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My boyfriend looks at me like I'm trash. Too fat. Too plain. My clothes are ugly. He never misses a chance to tear me down.

I thought he was just mean. Then his "good friend" Sophie spilled coffee all over our ten-thousand-dollar control board.

That board was three months of work. Three months of all-nighters, twice I passed out from low blood sugar. It was our entry for the National Robotics Competition. The deadline's tomorrow. Now it's gone.

I confronted Sophie, and he stormed in, pulled her into his arms, and pointed his finger in my face. "It's just a stupid competition. Did you really need to come at Sophie like that?"

Turns out he's not just mean. He genuinely can't stand me.

When Trevor Sullivan had nothing, I gave up billions to follow him to Silicon Valley. Everyone said I was crazy in love with him, until his first love came back to the States right after he made it big.

Seven years of playing the perfect wife and mother, and then I hear him coaching our five-year-old daughter: "Ruby, you can't tell Mommy about my fake wedding with Amber. Not a word, okay?"

"But Daddy, Mommy's gonna be sad..."

"If you tell Mommy, Daddy won't love you anymore. Got it?"

My daughter trembles, nodding frantically.

I stand outside the door, my heart turning to ash.

For the woman he never got over, he doesn't just betray our marriage. He makes our five-year-old lie for him.

Everyone expects me to cry, to beg, to fall apart.

Instead, I dial the number I blocked seven years ago: "Dad, can the family jet still come get me?"

Trevor Sullivan has no idea. I was never some gold digger who needed him to survive. I was the one with everything who made myself small for his sake.

As a regular student, I never expected to fit into the world of trust fund kids. But this real estate heiress reached out to me, said she'd show me how the other half lives, even promised to introduce me to New England's most powerful heir.

I thought she'd be my friend. Thought she actually cared. I even fell for him.

Until she framed me for stealing confidential school files. Until he said, "Just a scholarship kid. No one's gonna miss her." That's when I understood. I was never more than their toy.

They tore up my textbooks, stuffed dead rats in my locker, spent six months tormenting me online and off. My mother couldn't take the vicious comments. Her heart gave out. And me? After I completely broke down, they drove me to the coastal cliffs.

Ice-cold water flooded my nose and mouth. Suffocation dragged me down into despair. I hate myself for being weak. Hate them for their arrogance. Hate this rotten system that treats people like me as disposable.

But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the night she pushed me toward him.

This time, I won't be fooled.

Three years after my pilot husband "died" in a plane crash, I walk in on him cutting a birthday cake for his three-year-old son backstage at the company memorial gala.

Luke freezes in the lounge, his hand still on the knife, staring at me.

His parents rush over to shield him. The same couple who screamed at me in the funeral home, wishing I'd died instead of him.

"Nora, just calm down. There's an explanation..."

Claire covers her slightly rounded belly, tears streaming down her face. "I'm so sorry, Nora. My baby needs his father. Please, I'm begging you. I couldn't help myself—I love him."

I thought I'd break down. Thought I'd scream.

But all that guilt, all that self-blame, three years of missing him burns away the second I see the truth.

Nothing's left.

Two weeks before my due date, my husband Ethan is racing out the door into a stormy night.

All because his childhood friend Scarlett's apartment lost power, and she says her claustrophobia is kicking in.

I'm clutching my belly, telling him my water broke, begging him to look at the blood on the floor.

"You pulling this again? Last week wasn't enough? Scarlett's actually in danger."

He shakes off my hand. The door slams shut.

I'm standing in a pool of blood, watching his taillights disappear into the rain.

My baby won't have a father anymore.

Is a stay-at-home wife just a maid in her marriage?

I say: Absolutely not.

I worked late just to buy my daughter a birthday cake.
But when I got home, I accidentally heard her on the phone with another woman.

She was ashamed of me, called me a maid, and begged that woman to act as her family member at the parent-teacher conference.

Later I found out my husband had been with that woman all along.
Hidden inside my daughter’s watch was a small group chat with just the three of them.

My own daughter said she hated me and planned to drive me away.
And my husband let it all happen.

My heart was completely broken.
On my birthday, I signed the divorce papers and left home quietly.

After leaving, I discovered a much bigger world and achieved my dreams.

But their lives fell completely apart.

Everyone thinks I'm the wild child of the family, the one who won't fall in line.

Blake's the young king of the business world—rational, cold, always in those perfectly cut suits.

But every night, he's got me pinned underneath him, breathing my name.

He said I was his, but never let me see daylight. Until she came back—my father's mistress's daughter, in her white dress, smiling like an angel.

On my birthday, he went to pick her up from the airport. When the chandelier crashed down, he carried her to the hospital and left me bleeding on the floor. When she smashed my mother's heirloom, he made me apologize on my knees. He said she was fragile, needed care; said I was strong enough to understand.

Then I heard them on my bed, her moaning his name.

So I left. Married a man who truly loved me. And he went insane.

He kidnapped me, forced a wedding, announced to the world I was his wife.

But this time, I just smiled and shook my head.

"Let go. It's too late."

I used to be the Blackwells' best killer. For him, I walked away from that life and became his wife. I even gave him a daughter.

