7674 Book(s) Related to the martial emperor's life after seclusion

She knelt in the pouring rain, pounding on my glass door, covered in mud, her voice hoarse from shouting. I stood inside, holding Lily's hand. She called my name, over and over, like calling a dead person. I lowered my head and said to Lily, "Come on, Daddy will take you to dinner." Then I turned and closed the door. From beginning to end, I didn't look at her once. Not because I still hated her. It was because she meant nothing to me anymore. And that woman didn't know—three years ago, when she threw me away like trash, I had already learned not to cling to trash.

I got off work two hours early, hoping to surprise my boyfriend whom I had just bailed out for $30,000.
I pushed the bedroom door open. The surprise was on me—my stepsister Chloe was straddling Dorian. The same man who, just three days ago, sat crying on the police station floor swearing "I only have you," now slowly lit a cigarette and asked if I wanted to join them.
I thought that was the worst moment of my life.
I was wrong.
When the hand that had just been caressing Chloe gripped my throat and hoisted me into the air, I finally saw the truth. Dorian Vane, the guy who humiliated me at our high school prom ten years ago, hadn't changed at all.

On the night of her wedding, Evelyn Knight paid the ultimate price for trusting the wrong man—her husband murdered her with his own hands.
But fate grants her a second chance.
Reborn on the very day she's meant to marry Nathaniel Andrews, Evelyn wastes no time. This time, she won't be the victim. She escapes the altar and makes a bold move—straight into the arms of her husband's sworn rival.
"Mr. Everett, will you marry me?"
"This a surrender?"
"No," she smirks. "This is a tactical retreat followed by a counterattack."
What begins as a calculated alliance quickly spirals into something far more dangerous—obsession, protection, desire. Julian Everett never expected to fall for the woman who barged into his life like a storm. But now that he has her, he won't let her go.
This time, Evelyn isn't just rewriting her fate—She's taking her revenge one kiss at a time.

Lorraine never expected to lose her virginity to her cold, unreadable CEO Tristan—let alone five times in one night. Even more shocking? He keeps showing up to save her, stepping in not once, but twice, to protect her from a toxic ex. After several heartfelt proposals, she finally agrees to a contract marriage—thinking it's a practical solution to a messy life.

Tristan has had his eyes on Lorraine for years—the brilliant top designer working quietly under his nose. The contract is just the beginning of his plan to claim her completely. He's ready to offer her everything: protection, devotion, and a love she's never dared to hope for.

But when jealous exes and relentless suitors re-enter the picture, threatening to tear them apart, their fragile arrangement is put to the test. Can a marriage built on strategy survive long enough to become something real?

She rushed home late at night to celebrate her husband's birthday — only to find him with another woman.
"Daddy, when are you and Mommy getting a divorce?" her son asked, innocent and cruel all at once. "I want Auntie to be my new mommy."
She thought of the divorce papers she'd found the day before. Without hesitation, she picked up her phone and dialed her boss.
"I'll join the OriginWorld research program. But I have one condition..."
Months later, she stood at the podium as a national-level AI research consultant, delivering a keynote lecture.
And there, in the audience, sat her ex-husband — staring up at her, utterly stunned.

When Iris went to prison for her boyfriend, she discovered that he was about to marry Alpha's daughter.
It turned out that he had been using her all along and then abandoned her...
Iris fell into despair, but unexpectedly, she crossed paths with Marcus, Alpha's son and her former patient.
She became her ex's brother-in-law's wedding companion?! The most notorious playboy in the Pack?

As a housewife, I never forgot a single milestone: every wedding anniversary, my husband’s 7th career anniversary, and the birthdays of my husband and daughter. Yet, my own birthday was always ignored. Both my husband and daughter only cared about that outsider woman. Finally, one day, I chose to walk away and revive my vintage shop business. Now... they are the ones filled with regret.

Eight years ago, I was the heir to a powerful dynasty—the man set to inherit an empire.

On the way home from a business deal, our convoy was ambushed and I was taken. My fiancée arrived with the ransom, and the kidnappers gave her a choice: save one man. She saved my closest friend—and left me bleeding in the ruins.

