222 Book(s) Related to ladies who brunch

When Araminta is forced into an arranged marriage with the cold and mysterious Noah, she vows to seek her revenge. But his piercing gaze and possessive nature make it impossible to ignore the spark between them.

Noah has his secrets, and Araminta’s fiery defiance only draws him closer. As their chemistry intensifies, hidden truths and dangerous enemies surface, threatening to destroy them both.

Is their love strong enough to survive the shadows, or will the secrets they keep pull them apart?

“Royal Love Beneath The Lies” is a gripping story of passion, betrayal, and the thin line between love and hate.

Amelia Hart and Jack Sterling's complicated lives are explored in the engrossing romance Whispered Lies of the Billionaire. Amelia, a strong but weak young lady, is left to pick up the pieces as her family's money falls, plunging her into a world of luxury and treachery. She receives a lifeline from Jack, a mysterious and icy billionaire, but at a price. With all of its secrets and hidden agendas, his proposal of a contract marriage puts Amelia in a golden cage where trust and love seem unattainable.

Amelia's life is being unraveled by the rumors of betrayal as she tries to cope with her new reality. Jack's cold exterior and enigmatic background conceal a more sinister reality, and Amelia learns she is only a pawn in his well-thought-out revenge scheme. However, fractures start to appear beneath his unbreakable exterior, suggesting a weakness Jack puts a lot of effort into hiding.

Their turbulent relationship is made more difficult by unforeseen events, such as an unintended pregnancy, developing feelings for one another, and the discovery of Jack's long-kept secrets. Amelia is caught between wanting to live a life free from manipulation and having feelings for the man who has both misled and protected her.

When Jack's former adversaries reappear, Amelia and Jack are forced to face their damaged trust and the risky nature of their agreement. As secrets are revealed and allegiances put to the test, Amelia is forced to choose between standing up for the man who broke her heart and leaving him forever.

Whispered Lies of the Billionaire is a story about love, deceit, and forgiveness. This narrative, which weaves an extraordinary journey of love and forgiveness, captivates readers from the first page with its well-drawn characters and unique blend of romance, suspense, and intrigue.

So, have you ever heard that saying that you shouldn’t feed stray animals because they’ll follow you home? Turns out that rule applies to demons too…
I didn’t even KNOW he was a demon, but now he insists he owes me his life. The catch? He can’t leave until he “repays the favor,” meaning he’s stuck following me around like some demonic shadow. The good news is, he’ll have plenty of chances to repay me.
Except… I’m starting to wonder if I want him to leave. Especially when he gives me that look, the one that makes my heart race. It’s the kind of look that makes me think I might not mind being saved a little too much.
Sure, he has a tail, but there’s something about him I can’t shake. Maybe it’s the way his voice drops when he gets close, or maybe it’s just because he washes the dishes after dinner. Either way, I’m starting to get attached. Not that it matters because he’s leaving. I know better than to fall for a demon… Right?

Fae are the WORST. Here I am, minding my own business when bam, I get yanked into a summoning circle. Honestly, whoever thought summoning demons was a good idea should be shown why everyone fears demons. Even better? This Fae spells me so I can’t go home until I kill someone for him.
The someone he wants me to kill? The woman who saved my life. Not only is she good, but I can’t bring myself to hurt her. And the worst part? She’s half fae too, that’s just asking for trouble. Now, I’m stuck, bound by my own magic, protecting her, while trying to ignore how much I want to stay. But I can’t. I have to leave eventually. Right?

Five years ago, my ex-boyfriend Jason said coldly when he abandoned me: "Charlotte, you're not worthy of my dreams."

Five years later, when I saw him again, he had become Floreton's tech mogul while I remained a simple sculptor. His new fiancée—a wealthy heiress—sneered at my modest attire: "Someone like you can actually afford to book a top-tier wedding venue?"

She stole my venue, crushed my fingers, and forced me to kneel and apologize: "Say you don't belong here!"

Jason stood by watching coldly, just as indifferent as he was on that rainy night five years ago.

I desperately thought this was my fate, until that familiar, furious voice echoed throughout the entire venue:

"What bastard touched my woman!"

My Bradley had arrived.

This time, I would be the one laughing last.

Twenty-one-year-old Iris Kane thought she was just another college student until gunmen stormed her campus. Now she's hiding in the last place the FBI would look—the mansion of Alessandro "Alex" Torrino, heir to Chicago's most dangerous crime family. At forty-two, Alex is everything she should fear: cold, ruthless, and powerful enough to make people disappear with a phone call. But when bullets start flying and enemies close in, the man twice her age becomes her only protection. What starts as a desperate lie for survival ignites into a passion that could destroy them both. Because Iris isn't just any girl seeking shelter—she's the secret daughter of FBI Director Robert Kane, the man who's been hunting Alex's family for twenty years. In a world where love is weakness and trust gets you killed, their forbidden romance is the deadliest secret of all.