I thought it was redemption. Turns out, it was the start of something worse.

Three years ago, during that shootout at the docks, his first love showed up with his bastard son. When the rival family put guns to both kids' heads, he didn't hesitate. He chose to save her son.

My daughter burned in the explosion.

That was the day the man I loved for ten years died. What's left is just my sworn enemy.

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.

At the bar, I watched Ethan get publicly dumped and made a crazy proposal fueled by liquid courage—a three-month fake dating contract.

I thought this was my only chance after twenty years of secret crushing. Until his ex showed me the text: "With Mia? Pretty convenient. She's been following me around since we were kids."

So I was just a tool.

The day we broke up, he shouted with red eyes: "I've been crazy about you for twenty years!" I thought he was acting, until his mom handed me a worn journal—

That careless comment I made at thirteen, "I'm never marrying Ethan," he'd remembered for twenty whole years.

Every page of that diary was filled with my name...

Every time my husband wants to make me give in, he slaps divorce papers on the table. Every time my parents want me to cave, they threaten to disown me.

What they want is simple: give everything to my twin sister.

I used to fight back. I cried. I demanded to know why it always had to be me.

But when the doctor slides the test results across his desk and tells me in that pitying voice, "Stage four brain cancer. You have a month, maybe less," something in me just... stops caring.

I'm dying anyway. They can do whatever the hell they want.

Three years after returning to the Duke's estate, I finally admit the truth: the phoenix I poured my heart into raising doesn't love me. He only spreads his brilliant tail feathers for the replacement.

I was six when traffickers took me, stuck in the slums for twenty years. A year after losing me, the Duke and Duchess adopted an infant from the church.

That girl became the new daughter, enjoying everything that should have been mine.

When they found me at twenty-six, my parents looked at me with guilt, yes, but mostly like I was a stranger. They loved the daughter they raised more.

I don't blame them.

Twenty years in the slums taught me: don't count on anyone's love. Only power and gold won't betray you.

So when he refused me for the third time, I went to the black market auction and bought a battered wolf slave.

The phoenix finally panicked, feathers flaring, voice shaking:

"Master, you promised you'd only keep one magical beast..."

Ethan and I grew up together. We were supposed to exchange rings at the altar, make our vows. But on our wedding day, he left me standing there to go save his so-called suicidal ex. Almost killed my parents from the shame.

Four years later, I'm back in Portland with my husband. The city isn't that big, and of course fate decides to throw him in my path again.

He has the nerve to ask me to be his mistress.

I hold up my left hand, the ring catching the light. "Are you blind?"

The day I get diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, I can finally stop selling plasma.

For five years, I thought I was paying for the fire that killed my parents and son, left my brother disabled. Selling plasma, joining drug trials, doing the worst jobs imaginable, all to pay back a debt that wasn't even real.

The doctor says I have a few weeks left. I clutch the diagnosis report and head home to tell them.

The moment I push open the door, I see my parents in the kitchen, the ones who supposedly died in the fire. My brother, who was supposed to be in a wheelchair, stands there raising a glass, laughing with my husband.

My brother shrugs like it's nothing. "The broken leg was fake the whole time. You were the only one hurt in the fire. We just wanted to teach you a lesson, make you appreciate things."

"We were going to tell you eventually." My husband pats my shoulder. "Go apologize to Vanessa. Stop giving her a hard time."

"All the money you gave us went to Vanessa," Dad says. "That's what you get for throwing your bio-daughter status in her face."

I touch the diagnosis in my pocket. Everything was a lie. The only truth is that I'm dying.

The first thing I do with my second chance is sell off my perfect fiancé for ten million dollars.

The first time around, I became someone else for Julian Whitmore.

He likes nude-toned dresses. Hates when I wear anything with color. He won't let me have more than one glass of champagne in public. Won't let me laugh too loud. Won't let me initiate anything in bed.

His voice is always so calm, like he's correcting a disobedient pet.

I spend three years turning myself into what he wants: docile, proper, flawless. Until depression drags me under. Until that night I lay in the bathtub and watched the water turn red.

When I die, he's still downstairs in his study, editing my speech for tomorrow's charity gala.

When I open my eyes again, I'm sitting in the Winters' living room with that unsigned arrangement in front of me.

This time? Fuck perfect.

But when he lifts that veil at the wedding and realizes the bride isn't me, this man who's spent his whole life in control completely loses it.

The club is planning a team retreat, and sophomore Ashley suddenly raises her hand at the meeting.

"Doesn't Clara's family own a hotel? Cresthaven, right?"

"Since it's your family's place, we could each just chip in fifty bucks for the venue, like you're supporting your own business or something."

Cresthaven is the hotel my grandfather gave me on my eighteenth birthday.

Because it never advertises, outsiders assume it's just some bed and breakfast out in the countryside. In reality, the basic suites run eighty-eight hundred dollars a night, private dining rooms have a hundred-thousand-dollar minimum, and the ingredients get flown in fresh from around the world every single day.

She wants to hand me fifty dollars and get a free two-day retreat for fifty people.

I turn her down on the spot. Next week is already fully booked.