They thought I was dead. They went on camera, announced my “tragic death,” took my company, split my legacy, and lived on my name for eight long years.

But I didn’t die. A gray-zone mercenary unit pulled me out of a pile of bodies. I changed my name and climbed from the bottom of their world—training, bleeding, killing, leading—until I became one of their commanders.

Today, my fiancée is marrying my best friend. The invitation arrived with my name on it. I board a first-class flight under a new identity and head straight for their wedding.

Halfway through the ceremony, the priest asks if anyone objects.

I stand up. “I object.”

I didn’t come back to give my blessing. I came back to collect.

To fulfill a dying comrade's final request, I spent twelve years living in the shadows to protect his daughter. I took bullets for her, laundered her black-market assets, and eventually handed over my entire stake in the security empire. In her eyes, I am her father’s murderer; in mine, she is a mission—the only flicker of light left in my life. Until that fateful banquet, when she personally shoved me into the sights of mercenaries. Watching my blood bloom across her dress, she hooked her arm around my nemesis and ordered coldly, "Clean it up." In that moment, twelve years of devotion collapsed, and a heart that beat only for her finally learned to freeze. This time, I’ve decided to personally destroy the monster I raised.

I once loved Ryan deeply and helped him become the Alpha, only to be rewarded with chains in a dungeon and the mocking laughter of him and his mistress.

Fate gave me a second chance—I woke up reborn on the morning of the mate selection ceremony. There he was, still ordering me around in front of everyone, expecting me to play the obedient servant.

Everyone tried to convince me that Ryan, the man who killed me, is the "right choice."

Yet I chose Connor—the man feared by the entire clan, the one who will bring ruin to the clan for the sake of his one true love.

This time, I refuse to be the stepping stone on Ryan's climb to power.

I'm going to make everyone see who truly holds the reins.

My brother Miles blames me for our parents' deaths.
So he chose to adopt the deaf Vivian instead of keeping me.
Later, I met Sullivan.
He gave me a grand confession. He chose me, resolutely.
He also said I hired someone to assault Vivian—that I didn't deserve sympathy.
Five years after being cast out of my family, a dismembered female body was found inside a carnival mascot costume.
Miles, now a police officer, led the investigation. Sullivan, now a forensic pathologist, performed the autopsy.
They saw the bloodstained hearing aid and immediately called Vivian.
"I'm fine. I just saw the news—some big case. Should we tell Sis to be careful too? What if something happens to her?"
They refused, almost in unison.
"The moment she killed our parents, she stopped being my sister."
"She was jealous of you. She did too many terrible things. If she's dead, she had it coming."
My soul hovered in the air, watching them. I laughed until I cried.
But when they found out the victim was me—
Why did they both go mad?

She came to seduce a monster. She didn't expect to fall for one.
Elena Heart is a liar, a spy, assassin and the last ghost of a murdered noble house. To break the curse of monsters plaguing her land, she accepts a deadly mission: infiltrate the court of King Xavier Drakes, the tyrant who rules with iron and shadow, and seduce him into ruin.
But the king is not the beast she imagined.
Xavier has spent a decade chained to a monster inside his own soul, forged by betrayal and a childhood spent in darkness. He sees Elena’s ruse from her first treacherous smile. Yet he doesn't kill her. He plays along. Because a woman brave enough to lie to a tyrant might be brave enough to help him burn the real conspiracy down.
As lies entangle into truth and hatred twists into obsession, Elena discovers the greatest danger isn't the monsters at the border, it's the man who knows her every secret and surrenders anyway.
In a game of power and poison, the last move is always love. Or murder.
They’re not sure which yet.

