1368 Book(s) Related to why does jax always cover her neck

At first, I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world, at least maybe the sacrifices I had made over the past five years would pay off.
But I was wrong. I was just a replacement for Luna, whom no one ever wanted.
I was abandoned by Alpha, my husband, on our fifth wedding anniversary, for the woman who had left him.
What hurt even more was that the child I had raised with all my heart and soul ran into the arms of her biological mother, as if I had never meant anything to his.
Rejected, discarded, and cast out-all of it destroyed me. It felt as if the whole world had rejected me.
But just when I was about to disappear, fate brought me to the beginning of a resurrection I never imagined.

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."

In a modern city of flights, glass hotels, and surveillance footage, Nora—an artist still recovering from surgery—watches her marriage rot behind polished excuses. As she traces her husband’s affair through airport selfies, joint-account charges, voice recordings, and a staged fall on the stairs, humiliation hardens into precision. Cold, sharp, and deeply satisfying, this is a divorce reckoning lit by rain, evidence files, airport confrontations, and the moment a woman stops begging to be chosen.

My boyfriend hated the new freshman, Lila.
She followed him everywhere from day one, and he’d complain to me nonstop.
“Want me to get her kicked out? My dad can write a check and make it happen.”
I laughed it off. “Cocky much?”
He nudged my shoulder. “You really not scared I’ll get taken?”
Please.
We were childhood sweethearts, bound by family and our upcoming competition duet.
Her cheap, desperate act? I never saw it as a threat.
I had no idea how wrong I was.

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?

The Alpha of Blood Moon Pack needed an heir his chosen mate couldn't give him. So he found me — a rogue Omega with a destroyed pack and a little brother who needed protection — and offered a deal: carry his child, hand it over, walk away.
He never touched me. A physician, a syringe, a sterile room. When it was done, he said: "Thank you for your cooperation."
His mate Serena moved into the main house the week my pregnancy was confirmed. She picked the nursery colors. She chose the baby's name. She told the pack I was just "a relative visiting."
Then I overheard them planning to erase my scent from my baby within forty-eight hours of birth — so it would never know I existed.
I left that night. Six months pregnant, alone, into the snow.

My girlfriend told me she was part of a social experiment. Her task was to get close to a target, and if she quit, she’d owe a crushing penalty.

So she kept canceling on me, staying out all night, and letting another man hold her—then came home in tears and said she had no choice.

I believed her for three years.

What she never knew was that I was the hidden heir to a billion-dollar family empire. While we were together, I was under a private family test and forbidden to reveal who I really was.

The day that test ended, I took back my name.

The first thing I did wasn’t return to the boardroom. I went straight to the lab behind her so-called experiment.

The man in charge turned the screen toward me. “We never had any massive penalty. The contract is clear. She could have quit at any time.”

Three years. No forced mission. No trap she couldn’t escape.

Every line she crossed, she chose to cross herself.

I didn’t confront her. I just took my things, ended the relationship, and walked away.

She thought I was just angry.

She had no idea that after reclaiming my identity, the first thing I did was uncover every lie she had ever told me.

I have guarded the Abyss on the Ashen Plains for a thousand years.

My daily routine: chewing rock-hard rye bread, single-handedly crushing the skulls of trespassing demons, wiping their slime off on a ragged surcoat, and leaning against a bronze pillar to catch the wind.

Today, a dying girl stumbled into the wasteland. Her fingers were locked in a death grip around the bloodstained iron crest I had left behind a millennium ago. Up on the ridge, three hundred heavy cavalrymen of the Alliance drew their lances, forming a wall of steel as they closed in.

I stared at the blood on the ground. I didn't make a sound.

I just brushed the biscuit crumbs off my lap and stretched my stiff neck. Turning around, my fingers hooked onto the hilt of a rust-eaten battleaxe resting beneath the bronze pillar. I dragged it along with casual ease.

"Troublesome."

I muttered that single word, and walked alone toward the formation of steel.

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

I’m Scarlett, the last true revival tattoo artist, capable of defying death with my cursed ink—for a brutal price. I lost everything saving my fiancé Hunter in my past life, only to be betrayed and killed by him .

Reborn when Hunter dies again, I refuse to sacrifice myself for my murderers. In an unthinkable twist, the powerless fraud Wendy resurrects Hunter, winning universal praise while I’m branded cold. Only I know the truth: he is not alive. He is a decaying, cursed corpse. I gamble everything for revenge and resurrect the only man who once saved me.

