The Surrogacy Secret
/1/129726/coverbig.jpg?v=d952b45e9b05aae9f5803a8b2c8d4fc6)
The Hockey Prince's Secret Ice Queen
All I wanted was to find a computer genius to process the non-linear dynamic equations for my ecological model. Instead, I found myself cornered by Julian Andrews, the university's hockey prince, trading a public, staged kiss for his academic support. To finalize our "deal," I was dragged to the campus ice rink. The cheerleaders and puck bunnies immediately swarmed him, mocking my plain clothes and treating me like a pathetic joke. Brooke, the head cheerleader, even set up a figure skating competition with a date with Julian as the grand prize. She performed a basic spin, blew him a kiss, and smugly waited for me to fall flat on my face and humiliate myself. His hockey teammates laughed from the sidelines, watching me try to support Julian as he stumbled around the ice like a newborn giraffe. But as I held his warm hand to keep him from falling, I couldn't help but feel something was terribly wrong. Why was a top-tier athlete faking such awful balance? And why did his ice-blue eyes stare at me with such knowing anticipation, as if he already knew about the professional figure skating past I had spent years trying to bury? "Just let go and skate." He whispered, slowly releasing my hand. I took a deep breath, glided to the center of the rink, and landed a flawless double Axel. As the entire rink fell into a dead, shocked silence, I realized I had just exposed not only my own hidden past, but also the biggest secret of the campus god.
Chapter 1 No.1
Sage POV:
"Let me kiss you."
The request was a low, hurried murmur—warm, quiet, and laced with the faintest edge of mortification.
Stunned, I snapped my head up toward the sound.
Julian Andrews filled my vision. He easily towered a head over me, his lean, athletic frame silhouetted against the bright morning glare, casting a long shadow across the cobblestones. Briar University's star forward. Team captain. The athletic department's untouchable golden boy.
Campus rumor had it that Julian was notoriously indifferent, never sparing anyone a second glance.
Behind him, a solid wall of navy-and-gold varsity jackets blocked the brick path. His teammates were whistling, shoving each other, and effectively cutting off my only exit.
The sudden commotion immediately bottlenecked the morning foot traffic. Whispers rippled through the crowd, and within seconds, a dozen students reached into their pockets out of sheer muscle memory, black camera lenses catching the light as they aimed squarely at us.
Julian's sharp eyes tracked the movement, his jaw tightening into a hard, irritated line.
Before I could take a single defensive step back, he closed the distance between us. Leaning down into my space, his broad shoulders shifted in a subtle, fluid maneuver—throwing up an impenetrable physical wall that completely shielded my face from the intrusive glare of the cameras.
His sharp, striking face hovered breathtakingly close. His deep baritone brushed against my ear, lost to the autumn wind, meant for me alone:
"Sorry to drop this on you," he whispered, his pale blue eyes disarmingly earnest, holding a quiet heat that sent a tremor straight down my spine. "The guys backed me into a locker-room dare... but I'm not here to use you as a joke. We can fake it. Angle it so it looks real—whatever you're comfortable with. Just help me get them off my back, and I owe you one."
It was only then that my brain finally rebooted.
What on earth? He's actually trying to kiss me?
A sharp flare of pure absurdity hit me, and my gaze dropped to my reflection in the dark glass door of the adjacent building: an oversized, faded gray hoodie that swallowed my frame whole, soft, thin jeans worn at the knees, bare-faced dark circles carved beneath my eyes from forty-eight hours of non-stop coding, my dark hair hastily twisted into a cheap plastic claw clip, and a pair of oversized, thick black-rimmed glasses sitting heavy on the bridge of my nose, completely hiding my face.
I looked like a refugee from an all-night disaster. How had Briar's golden prince ended up in front of me?
When I looked back up, my breath trapped in my throat anyway. He was too close, his clean scent of winter mint and cedar wrapping around my senses. Having those pale blue eyes staring straight down at me made my chest tighten in a way I really didn't want to acknowledge.
"Clock's ticking, Cap!" Landon howled from the sidelines, hands cupped around his mouth as the rest of the players lost their minds laughing. "Plant one on her, or enjoy the five-AM bag skate!"
A raucous chorus of barks and chest-thumping went up from the team.
A few yards away, two girls heading toward the dining hall froze in their tracks, pointing their phones.
"Wait, who the hell is that?" one of them laughed loudly, zooming her camera in on my face. "She looks like she just crawled out of a dumpster. There's no way Julian's actually kissing her. Post it on Sidechat right now—this is going straight to number one."
The cruel words hit like a splash of ice water, snapping me out of my daze and instantly killing the stupid flutter in my chest.
I hated the attention.
Four years ago, after my family and my former training partner framed me and destroyed my competitive skating career, I swore I would never be public entertainment again. I buried my name, switched majors, and hid behind oversized fleece and thick glasses just to live an invisible life. If I ended up on the campus forums with Julian Andrews, the internet vultures would dox me before noon—and drag up the toxic scandal I had bled to walk away from.