“Hide! Hide!” I yelled, striking Greg violently in the butt. I sensed his astonishment but I didn’t give a damn. If he loved me, he'd understand I was in a precarious situation. “What the hell's happening?!” Greg screamed but I still pushed him into my wardrobe anyway as Fred's voice echoed through the house. I can't imagine the torment I'd face if I was caught in a relationship with a man. 7 years ago, I worked for the Richardson family with my mother and when I lost her to cancer, I decided to drop out of school. However, luck was on my side or so I thought. The Richardson adopted me as their own but when I thought my life was starting to get better, Fred the true son of the family came into my life. It went downhill from there. I became a sex toy for him and it even got worse when my adoptive father joined his son to make my life a misery. I became traumatic. Not even the sweetest prince charming could woo me into liking him. To hell with every man! I hated them all until Greg came along. He loved me more than I loved myself but what could I do? Both father and son of the Richardson family had issued me a stern warning to shut every man out – I was an exclusive property. Would I ever get a shot at true love when my life’s a living hell?

"I reject Eveline Shadowbrook as my mate. I have already chosen another mate to stand by my side." Everyone was shocked by Prince Cedric's revelation. Eveline quickly glanced to the side and saw a man with his back to the hall. She immediately recognized the scent she had sensed outside the royal hall as that of the alpha prince. Eveline, a strong and independent young woman, after offering herself as a substitute bride, faces rejection from Prince Cedric. Feeling unjustly treated, she aims to prove her worth and takes control of her destiny. Remaining true to herself, she embarks on a journey full of dangers, fighting against the oppressive monarchy of King Roderick while training with rebellious werewolves to hone her skills. As Eveline gains strength, she catches the prince's attention. She will have to overcome obstacles and make difficult choices that will determine her fate and reveal who truly rules her heart.

The day the IVF succeeded was when I realized Michael had deceived me all along.
He had only used me as a surrogate for my sister.
When I confronted him, he tested me, forcing me to kill someone. "Afraid to pull the trigger? Doesn't seem like my kind of woman," he sneered.
I tried to run, but he caught me.
He kept me locked away, forced me to eat foods I was allergic to until I needed my stomach pumped, and chained me to the bed while he went off with her.
I cried until I had no tears left—and finally learned how to hold a gun.

My daughter helped my husband cheat.

My ten-year-old begged me to take her to a summer camp in Italy. My husband looked at her like she hung the moon. Booked the tickets right there.

I thought I was the luckiest mom alive.

Then I checked the pet camera from overseas.

There he was, fucking my daughter's riding instructor on our couch.

But what really killed me? What he said, "Don't worry. Nina wants that horse bad enough, she'll keep her mom in Europe as long as we need."

Back home, my husband dropped a receipt. Two identical limited edition watches.

He froze. My sweet daughter didn't miss a beat, "Dad used the other one to bribe someone so I could get my horse!"

They lied in perfect sync. That's when something in me broke.

They thought I was still that stupid, trusting wife.

What they didn't know?

I'd already signed a contract. Going back to my art career in New York.

Nineteen times. That's how many times Lucas promised to marry me, only to leave me standing alone because of her.
Today was supposed to be our day. But as I stood in the biting cold outside the restaurant, watching him carefully help Selena into his Maybach, the marriage application still tucked in my purse, I finally understood—that "someday" would never come.
"Let's reschedule the registration, okay?" he'd said without even looking at me.
I walked straight to HR and submitted my resignation. Then I accepted the offer from the Morinetti family—his sworn enemies.
As I boarded my flight to the West Coast, my phone exploded with messages.
"We agreed to go to City Hall today. Where are you?"
I glanced at the screen one last time, then powered it off.
"We're done."

The man I marry will become the future leader of the company.
In my previous life, without a second thought, I chose to marry the eldest son
whom I had always liked.
But shortly after our wedding, he came stepsister,
and even took out his frustration of not getting her on me,
going so far as to poison and kill me.
This time around,
I chose his younger brother.
I'll see for myself
if he can spend his life with my sister without me standing in their way. me.
This time around,
I chose his younger brother.
I'll see for myself
if he can spend his life with my sister without me standing in their way.