But tampering with death twice stirs a fatal, unspoken curse.

When the Manhattan morgue finally managed to reach my husband, Victor Hawthorne, he was in the penthouse suite, fucking another woman.
"Mr. Hawthorne, this is the city morgue. We need you to come down and identify your wife's remains."
"Identify what?" he snapped, his thrusts not missing a beat.
"Burn her," he ordered. "Don't bother me with her pathetic ploys."
He tossed the phone onto the nightstand, his focus entirely on the woman beneath him.
Then my body was pushed into the incinerator.
When I was nothing but ashes, the funeral home called him again.
Selena pouted, trailing a nail down his chest.
"Is Cecilia acting up again?"
"I'll go end this farce," Victor sneered, getting out of bed.

Selene thought she'd found true love with Alexander Morrison. She was WRONG—she was just a stand-in for Jessa, the woman he really wanted.

When Alexander and his twin brother Adrian's yacht exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, Alexander came home with Adrian's ashes, claiming to BE Adrian. His goal? To steal Adrian's wife Jessa—the woman he'd always loved.

Selene knew instantly he was lying, but when she told everyone, no one believed her. Alexander called her "crazy from trauma" and locked her away in a mental facility. She was PREGNANT.

They drugged her daily. After she gave birth, Alexander told her the baby died. She broke completely.

Three years later, dying in that white hell, Selene heard Alexander's final confession:

"I always loved Jessa. Adrian just got to her first. YOU? You were just her replacement."

"The kid's alive. I gave him to Jessa. He calls her Mom now."

Selene died full of rage—then woke up reborn, back to the moment Alexander walked in with that urn.

This time, she'd expose his lies and make him PAY.

On the night my grandmother died, my husband Kael came home trailing blood.
His leather motorcycle jacket was soaked dark red, yet he flashed a savage grin: "I wiped the floor with those bastards tonight!"
For three years, he had treated our home as nothing more than a pit stop between reckless street races.
I’d finally had enough. "After the funeral, we're getting a divorce."
Before the words fully left my mouth, my phone rang. It was his riding partner, Lunn, his voice choking with sobs: "Sera... Kael drove off the cliff tonight. They only recovered bloody pieces of his helmet!"
But the "dead man" was standing right in front of 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 spent five years loving Beckett Calloway.
When his ex-girlfriend died saving his life, I held him through every nightmare. When he said he "wasn't ready" for marriage, I waited. When he whispered "soon," I believed him.
Then her sister showed up. Crying about some terminal illness. Begging him to take care of her.
He let her move onto our private island—the one he promised would only ever belong to us.
He introduced her at the gala where he was supposed to announce our engagement.
He got her pregnant.
And when I told him she was lying about everything, he looked at me like I was the monster.
Then came our wedding rehearsal. She walked down the aisle in my dress. He slid his ring onto her finger. The chapel caught fire. I collapsed, bleeding.
He scooped her up and ran. Didn't even glance back.
So I burned my vows, deleted every trace of myself, and vanished.
This time, I wasn't coming back.

A hundred years ago, that curse was meant for him. I'm the one who threw myself in front of it.
It cost me my elven heart, shattered on the spot—and a name I could never wash off. Traitor.
I never argued. Because the moment I speak the truth, the curse goes straight back to him.
So I stayed. I became his blood servant and let him drain me, one bottle at a time, to feed the woman he'd waited a century for. I told myself that if I endured long enough, someday he'd see my heart for what it was.
Then the healer told me my heart had thirty days left.
And he walked in, knife in hand, to say his beloved needed more of my blood.
This time, I'm not enduring anything.
I'm going to give him back this heart—at the exact moment he's most sure he's won.

To avenge his beloved, my husband locked me—pregnant—in a dog cage and sank it into the icy lake outside our house.
"Wendy spent ten minutes in the water. You'll stay in there for two days."
I screamed and pleaded, "I'm not lying! I really am pregnant! Please!"
But he towered over me, his eyes full of disgust. "You'll say anything to avoid punishment—even a lie like this?"
As the iron cage sank, the freezing water swallowed me—and took the unborn child with it.
Two days later, he had the cage hauled up, waiting for me to beg Wendy for forgiveness.
But all that was left inside was a curled, lifeless body, my dress soaked in vivid red.
I hovered above, watching coldly as he clung to my corpse, howling like a madman.
Eric, why are you crying?
Isn't this what you wanted?