But that night at ten, Ashley posts in the group chat anyway:

[Good news! Thanks to Clara's generous support, the whole club is heading to Cresthaven next week for a two-day retreat, completely free!]

The replies underneath are wall-to-wall flattery.

She wants to use my hotel to buy herself goodwill and build her own reputation.

But that's up to me, not her.

Three months ago, I was kidnapped. When Alexander rescued me, I woke up in a hospital bed with my clothes disheveled and bruises covering my body. What happened during those hours? I don't remember any of it.

A week ago, I found out I was pregnant. He held me as I shook and told me that it wasn't my fault. That he failed to protect me. Even if the baby wasn't his, he'd raise it. He'd still give me the perfect wedding.

But the guilt ate me alive until depression took hold.

Every night, sleep stays out of reach. Nightmares find me the moment I close my eyes. I've tried to end it. Three times now. Each time, someone found me just in time.

After the third failed attempt, I make tea and head toward his study to apologize. Voices drift through the door before I reach it.

"Are you out of your mind? Evelyn's your fiancée!" His friend sounds disbelieving. "You actually hired someone to kidnap her? Made her think she was assaulted? Just so Lily could take her place? Do you know how messed up that is? What that does to someone?"

Alexander's voice comes out calm. "Lily got sick because of me. Her dying wish is to marry me once before she goes. If I didn't push Evelyn out of the picture, her father would never let Lily take her place."

All those nights. All those nightmares. All those times I scrubbed my hands raw until they bled. It was all a lie. A setup.

For another woman.

I pull out my phone and call my father.

"Dad. I'll agree to the arrangement."

Three years ago, I took a bullet for Damon Kingsley. It came within half an inch of my heart.

He looked me in the eyes, his own red, and swore he'd love me for the rest of his life. So I married into this century-old Italian-American Mafia dynasty.

But on our wedding night, the moment he touched me, he convulsed, coughed up blood, and collapsed.

The second time, an old condition flared up and kept him flat on his back for a month.

The third time, he nearly bled out.

Every time after that, the same thing.

The whole family called me a curse. Marked. Bad luck. The kind of woman who brings death to whoever gets close.

The Godmother gave me an ultimatum: get pregnant within a month, or sign the divorce papers and be shipped off to Chicago to marry the devil himself.

I was carrying a fertility tonic to his study, ready to beg him one more time, when I heard voices through the door.

"Mr. Kingsley, please, you gotta stop. Every time you don't wanna go near her, you shoot yourself up with that stuff. You're gonna kill yourself."

Damon was quiet for a long moment. Then, calm and flat: "Aurora is the only woman I love. I'd take the pain any day over touching her."

All this time, while the whole family called me a curse, the one who actually put it on me was the man I almost died for.

Damon Kingsley. After today, we're done. In this life or the next, don't ever cross my path again.

A hundred years ago, I was the strongest Delta the Silver Moon Pack had ever produced.

Born with the God Bone, unmatched in power, I had Royal Guard recruiters showing up at my door three times, waiting for me to say yes. The whole pack assumed I'd lead them to glory.

Then came that night. My own family dragged me to the altar in the frozen vault.

My mother cried and said, "Lacey was born broken. Without the God Bone, she'll die."

"You're the older sister. You're strong. You'll survive without it."

I refused.

Grant, my fiancé, pulled the knife on me. Brandon, my brother, pinned down my arms and legs. My parents watched from the shadows, saying nothing.

"Don't be so selfish."

They carved the God Bone out of my body, drained every drop of my heart's blood, and threw me into a vault fifty degrees below zero.

My sister took everything that was mine and became the golden girl everyone adored.

A hundred years passed. I became the Supreme Commander of the Royal Guard.

This year, during recruitment, my adjutant handed me the candidate list. I saw a familiar name and smiled. I picked up my pen and crossed it out.

"Doesn't meet the requirements. Denied."

Being born a Moretti daughter means one thing: the family owns you.

In my past life, Vivian thought she had what it took. She promised Dad she could handle it, swore up and down she'd make him proud. Six months later, she'd burned through three generations of work and left us with nothing but an empty shell. Our enemies found her eventually. Broke both her legs.

And me? I married Marco Rossi.

Everyone envied me for marrying into one of the most powerful families in the city. What they didn't know was that I was his prisoner. He used me, turned my family's connections into stepping stones for himself, spent my money on his mistresses, used my body as a bargaining chip at his deals.

In the end, Vivian killed me. Jealous of my "perfect life," she dragged herself over on those broken legs and put a bullet in me.

When I open my eyes again, I'm sitting in Dad's study.

The door slams open. Vivian bursts in, cutting me off before I can speak. "Dad! I'm marrying Marco Rossi! Give the family to Sienna!"

I look at her and smile.

This time, I'm going to survive. And I'm going to do a hell of a lot better than just survive.

Everyone says I'm the woman Jasper loves most.

But only I know that in his heart, I've always come second to Sadie.

Seven years ago, I shoved him out from under a collapsing rig and shattered my right ankle. I never skated competitively again.

He held me and swore that the day he won the Grand Slam, he'd marry me in front of the whole world.