Not long after I transferred to this school, I became the bullies’ favorite target.
They didn’t like how quiet I was or how pale I looked, so they casually slapped me with a nickname: “vampire.”
It started with shoves in the hallway and jeers in the classroom, escalated to messing with my drink, then stuffing trash into my locker.
They treated my silence as permission and wrapped every provocation in the same excuse: “Just a joke.”
Until that night, when humiliation wasn’t enough. They lured me into a tiny storage room behind the auditorium—locked the door, killed the lights, set up a fixed camera—ready to strap me to a chair and film an “execution” video that would make sure I could never hold my head up at this school again.
What they didn’t know was that the nickname wasn’t a joke. It was the one time they got the truth right.
I really am a vampire.

My boyfriend pulled off a drone-sky proposal that lit up the entire city.
Crowds cheered, “Congratulations to Mr. Gunson and Mrs. Gunson—at last, true lovers become family.”
But the woman curled in his arms was his secretary.
The “me” in their mouths had long since turned to white bones beneath a mound of earth.

Swapped at birth and stripped of her rightful place, Mia Jones thought her life couldn't get any worse after her scheming sister, Eleanor, stole her family and her fiancé. But a malicious plot leads Mia into the wrong room.

Drugged and thrown into the wrong man’s bed. Mia Jones realized her hands were tied to the bed frame. A towering silhouette radiating a dangerous aura stood at the foot of the bed. Before she could process what was happening, she was claimed by a violent kiss from that man… unaware that the man she left behind was the ruthless heir of the Greco Empire and powerful billionaire. A man powerful enough to ruin cities with a single word. A man who never lets women near him, Dylan Greco.
When Dylan wakes, the mysterious woman is gone.
“Have you uncovered the identity of the woman last night?”
“Boss, we couldn’t find anything. That woman… must have broken in by accident.”
But he remembers her. And he wants answers.

Escaping into the night, Mia Jones tries to bury the traumatic memory, unaware that the CEO is tearing the city apart to find the mysterious woman with the crescent-shaped scar on her back.
Fate brings them together again when Mia unknowingly takes a job as the therapist for Dylan's autistic son, "Little Shrimp"—a child who instantly connects with her and calls her "Mummy". As Dylan unravels the truth about that dark night, he vows to protect Mia and help her reclaim everything that was stolen from her. But with a manipulative sister, a treacherous family, and deadly enemies lurking in the shadows, will their unexpected bond survive? It's a gripping tale of sweet revenge, hidden secrets, and a romance that could bring an empire to its knees.

For five years, Lyka Forth was the invisible force behind billionaire Hollywood icon Sean McGregor. She scheduled his life, anticipated his needs, and quietly hid a hopeless, unrequited love for her boss. She never expected him to look her way, especially not after the tragic car accident that claimed his wife’s life and left his four-year-old son traumatized and mute.
But Sean is drowning. Running on empty from a brutal case of insomnia, he discovers a bizarre secret: the only time his mind quiets is when he’s near Lyka. Desperate to give his son a stable guardian and eager to keep his only source of peace close, Sean offers Lyka a ruthless deal: a contract marriage. Only on paper. No feelings involved.
Forced into close proximity, the icy boundaries of their business arrangement begin to melt into a scorching, slow-burn passion. But between a media frenzy, a toxic manager, and a vengeful ex-girlfriend, their fake life is a battlefield. Just as Sean realizes his vows have become entirely real, a devastating secret about the night of the accident surfaces. The text messages that sent his late wife fleeing to her death came from Lyka’s phone.
Can love survive the ultimate betrayal, or was their marriage doomed from the very first signature?

Anna Brown has the ability to dream and go to the Moonland, the land of werewolves, and dark creatures. But she wished all her dreams were just like those that everybody has. Yet, her dreams were different. Her dreams weren't colors of rainbows and sunshine, her dreams became her reality, after all, she was a descendant of the Moon Goddess. The last of her bloodline. Nobody knew that she was the daughter of the Moon and Fire. However, Anna was beyond miserable, how fate played her, how she was just a pawn to an ancient war of werewolves. Her fierce visions were her grief untold, and she wished she could show it, she does. But she has to let the long-lost Golden Alpha Harry Camilton in so he can trust him yet, she doesn't know whom to trust and they shattered her hope, lies were told. Would she choose the promise of his love or choose the call of the Moon Goddess?

