632 Book(s) Related to hey handsome manhwa

I tried twenty times to finalize my betrothal with Caius for our overseas fellowship, but accidents kept hurting me. I thought it was fate’s test—until I heard him admit he planned it all. He wanted another girl, using my pain to make me quit, all to keep his reputation clean. Now awake, I ended this lie for good.

At the Met Gala, I heard my husband tell his friends in French that I'm "boring." That his 22-year-old girlfriend is "so much more exciting in bed."

He laughed when they asked if I knew. "Elle ne comprend même pas 'bonjour'." (She doesn't even understand 'bonjour'.)

What Marcus doesn't know: I spent two years at the Sorbonne.

Je comprends tout, Marcus. I understand everything.

The diamond necklace he gave me after my miscarriage suddenly feels too tight. I smile at him across the champagne and candlelight.

He has no idea what's coming.

I've caught my fiancé Henry cheating ninety-nine times. And every single time, I forgave him.

That's because I have this rare condition—short-term memory loss. Every morning, I wake up with no memory of what happened the day before.

But then, out of nowhere, a car accident actually cured me.

I was so excited. I rushed over to tell Henry the good news, but stopped cold when I heard him outside the door, joking around with his friends:

"Didn't Judy get sick because she walked in on you and Kenna having sex?"

After my eighth trip to the psychiatric ward, I finally became the perfect, obedient wife my husband always wanted—even when I caught his childhood friend giving him a handjob in our living room.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Eric snapped, his eyes dark with irritation. "If those hands are useless, might as well chop them off." Without a word, I grabbed a kitchen knife and raised it toward my wrist. He kicked it away, screaming at me to stop being dramatic. So, I turned and charged headfirst toward the floor-to-ceiling window.

When I woke up, I heard him laughing with her. "She's fine. Just another attention stunt." He didn't know that the "treatment" he authorized had broken my mind into a million jagged pieces. He didn't know about the shock collars, the waterboarding, the dark cells. He thought I was finally "cured" of my jealousy.

It wasn't until a rafting trip, when his friend pushed me into the rapids and my prosthetic eye popped out and rolled across the deck, that his world shattered. As he stared at the empty black socket where my left eye used to be, he finally realized what those facilities had done to me. He dropped to his knees, screaming my name, but the woman who loved him was already dead.

Will his tears be enough to bring back the wife he destroyed, or is this just the beginning of his hell?

After the apocalypse began, my husband's female assistant stole my viral experiment data for the ninth time. I couldn't take it anymore and confronted her publicly.
My husband said I was just jealous of her, punished me by making me apologize to her in front of everyone, and demoted me.
Later, he sweet-talked me, promising compensation.
The next day, his true love showed up at the lab wearing his family heirloom necklace.
"François felt so bad about me being falsely accused yesterday that he gave me his family necklace."
"I heard this necklace is supposed to go to his wife. Oh, Andrea, you're not mad, are you?"
I just smiled. "Not mad at all. Trash belongs with trash—you two are perfect for each other."
François immediately snapped, "It's just a necklace. No need to be so nasty about it."
"Apologize to Caro right now, or I'll kick you out of the lab and divorce you!"
Watching François defend Caro, I didn't get angry at all.
Once I'm gone, his zombie virus research won't get anywhere.

Charlotte has led a protected life and has been educated by the very best all through her school years. It has come time for her to begin college while not exposing whom she is. Though the professors know whom she is through their contact and friendship with her famous father, they will assist in keeping her secret as to not have any unwanted harm due to her being the only child of said billionaire Archaeologist/Businessman Jeh Knight. With her security placed throughout the campus to keep her protected she embarks upon her adventure.
On her first day of school on her way to orientation she hurries up the steps while trying to hold onto all of her books and paperwork not paying enough attention to her surroundings as she runs headlong into another student. Her books scatter as her foot slips off of the stair and she closes her eyes awaiting the pain to follow. This sort of thing would not happen at home. At home, security had been placed always in reach of her to avoid any accidents or harm that may come to her person.
After this though runs through her mind she realized that her body was not falling as expected. She cautiously opened only one eye to peek through the curls that had fallen over her forehead, finding that she was looking at a face. Not only that but a handsome face.
He had shoulder length hair that had been dyed blond. He had double eyelids, sharp jawline, full lips, straight nose, and a kind smile. He had caught her mid fall and she was leaning back at an awkward angle, her body close to his, touching his, her heart racing. She immediately composed herself standing up while blushing.