I believed him. So I learned to be his support crew. I sharpened his blades, hand-sewed his costumes, dragged my bad leg around everywhere he went. I turned myself into the shadow that followed him.

Then Sadie came along. Young, healthy, able to do things I could never do again.

Tonight, Jasper wins the Grand Slam. The cameras circle him, the whole arena chanting for him to propose.

But he looks down at Sadie in his arms and smiles.

"Out of everyone, she's the one I want to thank most for this medal. I wouldn't have made it here without her."

That's the moment I stop wanting to stay.

For the top university in the North American wolf packs, transfer students aren't exactly breaking news. But this one sets the entire forum on fire.

It starts with a photo. A girl standing next to a tall, imposing man. Both faces are deliberately blurred, but that build, that presence... every wolf in North America recognizes it. The Alpha King. The caption reads: "Dad why'd you send me this 😭 I'm not ready to go public yet."

Minutes later, the post vanishes. But screenshots flood the forum.

"Moon Goddess above! Is that really the Alpha King?"

"The girl in the photo... could she be the royal princess no one's ever seen?"

The comments explode. Compliments flood in. Even my aloof boyfriend joins in.

Something feels off. I type out a comment: "The Alpha King keeps a low profile. His daughter should do the same. Posting photos like this... doesn't seem right."

Less than a minute later, the replies come.

"Who do you think you are to question her?"

"Can't stand seeing someone else do well, huh?"

My boyfriend chimes in too: "Quit it. You're embarrassing yourself."

I pick up my phone and dial a number. "Dad, since when do you have another daughter?"

We'd agreed to spend summer break in the Hamptons. Right before break started, my boyfriend suggested we hit the water park out in the suburbs first, just to blow off some steam.

I thought it was a date. Just the two of us. But when I get to the gate, my best friend Sienna is standing there in a string bikini.

I tell her that's not safe to swim in. Her face goes cold and she tells me to mind my own business.

Colton frowns too and dumps his phone, a towel, and Sienna's makeup bag into my arms. "Vivienne, do you have to kill the mood? Sienna's scared to go alone. What's the big deal if I keep her company?"

In the wave pool, he holds her against his chest and the two of them roll around in the spray, laughing.

When they come out, Sienna takes the ice water I haven't even opened and takes a big swig, then hands it to Colton, and he drinks half the bottle right from where her lips were.

I stand there feeling like the hired help.

Two years of killing myself to be the understanding, easygoing girlfriend, and all it got me was a boyfriend who walks all over me without thinking twice.

If he's that close with my best friend, he can't blame me for calling up his best friend since they were kids.

"Julian, can you come get me?"

It's fall break, and Mom and my sister Della Sinclair are visiting me at St. Julian's Academy.

The South Campus Arctic Biome is a landmark the Sinclair family funded years ago. It's filled with the rare arctic flowers Mom and Della have always loved. Every single time they visit, they have to go in.

That's when Kiley Croft, the girl Fletcher Waverly grew up with, pulls what she calls "a little prank." While no one's paying attention, she locks the door from the outside panel and pushes the temperature controls to maximum.

The people inside are trapped. They burn to death.

Kiley runs to Fletcher in tears, and instead of calling 911, he pulls her close and tells her:

"Hey. It's okay. It was an accident. This isn't on you."

He doesn't call me until the fire trucks show up.

"Blythe, the biome caught fire. Your mom and your sister are trapped inside."

I spin around.

Della is right next to me, sniffling and complaining about her cold. Mom is passing her tissues.

They're both completely fine.

Then who the hell is in there?

In my past life, I went into labor and they wheeled me into surgery. When I woke up, my stomach was flat. My baby was gone.

My husband held my hand, his eyes rimmed red, and told me I'd never been pregnant at all. He said the thing growing in me was a ten-pound tumor.

My own mother held me and cried, saying I'd wanted a baby so badly that I'd started imagining things.

The doctor pulled out my entire medical file. Even the head nurse, the one who'd felt my belly the night before and told me how healthy my pup was, looked at me with pity and swore she'd never seen me before in her life.

But I felt him kick. I heard his heartbeat. I'm sure of it.

I ran through that hospital barefoot, screaming, tearing through every room, grabbing every person who walked past me, until the enforcers dragged me off like I was some lunatic.

They chained me up and threw me in the deepest cell in the Abyss.

I rotted down there alone, half out of my mind, until I died.

When I open my eyes again, I'm back in the car, contractions ripping through me, on my way to Silverleaf Medical Center.

The baby is still kicking.

A hormonal condition pushed my weight to two hundred pounds, and for three years, this boarding school made sure I never forgot it.

The ringleader was the guy every girl worshipped.

And beside him stood his girlfriend, the one who always stepped in at my worst moments with a soft voice and a sympathetic look, like she was doing me a favor.

Everyone called her an angel. Only I knew the truth: every time she "helped," things got worse.

One day, she handed me a candy in front of everyone. "Here. Something sweet always helps."

I didn't feel like I had a choice.

That night, a demon showed up at the foot of my bed.

"Congratulations. You ate the pact candy. I'll grant you three wishes — money, beauty, lifespan. You name it, I'll make it happen."

