yet he was completely blinded by a cheap liar and a forged medical report. He actually thought I was just a weak, greedy socialite who would quietly take the fall. He had no idea that behind my docile mask, I was 'K', the digital underworld's most elusive hacker. I calmly signed the papers, took his millions, and pulled the real security footage of his perfectly healthy ex. At tonight's family dinner, I am going to shatter her fragile facade and make the Don choke on his own stupidity before I walk away for good.
/1/111424/coverbig.jpg?v=9a317a61450367d0e63f9bace1801f50)
Left To Freeze: The Neglected Wife's Awakening
MafiaI am the wife of Julian Falcone, a powerful mafia boss, but my title in this house is nothing but a joke. When our car broke down in a deadly blizzard, Julian rushed to the scene, only to bypass me entirely. He wrapped his heavy coat around his fragile cousin, Livia, and put her in his only available passenger seat. "Livia's constitution is too weak to survive this cold. I have to take her back first." He left me to freeze in the pitch-black car for the entire night. When his men finally dragged my half-dead body out the next morning, they openly mocked me, calling me a piece of "collateral" that the boss wouldn't care about as long as I was breathing. Back at the estate, Julian didn't even ask if I had survived the frostbite. Instead, he stormed into my sickroom, demanding I treat his mistress with respect just because my absolute silence had hurt her feelings. His grandmother then publicly humiliated me for failing to provide an heir, while Livia flaunted the custom diamond bracelet Julian bought to soothe her "fright" from the storm. I finally understood. He didn't marry me out of honor to save my fallen family. He just needed my aristocratic Rossi blood to legitimize his new-money mafia empire. I was never a wife. I was a transaction he was willing to let freeze to death. When his men delivered a heavy diamond necklace to buy my submission, I didn't cry or beg. I dropped the blood diamond into the deepest drawer, and began to plan my escape.