Elroy has severe OCD. In the ten years we've been together, he's never allowed me to eat in his car.
On our tenth anniversary, we made plans to watch the stars together.
But just as I reached the mountaintop, my phone rang—it was him.
"Something came up at work. I can't make it tonight. You go ahead and enjoy the view."
The moment he hung up, I saw his female classmate's post about returning to the country.
Catalina was sitting in his passenger seat, holding a half-eaten piece of cake in her hands.
【Someone was afraid I'd get hungry coming back so late, so he specially brought me this little cake～】
Another picture showed Catalina's shoes—still on—planted firmly on the passenger seat.
【He says I'm the only exception to his OCD～ I can do whatever I want in his car, hehe.】
I looked up at the twinkling stars above me, a bitter smile tugging at my lips.
This was the tenth time he'd abandoned me.
Every single anniversary without fail, this "female classmate" of his would show up.
I once tried to gently tell him: "I don't want to be interrupted like this every time."
Elroy looked at me with displeasure. "Interrupted? Catalina is my friend. Can you not be so petty?"
The cold wind howled across the mountaintop. Catalina's words stuck in my heart like a thorn, stinging until my eyes grew wet.
After ten years, I'm done with this relationship.

Tahlia’s marriage to Jaxon has always been full of love—until now. On their third anniversary, Tahlia’s insecurities about Jaxon’s relationship with his ex, Mia, come to a head. When Tahlia sees a shocking TV broadcast of Jaxon embracing Mia, her world shatters. Betrayed, confused, and emotionally devastated, Tahlia’s trust in her husband crumbles. Worse still, Tahlia learns she’s pregnant with Jaxon’s child, and now, she must decide whether to fight for a marriage that feels beyond repair or move on and build a future alone. Can Tahlia find the strength to heal, or is this the end of the road for her and Jaxon? In a heart-wrenching journey of self-discovery, "The Space Between Love and Lies " explores love, loss, and the difficult choices she must make when everything she thought she knew falls apart.

Isabella's eyes welled up with tears as she desperately pleaded with John with her voice trembling.
"John, please believe me, I'm being blackmailed! I don't know who this man is or how I got here. I would never hurt you, I swear," she pleaded.John's face twisted in a mix of anger and disgust with his voice dripping with venom. Isabelle had betrayed her and he couldn't endure the pain. "Enough of lies Isabell, or can I say Sophia? I know all your secrets now. You've been using me from the start, playing me for my family's money and power. You never loved me, you only loved what I could give you," John lamented, his eyes filled with emotions with the scene in front of him.Isabella's voice cracked as she tried to convince John of her love. "That's not true, John. I love you, I love your kindness, your heart... I love everything about you. Please, don't say that," Isabella explained with her eyes filled with tears.
John's expression only hardened with his eyes cold and unforgiving."You're a master manipulator, Isabella. You've played me like a fool and I won't fall for it anymore," he screamed.With a heavy heart, John turned to walk away leaving Isabella devastated. Isabelle called out to him with her pleas echoing through the air but John didn't look back. In the novel, a tale of love, romance, and hidden truths unfolds. The wealthy and famous family's children navigate a treacherous world of deceit and manipulation, with Isabella caught in the crossfire. As dark secrets emerge, Isabella must confront her past and the dangerous games that threaten to destroy her future. Will love triumph over lies, or will the darkness consume everything Isabella holds dear?

On our wedding night, my husband confessed that he had been unfaithful with my sister.

In response, I revealed that I had murdered my stepfather.

He laughed and said, "My dear, your story is so convincingly crafted."

It was only when he discovered—

Every detail within the narrative was, indeed, a stark reality.

Including the poison that was now coursing through his veins.

In her previous life, Clara Bennett was switched at birth and ended up in the hands of a greedy adoptive family. Betrayed and used, she met a tragic end.

Given a second chance, Clara chooses to walk away from the Bennett family and returns to her poor but loving biological parents, the Howards. Everyone thinks she'll regret giving up her life as a wealthy heiress.

But no one expected the truth—Clara is actually the CEO of a powerful corporation. Not only does she lift the Howards out of poverty, she also marries the heir of a billionaire family.

This time, she's not just surviving. She's reclaiming her life and rewriting her destiny.

"Ava," Alex's voice rumbled across the room, a playful glint in his drunken eyes, "but you're not her, are you? You're someone else."Evie, heart hammering against her ribs, forced a casual smile.

"I don't understand" she stammered, hating the way her voice wobbled, because he was right. He raised an eyebrow, hand reaching out to cup her face. "Some days it really feels like you are and on other days..." Before he could finish, he closed his eyes, falling asleep.

Evie's breath hitched. But how could he know? A cold dread pooled in her stomach."Alex, I—" she began, but the words died on her lips. Evie's carefully constructed world tilted on its axis.

Could he see through the charade? Had her deception finally caught up to her? In From Lies to Love: Deceiving My Sexy Billionaire, Evie must confront the consequences of her deception as love and truth collide in a high-stakes game of hearts.

Fiona,a hardworking and career oriented woman, swears off love or any romantic relationship, due to a severe heart break she faced back in college. One that left her traumatized, and paranoid, which she still struggles to heal from.