Every night, he slips through my window. He never tells me his name.
He also never lets me touch him.
He owns me in the dark, then disappears before dawn.
For two years, he’s ruled my nights, taking me in every possible way.
Controlled me in ways I can't tell you.
Made me crave things I don’t understand. But when morning comes,
he returns to me as someone else. Natte Johnson.
The global hotel tycoon and rock star.
The man I grew up loving, my first love and losing.
Now I’m assigned to interview him.
The moment our eyes meet, something inside me pulls.
My body reacts to his voice alone and his gaze.

And I can’t stop wondering,
what if the man who commands me in the dark, makes me lose my sanity,
is the same man pretending not to know me in the light?
And if he is,
how long before he stops pretending
and claims me completely?

Three years of companionship, I secretly suppressed her violent S-class psionic power with my mortal body.
Yet on the day of her awakening, she cast me out like garbage.
The night I left, her genetic collapse began.
When the Zerg invaded and she knelt begging for mercy, I walked onto the battlefield alone—where my Nullification Field passed, the Zerg Overmind was reduced to a punching bag.
Star nobles dared to touch my sister?
I single-handedly breached their orbital fortress.
Now I've established the iron law of the universe, and all races bow before me.
And that woman who once drove me away is now kneeling in acid rain, her forehead bleeding from kowtowing.
Too bad—my hot pot is ready, and I have no time to open the door.

The three alpha wolves who bullied me
never knew the truth.

I wasn't the quiet boy they tormented.

I was the girl hiding behind my dead brother's name.

And I was their fated mate.


For a year, I lived under my dead brother’s name, hiding my identity and my power.

But on my eighteenth birthday, everything changed.

My disguise shattered.
My power awakened.

And the broken boy they mocked became a legendary Lunar Shadow Wolf.

Now the three alphas who once humiliated me feel every scar they caused.

They want forgiveness.

Too bad.

Because the wolves who once bullied me?

They belong to me now.

And this time—

they’re the ones who will kneel.

Omega Lyra, once betrothed to Alpha Kyle, is forced to sew his new Luna’s wedding dress.
On the wedding eve, an out-of-control Kyle violates her; the chaos that follows kills the bride, and Lyra is falsely branded a murderer.
Kyle binds Lyra as his nominal Luna to torment her—for three years, she endures mockery and isolation, finding solace only in late-night piano playing.
His coldness and closeness to the late Luna’s sister Rhea shatter her hope.
Humiliated at Kyle’s birthday banquet, Lyra demands to end their bond.
Fleeing, she awakens hidden Alpha powers but is attacked by rogues—Beta Darren, who secretly cares for her, saves her.
Now, Lyra must evade Kyle’s family, find her lost sister, and fight for a place in the wolf world, turning her painful escape into a journey of redemption.

He filled my head with lies.
Then he set my world on fire.

Gavril Vaknin.
Richer than God.
Crueler than the devil.

And if he has his way…
My new fake husband.

A chance meeting turns into a once-in-a-lifetime offer.
The billionaire don needs a blank slate to turn into his perfect politician’s wife.
I’m homeless and desperate—what do I have to lose?

But Gavril is hiding secrets. Cloaked in lies.
Stepping into his world is a one-way ticket to a hell I won’t survive.

Did I do the right thing?
Or did I just sell my soul to a monster?

I was dying — and he was loving someone else.
I left.
Now he wants me back… but will I let him?

4

“I’ll give you anything, Elsa—money, a car, a house, jewelry—just agree to the transplant. Ria really needs it.” I couldn’t believe his audacity. Was this really my husband, trying to bargain my body to save his fiancée?
“Sorry, I’m pregnant. I can’t donate a kidney,” I said, my voice shaky but determined. Anger boiled inside me, but I knew he was powerful. The pretend marriage was over, and his true colors were revealed. Afraid of what he might do to me, I didn’t yell or fight him. I just wanted to escape this nightmare, to break free from this cage I was trapped in.
But his reaction was even more chilling. He looked at me with no emotion.
“We’ll have an abortion.” His words hit me like a bomb. I couldn’t believe how coldly he spoke about ending his own child’s life.

My marriage to Matthew was a transaction, a substitute—everything except love. When his white moonlight came back, I was abandoned, diagnosed with gastric cancer, and carrying his child. His late regret could never bring back my life, nor could it keep our unborn baby.

Twenty-one times.

I've signed the mate bond with Kael Nightshade, Lord of the Black Panther Clan, twenty-one times.

And dissolved it twenty-one times.

