The Unwanted Wife's True Home

For ten years, I secretly loved my guardian, Ethan Hayes. After my family fell apart, he took me in and raised me. He was my entire world. On my eighteenth birthday, I gathered all my courage to confess my love to him. But his reaction was a fury I had never seen before. He swept my birthday cake to the floor and roared, "Are you insane? I am your GUARDIAN!" He then mercilessly tore the painting I had spent a year on-my confession-to shreds. Just days later, he brought home his fiancée, Chloe. The man who had promised to wait for me to grow up, who called me his brightest star, had vanished. My decade of desperate, burning love had only managed to burn myself. The person who was supposed to protect me had become the one who hurt me the most. I looked down at the NYU acceptance letter in my hand. I had to leave. I had to pull him out of my heart, no matter how much it hurt. I picked up the phone and dialed my father's number. "Dad," I said, my voice hoarse, "I've decided. I want to come be with you in New York."

I sacrificed my womb and my youth to build Alec' s architectural empire from the shadows. He repaid me by bringing his mistress, Billie, to frame me for plagiarism and destroy my reputation. When my father suffered a massive heart attack, Billie used her influence to block his life-saving surgery. Alec held my dying father' s life hostage, forcing me to my knees in front of the woman who ruined me. "Apologize to her, Cydney," he commanded, "or I pull the plug." I begged. I scraped my dignity off the floor. But they let my father die anyway. Discarded and humiliated, I vanished in a plane crash, leaving only a wedding ring in a landfill. Years later, at a global summit, Alec watched his company crumble under the attacks of a ruthless new rival. He grabbed the woman in the emerald dress, his hands trembling as he recognized the eyes he thought were gone forever. "Cydney? You're alive?" I smiled, cold as ice. "Ms. Frazier is dead, Alec. I' m the one who' s going to bury you."

I was the "Ice Queen," the perfect Mafia wife who managed the De Luca empire's millions while my husband, Alessandro, played the part of the feared Underboss. I thought my silence and competence earned me respect. That was until I woke up in the estate's medical bay with a shattered leg. My saddle had snapped mid-jump. It wasn't wear and tear; it was sabotage. Lying in the dark, feigning sleep, I heard Alessandro whispering outside my door with his enforcer. "The buckle was filed down," the enforcer said urgently. "Aria tampered with it. She could have broken her neck." I waited for Alessandro’s rage. I waited for him to execute the mistress who tried to kill his wife. Instead, his voice was cold and dismissive. "Bury it," Alessandro ordered. "It’s just a broken leg. Aria was upset about the credit cards. She just wanted to teach Katarina a lesson." A lesson. My husband wasn't just cheating on me; he was protecting the woman who tried to cripple me. Three days later, at the Family Charity Gala, he humiliated me publicly. He outbid me for my grandmother's heirloom necklace and clasped it around Aria's neck while I watched from my wheelchair. He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a piece of furniture to be rearranged. He didn't know I had bugged the entire villa while I was recovering. He didn't know I had the recordings of what Aria was really doing when he wasn't looking. I gripped the USB drive in my pocket and signaled the tech team to lock the doors. The statue was broken, but he was about to learn that shattered ice is sharp enough to slit a throat.

My fiancé kicked me out of his car on a deserted highway because his "sister" Krystle claimed her car had broken down. He drove off with her and her daughter, leaving me stranded in the scorching heat without a backward glance. While I trudged for miles through the dust, Krystle posted a video of him at the gala, captioning it "My Hero" as they laughed together under the fireworks. I realized then that I was never his partner, just a placeholder he could discard the moment Krystle snapped her fingers. I didn't cry, and I didn't call him to beg for an explanation. Instead, I returned to our shared penthouse and took a pair of heavy tailoring shears to my custom wedding dress. I shredded the delicate lace until it was nothing but a pile of ruined scraps on the floor, destroying the future we were supposed to have. Then I blocked his number, packed my life into a single suitcase, and vanished. By the time he realized Krystle had staged the breakdown to destroy us, I was already gone. Three years later, he found me again-but I wasn't the same woman he left on the side of the road.