She couldn’t decline a three-week Christmas reunion set by her childhood friends, which required everyone to come with their partners. Not wanting to be the only one without a partner, she convinces Nicholas, a young intern at the company she manages, to pose as her boyfriend for the reunion. Only for her to come face to face with the one person she dreaded most, the man who broke her and abandoned her years ago, now her best friend’s husband. How does she survive under the same roof for three weeks with a man who was her first love and also left her shattered?

What should have been a simple reunion for three friends and their partners turns into something darker, bearing dirty secrets.

What happens when the secrets she thought she buried at the reunion comes back to bite her, just as she starts to find love again?

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?

She was his eyes in the dark. He called her a fraud when the lights came on.
Three years as the most authoritative surgeon, playing housewife. Three years whispering another woman's name in his sleep.
Now he kneels to a stranger—begging Dr. Lucy to save his true love's heart.
He doesn't know Lucy is her. The wife he discarded. The genius he never saw.
"Who's the imposter now?"
A surgeon's revenge. A marriage's autopsy. The only operation she can't walk away from.

Being cheated on, Nicole was left behind on her wedding day. But she turned around and married a billionaire CEO Who dotes on her!
•••••••••

On the night of her wedding, romantic photos of her sleeping with an unknown man was leaked by her jealous stepsister, which made the groom to marry her sister instead of her. After that, she became an object of laughter, scorned by society overnight.

Five years later, she returned back with triplet babies with an unknown father. However, fate made her path to cross with Drake Butler, the most powerful man in the city.

Drake was rumoured to be a gay, hated women and was strict in the business world. Countless women failed to warm his heart, but why did this same powerful man began to chase after her?

When he could not win her over, he met her kids who were the mini-version of himself, he squinted threateningly and said, “Woman, how dare you run away with my children?”

She shook her head innocently in response, “I don't understand you Mr. Butler, what right do you have to call my kids yours? You'd better be joking.

At this moment, one among the three babies stood out and stared at Drake.
“Who’s this rascal bullying our mother? You’ll first have to get past us if you wanna lay a hand on her!”

Drake was stunned....

At thirty-five, I finally die— only to wake up as Isabella Montague, the stunning heroine of a fantasy novel I wrote as a stupid teen.

My plan? A world-class retirement involving heavy naps and bottomless snacks.

But the 'perfect' men I created are ruining the plan.

The brooding Northern Duke won't stop watching me. The Golden Prince is convinced my disinterest is actually a challenge. My knight—and best friend—is ready to burn the world down if I so much as yawn. And a certain Elven noble who swore off humans keeps finding excuses to be near my tea.

They want my heart. I just want my pillow.

Too bad the world is cursed, the Queen wants me dead, and everyone keeps trying to put me on a throne I never asked for.

Can't a girl just chill?

I killed my fated mate to survive.

Beta Shax Wulfric was the pack’s most ruthless hunter, sent to drag me back in chains. So I ended him. Or I thought I did.

Months later, he finds me again. Alive. Amnesiac. And utterly convinced I’m his wife… and the child in my arms is ours.

Now the monster who once rejected and humiliated me looks at me like I’m his entire world. He touches me like I’m something precious.

If he remembers, he’ll kill me.
If he doesn’t, I might fall for him all over again.

A fake relationship full of forbidden heat . . .

Emilia Torres has everything she's ever wanted. After years of struggling to become an actress, she's finally caught her big break - a part opposite the hottest star in Hollywood, the gorgeous and charming Luca Fontaine.

But her biggest role might be the one she plays off-screen, where she and Luca pretend to be in love.

The rules for their relationship are simple: in front of the paparazzi, they play the perfect Hollywood couple. In private, their contract states that all feelings - and sex - are absolutely forbidden.

It's the perfect publicity stunt - until someone wants more. Needs more.

Sometimes, the truth is even hotter than the lies . . .

Due to explicit scenes, this steamy romance is rated 18+.

The Lies Between the Lines is created by Ember Casey, an eGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.

Krystal Hunter died with a broken heart, a knife in her back, and one regret—she finally won the damn lottery right before she died. Ten million dollars, untouched, deposited in the bank… wasted.
Or so she thought.
Because when Krystal wakes up in a hospital bed—very much not dead—the world has gone to economic hell. The global economy has collapsed, the dollar has depreciated into dust... and her forgotten bank account?
Now worth one hundred billion.
With the world burning and billionaires falling like flies, Krystal is no longer the girl they betrayed. She’s richer than empires, hungrier than ever, and back to collect what she’s owed—with interest.
Ex-lovers, fake friends, and bloodthirsty siblings beware:
She died once. She’s not dying quietly again.

A deliciously savage romantic revenge comedy about wealth, power, payback, and kissing someone hot while the economy collapses.

Katerine, a 24-year-old independent and strong-willed wolf, lives within the heart of the Wolfgang Pack. She has led a solitary life since the age of 16 when her parents were tragically taken from her during a full moon by ruthless poachers. Her close friend Andrea was the sister of a man who unsettled her more than he should have. He was her Alpha, unable to resist any skirt that crossed his path. Katerine vowed to never reveal her feelings, and her secret, safeguarding her heart from potential harm. While she owed him obedience as a member of the Pack, as a female, she sought to distance herself from men who would never be faithful to just one woman. But could she resist her destiny? Or the bond that links them, is stronger than any secret?