For two years I was Easton's secret girlfriend. I paid his tuition. I took a beating from the guys who came for him. I gave up my MIT interview so he could chase what he wanted.
Then I heard him behind a half-open door, kissing my best friend.
"Last life she clung to me like a lunatic. This life I'm not making that mistake again."
Last life. They'd both been reborn—come back with every memory of a life I don't even remember living—and somewhere in it, they'd decided I was the desperate girl who ruined everything.
Fine.
I went back to my desk, pulled the MIT acceptance I'd been about to turn down, and signed it.
Easton, I'll let you have her.
He spent two lifetimes sure he was the smart one. He's about to find out which of us was holding back.

She is a singer,she loves to sing songs but her parents are not allowed to sing,but she has a secret no one knows about her secret.Her parents forced to marry a person,she agrees with her parents decision and marries that guy who she doesn't know.?

He is not playboy,or rich spoilt brat,he doesn't have one night stands but he is arrogant guy, loveable person. Girls admires him with his looks but he admires only one girl in his life.He is a dancer,he loves to dance and loves his parents very much and his first priority is his family,most importantly he admires one girl from past 1 year.He is searching for that girl,but his parents wants to get marry him.He agrees without hesitation.He dont no anything about that girl.Who he is going to marry?will he able find his secret love?.

Let's see how Aaron will found about his secret love?will he able to love his wife who is mysterious to world?.

"What...are ...you doing Mr. Professor?" She asked stuttering.

"I know what I'm doing Ms. Khanna," He smirked to her. He took hold of her hands and placed them above her head.

"Leave me," She said and struggled from his tight grip but alas no use. He stood there like a rock.

"I won't leave you. What will you do Miss?" He queried.

"I will complain to principal," She emphasised. With that he came close to her and crashed his lips with her.

She was shocked for a moment. She stood like a statue in that place and shivered from his touch which affected her so much.

"What will you do Ms. Khanna?" He prompted and went from there with a smirk playing on his lips.

"I hate you professor," She screamed making his smirk grew wider.


Naina Kapoor. A beautiful, cute, intelligent, ambitious and lovely person. She loves her
parents and her sister Meera. She wants to become successful in her career but one decision of her parents changes her life completely. Arranged marriage, selected by her parents and he is her sister's brother-in-law. Let's see what happens to her life.

Shourya Khanna. A handsome, intelligent, caring and arrogant person. He loves his family so much. He is the CEO of Khanna Industries. He has a brother who loves him so much and his sister-in-law who treats him like her own brother. She wants him to get married to her sister. She thinks he is perfect for her.

Will Shourya support her dreams or not?

BLURB

My breath hitched, my chest heaving as Salvatore's finger thrust into my pussy. I clenched my teeth, my fingers squeezing the bedsheets as I shamelessly parted my legs even wider.

“Do you want me to stop?” His voice was a low growl.

“No,” I breathed. “Faster…please,” I moaned loudly.

I knew Salvatore's and my attraction to each other was forbidden; he was the heir to a wealthy family, and I was just a maid in his house. But I have had an attraction to him since I met him and couldn't control it.

We both couldn't.


Lyra Whitman is from a poor home and has faced constant bullying in school. She and her mother finally moved away to a new city, where they her mother works as a maid for the Sinclair's, one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the county.

Lyra cannot help but fall for their son, and she is surprised to see that he feels the same. Knowing the dangers of being together due to their different backgrounds, they are forced to navigate their relationship in secret.

"And now, he's certain your life is over because he kicked you out. They're probably already placing bets on how long it will take for you to bow and beg at their feet to take you back. But..." He said coldly.

"But..." I breathed.

"Imagine suddenly returning with a husband so wealthy he makes them look like paupers. Not only is he filthy rich, but he's hopelessly in love with you, spoiling you rotten. Imagine their shock, their anger, and your satisfaction that you have exceeded their expectations. Won't that be fulfilling?"

"And... who would that husband be?" I whispered.

"Me." He grinned as he caressed my cheek. "Let's get married, my dear Iris."