Marigold never asked to be hunted, mistaken for her dead twin, or babysat by the most terrifying Alpha in the kingdom. Gregor says it’s life or death. She says it’s annoying. Between botched impressions of her glamorous sister, endless sass, and the fact that her only spare clothes are long gone, survival feels like one big joke—until the Black Fang pack closes in with blood in their teeth.
He’s massive, ruthless, and maddeningly protective. She’s reckless, sharp-tongued, and absolutely not afraid of him. Together, they’re running for their lives beneath the storm—but what’s more dangerous? The assassins hunting them…or the sparks threatening to burn them both alive?

The first birthday after we finally made up.

Shen Linze sent me a menu and told me to cook everything myself.

He invited all his close friends, plus the girl he was chasing, saying it was a birthday party for me.

On the long dining table were the stir-fried dishes I’d spent three hours rushing to make.

Shen Linze picked up a piece of sweet and sour spareribs and carefully held it to the girl’s mouth.

“Yaoyao, have a taste. I asked Su Qingyan to make them specially—they’re all your favorite dishes.”

The girl sitting in the main seat didn’t react at all.

Shen Linze put down his chopsticks and told the servants to wheel out a custom-made multi-layer cake.

“Do you like it? I designed this just for you. It has the place where we first met, your prettiest smile,
your favorite flowers, your favorite color purple, the wedding you’ve always wanted, and the initials of your name: ZY…”

Three months ago, I’d seen that exact cake design in Shen Linze’s office.

After he finished the design, he brought in several top pastry chefs from abroad and spent three months making it.

My birthday was coming soon, and I’d thought the “ZY” on the cake stood for the last characters of both our names.

I never knew it was just my own foolish wishful thinking.

When love smells like betrayal, the past never fades. Abigail thought she had buried her story with Leonardo, the man who made her feel alive… and destroyed her.

Three years later, her life seems perfect: success, luxury, independence, and a new love with Armando. But ghosts don’t die —they only learn to hide behind new promises—. Between threats, family deceit, and a love that refuses to die, Abigail will discover that the real enemy is not always the one who returns from the past…
but the one who sleeps beside her.

"You are nothing but a plaything! You exist to be used!"
When the man who once promised eternal love roared these cruel words, Angel's illusion of a happy marriage was shattered into bloody pieces.
Four years ago, endless domestic violence and humiliation dragged her into a living hell. Yet, that physical nightmare was merely the prelude to an even darker conspiracy.
Four years later, she finds herself trapped in a much more terrifying trap. To completely tame her, a mysterious controller is injecting her with a dangerous drug called "Therapyne." It is designed to block out her memory and numb out her emotions, erasing who she is. As her past slips away day by day, Angel struggles desperately on the edge of losing herself, knowing she might disappear forever.
A desperate plea for help becomes her last saving straw. Under constant surveillance, her friend must break into the core office to steal the personal clipboard, the hidden camera footage, and most importantly, a vial of Therapyne.
This is a brutal race against time. When Angel's mind finally goes completely blank, will she still be able to recognize the one who risks everything to save her? Will she break free from the shackles, or will she be reduced to a perfect, emotionless puppet forever?

For my fiancée’s career, I was willing to be the ghost designer behind her for five years.

Until the day of the key bid, she stole the blueprint I had spent two sleepless years perfecting and signed it with the name of her useless first love.

The drawings are gone You can draw them again He needs this project to survive Be sensible she said, impatient when I confronted her

I did not argue My heart went cold I calmly left my engagement ring and my resignation letter and went to Europe

In just three months, without me, she became disgraced and buried in debt While I won Europe’s highest architectural gold award

I watched the once proud her soak in icy water for five hours just to earn a trace of my sympathy

I handed her a basic junior interview form with indifference Want to start over Report to the front desk Start with errands and work your way up

Three months after being reunited with the Harrington family, I won £5 million in the lottery.

Then, they kicked me out of the house.

My father, my mother, and that imposter brother—three swindlers—fabricated an apocalyptic lie and used a so-called "heirloom" to steal my lottery ticket.

They didn't know that the end times really were coming.