"I want a different kind of meal from Arya,"Juan teased.
"What's that?"
"Why don't you sit on my face and you'll know."
Arya was never meant to stand out. With a deceased mother, an abusive father, and only a high school certificate to her name, she lived quietly and worked as a waitress in a bar, but one night she got just one look from Juan Moreno, the most feared mafia lord in Sicily and things went south.
Sold like property to a man she didn't know, Arya thought the worst had already happened. Until Juan came for her. He didn't save her only, he claimed her just to have owner ship of her and then locked her in a prison disguised as a mansion.
Now, she's the most wanted woman—not for a crime, but for her beauty.
And two ruthless mafia kings are at a cold war for ownership of her body. Juan, believes Dominic—his longtime rival who wants Arya is the only threat.
But when he faces several attacks from an enemy he once thought was dead, he realizes his empire might fall. Can Juan protect the woman he would burn the world for, or will he be forced to hand her to the only man who might keep her alive?

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.

On our fifth wedding anniversary, I received a bouquet of red roses from my husband He Yu.

The card was filled with sweet nothings I hadn’t heard in a long time, and it invited me to dinner at Cloud Mist Restaurant.

That morning, he had called to tell me he had an emergency meeting at night and couldn’t come home.

So his so-called overtime was just a surprise for me.

I happily brought the flowers to my nose, but the next second I couldn’t stop sneezing five times in a row, my nose turning red and itchy at once. I’m severely allergic to roses, and I’d told He Yu that countless times.

I rubbed my nose and smiled awkwardly at the delivery driver: “Sorry, I’m allergic to roses. My husband must have forgotten in his rush.”

The delivery driver froze for a moment, then hurriedly pulled out a cake and another bouquet of champagne roses from his insulated box: “I’m so sorry, ma’am. This is yours. There were two orders under the same phone number—I didn’t check clearly earlier.”

Two orders, one phone number.

I stood frozen, all the blood in my body turning cold in an instant.

I closed the door, my hands shaking as I dialed Cloud Mist Restaurant, my voice trembling: “Hello, do you have any tables left for Mr. He Yu’s usual spot?”

“Sorry, miss. Mr. He booked our top-floor viewing seat a week in advance. There are no tables left for tonight.”

A chill crawled up my spine. I looked down at the stretch marks still fading on my belly, my hand unconsciously resting on my stomach—where our baby was growing.

I grabbed my coat, slammed the door shut, and took a taxi straight to Cloud Mist Restaurant.

He Yu, if you dare betray me, you can forget about keeping that CEO position!

Every July, my husband left for a business trip to France—so for seven full years of marriage, we never once got to celebrate our wedding anniversary.
This time, I flew all the way to France to surprise him, and mid-flight, I stumbled across a social media post.
My dream girl finally agreed to be with me. How do I make the frumpy, worn-out wife back home file for divorce on her own?
The OP poured out his grievances in the comment section:
When my dream girl suddenly moved abroad, I married her former best friend to keep me company through the hard times, just so I wouldn’t lose touch with her completely.
Now she’s finally said yes to being with me, and I’ve made enough to give her the lavish, privileged life she deserves.
I want my wife to find out about my affair herself so I can get a clean divorce without a fight, but she’s so painfully oblivious. I’ve come home reeking of my dream girl’s perfume on purpose, and every single July I fly here to France for our private time together, watching the lavender bloom in Provence with her. She never noticed a thing.
Perfume. July. France.
Those matching details made my fingers go numb. A deafening buzz exploded in my skull. A bone-deep chill washed over me, and I prayed with everything I had that it was all just a terrible coincidence.
Until I read the final line.
Just got a spending alert from her supplementary credit card—she bought a flight to France. I’m heading to pick up my dream girl now, might as well keep an eye out for her, just in case.
The plane touched down. When I stepped into the arrivals hall, I lifted my head almost instinctively.
There stood Shen Sinian, the man I hadn’t seen in two weeks, in a crisp, tailored suit, a bouquet of roses in his hand, locked in a passionate kiss with a woman with a stunning, willowy figure, her back to me.
He opened his eyes by chance, and through the crowd of travelers, his gaze locked directly with mine.

"Starting price for my wife—one dollar!" James announced, pointing at the dog cage where I lay curled up like a dying animal.

The crowd at the wedding erupted in laughter. "Five dollars!" "Ten!" They threw bids like trash, mocking the woman who used to be Mrs. Windsor. Lillian, wearing my stolen necklace, poked me through the bars with a metal rod. "Look at you, Aurora. You're nothing but filth." I closed my eyes, accepting my fate. My husband had sold me. My dignity was gone.

Suddenly, a cold, authoritative voice cut through the noise.

"Two hundred million."

Silence fell over the hall. Every head turned. Walking through the doors was a man radiating power—Louis Smith, the newly found heir to the Smith empire. The man I had pushed away ten years ago. James turned pale. "Mr. Smith... this is a joke..."