Not because we didn't love each other.

But because every few months, she comes back.

Seraphine. His first love. The angel who shattered her wings saving him, leaving her mind fractured and fragile.

"Seeing the mate mark sends her into psychotic breaks," he'd say, burning the bond from my skin. "I owe her my life."

So I'd erase the mark. Burn the contract. Pretend we were never bound.

The first time, I cried and begged. He backhanded me: "Cut the bullshit. We'll rebond once she's back in the sanatorium."

The thirteenth time, I followed them to a tavern and watched him tenderly kiss the scarred stumps where her wings used to be. When I confronted them, he knocked me down and locked me in enchanted restraints for seven days straight.

Sign. Burn. Erase. An endless cycle I couldn't escape.

Until the twenty-first time.

Fire engulfed the manor. Seraphine and I were trapped in different wings. Kael could only save one of us.

"Kael!" I collapsed at the window, smoke choking my lungs. "I'm pregnant—please—"

He shifted into his panther form and bolted toward her room.

The guards dragged me out thirty minutes later. Third-degree burns across my back, lungs filled with ash, blood pooling beneath me.

No heartbeat.

Kael stood in the safe zone, holding an unscathed Seraphine in his arms. From the moment the flames erupted until they pulled me from the rubble, he never looked back.

Not once.

The twenty-first dissolution was my choice.

There won't be a twenty-second.

I died on the day my fiancé Song Jinnian got engaged to his white moonlight, Shen Zhiyi.

Shen Zhiyi wore the evening dress designed by Song Jinnian himself, smiling sweetly as she linked her arm through his, accepting blessings from every guest in the hall.

I was at the scene of a car crash on Highway 23, half a steel rebar piercing straight through my chest. Warm blood trickled down the cold metal, pooling into a stark, glaring red pool beneath me.

I called Song Jinnian seventeen times.

He hung up instantly on the first sixteen.

On the seventeenth ring, he finally answered.

The melodic music of the banquet hall hummed in the background. His voice was low, laced with unbridled impatience: “What’s your problem now? How many times do I have to say it—marrying Zhiyi is just a formality. Can’t you act your age and quit this nonsense?”

I tried to speak, but blood froth surged up my throat, stealing my ability to form a full sentence. All I heard was the busy tone as he hung up without a second thought, echoing in the empty car, one beep at a time, shattering my last shred of hope.

Song Jinnian would never know that the girl he dismissed as a spoiled, tantrum-throwing lady was pinned to the driver’s seat by that steel rebar.

Beneath my slightly bulging abdomen lay our two-month-old unborn child.

Trembling, I let go of the phone soaked in blood. With my final ounce of strength, I dialed the funeral home.

“Hello. Near Highway 23… please come collect a body from a car crash.”

A pause came from the other end, followed by the routine question:

“Who are you to the deceased?”

All around me, only the rain hammered against the car windows, and my breath grew fainter and fainter. I forced out my last words:

“I am… the deceased herself.”

The mafia boss chose me as his decoy—a body double for the woman he loves.

Eight years. Three bullets, one car crash, one explosion. The doctor said ten more minutes and I would've died on that operating table when they took my kidney. I gave him a son. He let me play "the boss's wife" in public.

Until he cleared every obstacle for her and decided to marry her.

Her wedding photos replaced mine in the master bedroom. He has her initials tattooed on his arm. When I questioned him, he had his men slap me at a charity gala, forced me to admit "I'm just a stand-in." When I touched her, he took away my custody, declared she was "the true lady of this house."

The punishments got worse. When he threatened to cancel my mother's insurance, I finally learned to shut up.

He pulls me close, whispers in my ear: "She gave up everything for me. Not like you—you were born to take bullets for me."

"Deal with it. She's not replacing you. This is her house now."

Even my son took her side.

"Stop being dramatic! Natalie actually loves us! You're nothing!"

But their pure, innocent Natalie? She unplugged my mother's ventilator while I was locked in the basement. Let his enemies slip poison into my drink during the last job.

When Grayson found me, all he said was: "She's pregnant and emotional. Go rearrange the flowers at the wedding venue."

I wipe the black blood from my lips. Look at him quietly.

"I'm dying."

They called me a hellcat. A she-wolf tyrant. The Luna who made her Alpha husband obey.
I held him together when his father died. Built his dying pack into a powerhouse while he flirted with she-wolves.
Then he brought home his "fated mate."
Everyone waited for me to explode.
Instead, I smiled. "I'll help you prepare the ceremony."
That's when my wolf—dormant for years—began to wake.