Unbeknownst to them, the true power of that wristband was—item duplication.

Little did they know, I was the one who had truly been reborn from the apocalypse.

In my past life, they used me as bait, letting me be torn to pieces by the infected.

In this life, 5 million pounds? Go ahead and squander it.

I want to watch them struggle in despair and die in fear.

And I will have unlimited resources at my disposal, on this wasteland—

As the tyrant ruling the underworld, Victor was ruthless and bloodthirsty, showing no mercy to anyone.

Women who tried to climb into his bed usually didn’t even get a whole corpse, yet I was the only one he kept by his side.

I’d taken a poisoned bullet for him, and nearly bled to death on the rotting floor of a safe house giving birth to his son.

He once kissed the bullet scar on my shoulder and promised me that when he sat on the godfather’s throne, I would be his only family matriarch.

But the moment he slipped on that black onyx ring symbolizing power, he carried another woman into the master bedroom of the manor.

I burst for the door, and he ordered his bodyguards to pin me outside, forcing me to listen to their sounds of passion all night long.

I banged on the door like a madwoman, so he slammed my paintbrush-wielding right hand in the heavy oak doorframe and crushed it mercilessly.

I finally caved when he threatened to cut off my mother’s hospital treatment.

Ten years ago, on the day my family was destroyed, Ezra Ashford promised to marry me.
Ten years passed. He refused to honor that promise, and he refused to mark me. The feral instincts in my blood were growing wilder by the day, pushing me to the brink of madness—yet he turned around, announced his engagement to Ophelia, the beloved daughter of the Silvermane Pack, and casually sold me off to Rhysand, a scarred, half-burned monster who cleaned corpses for a living.
On his wedding night, Ezra actually abandoned Ophelia, kicking down my door in his tailored tuxedo.
Only to freeze in his tracks.
I sat naked on the edge of the bed. Rhysand, the supposedly lowly corpse cleaner, had me wrapped in his arms. The bite mark on the back of my neck was still bleeding.

Four babies. A billion lies. One mess.

Ares Langford is reckless, spoiled, and dangerously close to losing his billionaire inheritance. One more mistake and his father swears to cut him off for good.

So when a cop pulls him over for speeding, Ares panics and lies. His girlfriend is giving birth, he claims. The officer insists on escorting him to the hospital. Desperate, Ares bribes a random nurse and finds a stranger who just gave birth to quadruplets.

Tessa Monroe is exhausted, broke, and alone with four newborns she never planned to raise by herself. When a cocky rich guy begs her to play pretend for a million dollars, she agrees.

But one lie spirals into a full blown scandal when Ares’ mother storms into the hospital, declares Tessa family, and whisks them all into the billionaire’s world.

Now Ares is stuck playing baby daddy to four kids who aren’t his, pretending to love a woman he barely knows, and fending off his father’s wrath all while the world watches.

What starts as a lie turns into the biggest twist of their lives.
Will love bloom in the chaos or will the truth destroy everything?

I was taking six-year-old Arabella to fit her dress for the theater's grand opening.
As we crossed the intersection, a truck suddenly lost control and T-boned our car.
When I opened my eyes again, an agonizing pain ripped through me. I opened my mouth to call out Everett's name, only to hear his hushed voice seeping through the crack in the door—
"Staging an unavoidable accident was the only way to use the emergency room as a cover for the drug trial."
"Now that Ophelia's treatment is a success, there's naturally no need for that little bastard to live."
My Arabella. She was secretly wheeled into the operating room by him, used as a human guinea pig for his mistress Delilah's daughter, who had bone cancer. Her sweet, bell-like vocal cords were cruelly carved out and transplanted into another child's throat.
In that defining moment, I realized he had never loved my daughter.
But what he didn't know—the child he just murdered with his own hands was his one and only flesh and blood.

"Jake? You sick fuck. Paid for this? His hands inside me?"

Sophia's voice cracked over the intercom, her oiled ass clenching around the masseur's pumping fingers. Live feed burned: her thighs quaking, pussy gushing slick down the table edge. I gripped the chair arms white-knuckled, cock straining—half rage, half blaze.