Louis didn't even look at him. He walked straight to the cage, his eyes burning with a terrifying mix of rage and tenderness. He ripped the lock off with his bare hands and pulled me into his arms. James tried to block him. "She's my wife! You can't just take her!"

Louis smirked, his voice dripping with ice. "Your wife? I just bought her. She's mine now."

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

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

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

I called Song Jinnian seventeen times.

He hung up instantly on the first sixteen.

On the seventeenth ring, he finally answered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Who are you to the deceased?”

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

“I am… the deceased herself.”

Married for years, I caught my husband in bed with another woman.
He had nothing at all once; it was only after being with me that he became the CEO of a company and made his fortune.
I asked for a divorce, and he flew into a rage and locked me in a dog cage.
But what he never saw coming was that I had long been ready to take my revenge.

He once saw her as nothing but a cheap plaything. Four years of closeness was nothing more than “practice before marriage.”
Cast out on a snowy night, publicly humiliated, her career destroyed… She licked her wounds in silence and dialed her family’s satellite phone.
When they met again, she was the largest shareholder of the Corporation. He was forced to bend his pride and call her “Auntie” in a trembling voice.
You took away all my dignity once. Now I make you too low to reach me.

Jonathan’s way of loving was always paying in silence. After we broke up, he cleared my shopping cart, stocked up enough makeup remover to last me three years, trying his best to make up for it. But during those three years when I willingly waited for him to propose, he never said a word. Until one day, he found a small note I’d written in pencil three years ago in that wedding planning book: “It’s okay, I can wait.” He cried all night staring at that line, and the next day, he bought 17 copies of the same book. On the title page of each one, he wrote neatly: “Wait for me.” It turns out, the stupidest person takes three years just to learn to say “I love you.”

For the sake of the so-called family heir, my husband Killian is prepared to kill my child!
That day, Killian locked me in an underground cold storage at ten degrees below zero, all because there is an ironclad rule in the Vittorio family.
The first-born son shall inherit the family’s Mafia empire.
My eldest brother’s wife Ira and I got pregnant at the same time.
To ensure his elder brother’s child is born first, Killian made this insane decision.
"My brother and Ira’s child has to be born first. This is what you owe them!"
He ignored my pleas and forcibly injected me with labor-delaying medicine.
"Allowing this child to be born at all is already the greatest mercy I can grant you."
Killian said to me with undisguised disgust.
I curled up in agony on the icy concrete floor, feeling the little life in my womb fading away bit by bit, shedding tears of utter despair.
"My baby… Mommy is so sorry for you…"

Here is the translation, adapted into the explosive, high-stakes style of a bestselling American domestic thriller. The pacing is sharp, and the emotional transition from shock to cold vengeance is deeply amplified:

For five years, I honestly believed I was the happiest woman alive.

Until today. The day I came home early and stood frozen just outside the balcony, listening to his phone call.

"What? Shuying, you're pregnant?" Tingshen's voice was laced with a raw, unbridled euphoria I had never once heard before. "I knew getting rid of Jiang Wan's baby back then was the right move."

My knuckles turned stark white as I death-gripped the ultrasound report in my hand.

Qin Shuying. My absolute worst rival. They had been sleeping together.

"Tingshen, are you sure she won't find out?" Shuying's sickeningly sweet voice drifted through the phone's speaker, piercing my eardrums. "If Jiang Wan ever realizes you were the one who killed her baby, she's going to raise hell."

"Relax." Tingshen laughed, his tone dripping with the kind of casual contempt reserved for swatting a fly. "She's so clueless. She honestly believes it was her own failing body. The stupid bitch even cried and apologized to me. She'd never in a million years suspect I drugged her."

My nails drove so brutally into my palms that they broke the skin.

"Besides, I finally got my hands on her core design drafts. Consider them a welcome gift for our baby. As for her shares in the company..." He paused, savoring his own smugness. "She's about to sign them all over to me anyway. So what if her old man built an empire? It's all dropping right into my lap."

The world tilted violently on its axis.

I was carrying his child again.

Just five minutes ago, before I overheard this monstrous phone call, I had been acting like a giddy fool, planning the perfect way to surprise him with the news.

My trembling hand drifted down to my lower stomach. My chest cracked open, a visceral, violent tearing of my own heart. The baby I had desperately longed for and mourned... chemically aborted by their own father, all to keep his mistress happy.

My sweet babies, I thought, the devastating sorrow rapidly freezing into sheer, icy rage. Mommy is going to make them pay for every drop of blood.

"Jump, Stella. No one wants an ugly monster like you," my mother said coldly, blocking my escape route.

Behind me was the freezing, raging river; in front of me were the people I loved most, now forcing me to die. Jennifer smirked, clutching the trophy that belonged to me. "I'll take good care of Ethan for you," she whispered. I looked at their faces—twisted, cruel, triumphant. I didn't jump to die; I jumped to be reborn. As the icy water filled my lungs, I made a pact with the devil. I will crawl back from hell, and I will drag you all down with me.