Maya froze when the man who drew every eye in the room walked in. Her ex-boyfriend, who‘d vanished five years ago, was now one of Boston’s richest tycoons. Back then, he’d never hinted at his identity—then he’d disappeared without a trace. Seeing his cold gaze now, she could only assume he’d hidden the truth to test her, decided she was vain, and left in disappointment.

Outside the ballroom, she went to him as he smoked by the door, wanting to at least explain herself.

“Are you still angry with me?”

He flicked the cigarette away and looked at her with open contempt. “Angry? You think I’m angry? Let me guess—Maya finally finds out who I am and now she wants to ‘reconnect.’ Another chance now that she knows my last name comes with money.”

When she tried to deny it, he cut in. “You were a blip. A footnote. If you hadn’t shown up tonight, I wouldn’t have remembered you.”

Tears stung her eyes. She almost told him about his daughter, but stopped. He’d only think she was using the child to trap him and get his money.

Maya swallowed everything back and left, certain they would never cross paths again—only for him to keep appearing in her life, until he was the one lowering himself, humbly begging her to take him back.

“How cruel of you! You were the one who left when I was ready to fight for you. I searched the world for you, and now that I found you, you were betrothed to another man. Tell me how! How do I unlove you?”
Tears fall from both our eyes and the next thing we know, we are kissing each other, deeply and passionately, as if the two years of longingness for each other has finally been released.
_
Avery Anderson called "Ava" who is still a virgin in her early thirties is a career-oriented woman. She puts up her own business through her hard work and is envied by a lot of women because of her seven-year-long relationship with Seigfried Cohen, a hot bachelor in an accounting firm. Their relationship starts to fall apart as they get into a heated argument because of Ava's unfathomable sexual drive.
Determined to lose her virginity, she travels to Austria to unwind and get laid to whoever finds her attractive. There, she encounters a guy named Dmitri, a gorgeous sexy billionaire: an encounter that shouldn't have happened in the first place.
She will then, know a world, that she never expects to get addicted to.

Will a man learn to love me if I’m good to him long enough?

I tried for seven years to warm his heart.
I thought if I just held on a little longer, he’d finally see me.
Because I loved him so deeply.

But what did I get in return?
His endless tenderness for another woman.
I pretended I didn’t care, until pneumonia landed me in the hospital.

On the day I was discharged, I found him standing there with our daughter, his whole world focused on caring for that woman.
Even my daughter, whom I’d raised with everything I had, wished that woman was her mother.

In that moment, my heart died completely.

I left the divorce papers, gave up custody, and walked back into the chemical industry.
So what if seven years of marriage had worn me down?
I was still the top genius in my field.

But the divorce I’d wanted so badly never went through.
The man who once couldn’t have been colder to me now held on to me tighter than ever.
Our daughter refused to leave my side.

When he found my divorce papers,
the always cold and arrogant man pushed me against the wall and growled:

“Divorce? You’re mine. For life.”

"Where is my son?"
My husband wouldn't look at me.
I had just come out of anesthesia. The bassinet next to my hospital bed was empty — except for a stack of cash, a christening card, and a ring pinned to the corner of the card.
The card had another woman's name in the godmother box.
That woman walked in behind my husband. She picked up the ring and slid it onto her own finger.
"He's safe, sweetheart. We've been talking about this for months."
My husband is Damiano Marchetti. He runs the family that runs this city. The woman wearing the ring is his father's young widow.
The baby on that card is my son.
For four years now I have been the woman this house pretends not to see. The wife told to use the servants' entrance. The mother of a boy who calls another woman Mommy.
Last night I asked my husband for a divorce.
He laughed in my face.
He has no idea how much that's going to cost him.

Julian and I played house for five years—minus the actual marriage certificate. Because he bailed on me at the registry office twelve times. All for Mia, some intern.

First time: Mia screwed up her pitch.

Sixth time: Mia had the flu.

Twelfth time: Mia's ex showed up at our architecture firm throwing punches. Julian had to play knight in shining armor. I got knocked into a desk, cracked my head open—he didn't spare me a glance before whisking her off to the ER.

Before, I would've lost it. Screamed. Sobbed. Begged him to tell me who the hell he was actually planning to marry. And every single time, Julian would sigh and say, "Chloe, really? She's just an intern. Practically a child."

This time, all I said was: "Go ahead."

Then I turned around and took that job overseas.

When his thirteenth text came through—yet another registry office reschedule—I was already at the gate for my London flight.