"Babe... yeah. Full service. Watch you cum harder," I rasped into the mic, voice raw. "Tell him—deeper or stop?"

Tech's eyes flicked to the camera, smirking as he curled two fingers inside her, thumb circling her clit. She bucked, moan ripping free. "Fuck... don't stop. Deeper—wreck me. Jake, you watching? Perverted cuck."

"Every thrust," I growled. "His fingers owning your tight pussy. Bigger rush than mine?"

Her head snapped up, doe eyes locking the hidden lens—pure fury melting to feral hunger. "Hell yes. Stretch me wider. Tell him flip me—fuck me raw while you beg."

Tech froze, glancing my way. My nod sealed it. "You heard her. Pound my girl. Make her scream your name."

He flipped her prone—tits spilling free, legs splayed wide. Cock out, thick and veined, he notched her dripping folds. "Ready to cum for a stranger, Sophia?"

"Do it," she hissed, hips grinding up. "Show Jake what he's missing."

He slammed home—her wail echoing both rooms. Relationship shattered. Door to real breeding? Kicked wide open.

At a dinner party in a Long Island mansion, my wife, desperate to latch onto a newly minted venture-capital darling, let our five-year-old son smash the gift I’d brought in front of everyone—then waved the keys to a luxury car and made him call another man “Daddy.” With icy arrogance, she slapped a divorce agreement on the table, convinced that a bottom-tier nobody like me would be unable to even put food on the table once I was gone. I didn’t argue. I left only four words—“As you wish”—and walked out in silence.

What she didn’t know was that the business empire she was so proud of stood behind a moat I had built with my own hands, from the shadows. What she knew even less was that the Wall Street titan she tried to cling to in her moment of desperation… was the ex-husband she had always tried to avoid.

When the mirage finally collapsed—when debts buried her and she was dragged down into the mud—she went mad searching for me. In the midst of a blizzard, my ex-wife, dressed in rags, knelt in Times Square, sobbing and begging me to come home. I only raised the window of my Maybach, calm and expressionless, and drove off without looking back—toward a shore she would never reach. Love that comes too late is worth nothing.

BLURB

For four years, Avrielle lived in a gilded cage of gratitude, cherished by a husband who stayed by her side after a tragic accident left her paralyzed. She believed she was a beloved wife—until she found the diary. Inside were the jagged words of a man trapped by guilt, dreaming of a divorce and the woman he truly loved.

Now, Avrielle has twenty-four hours to play the part of the happy bride one last time. While Kayden performs a mask of devotion, she is orchestrating a silent escape that will strip him of everything. But as the clock ticks down to her flight to Switzerland, the lines between her revenge and her lingering love begin to blur.

What if all she believed in was a lie... What if she caused her own destruction?

Isadora has no last name, no mother, and nothing she can truly call her own. She was taken in as a child out of "charity"—or so she was told—and grew up scrubbing pots in the Rincón household, sleeping on a cot beside the kitchen stove and surviving on leftovers she was expected to be grateful for.

On the night of the old patriarch's funeral, she hides in the wine cellar to cry where no one can see her. Through a rusty vent, she overhears two conversations she was never meant to hear.

The first: someone is planning to kill the new heir to the port.

The second: the kitchen girl who scrubs the Rincón family's pots is the last surviving Ferreira. The daughter of the port's true owners—the family the Arteagas slaughtered to the very last member. She has been raised like a stray dog for years, kept alive only until the day she could be played as their winning card.

Terrified, Isa flees into the night and collides with a stranger on the docks. In her panic, she tells him far more than she should. Realizing her mistake too late, she drives her knee into him and runs, leaving behind the only proof of who she really is.

Days later, out of every daughter from every powerful family in the port, the new master chooses her to be his wife.

Isa knows it isn't love.

She knows that man only wants what she overheard.

What Isa doesn't know is that Maximiliano Arteaga arrived in Ciudad S carrying a letter from his dying father and one final command:

Find the last Ferreira... and finish what I left undone.

What Max doesn't know...

is that he has just married her.