During the senior executive meeting, an intern slapped a 15-yuan McDonald's receipt right in my face.
"Vice President Xu has been embezzling company funds for personal meals! A parasite like her, who’s been fleecing the company, must be fired!"
My boyfriend of eight years looked at me with a feigned, agonized expression. "This incident has caused an abysmally bad impact. You will be suspended pending an internal investigation."
I stared at his hand wrapped around the intern's waist, then calmly removed my employee ID badge.
I turned to my assistant and ordered, "Freeze the five million yuan in the company's account. That's just the pocket money I casually deposited there last week."

Everyone said I was the happiest woman of the Northern Plains Clan, blessed with the purest love from Eric, the Wolf King.
Then my wolf let out a tormented howl.
Through the soul bond of fated mates, I felt it clearly—
my husband held my maid in his arms, drowning in desperate lust.
That nourishing tonic I’d drunk for three years, which I’d believed was filled with his affection, had only been brewed to keep me barren all along.
"Eric, I want you..."
"All of me is yours, my love. Bear our cub soon."
Those sweet whispers I once held dear shattered me to pieces in an instant.
The whole clan praised us as the perfect pair.
Yet who could have imagined this marriage had been built entirely on lies from the very start?
Since he is such a master of pretense, I suppose it’s time I put on a show of my own.
I will expose the true face of this flawless husband for everyone to see.

"Mommy's just a housewife! I don't want Mommy anymore—I want Aunt Jessica!"

Those words from my eight-year-old son, Jimmy, hit harder than any physical blow. I stood frozen in our living room, surrounded by the shards of the vase I’d just smashed. My husband, Robert, didn't even flinch. He just pulled Jessica closer, his hand resting possessively on her waist.

"Stop being dramatic, Scarlett," Robert sneered, his eyes cold. "Jessica is my soulmate. She understands my work. You? You just clean."

Eight years of devotion. Eight years of sacrificing my career to build this home. And now, my husband and son were looking at a stranger with the love that belonged to me.

I tried to reach for Jimmy, but he pushed me away with his small, angry fists. "Bad Mommy! Aunt Jessica buys me candy! You're just an ugly hag!"

My heart twisted until it snapped. I watched them leave for Jessica's award party—an award for a paper I practically wrote but couldn't claim. I was left alone in the silence of the house I paid for, bleeding from the glass cuts on my hands.

Later that night, at the hospital, after I’d been injured by Robert’s own hand, the nurse asked Jimmy who I was. He looked me dead in the eye and said, "I don't know her. Jessica is my mom."

That was the moment the old Scarlett died. I wiped the blood from my face, picked up my phone, and dialed my lawyer.

"Mr. Owens," I whispered, my voice trembling but resolute. "Let's redraft the agreement. I don't want custody. They can have each other."

He broke down the morgue door, his guttural scream echoing off the cold tiles as he yanked open drawer after drawer.

"Emily!"

Ethan's hands shook violently as he pulled it open. She lay inside, a white sheet draped over her face. With trembling fingers, he peeled back the fabric. Her face was paper-white, lips bloodless, her eyelashes casting faint shadows. So still.

This wasn't the Emily he knew. The Emily he knew could smile, could cry, could clumsily try to warm his frozen heart. But now, she was just a corpse. A corpse because of him.

"Cancer... stage four..." he whispered, drowning in a tidal wave of panic.

He remembered all those times she had clutched her stomach in agony, and he had mocked her. He remembered demanding she give her heart to his lover. He remembered her final silent words through the surgical glass: "I hate you."

"AHHH—!!" A raw scream tore from his throat. He slammed his fist into the metal drawer, blood blooming across his knuckles.

He collapsed beside her, pulling her stiff, freezing body into his arms. She was so light. Like holding air.

"Emily, I was wrong. I was so wrong," he choked out, crying for the first time in years. "Wake up. Hit me. Hate me. I'm begging you..."

But death is the most absolute silence of all. How far will a man go when he realizes he murdered his only salvation?

The first birthday after we finally made up.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After five years in a long-distance relationship, I boarded a more than 10-hour flight without telling him, touched down in the city where he lived, all to give him a surprise.
Hardly had my phone connected to the local network when I scrolled across a post pushed to my feed from the same city.
The title read: What’s the thing you’ve done that you’ve never regretted for a single second?
The top comment stared back at me, sharp and unmistakeable:
I got him drunk and slept with him on the day we graduated college. Back then, he promised his girlfriend he’d never see me again, but his heart softens the moment I cry. Now our kid is 4 years old, and I’m pregnant with our second baby!
The comments below were flooded with questions, and someone asked outright: OP, are you the other woman?
She replied with unapologetic audacity: The one who isn’t loved is the real homewrecker. Besides, that woman was abducted and molested before. She’s long been tainted, and she never deserved him in the first place.
My fingers began to shake uncontrollably. Every single detail lined up perfectly with my own life.
Desperate to calm my heart, which felt like it was about to hammer out of my chest, I stepped into a roadside convenience store to buy a bottle of water.
The second I looked up at the checkout counter, the blood in my veins turned to ice in an instant.
The woman standing beside the cash register was none other than Su Miaomiao—the same woman who’d lain in the same hotel bed with Lu Sinian on that night of our college graduation.
My feet felt nailed to the floor as I watched her walk out of the store with a smile on her face.
The very next second, she threw herself into the arms of a man across the street, tilting her head up to kiss him in a sweet, lingering embrace.
That man was Lu Sinian. My husband. The man I’d legally married, the man I’d spent five years in a long-distance relationship with, the man who’d vowed over and over again to love me and protect me.