My research was already on the verge of falling apart. I didn't have time for this circus.
I locked my grip around my heavy binders, my knuckles straining white.
"Find someone else for your dare, Andrews," I said coldly, taking a step back to put distance between us, my voice tight with adrenaline. "I'm not interested in being part of your game. Move."
I kept my head down, attempting to brush past him.
"You're Sage Kelley, right?"
The sound of my name brought my boots to an immediate halt.
I blinked up at him, caught completely off guard.
"Professor Beaumont's senior research student," Julian straightened up slightly, his cadence measured and even, carrying an intellectual sharpness that seemed impossible beneath a varsity jacket. "I saw your Havenwood Creek senior capstone proposal sitting on his desk over Sunday dinner."
My heart gave a hard, hollow thud. Professor Beaumont was my academic advisor—and the guardian of the final research endowment my late father had left behind.
Julian leaned in slightly, his voice dropping to a near-whisper against the whistle of the wind. "I spent an hour going over your codebase."
My lips parted. "You... read my proposal?"
"Your simulation keeps crashing because your core fluid algorithm strategy is flawed," Julian murmured, his pale blue eyes deadly sharp. "And Uncle Des mentioned that if you don't deliver a working version by this Friday, the department is pulling your grant—which means you don't clear your senior thesis, and you don't graduate in May."
The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.
Friday was the deadline. If the funding was pulled, the project died, my senior capstone failed, and I would be forced to stay another semester without my degree. Worse, my father's final ecological legacy would be reduced to scrap paper.
I had been panicking over that exact deadline for two days straight, and Julian had just laid it out like it was nothing.
Worse, I couldn't even brush him off. I had heard the rumors about Beaumont's nephew—the CS prodigy everyone in the department talked about. I just had never realized it was him.
"I know how to fix your algorithm," Julian stated plainly, laying his cards on the table, his gaze locking onto mine with an unshakeable, quiet certainty. "Help me get through this bet. In return, I'll rewrite your boundary calculations tonight. Deal?"
/0/47971/coverbig.jpg?v=4370cf2b2dd73481b07b2b36a6746c3b)
The Surrogacy Secret
Royal Robinson is devasted when his brother is tragically killed in a car accident but when he learns his niece was not the biological child of his sister-in-law, his world comes crashing down. A man on a mission, he sets out to find out how the man he thought was the most devoted in the world, not
/0/75433/coverbig.jpg?v=40679035b8d250440784cdf79ee6f908)
Surrogacy For Her Boss
On what was meant to be the happiest day of her life, Bellamy Brooks discovers her fiancé's betrayal-with her own cousin. Humiliated at the altar and blamed for the scandal by the very family who only ever saw her as a pawn, she walks away from the Brooks name for good. When her enigmatic billionai
/0/91250/coverbig.jpg?v=076f8d02a6aedf06052d6971daba479d)
A Billionaire's Surrogacy Deal
She signed a contract to save her family... but she didn't know she was selling her soul to the devil from her forgotten past. Anastasia Beverly is nineteen, broke, and desperate. When her family teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, she agrees to a secret surrogacy deal with the ruthless billionaire,
/0/88504/coverbig.jpg?v=6da891943a3940c377d0e4ba75ae1809)
Surrogacy For Ex's Uncle Professor
"Fuck me, Victor!" My boyfriend is lying on the bed. The woman bouncing on his lap was a stranger. She had cat-shaped ears that were out, her tail swishing back and forth. I stood there for a while, in shock. Victor is the basketball star of this school, and a werewolf. I'm a human girl, mysteriou
/0/61817/coverbig.jpg?v=1f80583261794b987e94f267e3035603)
One-Night Stand: Accidental Surrogacy for Billionaire
"Miss Brown, I am the butler here at your service," the butler replied. "My master wants to buy the baby in your belly." "What?!" Does that mean the abortion didn't take place? Did they kidnap her from the operating table just to buy the baby? But why her? "You..." Alice was about to ask a questio
/0/48269/coverbig.jpg?v=4f5a5efd75dd0b343bde140903f1d964)
Sold to Lycan King for Surrogacy
He is a 33-year-old Lycan King, I'm a high school graduate. It's rumored that he was cursed by his first love, a dark witch who betrayed him, rendering him unable to feel the presence of a mate and sire offspring. To break the curse, he needed to find an 18-year-old virgin in the human world to serv
/0/69584/coverbig.jpg?v=64e31e035d3bec0f8a6a055482a6cd72)
LOVE AND SECRET- THE BILLIONAIRE SECRET
"Is this your idea of a blind date, Ms. Alejandro? Crashing your boss's table with that fiery temper of yours?" Luciana froze, her cheeks flushed as she stared at the one man she swore to avoid: Finlay Maverick, her enigmatic and infuriating CEO. Single mother Luciana Alejandro's move from Mexico Ci
/0/84604/coverbig.jpg?v=b8d31123164936f3727d34ce6c7c1915)
The Regent's Secret
The world was a blur of pain, and Kael, my fierce protector, was there to sweep me into his arms, just like always. He was my anchor, the man whose life was bound to mine by a rare, ancient Soul-Link—a sacrifice I'd made without a second thought to save him from poison years ago. I trusted him wit
/1/103033/coverbig.jpg?v=1fe470b35d775f316df8d8ffc3ef08f5)
THE BILLONAIRE'S SECRET OBSESSION
"He saved me from the streets, only to break my heart in his penthouse." Star was a woman with nothing, trapped in a "living contract" with the cold billionaire Adrian Scott. After weeks of resisting his intense gaze, a single drunken night of explosive passion leads to a life-changing secret: she's
/0/80957/coverbig.jpg?v=f949ee76f8b710e2f1b1e79cc1225ef8)
The Secret Heiress.