••~•

After being humiliated and disowned on her wedding day, Iris is suddenly approached by Gordon Graff, the enigmatic and highly controversial billionaire and also her ex's uncle, who asks for her hand in marriage.

His goal: make her family and ex pay for everything they've done to her.

But what happens when the line between pretence and true love begins to blur, and dangerous secrets begin to unfold?

Will the man who has promised to protect her be her doom? And will she be a casualty in his dangerous game of revenge?

1

On our fifth Anniversary party, Harris got admitted to the City's Hospital.

Cancer. Stage IV.

I struggled to find words to whisper some comforting words to Harris .

Instead, he held my hands, and said,"It's alright, Darcy."

"Don't be afraid of anything that may happen. Even if I am about to die, I will always be with you."

Even when he was dying, he made sure to comfort me, which bled my heart.

I spent my days researching treatments, draining my savings for "miracle" consultations.

Then came the afternoon I went to his office early to surprise him with the appointment letter with Dr. Wilson, a world famous surgeon.

Harris had been trying to contact him for weeks now. But, everytime he declined him bluntly, only this time when I tried to contact him personally, his assistant reached out to me.

Finally, he had a chance to be saved. I cried tears of joy. I wanted to share this good news with Harris as soon as possible.

But, My hands, almost pushed open the door, , a Lively and joyous laughter echoed through my ears.
"Is the paperwork ready?"

I slightly opened it ajar and peered inside.
I froze on the spot.

Clara was sitting on Harris's lap, clutching to his shoulder like she owned him.

"Everything," Harris' voice sounded, confident and excited.

"By the time 'cancer' takes me, Harris Hudson will be dead, life insurance will be processed, and you and I will be halfway across the world with a clean slate."

Clara. Harris' first love. The one he told me was a 'closed chapter' years ago.

Something broke into my heart.
I froze at my place.

The cancer, the treatment, it was all a lie orchestrated by Harris to elope with Clara?

I found my husband's vasectomy certificate while sorting medical bills. The procedure was done a year ago. But I was six months pregnant now.

I stared at the date on the paper and my hand just... stopped. I kept checking it again and again, but it was still the same. I was freaking out. I looked down at my bump showing through this baggy sweater, and my hands started shaking.

I got in my car and drove straight to my husband's private club. I needed answers about this, now.

Dante Ashford is my stepbrother, and the one person I should never have fallen in love with.

When I was ten, my parents died saving his family. The Ashfords took me in. He was good to me back then. Somewhere along the way, I fell for him.

When I was eighteen, he nearly died in an ambush. I donated blood, then a kidney to save him. I was unconscious for three days. When I woke up, Vivian Ross sat by his bed—and he believed she was his savior.

After that, he pushed me away. Vivian became his fiancée.

In my past life, Vivian's crimes brought disaster to our family. Dante got on his knees and begged me to take her punishment. I refused. She died anyway. Then he pretended to love me, planned our wedding—and on that day, his assistant announced to everyone: "This wedding was a lesson to show Miss Elena Hayes what it feels like to be abandoned by the whole world."

I jumped from the church balcony.

When I opened my eyes, I was back at that moment—him on his knees, begging.

This time, I said yes.

Dante, from now on, we're done.

The day I died in a foreign country, my boyfriend was in the spotlight with another woman.

He's the man I built from nothing. Five years ago, I saved a broke orphan fresh out of college from the gutter. He said he wanted to be famous, wanted to make it to the top of the hockey world. In exchange, he became my boyfriend for five years.

I gave him the best coaching staff money could buy. Bought an entire hockey franchise and made him the centerpiece. Called in every favor I had to make him MVP.

But while he enjoyed everything I gave him, he refused to make our relationship public. Said it would "hurt his brand." He could make headlines with reporters and models, but nobody could know I existed.

He even said on national TV: "Those owners who just throw money around are pretty boring. Hockey is about skill, not money."

So why did he lose his mind when he found out I was dead?

I almost died on the operating table trying to give Alexander Volkov a child, unaware he already had a pair of illegitimate twins with his childhood sweetheart.
My heart stopped when I saw the DNA results. Alec, the man who made the New York underworld tremble, the man who flew back on a private jet just to hold my hand, was a flawless liar.
I turned my face away, tears soaking the hospital pillow. My hand drifted to my belly. God had finally decided to give me a break after five years of needles and agony—I was pregnant. But now, it felt like the cruelest joke.
He pulled me into his arms, smelling of expensive cologne and... baby formula.
"Tell me what's wrong, honey. Whoever made you unhappy, I'll make them pay."
I stared into his lying eyes and made my decision.
I would vanish with his unborn child, leaving him to rot in eternal regret.