On the day I received my late-stage gastric cancer diagnosis, the business proposal I’d pulled three all-nighters to finish was being fed straight into a paper shredder by my husband, Lu Ting.

Amid the deafening roar of the machine, his voice was cold and unapologetic: “Put Yingying’s name on this plan. She just got permanent employment and needs this achievement to get a firm foothold.”

I said nothing. My fingers crumpled the diagnosis report in my pocket. I turned around, opened the ticket-booking app, and booked a seven-day, six-night ultra-luxury customized honeymoon package for Lu Ting and his mistress Zhou Yingying—an overwater villa in the Maldives, with first-class flights for the entire trip.

When Lu Ting saw the order, he curled the corner of his mouth at me for once, speaking in a patronizing tone: “Finally being sensible. I’ll bring you a bag when I get back.”

I said quietly, “No need.”

You two will never come back.

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.”

The day our company successfully went public.

Gu Yun and I slipped away from the staff to celebrate privately in the office.

Just as he unfastened my camisole, a voice sounded from the phone.

“Do you think Sister Su will still be the Sales Director?”

I froze for a second, then smiled and wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

“The company’s announcement was already released—how could there be such a ridiculous guess?”

Gu Yun’s breathing grew heavier as he kissed my lips.

“I forgot to tell you—the announcement’s been retracted.”

“Xu Na said the Sales Director position is quite challenging, and she wants to give it a try.”

"You're the one who deserves to die, you bitch!"

I couldn't control myself anymore. I slapped Olivia across the face—hard. She had forced her sapphire necklace into my bag, then accused me of stealing it to pay for my dying dog's surgery. "You and that pathetic dog of yours—you both deserve to die," she whispered in my ear, her voice dripping with venom.

Before I could strike her again, a brutal force slammed into my stomach. Ethan kicked me. I crashed to the floor, gasping for air. "You're beyond saving," he spat, looking at me like I was garbage. He scooped Olivia into his arms, checking her face with infinite tenderness.

I lay on the cold hospital floor, gaunt and skeletal from late-stage leukemia, bleeding from my nose. My husband was cradling the woman who framed me, while my dog lay dead in the next room. "Stay home and think about what you've done," he commanded. He didn't know I would never go home again.

I was in the middle of an affair in the master bedroom when Gu Jingran and his secretary burst in and caught me red-handed.
A thunderous roar ripped through the room.
"Ruan Qinghe!"
I shoved the trembling young man off my body, lowered my eyes, and let out a low, mocking laugh.
"Well, well. My husband rolls up with his side piece to catch his lawfully wedded wife cheating? This has got to be the most unhinged thing I've ever seen in my life."
The secretary, Bai Weiwei, paled instantly, scrambling to defend herself. "Sister Qinghe, you've got this all wrong! Today is your seventh wedding anniversary with Mr. Gu, he only asked me to come help!"
"Whatever was between us ended ages ago! We're just friends now! Don't you dare project your own filthy behavior onto everyone else just because you're acting out!"
I gave her a cool, cursory glance, smiled and said nothing, before finally fixing my gaze on Gu Jingran.
He snapped like a rabid wild beast, slamming and smashing every last thing he'd painstakingly prepared to pieces.
"You did this on purpose, didn't you?" His voice was raw and hoarse, trembling with rage. "You're trying to get back at me?"
"I was just curious."
I lifted an eyebrow slightly.
"Curious about what cheating feels like. What kind of thrill, what kind of rush, could make you addicted to it over and over again."

"Turn on the livestream, let everyone see how wet and slutty my wife's pussy gets when she's ruined." My husband sneered, ruthlessly spreading my trembling legs on the tattoo bed.

I sobbed and thrashed, but his strong hands pinned my wrists. The buzzing needle pierced the sensitive flesh of my private area, vibrating against my clitoris as he forced a succubus mark onto me. I let out a sharp, pathetic moan, my body involuntarily slicking with a mix of blood and arousal under the agonizing pain.

By the time the needle carved the eighteenth humiliating word into my bare, heaving breasts, my mind was completely broken. He just wiped the blood from my nipples and left to fuck his pregnant mistress.

He thought I was just a toy. At his wedding banquet, he threw me to a pack of hungry men. "Do whatever you want with her holes. Even if it's a gangbang, I take no responsibility." Disgusting hands immediately groped my bare thighs, brutally ripping my dress apart to expose my tattooed chest. Rough fingers pinched my nipples and shoved into my dripping core, making me scream in despair.

But I didn't die there. I tanked his company and fell into the arms of his biggest rival.

When my ex-husband finally realized the mistress's baby wasn't his, he called me, sobbing and begging. I just pressed the phone to my ear, gasping loudly as Tristan's thick, hard cock thrust deep into my tight, wet pussy.