This time? I'm choosing me.

My neighbor Beck Morrow was the best high school point guard this state had seen in years.
The night before the state championship—three college scouts in the stands—he decided to stay home with his girlfriend instead. She wasn't feeling well.
I called his coach.
He played. He got the scholarship. He built a company worth eight figures before he turned thirty, and I spent five years writing every algorithm that company ran on.
He repaid me by throwing a ball at my head during a training session. Then his lawyers sent a letter explaining that I had no legal claim to any intellectual property developed under my employment contract, effective immediately, and that my position was being terminated.
Then I woke up. It was the first week of senior year again.

As if being sold as a slave wasn't enough, she has to bear the ruthless alpha king a heir which she does,but in his absence, because she had to run to save her life and that of her babies.

Years later, she returned but not as the pathetic little girl that she was. she is now a woman sort after by many alphas and he would have to fight them all to win her back.

On our wedding night, James moaned my sister's name while inside me.

I shoved him off in fury. He looked down me with contempt.

"You're just a replacement for Raina. Don't expect too much."

Later, a fake surveillance video pinned Raina's death on me.

I couldn't prove my innocence. James had me thrown into prison.

For three whole years, I endured abuse behind bars.

The day James picked me up, he tore off my clothes and forced himself inside me.

Afterward, he tossed a document at me. "Sign it."

Turns out David—his and Raina's son—had leukemia.

He wanted me to bear a child—only to sacrifice it to save the one he had with Raina?

I couldn't accept it.

A cold smirk crossed his handsome face. "Refuse? Then your mother's medical funding ends now."

"Your only value lies in your womb. Learn to obey."

From then on, he came to my room nightly. There was no tenderness, only brutal taking.

Then fate played its cruelest joke.

I discovered a paternity test—it proved I was David's biological mother.

Which meant... David was my son? Mine and James's?

Ella is betrayed in her 25th birthday by her boyfriend, leading to a one-night stand at a bar. She Initially mistaking Eric for just a call boy, later, she discovers that he is actually an Alpha of a pack, leading to an unwanted pregnancy. She ran away without a trace, bearing and taking care of the twins alone. It's later turned out to be an interesting romance. What happens when Eric discover that the twins are actually his? Will Ella forgive Eric for betraying her?

Lydia has been abused by her foster parents, but the wolves of the pack are deceived by the hypocritical pair, believing that Lydia is a bad girl who does not know how to repay her kindness.
Just when Lydia was about to be given to the pack elders by her foster mother, she found out that Elvis, the next Alpha of the pack, was actually her mate.But unfortunately, Elvis disliked and rejected her to be his mate.
Desperate Lydia jumped off the cliff, but was saved by her own mother, the Alpha of Glory Pack, and the other party wanted her to become the wolf pack's heir....... At this time, Elvis, who rejected her, also came looking for her and wanted to take her away. How would Lydia choose?

Everyone at Crestwood High knows Jaxon Reed’s reputation.
Bad boy. Trouble. Walking red flag.

So when he asks Ellie Marrow out—quiet, rule-following, and painfully invisible—it’s obvious to everyone that it has to be a joke.

Except Ellie knows the truth.

Jaxon made a bet. A stupid, reckless one. And she’s the prize.

Instead of saying no, Ellie makes a choice no one expects: she agrees to fake date him—for her own reasons. With rules. Boundaries. And an expiration date. What starts as pretending quickly turns complicated as Ellie sees the side of Jaxon no one else does.

As rumors spread and lines blur, Ellie must decide who she wants to be when she stops playing it safe. And Jaxon has to face the truth about himself—and the damage a single lie can cause.

Because when pretending feels this real, someone is bound to get hurt.

As the Chief Delta of Alpha Hunter and his secretly married wife, Kara had always hoped that her dedication would eventually win his heart.
However, everything changed when that rogue girl—Maya—appeared. She is Hunter's Fated mate.
According to their pre-marriage agreement, once Hunter finds his true mate, their marriage will be over.
Just then, Kara discovers that she's pregnant...

Book Synopsis

Note from the Author:
I am not a native English speaker, but I promise the story will be worth your time. If you encounter any grammatical issues along the way, please overlook them—the narrative itself is what matters.


Synopsis:

Harper Vance has spent her life in the shadows—a ghost in the world of high-stakes art theft, a daughter abandoned by a father who chose power over family, and a woman with a deadly secret lodged in her skull. Four months ago, a botched heist on the Azure Isles left her with more than just stolen goods: a metallic fragment embedded at the junction of her occipital and parietal lobes, slowly migrating toward catastrophe.