My whole body shook. Three years of humiliation, and finally there was a way out. Wealth, beauty, revenge. All I had to do was ask.

Then the demon's expression shifted, eyes full of cruel amusement.

"There's a catch, though. The real pact-holder is someone else. Whatever you wish for, the one who gave you that candy gets double."

The words I was about to say died in my throat.

Then, slowly, I smiled.

Double?

That's way more interesting than three wishes.

The fake heiress and I died twice fighting over the same thing—which of us would get adopted by that wealthy couple.

The first time, I got the necklace. I became their daughter. I thought I'd finally have everything I'd ever wanted. Three months later, they drowned me in the bathtub.

William's voice still echoes in my head. "This is your fault! If we'd taken Chloe instead, she'd still be alive!"

The second time, I gave Chloe the necklace. Let her have the good life. I thought that would keep me safe.

Five years later, Chloe turned up dead in their mansion. The Harringtons called the cops on me. They said I broke in and killed her out of jealousy. I died in prison, broken and tortured. The last thing I heard was Catherine's voice through the visiting room glass, cold as ice. "You belong in the gutter."

The third time, I open my eyes again.

I watch the couple smile at us, all warmth and kindness, and one question burns in my mind. Which daughter do they actually want?

Marlowe Crane is my best friend, and she's also a succubus.

She was born with this power that makes men lose their minds, but she always told me she only wanted to use her "gift" to protect me.

So every time I dated someone, she'd volunteer to "test" him.

Without fail, every single man fell at her feet.

She'd send me photos of them in bed together. "See, Rosie? They're all trash. Lucky I caught them for you."

After breaking up more times than I can count, I had a breakdown and moved from Boston to Los Angeles.

That's where I met Holden Kingsley. I thought the nightmare was finally over.

On my wedding day, Marlowe showed up in my dressing room with a glass of drugged water.

In my past life, I drank it and passed out. She stripped off my wedding dress, put it on herself, and climbed into Holden's bed.

Someone threw cold water on my face to wake me up. When I walked in with the bridesmaids, I caught them tangled up together.

I lost it. Screamed and cried and called the police right there.

And what happened?

Holden didn't feel guilty at all. He acted like I was the bad guy, like I'd ruined Marlowe's life.

Under Marlowe's succubus influence, he believed she was innocent, that I forced her into it.

After that, my marriage became a living hell.

Now I'm back, standing in front of the mirror, staring at that drugged glass of water in my hand.

This time, they're the ones going to hell.

Everyone knew Ethan Blackwood and I were Professor Richard Hartwell's two proudest students. From childhood easels to Columbia studios, inseparable for over a decade.

Everyone assumed we'd get married, stand together on the Pritzker stage someday. Until he fell in love with Sophia Crane, daughter of our mentor's academic rival.

I let him go. Love isn't something I can design.

But I never thought he'd destroy our mentor's entire life for her.

Five years later, he's back in New York riding high on his success, excited to "make amends" with Professor Hartwell.

I laugh.

Go ahead, Ethan Blackwood. You'll spend the rest of your life searching.

At a late-night party, when the bottle spins to my boyfriend Tyler, he picks dare.

"Kiss anyone here except your girlfriend," the host announces with a smirk.

Tyler barely hesitates. He walks straight to my best friend Sienna and kisses her for a full seven seconds in front of everyone.

When he comes back, he leans close to my ear. "Don't sweat it, we'll have fun when we get home."

When it's my turn, I choose truth. "Tell us a secret nobody knows."

I look around at all these drunk college kids, then say calmly, "I killed someone."

Three years ago, I was in a car crash that killed both my parents and shattered my legs beyond repair. The doctors said I'd never walk again.

When I had nothing left, he appeared like some kind of savior. He paid for everything, brought me to his private research facility, took care of me.

He told me he loved me, broken body and all. We got married. He was perfect to me.

There was just one catch. His sister. Not even blood related, just some girl he grew up with. She had some rare blood disease, and turns out I had the exact blood type she needed. So I gave blood. Bone marrow too. Over and over.

I thought I owed him my life. For three years, I let them stick needles in me, drain whatever they needed. I thought that was love.

Until today, when I found a video on his phone from three years ago.

In the footage, one of his men reports back: "The crash was clean. Her parents are dead. Her legs are destroyed, just like you wanted."

His voice, cold as ice: "Good. As long as her blood keeps Cora alive, that's all that matters. She's got no one and nowhere to go. She'll have to stay."

The accident that killed my parents and destroyed my legs wasn't an accident at all. He planned it.

So I planned my own death. And when he saw my body, the man who dragged me into hell finally lost his mind.

The plan was simple: Break the nephew by seducing the uncle.
Wesley Vance didn't just break my heart; he tried to sell my dignity. So, I went after the only man he feared. The man who owned the city, the empire, and Wesley’s future.
Lance Lawson. He’s cold. He’s untouchable. He’s my ex-boyfriend’s uncle. I thought I was the one setting the trap. I wore his shirts, haunted his penthouse, and chipped away at his legendary control until the ice finally cracked.
But I made one fatal mistake. I thought Lance was a man I could use and discard. I didn't realize that once you wake a predator, he never goes back to sleep.
Now, Wesley is gone, the Vance family is in ruins, and I’m trapped in a gilded cage of my own making. Because Lance doesn't want my loyalty. He wants my soul.
I wanted revenge. I got an obsession.