Betrayed by her ex-husband and unjustly sent to jail, Tamara discovers deep secrets about her past, including her true identity and a long-lost lover. As she understands a life turned upside down, she faces relentless enemies and an undeniable attraction to Richard Garrison, the most sought-after ba
/0/49412/coverbig.jpg?v=65d19d6cc8fd19ff0990ac7a6a74b941)
'The Billionaire's Secret
"I just want to know why you're distancing yourself." "I want to know," he said with a deep sigh, his voice still trembling. "I want to know why you have to say those things to Yves!?" "What things?" "That you love me?" "Why? Don't I?" She sobbed even harder. Nena shook, her weakened arms slipp
/0/58084/coverbig.jpg?v=711997affb540b5e19e8cab854af84d8)
The Billionaire's Secret Son.
Billionaire Oliver proposes a fake marriage to a struggling Sophia, a Gallery owner to support her business, they embark on a journey of pretending to be in love. However, their carefully crafted facade crumbles when Sophia discovers she is pregnant with Oliver's child, threatening to expose the
/0/69787/coverbig.jpg?v=01f2f849c5c26cb0e7d218d9fd71c8cb)
The Lycan's Secret Bride
Aurora Ellis has always been drawn to the shadows of history, but when her research leads her to the mysterious town of Moonveil, she uncovers more than just myths. Hidden within the dense forests and ancient ruins lies a dark secret a prophecy of a human bride destined to change the fate of the Lyc
/0/61572/coverbig.jpg?v=a38e52659ce38326f5fc61031a1ec3e6)
THE BILLIONAIRE SECRET TWINS
"Oh no! Damn!" He curses, remembering how he ripped the lady's clothes off and slipped into her honeypot with no consent. "How could I be so drunk?" A desperate choice. A chance encounter. A night that changes everything. When a young woman's world is turned upside down, she makes a risky decision t
/0/34669/coverbig.jpg?v=5bdf52fd13a6b93bad72c2434c0d7632)
The billionaire's secret Mermaid
Emily Chapman was a twenty-two years old lady that invited trouble inside her life when she saved a little mermaid she named Lisa, everyone Emily was close to was against her keeping the mermaid and it even cost her, her legs. Nineteen years later Lisa didn't know she was a mermaid, she didn't still
/0/65305/coverbig.jpg?v=67923990c4f3536ab245ec5f82c5f1a9)
THE ALPHA'S FORSAKEN SECRET
Ava Thorne never felt she could be Alpha Jackson Wolfe's mate, a merciless man. She was weak and helpless, unable to match the force and domination his pack demanded. Driven by three indisputable reasons-his pack needed a strong Luna, his desire to find an alliance with another strong Alpha through
/0/72279/coverbig.jpg?v=5fe041b462ccbcd41d6724c6ea6e114d)
The billionaire's secret vow
She hated him before she even met him. Alexis Carter is one of the best legal minds in New York, known for her ruthless ability to take down powerful men who think they're untouchable. When she's assigned to handle a high-stakes corporate case, she's ready for war-until she realizes her new client
/0/70698/coverbig.jpg?v=b13a39da31b6ed9ec8b1b69d4dcf03c2)
THE BILLIONAIRE'S SECRET LEGACY
I never imagined my life would come down to survival and surrender. The art center I've poured my heart into is drowning in debt, and I'm days away from losing everything. Then Nicholas Scott walks into my life-a billionaire with a gaze as sharp as his tailored suits and a proposition I can't afford
/0/77499/coverbig.jpg?v=d98c2595fd68a4e9c0d48eb694017fd2)
The Billionaire Secret Bride
When struggling waitress Ava Sinclair secretly marries ruthless billionaire Lucas Draven in exchange for a million dollars and her sister's life-saving surgery, she believes she's made a deal with the devil. But Lucas has secrets darker than she imagined-and someone wants them both dead.
/0/72225/coverbig.jpg?v=53bb989cdd0af948b063f0a5f638e8cf)
The Princess Secret Mate
Princess Isabella has always known her future lies in an arranged political marriage to Prince Caspian, a powerful heir from a neighboring kingdom. This marriage is meant to secure peace between the two kingdoms, and Isabella's duty to her people is clear. However, during her journey to his kingdom,