Now, dragged back into the orbit of her estranged father Arthur Vance—a man she believed dead—Harper finds herself trapped in a gilded cage of manipulation, arcane rituals, and the cold hostility of a family that never wanted her. But when a routine surveillance mission on Fifth Avenue goes catastrophically wrong, her carefully constructed cover shatters in the most public way possible: collapsing unconscious on a Manhattan sidewalk, her biometric data spiking into crisis.

Enter Julian Sterling—a man whose world operates on precision, control, and calculated risk. When his two-year-old son Noah inexplicably bonds with the dangerous stranger who just assaulted his brother, Julian is forced into an impossible choice: let the city's emergency systems expose Harper's secrets to unknown enemies, or intervene and pull her into the sterile safety of his private medical empire.

What begins as a tactical extraction becomes something far more complicated. The CT scan reveals the fragment in Harper's brain—a ticking time bomb that will require a neurosurgeon with skills few possess. But the real danger isn't just medical. Harper's past is catching up with her, and Julian's resources have made him an unwitting player in a game neither of them fully understands.

Caught between a father who sees her as a pawn, a fragile truce with a man who should be her enemy, and a body that's betraying her one neurological crisis at a time, Harper must decide: run, as she always has—or stay and face the truth buried in her skull, her history, and the strange, unspoken pull between her and the one person who's seen her at her most vulnerable.

Because some secrets can't be outrun. Some debts can't be paid in silence. And some connections—forged in crisis, tempered by mistrust—refuse to be ignored.

A story of survival, reluctant alliances, and the fine line between control and chaos.

Sienna Cole has the perfect life.

She is the girl everyone watches and nobody really knows and she has worked very hard to keep it that way.

Until Jax Reeves walks into Westfield High, He doesn't talk much neither does he even try to impress anyone. And he looks at Sienna like he can see every single thing she is hiding behind her perfect smile.

She is not interested. She says so loudly. Multiple times. To anyone who will listen.

So when her best friend Chloe asks permission to pursue him, Sienna says yes without blinking.

It is the worst decision she has ever made.

Because the moment she watches Jax look at Chloe the way Sienna secretly wanted him to look at her, something inside her snaps clean in half. Now she is lying to her boyfriend, sabotaging her best friend's relationship, and slowly falling apart in front of the only six people in the world she truly loves.

The question is will Sienna finally tell the truth before she loses everything?

“Be careful with that, Emma," my boss at the high-end courier service warned, handing me the velvet-lined case. "That bottle is worth more than your life. It’s for the penthouse gala at the Sterling Heights. If it breaks, don't bother coming back.”

I clutched the case to my chest like it was a newborn child.

The soles of my shoes were so thin I could feel every jagged pebble on the pavement. My feet ached, a dull, throbbing reminder of the sixteen-hour shifts I’d been pulling for the last three months.

But every time I felt like collapsing, I thought of Liam. He met with an accident five years ago and could not work.

So, I became the bread-earner in our family.

Today was our wedding anniversary. And this last expensive delivery could earn me a decent gift for him.

"The host is on the terrace," a waiter whispered as I reached the penthouse, eyeing my worn-out sneakers with disdain. "Hurry up. He doesn't like to be kept waiting.”

I walked toward the terrace, my heart hammering. I just wanted to drop this off, get my signature, and run to Liam. I pushed through the crowd, dodging silk gowns and tailored tuxedos.

Then, I stopped.

The man standing at the edge of the terrace looked familiar.

He was wearing a bespoke midnight-blue tuxedo that cost more than our three years of rent. His hair was slicked back, his posture commanding and regal. He was way too rich to cross paths with me in my entire life.

But, my heart skipped a beat as he turned back to look at his friends.

It was Liam. My Liam. With other woman, offering the world to her.

After my miscarriage, my psychiatrist husband offered to erase the painful memories to help me forget them.

During the three months I was dumped in a rehab facility, he took our daughter and his cousin on a European vacation.

Now that they're back, he assumes I’ll go right back to being that meticulous, perfect wife.

But I didn't.

He deliberately provokes me, thinking my coldness is just me playing hard to get.

He has no idea that the brainwashing procedure didn't just wash away my pain—it completely severed my love for him.