He wanted a puppet. He got a queen instead.

Elora Frost is used to being the punchline. To her wealthy father and evil stepsister, she's a broken charity case. To the school, she's the weird girl in thrift-store sweaters. The ice rink is her only sanctuary—the only place she isn't hiding.

Enter Cade Rhodes. Arrogant. Dangerous. Elite.

On his first day at Winterbourne, the hockey prodigy completely dismantles the school's social hierarchy—and for some twisted reason, he decides Elora is his new favorite project.

He offers her a terrifying proposition: submit to his complete control for one year as his fake girlfriend, and he'll make her untouchable.

She accepts—because for the freedom to skate, she'd make any deal.

Overnight, the prey becomes the predator. The bullies who tortured her are suddenly terrified. Her family is begging for her favor.

And Cade is about to learn a dangerous lesson.

When you dress a figure skater in armor and give her the power to fight back... she doesn't just survive.

She conquers. And the fake feelings brewing between them might be the most dangerous battle of all.

Through a one-way mirror, I watched the passionate scene unfold between my fiancé and my best friend. I turned and impulsively married the stranger I bumped into in the hall.

At the wedding, I publicly replaced the groom, turning that scumbag into the laughingstock of the city.

It wasn't until he faced my new husband and stammered, "Uncle," that I realized... in this revenge plot, perhaps I wasn't the main character after all.

I kissed my ex-boyfriend's father. Now they're both obsessed.

For six years, Julian Hawthorne treated me like his dirty little secret—never good enough to claim, always convenient to use. Until I walked away and kissed the one man he can't compete with.

Victor Hawthorne. Billionaire CEO. Julian's adoptive father. Ice-cold control wrapped around something dangerously combustible.

It was supposed to be revenge. One forbidden kiss to prove I'd moved on.

But Victor hired me. Put me in Julian's face every single day. And now Julian wants me back—desperate, possessive, unraveling.

The twist? Victor acts like I don't exist in public. But behind closed doors, the way he looks at me could melt steel.

Julian's begging. Victor's silent. And I'm playing them both.

The problem? I'm starting to want the one I can't afford to lose.


⚠️ Forbidden romance. Adoptive father/son rivalry. She plays the game—until the game plays her.

When I died alone in the hospital in my past life, Nathaniel was in Paris getting engaged to Sophia.

Reborn on the day of Mom's funeral, I watched him announce his first love's return at the gala. Watched him smile at her the way he never smiled at me in three years.

So I threw wine in his face.

"The transaction is over, Nathaniel."

In front of all Boston high society, I dropped his million-dollar ring into the champagne tower.

Then I drove 12 hours to Port Haven. A shabby seaside cottage, teaching piano, falling for Liam, the gentle town doctor. I thought I was finally free.

Until three months later, Nathaniel showed up with lawyers.

"Clause 17, Emma. Early divorce means you owe $8 million."

I collapsed in the snow, hands shaking—this hidden trap is why I never ran in my past life.

But this time, will I let him win again?

The Vane family has carried the vampire's curse for generations. Of every pair of twin sisters born into our bloodline, one will not live to see twenty-five.

Everyone assumed it was my sister — the one always coughing up blood.

Nobody knew that for twenty years, every full moon, the one gritting her teeth through the pain, never making a sound, was me.

The Divine took pity on me and gave me three chances. Win the genuine love of my parents, my brother, or my husband — any one of them — and the curse would lift.

Three chances. Three failures.

The only hope I had left was the baby inside me, seven months along. Bring him into this world, and I'd live.

Then my husband kicked open my hospital room door. My own brother pulled on a surgical gown and picked up a knife. My parents signed the forms outside.

They were going to cut me open, take the last thing keeping me alive, and use it to save my "cursed" sister.

After my life slipped away entirely, the truth came out.

So why is it that the people who sent me to my death are the ones who lost their minds?

I died in the tenth year of our marriage. Not from illness, but from thirty-six hundred days of silent cruelty and penance.

Ten years ago, during that avalanche, he grabbed my hand at the last second. The girl he loved got buried under all that snow.

After that, even breathing felt like a crime.

He drank himself into oblivion, stayed out all night, and on the anniversary of her death, he'd wrap his hands around my throat and ask, "Why wasn't it you?"

I loved him for fifteen years, from childhood sweethearts to bitter strangers. I gave everything for even a hint of warmth from him. What I got instead was him shoving me down the stairs for her little sister.

When I open my eyes again, wind cuts through me and snow fills the air. I'm ten years in the past, back to that afternoon in the Alps.

This time, I'll give you what you want.

Everyone knows Adrian loves me more than life itself. When that car crashed, he threw himself over me and took the hit. First thing he said when he woke up in the hospital: "Where is she? Is she okay?"

Everyone says I married the best man in the city.

What they don't know is this man has married me ten times. And divorced me ten times. All for the woman he's never gotten over.