Forty-eight hours before my wedding, I was kidnapped and gang-raped, surviving by only a thread in the depths of despair.   When my mafia boss fiancé and my police detective best friend stood guard by my hospital bed with bloodshot eyes, I heard him suddenly switch to Navajo and ask her, "The death row inmates from the dark web—were they dealt with cleanly?"   My best friend chuckled, replying in the same language. "Don't worry. The guys who put their hands on Maya have been wiped out. Dead men tell no tales."   "Sacrificing Maya alone gave you the perfect excuse to wipe out the rival family and swallow the southern smuggling network, while earning me a high-level promotion. It was a damn good deal."   Amidst tearing, agonizing pain, it felt as if I had been plunged into an ice cliff.   They thought I could never understand this obscure tribal language, so they brazenly feasted on the spoils of victory built upon my very flesh and blood. But what they didn't know was that, to surprise my fiancé during our wedding vows... I had been secretly studying Navajo for an entire year.

My daughter has passed away, and my ex-husband abandoned us.

In my darkest hour, my first love, Lysander, reappeared; he covered the medical expenses, married me, and provided me with a home.

For five years, I believed I was the luckiest woman in the world.

Until that fateful day, four months into my pregnancy, when I overheard his conversation with a friend—

“To save Celeste, I thought... who knew it would lead to the death of Seraphina’s daughter?”

“As for Seraphina, she is a good wife, but alas... I do not love her.”

It turned out that my daughter’s death was no accident.

It was revealed that these five years of marriage were merely his quest for atonement.

The one he had always truly loved was Celeste—my ex-husband’s current wife.

As I lay on the operating table, I made a decision—

Since he had taken my daughter’s kidney, I would seize everything from him.

Including what he believed he would never lose: me.

"Valerie, you've been working yourself to death. I booked you a flight to Switzerland—take Leo, go relax for a while." My husband Cedric set an Hermès scarf down on the table. "Early gift for our tenth anniversary."
I was thrilled, twirling in front of the mirror with the scarf, admiring how it looked.
That's when my son came around the corner, iPad in hand. "Mommy, a message just popped up. Daddy said he wants to give Seraphina a real family."
My mind just... blanked out.
I opened the message myself, and there it was—a whole year of secrets I never even knew existed.
So he wants to make things right with his old flame? Fine.
Then I get to take back everything I ever gave him.

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.

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.

The craziest thing I've ever done? Agreeing to Mason's idea—sex in the middle of nowhere.
But then his first love called, and he left me stranded out there. Alone. In the dead of night.

Jade was Lucian's secretary by day and his mistress by night.
It wasn't until she became his woman that Jade discovered just how ruthless and promiscuous Lucian could be. When she realized she might be pregnant, the man simply laughed and tossed the pregnancy test into the trash.
"Trying to trap me with a baby? Keep taking your pills."
On the eve of Lucian's engagement, Jade resigned from her job and ended their relationship.
But Lucian assumed she was merely throwing a tantrum. He waited for her to apologize and come crawling back to him, just as she always had before.
Days passed.
Instead of Jade, Lucian got the news that she had a new boyfriend.
His twin brother.
The man who shared his face and happened to be his sworn rival.
Overnight, Jade became his sister-in-law.
Lucian completely lost control. He searched desperately for Jade, determined to bring her back.
But Jade, who was pregnant, had vanished without a trace.

I thought telling Alpha Kane I was pregnant would be the hardest part of my day.

That was before I found my step-sister naked on his mahogany desk.
I remained committed to my role of Luna for three years while I suffered through his distant behavior because I viewed our mate bond as a holy connection. The moment he wiped her lipstick from his mouth, the bond that connected us to each other shattered in my heart because he had treated me as someone who lacked excitement.

He wanted me to weep while I accepted my lower-status position. I used my mother’s billion-dollar tech patents to lock him out, then I denied him on the pack intercom, before I entered the advanced security facilities of his most dangerous competitor.

