939 Book(s) Related to pull her closer

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!"

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.

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

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?

On the anniversary of my mother's death, Thomas promised he'd come pay his respects with me. I waited at the cemetery all day, only to see media reports of him vacationing with his first love.

Everyone assumed Thomas had a secret child with her. That they were about to get married.

And me? His actual wife?

I went home, left the divorce papers on the table, and burned our marriage certificate.

The first thing they took was my baby.

The second was my parents.

The third was my freedom, my eyes, and every reason to live.

My husband gave me to three men on our anniversary. He chained me in a doghouse while his mistress laughed. He fed me my own son’s remains and called it mercy.

He said I was dirty. He said I deserved it.

But the DNA test he trusted was a lie. The video was staged. And the woman he’s about to marry is the one who destroyed us all.

I tried to die. Four times.

Now I’m done trying.

They put a dead woman in the ground. They’re about to find out she brought hell back with her.

She woke up naked, bound, and on display in a birdcage.

Her husband sat in the front row while strangers bid on her unborn son's organs. He believed the video. The DNA test. The other woman's lies.

They took her baby. They took her mother. They tried to take her mind.

So she let them think she was broken. She smiled through the electric shocks. She bent without breaking. She counted down to the surgery that was supposed to kill her.

But she wasn't counting down to her death.

She was counting down to theirs.

They wanted her heart?

She'll give it to them—still beating, as she becomes their judge, jury, and executioner.

Dark Revenge Romance. CW: non-con, graphic violence, pregnancy loss, captivity. Read with caution.

“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.

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.

Aurelia has spent three years in a loveless marriage, holding on to a man who was already slipping away. She thinks it can't get worse until his first love returns.
He divorces her without hesitation. He doesn't know she's pregnant. Alone, heartbroken, and with nowhere to go, Aurelia is hit by a car.
She wakes up to three powerful billionaire brothers claiming her as their long-lost sister, and they take her away from the life that broke her.
Five years later, Aurelia is no longer the woman he abandoned. She runs AURELIA, a global luxury fashion empire. Untouchable, cold, and emotionally closed off.
So when her ex-husband walks back into her life, begging for another chance, she doesn't hesitate. "Unless it's business, you don't exist to me."
And when he discovers he has a son, he tries to claim him. The child looks at him without recognition and says, "My father is dead. I only have my mummy and my uncles."
For the first time, Dominic is forced to face the full weight of what he lost. Now, the man who once threw her away is the one begging to stay. But Aurelia doesn't believe in second chances. And this time, walking away might not be his choice.

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.”

“Smile, Natalie,” Callum whispered before he walked onstage.

So I smiled while he thanked another woman for the crisis plan I had written. I smiled when he pinned my grandmother’s sapphire brooch to her dress. I even smiled when his message came in, canceling our nineteenth appointment at the county clerk’s office.

Then I walked out with our unsigned marriage license papers in my purse and called the one CEO he hated most.

By the time Callum realized I wasn’t waiting anymore, I had already taken my name, my work, and my future back.

"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.

After sleeping for a thousand years, I returned to the ancestral castle that was supposed to be mine.
Only to find my throne torn down and turned into an auction block for the black market, my territory carved up clean by traitors.
And my only pureblood descendant in this world was actually being auctioned off like livestock—covered in blood, chained up with a cheap dog collar around his neck.
The entire room of nobles and elites mistook me for the lowest kind of half-blood trash, mocking me as a rat too stupid to know when he was dead.
The usurper, eager to curry favor with the Abyss, shouted that he would drain me dry and offer my blood as a tribute to the three pureblood princes deep within the Abyss.
Then the void split open, and those three supreme princes—the untouchable monsters the world worshiped—truly descended.
Under the horrified gaze of more than a thousand nobles and elites, those three ancient monsters threw themselves at my feet, scrambling and crawling, wailing in terror without even daring to raise their heads:
"Your unworthy descendants... welcome the Ancestor's return!!!"

Ugly. Good for nothing. Useless. Disgusting.
These are the words Zara hears every single day.