I was staring at a high-resolution photo of my husband burying his face in another woman’s neck when his text came through. "Pizza or Thai?" He wasn't just cheating. The photos showed him playing house with a woman named Serena and a little boy who had his exact nose. He had told me he wasn't ready for children, yet here he was, giving his world to a secret family. When I confronted them at his company gala, Serena didn't apologize. She smirked, ripped the wedding ring off my finger, and shoved me hard. I hit the floor with a sickening crunch. Pain exploded in my stomach. "Help me," I gasped, clutching my belly. "My baby." Michael looked at me. Then he looked at Serena and the boy. He made his choice. He turned his back on his bleeding, pregnant wife and escorted his mistress out the emergency exit to avoid a scandal. He left me there to die. He didn't know that the "son" he was protecting was a rental—a prop Serena hired to trap him. And he didn't know that the baby he left to die on the gallery floor was the only real child he would ever have. I didn't go home to cry. I sent him a receipt for a cremation service for "Baby Boy Hayes," withdrew half our savings, and vanished. He thinks he's free. He has no idea I'm still alive, and I’m taking his real son with me.

I sold my cameras and lenses—everything that defined me—to buy the first servers for my husband’s startup. Fifteen years later, on my birthday, Dustin left me alone to celebrate with his new assistant, Jami. When I confronted him about the affair, he didn't apologize. He threw a fifty-thousand-dollar check at me and told me to buy something pretty. But the betrayal didn't stop there. Jami broke into our safe and stole my late mother's vintage sapphire ring. When I tried to take it back, she snapped the eighty-year-old gold band in half. I slapped her. In response, my husband shoved me hard. My head cracked against the solid oak nightstand. Blood poured down my face, staining the rug I had picked out. Dustin didn't call an ambulance. He didn't even check my pulse. He stepped over my bleeding body to comfort his mistress because she was "stressed." When his parents found out, they didn't care about my injury. They came to where I was hiding, accused me of being clumsy, and threatened to leave me with nothing if I ruined the family image. They forgot one crucial detail: I was the one who designed, coded, and installed the penthouse's smart security system. I had synced every camera to my private cloud before I walked out. I had the video of him assaulting me. I had the audio of him admitting to fraud. And I had my father on speed dial—the man who owned the bank holding all of Dustin's loans. I looked at his terrified parents and pulled up the footage on the TV. "I don't want your money," I said, my finger hovering over the 'Send' button to the District Attorney. "I want to watch him burn."

Corinne devoted three years of her life to her boyfriend, only for it to all go to waste. He saw her as nothing more than a country bumpkin and left her at the altar to be with his true love. After getting jilted, Corinne reclaimed her identity as the granddaughter of the town's richest man, inherited a billion-dollar fortune, and ultimately rose to the top. But her success attracted the envy of others, and people constantly tried to bring her down. As she dealt with these troublemakers one by one, Mr. Hopkins, notorious for his ruthlessness, stood by and cheered her on. "Way to go, honey!"

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?

After five years of playing the perfect daughter, Rylie was exposed as a stand-in. Her fiancé bolted, friends scattered, and her adoptive brothers shoved her out, telling her to grovel back to her real family. Done with humiliation, she swore to claw back what was hers. Shock followed: her birth family ruled the town's wealth. Overnight, she became their precious girl. The boardroom brother canceled meetings, the genius brother ditched his lab, the musician brother postponed a tour. As those who spurned her begged forgiveness, Admiral Brad Morgan calmly declared, "She's already taken."

Lyric had spent her life being hated. Bullied for her scarred face and hated by everyone-including her own mate-she was always told she was ugly. Her mate only kept her around to gain territory, and the moment he got what he wanted, he rejected her, leaving her broken and alone. Then, she met him. The first man to call her beautiful. The first man to show her what it felt like to be loved. It was only one night, but it changed everything. For Lyric, he was a saint, a savior. For him, she was the only woman that had ever made him cum in bed-a problem he had been battling for years. Lyric thought her life would finally be different, but like everyone else in her life, he lied. And when she found out who he really was, she realized he wasn't just dangerous-he was the kind of man you don't escape from. Lyric wanted to run. She wanted freedom. But she desired to navigate her way and take back her respect, to rise above the ashes. Eventually, she was forced into a dark world she didn't wish to get involved with.

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

Sunlit hours found their affection glimmering, while moonlit nights ignited reckless desire. But when Brandon learned his beloved might last only half a year, he coolly handed Millie divorce papers, murmuring, "This is all for appearances; we'll get married again once she's calmed down." Millie, spine straight and cheeks dry, felt her pulse go hollow. The sham split grew permanent; she quietly ended their unborn child and stepped into a new beginning. Brandon unraveled, his car tearing down the street, unwilling to let go of the woman he'd discarded, pleading for her to look back just once.