"Ah... fuck, Tristan, deeper..." I moaned shamelessly into the receiver, hearing my ex-husband's breathless silence on the other end. "Henry," I panted, riding my new lover hard, "Your empire is dead, and so are we."

As the eldest daughter of North America’s most feared Mafia family, the Romanos, I married Matteo purely for love. For five years, everyone constantly envied me, thinking I was the luckiest woman alive.

Until I opened that video file.

The screen flickered to life, and my world violently collapsed.

The woman he had completely pinned against the wall, thrusting into her with feral desperation, was Valentina. His sweet, innocent adopted sister. The girl we had both carefully grown up with.

And the hands gripping her waist so tightly they bruised? They bore the exact wedding band I had lovingly slipped onto Matteo’s finger.

"Oh God, brother… you're so hard. If your perfect wife knew you were deep inside me right now, she’d lose her mind."

"Good girl, then stop talking about that boring piece of wood."

My refined, elegant husband was groaning, his voice filthy and depraved between loud, wet slaps of skin. "Squeeze tighter, fuck... You drive me insane, baby. The moment I successfully drain all her family’s stock, you’ll be the true mistress of this whole estate."

Every sweet nothing he had ever whispered to me was a calculated lie, designed to completely destroy me.

Those two despicable cheaters believe they have successfully won. They think my marriage was built on submission.

Well, since this rising Mafia star completely forgot that I am a Romano first and a wife second, it’s severely past time I gave him a taste of my own wicked performance.

Playtime is over. Matteo thinks he can steal my empire while burying his face in his sister’s bed?

I am going to carefully tear down his "perfect husband" facade piece by bleeding piece, and aggressively send them both straight to hell.

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

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

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

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

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

At the auction, when Anna’s painting was sold for the highest price of the night, I died in a dim underground studio.

No one knew that the painting had stolen my inspiration.

I was the most talented painter in the Hale family, yet I lived forever in my sister’s shadow — only because our paintings always ended up strangely similar.

At first, people said it was the bond between sisters.
Later, after my sister stole my paintings and exhibited them first, I became the so-called thief who plagiarized her works, while Anna turned into a celebrated, sought-after painter.

“Hard work really is more reliable than talent.” That was what people loved to say.

Before the auction, my family locked me away in the studio.
“Don’t ruin Anna’s big night.”

My sister Anna handed me a piece of bread.
“Little sister, have something to eat. When the auction’s over, we’ll go celebrate with a nice meal.”

“Look how kind your sister is — she still worries you’re hungry.”
Mother kicked me hard.

But she never knew Anna had poisoned the bread.
After just one bite, my skin broke out in rashes, I could barely breathe, and pain tore through every part of me.

Before I suffocated, I called my boyfriend Edd.
All I got was his cold scold:
“Lily, stop playing these cheap tricks!”

To the busy beep of the phone, I took my last breath.

When they came home triumphantly, thinking I was just being moody and refusing to join the celebration, they never knew I had stayed forever in that dark, quiet studio.

He knelt in the dirt, begging to see the daughter he abandoned, but I pointed to the man beside me: "She calls him Daddy now."

Ryan looked like a ghost. Stomach cancer had eaten away his arrogance, leaving only skin and bones. He stared at Grace—the baby he thought was dead, the baby he tried to replace with an orphan. "Zoey... I'm her biological father. Please."

I held Chris's hand, feeling his warmth, so different from Ryan's cold betrayal. "Biological?" I scoffed. "You're just a sperm donor who chose his sister over his wife."

Grace hid behind Chris's leg, looking at Ryan with fear. That look broke him more than the cancer ever could.

"You have Lucy," I said, turning away. "And her child. Go enjoy the family you destroyed us for." I watched him vomit blood into the grass, realizing too late that he had traded a diamond for a stone. He would die alone, while we lived happily ever after.

I was carrying Don Elijah’s child. But on the exact day I went into labor, the man I loved dragged me to an underground freezer—standing at a deadly minus ten degrees Celsius—and locked the heavy metal door.

The reason? The Varro Mafia family’s ironclad rule: the firstborn son inherits the entire empire. His brother’s wife, Elena, was also pregnant, our due dates separated by a single day.

To guarantee his brother’s child secured the throne, Elijah callously snuffed out my hope.

"Elena’s child must be born first," he demanded coldly. "This is what you owe them!"

He ignored the warm rush of my broken water. He ignored my agonizing, tearing contractions. He shoved me into the icy darkness, violently injecting me with a drug specifically designed to halt my labor.

Curled up on the frost-covered concrete, freezing and completely alone, I clutched my stomach in sheer agony. In the suffocating cold, I felt the terrifying stillness. I felt the tiny, fighting heartbeat inside me slowly, torturously fading away.

Hot tears streamed down my face, freezing before they hit the ground.

"My baby..." I whispered into the pitch-black void, my heart shattering into a million pieces. "Mommy is so sorry..."

Elijah sacrificed our child out of blind loyalty to his brother. But when he finally opens that frostbitten door, he won’t merely find a broken woman—he will face the terrifying, irreversible ruin of his own legacy.