I was the Alpha's fated mate but my rejection was worse than one thousand needles pierced to my skin.
"I, Weston Bruce Furrow, Alpha of the Shadow Moon Pack reject you, Zara Liam Adolf of the Night Moon Pack. A pathetic runt weakling like you is no match for me."
I could feel my heart breaking, Tuna was howling inside me, and I could feel her pain.
"I, Zara Liam Adolf of the Night Moon Pack, accept your rejection..."


Being the Alpha's daughter doesn't shield Zara from the pack's cruelty. Especially when her own father is her worst tormentor.
Years later, the man she once hated most returns. The same man who rejected her, who humiliated her, and now, she doesn't understand why he's back. Worse still, she's being forced to negotiate with him.
Zara wants nothing more than to forget how he made her feel. But her pack needs protection, and he's the Alpha who can offer it.
Which means she has no choice but to put her pack above her pain.

Five years of a marriage forced by family convenience end in the cruelest way possible: with a request for divorce on the same day they would celebrate their anniversary. Lilian, devastated by Ethan's rejection—the man she learned to love despite the circumstances—sees her life fall apart. In her darkest hour, when the pain seems unbearable, Lilian is saved by Daniel Spector, a longtime friend and silent confidant who has always loved her. At the hospital, news changes everything: Lilian is two months pregnant. But there is another woman, Joana Mercadante — rich, famous, and supposedly also expecting Ethan's child. With her heart broken and her soul on fire, Lilian decides to leave. She flees to France and, far from the eyes of the world, gives birth to her son and builds an empire. Five years later, she returns as a powerful woman, determined to face her demons... and she finds Ethan again. He never stopped looking for her, never forgot the love he destroyed with his own hands. Now he must fight not only for forgiveness, but for a second chance—with her and with the son he never knew. But will regret be enough to rebuild a love that was betrayed? Especially when Daniel, Ethan's new rival, is ready to build the life Lilian always dreamed of... and is already the father in her son's heart?

Elsie Clarke spent three years in a secret marriage, and just as long in cold, silent separation. As their third anniversary approached, she still held on, foolishly hoping her love could melt her husband's frozen heart.

But all she received was a call from his private club. His voice was indifferent. “You wanted to see me? Bring a condom.”

That was the moment everything shattered. The marriage she had clung to was nothing but an empty shell, and she was finally ready to let it go.

But just as she turned away, he began to chase her with reckless desperation. The man who once ignored her now couldn’t bear to let her go.

Five years ago, Rebecca Percy gave up everything to marry into the powerful Spencer Family.

She spent five years as a devoted wife and mother, only for her husband to sacrifice her to a financial tycoon for a business contract, leaving her to be abused and broken. Her heart turned to ash.

"Rebecca, you are nothing but a breeding machine. Without the Spencer Family, you are nobody! You want a divorce? Fine. But don't you dare regret it!"

But outside the Civil Affairs Bureau, the ex-husband who had just threatened her watched in shock.

He saw her holding the divorce certificate, embraced by another man, and felt a burning jealousy—and a sudden, hollow emptiness in his heart.

Rebecca swore that from now on, she would focus only on her career, not love.

Yet, she found herself pinned on a vanity table by the young Master Whitaker.

As he relentlessly claimed her, he demanded:

"So, Rebecca... you think I'm just a fuck buddy, is that it?"

"...I gave your wedding dress to Elise." Julian said.
"What...Did you say?" I asked, just to be sure I didn't hear wrong.
"Elise," he said again, "I gave her the dress."
"And why would you even do that?" I snapped in anger.
"We've been talking, okay?" He rubbed his temples, trying to explain "She told me she wants her last wish to be getting married before she passes to me. So...I thought this, as the right thing to do."
The words exploded out of me like a volcano.
"How could you do something like this without asking me first? That's my dress, Julian! For our wedding, that's in two days!"


For many years I gave up my dreams and my youth to bring Julian back from the edge of death. We were legally bound in a secret ceremony, waiting for the day he could finally stand beside me at the altar.
But on the day of our wedding, the dress I made for myself was on my stepsister, and the man I called my husband was leading her to the priest.
With nothing left but a broken heart, I made a deal with the one man Julian feared, Sebastian Hale.
He is cold, dangerous, and the most powerful billionaire in the city. He offers me protection, wealth, and revenge, but in his world nothing is free.