The first time, I got on my knees and begged him not to leave. He just looked at me with those cold eyes and said, "Don't embarrass yourself."

The fourth time, we were fighting in the car. Then we crashed, and I lost our baby.

By the seventh time, I stopped crying. Just signed the papers, packed my things, waited for him to come back like he always did.

My tears, my compromises, all those times I bent until I nearly broke. What did I get? Him coming back like clockwork, just to do it all over again.

This time, when he slides that tenth divorce agreement across the desk, I finally get it. Some people's hearts never had room for you in the first place.

So this time, I'm throwing him out. Him and this whole Mrs. Hayes charade. Straight into the trash where they belong.

The day my sister and I came back to life, we made one call: swap fiancés.

Last time, Dad burned every favor he had to lock down two marriage deals for the family. One with a mafia family that runs the West Coast. The other with a corporate CEO.

My sister married the mafia leader. She was too gentle, too kind for a world that ran on blood and backstabbing. The man had a childhood friend who played soft and helpless but was vicious as hell underneath. That woman tormented my sister for decades before finally arranging an "accident" that killed her.

And me? I got the polished CEO.

Sounds good, right? Except we tortured each other from day one. He was all rules and manners, always talking like he was giving a speech. Me? I blow up fast and if I can throw a punch, I will. Every day was the same standoff. He'd pull back, I'd push forward, and nobody gave an inch.

We spent our whole lives being polite and miserable.

Then one day, my sister and I woke up on the afternoon they announced the engagements.

My husband is an angel on an earthly trial. Every time he feels something for me, he endures divine punishment — like his chest is being ripped open from the inside.

But he told me he'd take that pain gladly, as long as it was for me.

He left a mark on my collarbone. Activate it when you're in danger, he said, and I'll rip through anything to get to you.

I believed him.

Then came a mission where I got grabbed by an armed fugitive gang and held in an abandoned warehouse for three straight days of torture and abuse.

No water. No sleep. The tendons in my hands and feet cut one by one.

Half-dead, I used the last of my strength to activate the mark.

And I heard him talking to his angel companion.

"Beckett, why did you give those people Demi's location? You know what they'll do to her."

He didn't even flinch. "She'll be fine. She's the Chosen One — she can't die. They were going after Macie. I didn't have a choice. Once this mission's over, I can petition to stay on earth. I'll make it up to Demi. She gets it."

So that's the price of being understanding. Dying inside a trap he built for me.

My heart just shatters. And I stop fighting.

Blake's keeping me locked up in a villa outside the city, with a dozen bodyguards watching me around the clock. They won't let me step foot outside my room.

He once promised Vanessa, the woman he never got over, that he'd give her company shares and his estate. Now she's back after her divorce, pregnant, crying to Blake that I threatened her, told her to give up what he promised, and that I wanted to hurt her and her baby.

Blake believed her.

He's convinced I'm evil and gold-digging. He locked me up here while he stays at the hospital, never leaving Vanessa's side.

I'm going into sudden labor, crying and begging him to let me go to a hospital. I swear I never wanted those things, never hurt her.

Blake just sneers. "You're such a liar. I don't believe a single word from someone as vicious as you. After Vanessa delivers, I'll get you a doctor. Stop trying to fool me."

But when he finally sees my body, he completely falls apart.

I've got a reputation on campus as a doormat with zero dignity. I bring Wyatt Langley food, do his homework, act as his emotional dumping ground. Been at it for a year.

His rich friends mock my cheap clothes and say I'm reaching way out of my league. He never stops them. Sometimes he even laughs along.

Finally, he announces in front of everyone that he's breaking up with me. His first love is coming back from Europe, so I need to get lost.

Everyone's waiting to see me cry.

I glance at the five million dollars that hit my account half an hour ago and say, with complete sincerity, "Okay. Congrats."

What nobody knows is that I put up with him, tolerated his rotten temper, for one simple reason. His mom pays way too well.

Now the money's here. Time to end this arrangement.

So why, the second I walk away, does he start tearing the city apart trying to find me?

Ten years ago, my parents worked for the Bellamys. He was their driver. She ran the house.

Then came the crash. I watched them shove Nash Bellamy out of the wreck, and it killed them both.

That's where the claustrophobia came from.

He knew. He knew all of it.

Then at homecoming, I showed up in a dress that matched Camilla's. She was the girl he'd always wanted. So he shoved me into the abandoned supply closet backstage.

The lock turned. On the other side of the door, he and Camilla were laughing like it was nothing.

"I'm pretty sure she's claustrophobic."

"Two hours in there. She'll learn."

I clawed at my own hands until they bled, couldn't get any air, and ended up wetting myself in a closet a dog wouldn't sleep in.

When the door finally opened, he pinched his nose and laughed and said I was disgusting.

I pushed myself up the wall, inch by inch, and looked at the face I'd been looking at for ten years. And I didn't want to cry anymore. Not even a little.

"Nash. I'm done chasing you."

I died. At my sister's eighteenth birthday party, the moment the champagne tower came crashing down.

While she stood under the crystal chandelier in her gown, soaking up congratulations from three hundred guests, I was tied up in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. The wound in my stomach was still bleeding.