I was four months pregnant when the truck hit my car.
I woke up on a gurney outside the OR, bleeding, half-conscious, thinking my husband was saving my life. Then I heard him through the door.
"The baby's gone. Her right hand is finished—her career's over either way. Just take her kidney now and put it in Mia."
My mother agreed. My father told him to switch my architectural draft to Mia's name before Friday.
Mia. The sister they'd raised for twenty years while I was missing. The sister whose body was failing. The sister my husband had apparently been in love with the whole time I was married to him.
I was supposed to die on that table. I wasn't supposed to hear anything.
But my phone was in my coat pocket, and the voice memo app had never stopped recording.
And now I had a choice to make.

In order to rush to comfort his assistant whose apartment was leaking, Richard signed his name hastily without even glancing at the documents on the table.
I put away the divorce agreement with a wry smile.
When he and my son completely disappeared, he finally panicked.
Three months later .
He knelt down on the streets of Chicago in despair, begging me to remarry him.
My six-year-old son looked coldly at his biological father and said, "Get lost, you bad uncle! You don't deserve to be my dad!"

Ophelia was born the weakest wolf in the pack, mocked, beaten, and treated like nothing. All she ever dreamed of was the day the Moon Goddess would give her a mate who would love her despite her flaws.

But when her fated mate was revealed, he didn’t claim her. He crushed her.

“I, Alpha Dominic, reject you as my mate. You will never be my Luna.”

The words tore her apart, and the pack’s laughter sealed her fate. Cast out, abandoned, and left to die, she thought her story had ended.

But the broken girl they discarded rose. The weak omega become stronger than them all. And the Alpha who rejected her bow at her feet.

Victoria discovered that I hadn't submitted any supplemental medical expense claims for two weeks.
She assumed I had finally been disciplined and had given up what she called "the exploitative nature of the lower class."
Little did she know, my backpack held the signed divorce papers and my mother's death certificate.
As I turned to leave, I was still wearing the discounted trench coat she'd casually given me three years ago when we got married.
What she didn't know was that I, a deep-sea geology genius from MIT, willingly endured three years of her humiliation and ridiculous rules, just so my mother could stay in her conglomerate's private hospital to prolong her life.
Now, my mother has died because of unpaid bills , and even her ashes are carried by me in a cheap canvas bag.
Now that my loved one is dead, there's no need for me to continue being her obstructive dog on Wall Street. The lives she owed with those approval forms, I will settle with the collapse of her entire conglomerate empire.

My husband Eric couldn't speak after a car accident three years ago. Three years of silence. Not one word.

To pay for his rehab, I worked four jobs at once—worked until I was coughing up blood, until I collapsed. Winter nights, Leo and I huddled under one threadbare blanket. When my son spiked a fever and I had no money for medicine, I stayed up all night pressing wet rags to his burning forehead.

Eric? His only communication was cold texts, ordering me around. When Leo reached for a hug, he'd push him away like our son didn't exist.

I endured it all. Because deep down, I believed the accident was my fault.

Until that night.

I was hauling equipment at Selena's concert—Selena, the pop star everyone knew—when a mystery guest in a mask stepped on stage. They sang together, voices blending like they'd done this a thousand times.

That voice. That lightning-shaped scar on his elbow.

My "mute" husband of three years.

I followed him backstage. Through the door, I heard Selena's laugh: "Congrats, Eric. Your mute act is almost over—you won the bet."

Three years of sacrifice.

All of it just a game. A bet with his first love.

Everyone in this city knows that the king of the underworld, my husband Vincent, is crazy about me.

Three years ago, when that bullet tore through my abdomen, it took away my chance of ever being a mother. He held my blood-soaked body and swore to God he'd make the shooter's entire family pay. A month later, that family was wiped off the map in this city. No one dares speak their name anymore.

He sat by my hospital bed, holding my hand. "I don't need kids. I only need you."

I believed him.

Until six months ago, when his brother died in an accident, leaving behind his wife Serena. The family pressure came like a tidal wave. An heir. A bloodline. That's all they cared about. And that woman became everyone's golden ticket to keeping the Caruso name alive.

That's when my husband stopped coming home at night. Every night, I hear them through the wall. Sounds that used to be mine.

But today, the doctor told me my body is healing. The chances are slim, but there's hope.

I clutch the medical report and rush home, imagining Vincent's face when he sees the results. Maybe everything can go back to how it was. Maybe he'll realize he doesn't need her.

Until I stand outside our mansion and hear laughter pouring out.

"Serena's pregnant! Can you believe it? The family finally has an heir!"

"Finally. The family's saved."

The biggest mistake of my life was falling in love with my childhood best friend, Cole Blackwood.