Isadora Bellini spent her entire life living in the shadow of her twin sister, Giulia—but nothing hurt more than the moment their childhood best friend and her fated mate, Capo Lorenzo, chose Giulia over her. Shattered and humiliated, Isadora disappeared from the Luna Nera Clan, carving out a quiet life among humans. Eight years later, she’s dragged back to the one place she promised never to return—for Giulia’s funeral. What begins as a painful farewell quickly spirals into a storm of secrets, guilt, and dangerously unresolved emotions.
Lorenzo isn’t the same confident Capo who once broke her heart—he’s grieving, broken, and searching for answers. But so is Isadora. As truths begin to unravel—about Giulia’s betrayal, Lorenzo’s rejection, and a past that refuses to stay buried—Isadora finds herself caught between the scars of yesterday and the pull of a bond she tried to erase.
In a world where fate is sealed by blood and moonlight, and love can be the sharpest weapon of all… will Isadora risk everything to uncover the truth, or let her pain write the ending for her?
When love feels like betrayal, how do you trust what your heart still wants?

“Go find one of those perfect little she-wolves lined up to mate you. Play your Alpha card on them. I’m sure they’ll beg to be marked..maybe they’ll even let you f—”

“Seliene!” he snapped, his voice a roar as he grabbed my wrist.

“Stop touching me!” I shoved at his chest, voice rising despite the sting in my throat. “Stop acting like you care when all you've ever done is hate me!”

Tears pricked my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “There are plenty of men who would take me to bed without second-guessing it. Maybe I should let them. Maybe I should—”

His hand tangled in my hair so fast I gasped, and the next thing I knew, my back was against the wall.

Ronan’s eyes were glowing now—not just anger, but something else. Something deeper. His wolf was there, right under the surface, growling low and dangerous.

“Oh?” I taunted, my body betraying me with a subtle tremble of arousal. “What is this? You don’t want me, but no one else should touch me either?”

His growl deepened, vibrating between us, and then his mouth crashed down on mine.

I moaned before I could stop myself, and that only seemed to provoke him further. He pressed harder, his body pinning mine, every inch of him demanding, claiming.

He groaned into my mouth, his thigh sliding between mine and pressing upward. I gasped, my head hitting the wall as pleasure sparked through me.

“Don’t want to touch you?” he growled against my lips. “I want you with every damn breath.”


Seliene, a fierce half-breed hiding heartbreak behind a defiant tongue, and Ronan, the brooding Alpha who once rejected her, ignite in a moment of raw passion and buried longing. Bound by a mate bond they both try to resist, their chemistry is undeniable, dangerous, explosive, and edged with the pain of a love neither dares to admit.

I kept a list. Ninety-eight times my husband chose another woman over me.

Missed birthdays, ruined anniversaries, broken promises—all for his "patient" Sophia, who seemed to have a medical emergency every time we had plans.

"It's just my job, Emma," he would say. "You understand."

Ryan thought he could have his cake and eat it too. He was wrong.

After an incident, I was determined to leave him, and before I left, I gave him an unforgettable "gift."

I had a childhood arranged marriage with the Mu family. My unreliable dad just tossed me a New York address and told me to go inherit the company there.

They only broke the news to me after my plane touched down in New York: I could take over the family business only if I went through with the marriage.

I followed the address, only to be led winding through the streets by the men at the gate and taken to an abandoned construction site.

Along the way, the man guiding me feigned sympathy: “The Mu Group went bankrupt two years ago. They sold their house and company to pay off debts, yet still owe a fortune in loan sharks. Debt collectors hound him every day, and he always brings them here to talk. He works an office job by day and fights in underground boxing matches for cash by night—his life is nothing short of miserable.”

Hardly had he finished speaking when I heard the harsh clanging of steel pipes. A devastatingly handsome man was grappling with a dozen men, a steel pipe gripped in his hand.

His features were sharp, his jaw clenched tight. Blood trickled down his cheek from his temple, mixing with dust, carving out an air of broken ferocity about him.