I called my family. Only my brother picked up, sounding pissed off and disgusted. "What's your problem now? This is her big day. You better not ruin it."

I tried to explain. He hung up.

That was the ninety-ninth time they'd hung up on me.

Also the last.

They thought I was throwing a tantrum, deliberately skipping my sister's special moment. Called me ungrateful, said they regretted bringing me back from that backwater town two years ago.

Well, now they're off the hook.

Problem solved.

My husband Spencer quit his job to manage a rising model's career. In six months, she dropped the weight, blew up online, and turned into a supermodel — magazine covers, major runways, deal after deal.

Meanwhile, I watch myself expand by the day. Bloated. Double chin forming. Skin getting worse.

The whole world calls me greedy, lazy, out of control. Even my parents call to tell me to watch what I eat. And there's nothing I can say to make anyone understand.

Then one night, I catch them on the balcony, voices low, thinking no one can hear: "Forget about that fat cow. Once she drops dead, the house and the insurance are all ours."

That's when it finally makes sense.

Camille has a system tied to her. And it's tied to me.

Every pound I gain, she loses one.

I'm the fuel. The stepping stone. The inheritance they're waiting to collect.

She gets thin while I get fat?

So as long as I keep eating, she keeps losing weight?

Good.

I go ahead and spend a hundred grand booking a reclusive private chef for a full month. No limits on ingredients, price doesn't matter. The more extravagant, the better.

I'm going to eat whatever I want and actually enjoy my life.

Let's see how long she stays thin while I'm out here actually living my life.

Everyone thinks that after ten years engaged to Alpha Grayson, I'll end up as Frostpeak's Luna. Then one night at a gala, in front of the whole pack, he hands me over to the lowest rogue he can find.

Someone speaks up for me.

"Alpha Grayson, if you're done with her, just let her go. Why humiliate her like this? She dragged you through three days and nights in a blizzard ten years ago. She froze her body half to death saving you. She can't even shift anymore."

"That rogue can barely feed himself. She'll go with him and suffer for it."

Grayson just pulls the crying Omega closer, disgust all over his face.

"She saved me because she wanted the Luna title, that's all. I'm sick of her acting like I owe her something."

"Watch. Give it a few days and she'll come crawling back, begging me on her knees to change my mind."

I don't cry. I don't beg. I unclasp the engagement necklace, drop it at his feet, and walk out with the rogue.

Three days later, Grayson will show up at the Fringe with a hundred guards to drag me back, screaming that I'm heartless.

Everyone says I married an iceberg.

Three years of contract marriage. He's never touched me once.

On our wedding night, I tried to move into his bedroom. He refused. I stood in front of him wearing lingerie. He just said, calm as ever, "You should get some rest."

I'm a healthy woman with a normal sex drive. Every day I'm burning up with my own desire.

I thought he didn't love me. So for both our sakes, I signed the divorce papers. Today, I'm telling him.

Then that afternoon, I suddenly heard his thoughts.

When I walked up to him in just a towel, he looked calm, staring at his laptop. But his mind was screaming: Holy shit. She's not wearing anything under that. Look at that skin. Her tits are huge. I can't take this anymore... no, I'll scare her. Fuck. I'm hard again.

Turns out under the ice, there's a volcano that's been buried for just as long.

I slip the divorce papers back into hiding and pour him a coffee.

New plan: make that volcano blow.

My best friend Tiffany was obsessed with those novels where a mafia don spoils his woman rotten.

She was convinced she was the type of girl who could make a ruthless boss go soft, so she went after Vincent, the heir of a crime family, and got him.

His bodyguards, his dirty money, even the way he told her not to ask questions and just sit tight. She read all of it as devotion. And of course she had to drag me into it too, always with the same excuse: it was for my own good.

Last time around, her mess got me killed. Vincent's enemies mistook me for one of his people, and I died in a shootout that had nothing to do with me.

The second the blade opened my throat, all I could think about was her holding up a bloody knife, grinning, showing it off to me like a trophy.

"Margot, look. He gave me this. It means we're official now."

I remember feeling disgusted. I never thought that same knife would end up slitting my throat.

Blood pooled across the street while she hid in Vincent's arms, screaming, hands over her eyes. Later I heard her crying to someone, saying it wasn't her fault, that I just had bad luck.

I died inside her little romance fantasy. A nobody side character, wiped off the page without a second thought.

Then I opened my eyes, and I was back. Back to the afternoon it all started.

I gave Arthur a thousand years. A thousand years to secure his throne as God-King.

And on the day of our engagement ceremony, he announced he was marrying someone else.

In my past life, I bled myself dry for him.

He told me Lilith needed Seraphim blood to live. I believed him. He bound me to the Divine Punishment Pillar and carved open my chest, one cut at a time.

He massacred my entire clan, calling it "treason."

I only learned the truth as I was dying. That pitiful "saint" was a demon from the Abyss all along.

Now that I'm reborn, watching him sit on that throne makes my skin crawl.

I destroy our engagement in front of everyone and take the entire Seraphim clan with me.

This time, I'm only here to watch him destroy himself.