I grew up with Cole. He was my childhood best friend. When my mom died in a car accident in high school, his mother Lillian, my mom's best friend, saw that my stepmother didn't like me and took me in. She arranged our engagement. Cole protected me from bullies in high school. I fell for him. We secretly married at eighteen.

Shortly after the wedding, he was kidnapped. That's when everything fell apart. I threw myself off a cliff to draw the kidnappers away and save him. I was in a coma for three months. But when I came back to him, weak and broken, he thought some woman named Sophia Vanderbilt had saved him instead. He started hating me for "abandoning him" and grew cold. I tried to explain. He only believed what Sophia told him. My words meant nothing. 

Cole wanted to divorce me, but his parents refused to allow it. I refused too. Sophia drugged him to get pregnant and trap him into marriage, but he stumbled into the wrong room. He slept with me instead. I got pregnant. She faked videos to make him think they'd been together. She forged evidence that I'd cheated. He wouldn't listen to a word I said. 

Then we were both kidnapped and held hostage on a rooftop. Cole chose to save Sophia. I fell. I lost the baby. After Sophia was rescued, she went to the hospital for a checkup. They found leukemia. She needed a bone marrow transplant. I was the only match, but after everything, my body was too weak. Cole used the "debt" I owed his family to force me to donate. 

I refused. Sophia "died." Cole locked me in a psychiatric hospital and tortured me until I died. 

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day he demanded my bone marrow. This time, looking at his desperate eyes, I said yes and decided to divorce him and leave him for good.

When they shoved me into the flames, I fought through the blinding pain to call my brother, Ethan Bennett. Fire licked at my skin, twisting my vision, but the call finally went through.

"What is it now?" He sounded distracted, like he was checking off a guest list.

"Ethan, please, help—" My voice was shattered, choked by the searing heat.

"Can't you just give it a rest for one single day?" he snapped, cutting me off. "Selina and I are getting married this weekend. If you pull another stunt, I swear I'll—"

The call died right as the flames swallowed me whole.

Agony consumed every nerve before my eyes closed for good, his unfinished threat still echoing in my ears.

But the good news is, Ethan... you don't have to swear anymore. Because I was dead.

Three years ago, my pairs skating partner and I had a beautiful wedding surrounded by friends and family—but we never actually got around to signing the legal papers.
Over those three years, he has stood me up at City Hall exactly twenty-eight times.
One time, he stole my cab while I was burning up with a fever, leaving me shivering on the curb because his new, pampered protégée had a stomachache from drinking too much champagne.
Another time, he blew off our anniversary to rush to her side for a minor sprain.
Every single time we were supposed to finally make our marriage official, his precious junior skater somehow had a devastating emergency.
After twenty-eight broken promises, I finally stopped waiting. I dropped our partnership, shredded our application, and boarded a one-way flight to Milan.
But the moment I completely vanished from his life, the man who couldn't spare an hour to marry me suddenly lost his mind—chasing me across the globe to a city he swore he’d never return to, begging on his knees outside my door for a twenty-ninth chance.

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.

"You have two months to live." The doctor's death sentence was still ringing in my ears when I found the receipt in his pocket.

[Four Seasons Hotel. Romance Suite. Check-in: 3:00 PM.]

3:00 PM. The exact moment I was begging the doctor for painkillers, Alexander was in a hotel bed with another woman.

I looked at him, sleeping soundly beside me. I had loved this man for five years, sold everything to help him succeed. Now, in the final countdown of my life, he gave me the most fatal blow.

"I'm exhausted from meetings," he had lied, smelling of Santal 33 and another woman's sex.

I clenched the receipt until my nails dug into my flesh. I wouldn't tell him about the cancer.

I would use whatever time I had left to make him regret ever being born.

Five years. That's what I gave Vaelor, Crown Prince of the Dark Elves.
I was already dressed for the betrothal ceremony when I caught his voice through the gap in the council hall door.
"You're really going through with it? The human?"
"Of course. The Alliance has kept a blade at our throats for years. Their leader's apprentice, given to us in marriage—that puts it away."
"But if she suspects—"
"She won't."
"And Lyseth—"
"Lyseth is who matters. The human is manageable."
I didn't make it out of the courtyard. A blade came from the darkness before I could summon a defense.
When I woke up, I remembered everything. Aldric. Isara. The Alliance. Five years of roads, every step.
Just not his face.
Aldric's messenger stone was on the nightstand. Short, direct: Return to the Alliance. Political marriage. Orc Royal House.
I wrote back: Seven days.