Hell no—they’re picking on my future husband right in front of me?

The guide tried to say more, but I, a die-hard sucker for good looks, grabbed a steel bar beside me and charged straight in.

The brawlers froze for a split second at my sudden appearance, then plunged back into the fight.

Mu Qingye threw every punch with reckless brutality, and I, a multiple-time taekwondo champion, was no pushover either.

Once we’d chased the debt collectors off, I tossed the steel bar aside and watched Mu Qingye lean against the wall, gasping for breath.

His clothes were frayed and faded, and the bandage on his right leg was soaked through with blood, a glaring, vivid red.

He sat on the ground, lifted his eyelids to glance at me sideways, his eyes as cold as ice.

I stared at his outrageously handsome face, my heart racing wildly: “I’m Meng Shixia. Do you remember me? I—”

“I don’t know you.” He cut me off abruptly, staggered to his feet by leaning on the wall, and shot me another cold glance. “Stay out of my business.”

Ten years loving Liam Rockefeller cost me everything.

He said the football team jumped him—so I charged in and took the punches. He sobbed that his stepbrother would destroy him at Yale—so I ripped up my acceptance letter. He held me at midnight whispering "I'm so lucky to have you"—and I thought that meant forever.

Three months later, I heard him laughing in the locker room—laughing about me.

"Iris is like a fucking puppy, so easy to fool. Now that the Yale spot's open, Emily can go with me."

The bullying was staged. The tears were fake. Those intimate embraces—just tools to control me while he fucked his side piece.

He thought I'd still stand in front of him even with a broken nose. He thought I'd never wise up.

I wised up.

In his stepbrother Sebastian's bed.

Since I was ten, he told me to call him brother. But brothers don't look at you like that.
My life had only Daniel Wilson in it. He was my guardian, my savior, my world.
"Call me brother," he said, but he forbade me from dating anyone else. He kept me in his manor like a bird in a gilded cage. He promised that when I turned twenty-one, the title of "sister" would change to "wife."
I waited. I obeyed. I loved him with a devotion that bordered on obsession.
But on my twenty-first birthday, he brought her home.
"Julie, meet Lena. She's... special to me."
He introduced his childhood crush to me, his "sister," while holding her hand. The way he looked at her was soft, gentle—the way he used to look at me before she arrived.
"You're just a foster sister," he reminded me coldly when I cried. "Don't cross the line."
The line? He blurred the lines for twelve years! He made me dependent on him, made me believe we were destined, only to discard me when the "real" owner of his heart returned.
Fine. If I'm just a sister, then I'll leave.
But why is he chasing me now, begging me to come back, saying he can't sleep without me in the house?
"I'm not your sister anymore, Daniel. And I'm certainly not your wife."

My chosen mate used his Beta authority to give the entire moonbloom compound to his fated mate's daughter.
The healer had said to split it—half for each child. Both would live. He overrode her. Gave the full dose to Rosalie Blackwell.
He wanted a full recovery. Just not for ours.
Three days later, my daughter Wren's organs shut down. She died on her birthday, still asking why Daddy wasn't there. The dress I'd made her—white with little silver wolves along the hem—she never got to put it on.
That same day, his fated's daughter walked out of the healing hall completely cured. He even threw a feast for the whole pack.
I collapsed at the border of Thornecrest territory. The healers told me it was cancer. Late-stage. Nothing left to treat.
Now I sat alone in our empty house with Wren's unworn birthday dress across my lap and drafted the dissolution papers.

I caught my husband sleeping with my sister, so I burned it all down.
The fire burned fierce, swallowing that abandoned cabin in the woods, along with my shattered marriage.
With the stench of gasoline still lingering on my fingertips, I thought I had finally buried the man who betrayed me.
Until the next morning, when he walked through the front door without a single scratch.
My mind reeled.
If he was still alive... then who the hell did I burn to a crisp last night?

Nora Vale was never supposed to be seen.

For three years, she rebuilt hockey captain Callum Pierce after the injury that nearly ended his career. She tracked his tremors, rewrote his recovery protocol, and carried the private marriage his family refused to make public.

