Xara His beautiful unwanted bride
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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?"
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His Unwanted Bride
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My Beautiful Bride
Last night, I spent an erotic night with a stranger in a bar. I'm not a random woman. I did this because I was too sad yesterday. The boyfriend who had been in love with me for three years dumped me and flash-married a rich girl. Although I act as if nothing happened in front of my friends, I'm r
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Unwanted Bride
Sebastian Knight A billionaire who owns a chain of companies worldwide and famous for his arrogant, merciless and dominating nature. He hates middle-class girls and likes to use them like changing clothes. The word 'marriage' doesn't exist in his dictionary. In the world he only loves a person and
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Bound By Blood: His Unwanted Contract Bride
Four years ago, I was drugged on a luxury yacht and ended up pregnant with twins. I raised them in secret, enduring my stepfamily's daily abuse, until the billionaire West family patriarch cornered us at the airport. He instantly recognized my son's face—an exact replica of his ruthless grandson,
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His Unwanted Bride: The Substitute's Secret
Elianna was nothing more than a substitute wife, pushed into a cold, transactional marriage with billionaire Adrien Leach after her perfect older sister, Ivette, suddenly ran away. For a year, they lived as strangers sharing a zip code, which was exactly what Elianna needed to hide her darkest secr
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Obsessed with His Unwanted Mute Bride
Raised as a Foster child in the powerful Carter crime family, Beverly has harbored deep feelings for Diro Carter, the heir who once served as her childhood protector. Born mute, she struggles to communicate her emotions in a marriage forged from obligation Diro wed her only to fulfill his dying gran
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His Unwanted Bride, Another Man's Queen
My fiancé, the ruthless Mafia Underboss, tore my dead mother's necklace from my throat and fastened it around another woman's neck. "Diana needs it," Arthur said, his eyes cold. "My blood remembers loving her. It calms her anxiety." He was referring to the bone marrow transplant that saved his lif
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His Unwanted Bride: The Secret Genius Commander
Corey Hendrix was the family's dirty secret, a forgotten stepdaughter deliberately hidden away in rural Montana for twenty years. But today, her stepfather Isham summoned her to his study and slid a marriage contract across the desk. He was forcing her to marry Lucas Fitzgerald—a powerful billionai
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His Unwanted Bride (Married by Mistake)
A loveless marriage, a stone cold husband and a brutal arrogant man was what destiny brought before Ava Leon. Her marriage was an arranged mistake, she was his unwanted bride and he was her stone hearted husband. He treated her like a filth until he found a convenient reason to have her sent to
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His Unwanted Mute Bride Is A Genius
Aria Sinclair, supposedly a mute, uneducated orphan from the Appalachian mountains, was brought into the ultra-wealthy Sterling family to fulfill an old debt. The family patriarch forced his arrogant grandson, Julian, to marry her, instantly making her the target of their vicious elite circle. Jul
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His Beautiful Fascination
She didn't know, but her eyes captured his attention from the beginning. She didn't know, but her sweet smile almost made him stop breathing. She didn't know that she had been his fascination from the first moment he saw her. She didn't know and left him in despair. Thea Lark, a hard-working gir
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His Beautiful Ruin
Inara Hale thought she was marrying a billionaire. She never realized she was marrying his obsession. For years, Lucien Mercer watched Inara from a distance, convincing himself it was nothing more than guilt. Until his stepbrother, Erik Revani, fell in love with her. When Lucien suddenly announce
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Mr. Billionaire's Unwanted Bride
“You wanted to marry me right?” He asked as he threw her against the wall. She hissed from pain and looked at the man in front of her. He was heartless towards her but yet he’s the most handsome man she has ever seen. “F**CKING ANSWER ME ISABELLA” She shuddered under his dangerous gaze and his sho
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His Unwanted
Finding a mate, ascending the position of a Luna in a prestigious pack, seems like a life every female wolf hopes for. But Autumn Sanders will totally disagree with that. Stumbling into a pack, she finds her mate. But he's cold and despises her for just no reason. Alpha Luka Morrison, the le
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Billionaire Sinclair’s Unwanted Bride
SINCLAIR’S UNWANTED BRIDE (A Royal Arranged Marriage) He is ruthless. He is heartless. He is dangerous. So they say. Who is he? Billionaire Prince Sinclair Miller. He is the heir to the throne and he wants nothing than to come out of an arranged marriage with the minister’s daughter. Brielle Allen
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A BILLIONAIRE'S UNWANTED BRIDE
It Is a one-night stand for a 24 years old college girl, Annabelle. With no strings attached. When she sees her baby father on the cover page of a magazine tagged as a billionaire and a Casanova, her mother is set on using him to change their poor status. Aidan is a 26 years old billionaire with a
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The Unwanted Bride
"You never looked at me as myself. You never treated me as a spouse because another woman is in your mind when we're together. Every time you say 'I love you,' with every embrace and kiss, it's her you're thinking of, not me. You loved me not because you loved me, but because you were keeping my sib
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His Betrayal, My Beautiful Rebirth
I was the secret girlfriend of rising political star Kellen Jefferson, and the sacrifice he made thirty-eight times to appease his manipulative sister, Cherrelle. Her cruelty escalated from ruining my career to pushing me off a stage, breaking my wrist. Kellen covered it up. He chose her again whe
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His bride,His rule
You are my bride. You wear my name. That means you follow my rules." Calla Rose Hart never planned to be someone's possession.Never in her whole life. But when her family crumbles and her little brother's life hangs in the balance, she signs away her future in one ruthless agreement. Marry Lucian