Alpha Kaelen, the Lycan King, doesn't function as an uncontrollable animal. He possesses dangerous charisma which combines with his exceptional intelligence. I didn't request his protection; I established the terms for it. I presented him with the blueprints which would lead to our shared enemy's financial ruin. We are currently dismantling Kane's business empire together. Our formal agreement starts to dissolve into an irresistible attraction which develops during our nighttime strategy meetings and our executive boardroom business takeovers.

Kaelen discovers my hidden pregnancy secret, but he does not exile me from his presence. He displays a wicked grin while making his intention to take ownership of his opponent's offspring permanent. Kane will initiate a violent conflict to reclaim me as his possessions disappear and his remorse transforms into a primal fixation.

Will my charming, deadly protector permit me to handle my own conflicts or will we destroy everything my ex left behind?

I was the last of the Holy Bloodline. To the Nocturne Clan, I wasn't a Princess—I was a walking incubator, a terrified blood slave bound by the lowest pact to breed their pureblood heirs.
"I promise you... the next child you bear, I will let you raise yourself," my husband,the Vampire Prince, whispered, holding our newborn son wrapped in his sister-in-law's blanket.
He used my body as a shield against silver blades to protect his sister-in-law.
For nine years, I endured the silver whips, the boiling sunlight, and the agony of watching my babies handed over to another woman.
But when I discovered my husband was the very monster who slaughtered my families, I shattered heart turns to ash.
So, I give him exactly what he deserves—a pile of scorched ashes in a dark prison cell.
By the time the Vampire Prince realizes he cannot live without his wife, I am already “dead”.

I died—not in the way you'd expect, but slowly, painfully, while he was entangled with her.

He called her his savior, the woman who sold everything to rescue his failing empire. Little did he know, it was my money, my life's work, that he squandered.

The betrayal burned hotter than any flame, and I vowed he'd pay.

Now, he's gone—a leap from the heights he once ruled, his fall as swift as his rise.

Six hundred years into our marriage, I found out my husband had a son.

I had ended my border patrol three days early, wanting to surprise Valerius.

Not far away, Valerius was channeling his exclusive magic, teaching a boy how to weave the darkness.

"Dad! I did it!" The boy looked up. His bright eyes were a near-perfect reflection of Valerius's.

My mind instantly went blank.

Dad?

A woman walked over.

She draped a small cloak over the boy's shoulders, her hand brushing against Valerius's chest with practiced familiarity. "Valeri, the wind is picking up. He'll catch a cold now that he's sweating."

Valerius naturally wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "My fault."

The image of them huddled together like a picture-perfect family was an ice-tipped needle driven straight into my eyes.

The sharp sting made my breath hitch in my throat.

The man who had sworn before the Senate to love me for all eternity—the man bound to me by a Soul Blood Pact—had already betrayed me!

A sudden, agonizing cramp seized my lower abdomen.

It was an old wound from six centuries ago.

When the Sunfire Curse nearly reduced Valerius to ashes, I had offered my high-born pure blood and my womb as a sacrifice to forcibly block the hex for him.

The price was permanent infertility, along with an excruciating backlash of pain I had to endure every single month.

Back then, Valerius had held me, his eyes red and tear-filled. "I don't want any children! I would rather lose my seat in the Senate than ever betray you!"

Yet the scene before me crushed those words into fine dust.

I stumbled backward, my chest feeling as though it had been ripped open by bare hands.

I was terrified I'd lose control and rush over to scream at him.

Worse yet, in the face of this cozy, happy family of three, I was afraid I'd look like a pathetic, unwanted outsider.

Suffocation gripped my throat. I turned and fled.

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.

I spent seven years being Preston Maddox's personal errand girl.

Did his homework, took his father's belt for him, cut off every friend I had because he said he didn't like me talking to other guys.

I told myself that if I was good enough, patient enough, he'd eventually see me.

Then came the school's centennial gala. In front of everyone, he locked me, a girl with severe aquaphobia, inside a water tank filled to the brim with ice-cold water, so Vanessa Sinclair could have a pretty backdrop for her ballet number.

The audience roared. He watched Vanessa take her bow with this soft, adoring smile on his face. The only time he glanced at me was when he noticed I'd made a mess, and all he did was wrinkle his nose.

The water rose over my head, and something in me finally understood.

To Preston Maddox, I wasn't even worth as much as a dog.

If a dog was drowning, its owner would at least care.

Me? I just disgusted him.