Then he won the championship.

Under the arena lights, Callum lifted the cup and thanked Sloane Mercer, the beautiful sports host the cameras already loved. Backstage, Nora watched her own medical system appear under Sloane's name.

That night, Nora left with the evidence and the child Callum never knew existed.

Three years later, Nora is no longer hiding in the tunnel. She is the chief medical consultant for the rival team, the one woman the league needs when old concussion records begin to surface. Callum wants answers. His father wants control. Sloane wants the public story to stay clean.

Nora wants her name back.

But the fight is no longer only about a stolen system. It is about a son whose medical records could shift a franchise, a trust that could break the Pierce family, and a championship myth built on the woman they erased.

Callum thanked the wrong woman on the night he won.

Now the whole league is about to learn who made him a champion.

They put the calm ones on graveyard. I'm calmer than calm - I can't read a face to save my life, but give me a voice and I'll tell you what you ate for dinner and what you're lying about.

3:07 a.m. A woman calls. A struggle. The line dies.

By sunrise there's no body, no report, and the call I logged has wiped itself clean - like it never rang. The whole city is asleep on it.

But I've never trusted the system. I keep my own copy of every call.

He erased her. I kept the tape. Now he just has to find out the night guy nobody looks at has been listening the whole time.

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.

At my mother's funeral, I stopped outside the lounge.

Through the door, I heard Julian—my fiancé—delivering a cold warning to my father:

"You can stop obsessing over Harper, Richard. She's with me now. Don't bother her anymore."

My father immediately tried to use me to suppress him. "Don't forget you're marrying Sloane next week! If she finds out you're screwing the orphan her mother took in..."

Julian cut him off. "She'll never know. Just like she'll never know her mother didn't actually die of depression. She killed herself because she caught you two together."

Father's counterattack threw me straight into hell:

"What right do you have to judge me?! When Sloane was frantic, calling you for help, what were you doing? If you hadn't been rolling around in a hotel bed with Harper, if you hadn't lied to Sloane that you were 'on your way,' her mother would never have died!"

A violent ringing filled my ears.

I slammed the door open, stormed in, and slapped Julian across the face with every ounce of strength I had left.

The man I was supposed to marry in seven days merely turned his head. It took him exactly one second to suppress his shock.

"Since you heard everything, good. Better to accept reality now, so you don't break down later."

"For the sake of the Vance family heir you're carrying, the wedding next week proceeds as planned."

"But I have responsibilities to Harper, too. That tie won't be severed."

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.

I was falsely accused of killing my sister. My husband personally sent me to prison. Three years later, he picked me up, and that very night he stripped off my clothes and fucked me brutally.

He said, "The child your sister and I had together has a heart condition. You have to give birth to a baby to save him. This is what you owe your sister!"

He married me because I look like her.
For three years, I played the role. I cooked his meals. I warmed his bed. I smiled when he forgot my birthday. I stayed quiet when he left in the middle of the night to hold her hand.
I told myself it was enough. I told myself I didn't need his love.
Then I got pregnant.
He said he hated children. So I didn't tell him. I was going to keep it. Our baby. The only thing that was truly mine.
But my body had other plans.
When I called him from the hospital floor, bleeding out, begging for help—he didn't come. He said I was lying. He was too busy with her.
That night, I lost everything.
The baby. The hope. The lie I'd been living.
Now he's calling me. Again and again.
But the substitute wife? She's not picking up.

After I found out about the secret admirer he’s been talking to for the past two months the, he throws divorce papers at my face after being married for six months. He claims that his admirer would give him half of the Williamson cooperation. He thinks I’m the naive middle class woman he married but what he doesn’t know is I’m the owner of the Williamson Cooperation, the company I inherited from my father’s as his only child just before he died. Throws out of the house, I decided to reclaim my power and move back to my estate. I hosted a convention where the secret admirer would be handing him the properties and I put everyone in shock when I show up and they find out it’s me. Richard begs at my feet for mercy but I totally ignore him and choose his personal assistant who has always been good to me from the very day I stepped into Richard’s mansion as his wife