7612 Book(s) Related to that was then

In high school, my ex only dated me because she needed a dependable errand boy.

I believed it. I tutored her, fixed her grades, rewrote her papers, and cleaned up every mess she made.

Then I overheard her telling her friend, “He’s good at studying. That’s it. Dating him is already me being generous.”

At graduation, she dumped me without hesitation.

Years later, I became the CEO of a public company.

Her company was collapsing—cooked numbers, broken cash flow, investors pulling out—and she needed one deal to survive.

She didn’t know who I was.

She scraped my car in the garage, then warned me not to cling to her, saying the CEO she came to meet was way out of my league.

Then the boardroom door opened. She looked up and saw me in the seat at the head of the table.

She thought I’d use this to get revenge.

I didn’t. I just opened her file and said, “You may begin.”

Aston Whitmore thought I loved him. Truth is, his mother bought a year of my life for a million dollars.
He thought those 3 AM study sessions were about redemption and romance across class lines. He didn't know I was never watching his pretty face—I was watching the countdown to my mother's kidney transplant payment.
I froze this trust fund prince's credit cards, cut his internet, and nailed him to that desk until his eyes went bloodshot cramming calculus.
When he turned into a guard dog in front of the whole cafeteria, publicly staking his claim on me, all I was calculating was the date that final payment would clear.
Today, he burst through the mansion door clutching his Yale acceptance letter, ready to give me some grand confession.
I was already thirty thousand feet up on a flight to Zurich, staring at that million-dollar deposit notification, face blank as I pulled out the SIM card, snapped it in half, and tossed it in the trash.
No note. No goodbye.
Just one notarized Service Completion Certificate sitting on that empty desk. Terms fulfilled. Transaction closed.

Lena Sawyer’s world crumbles in one brutal night when she caught Wes, her boyfriend cheating on her. Heartbroken and reckless, she stumbles into the arms of a stranger—dangerously older, devastatingly powerful, and far too tempting for her own good. One kiss is enough to set her soul on fire.
But when the haze clears, Lena discovers the stranger isn’t just anyone. He’s her new boss. A man with rules carved in stone. A man she has no business wanting—her ex’s father.
Sebastian Lancaster built an empire by controlling everything—and everyone—around him. But Lena tests every boundary he swore never to cross. She’s too young, too forbidden, and far too irresistible.
What starts as stolen glances and simmering tension spirals into nights that blur the line between pleasure and ruin. And the deeper they fall, the higher the risk: his empire, her career, and a desire that could burn them both alive.
Age-gap. Off-limits. Irresistible.

Eliara has always lived at the bottom of the Black Crest Pack.

After her stepfather’s death, pack law forced her under the same roof as her two alpha stepbrothers.

The future rulers of the Black Crest Pack and billionaire CEOs of the most powerful tech corporation in the region.

They hate her.

They strip her of status, turn her into a servant, and remind her daily that she is nothing more than an omega with no protection.

When her mother’s mate's bond weakens and illness strikes, Eliara loses the last protection she had.

Whatever little status she once held vanishes overnight.

What no one knows is that Eliara carries a forbidden secret.

A rare healing power her mother warned would get her killed if discovered.

The alphas are hiding secrets too.

Cursed by the Moon Goddess, they weaken and collapse every full moon, their wolves silent and their throne at risk.

When a violent confrontation leaves the alphas dying before their pack, Eliara makes a choice that changes everything.

She heals them.

The bond snaps.

And Eliara learns the truth too late.

Her cruel stepbrothers are her destined mates.

Before she can escape the consequences of that bond, Alpha Eric Lewis enters the picture.

Alpha Eric Lewis, the Alpha General, billionaire, and their greatest enemy steps in with an offer they can’t refuse.

To save their throne and erase their debts, the twins are forced to give up the one thing they never wanted but can no longer live without.

Eliara is offered as a bride.

Rejected by her mates.

Married to their enemy.

Bound to a man who wants her power and her heart.

Now the alphas must chase the omega they broke.

Because losing Eliara won’t just destroy them.

It will bring their pack to its knees.

I was supposed to hate him. Instead, he stole everything: my freedom, my breath, my heart.

When Yara’s life collides with Rafael’s, it’s not by chance... it’s by force. Powerful, dangerously handsome, and untouchable in his tailored black suit, Rafael is the kind of man whispered about in fear. He’s ruthless. Cold. A man built on secrets and sins. The last person Yara should ever want.

But hatred is fragile when desire cuts deeper. Rafael grips more than just her wrist.. he grips her every thought, every heartbeat, pulling her into a storm she cannot escape. The closer she gets, the more his darkness feels like home… and the more dangerous it becomes to stay.

Every touch is a risk. Every look, a temptation. And when the lies between them shatter, Yara must decide if surrendering to the man she was supposed to hate will destroy her or set her free.

Stolen By the Man I Was Supposed to Hate is a dark romance thriller full of obsession, secrets, and a forbidden love that burns hotter than revenge.

"I married you only to destroy you."

That was the only reason FBI agent Sophia Carter accepted a new identity as Evelyn Russo and married Lorenzo Moretti, the most dangerous mafia boss in Italy.

Her mission was to infiltrate, gather evidence, drag Lorenzo to prison, and save the children and women that Lorenzo Moretti had kidnapped for trafficking.

But life as a Don's wife was never as simple as she had imagined. Behind the luxurious mansion, the armed men, and the secrets of the Moretti family, Sophia found herself trapped in a game she did not understand.
The closer she got to Lorenzo, the harder it became to distinguish lies from reality.
But one thing never changed. If her identity as an FBI agent was exposed, then at that very moment, she would die at her own husband's hands.

Four years ago, I left my boyfriend when he had nothing.

Now, he's a billionaire. And he's forcing me to marry him—just for revenge.

Every day it's a different girl. Now there's a pregnant influencer he flaunts in my face, destroying what's left of my dignity.

"Kneel and beg her, and I'll give you money." He holds another woman and smirks at me.

I don't cry. I don't scream. I just swallow the blood rising in my throat.

He doesn't know my brain tumor is terminal. I have thirty days left.

I've already signed the organ donation papers. I just want to die in peace.

I stopped loving him a long time ago.

To surprise her I ended my business trip early only to catch my fiancee entangled with my best friend of ten years in our marital bed

The next day at an elite gala she publicly announced the engagement was over then drove me out into the freezing downpour like a drowned dog mocking me in front of everyone as a worthless castoff

She did not know that the Wall Street financial predator who had hidden his edge for love had finally had his shackles cut off by their own hands

Back in New York I struck back by shorting the Roland family empire watching coldly as that sanctimonious friend devoured her family fortune piece by piece then tossed her into a dungeon on a remote island overseas to torment her at will

Months later when she crawled out of a dark cell on the verge of a breakdown clutching my dress shoe in the stinking mud and sobbing as she begged humbly that she would do anything if only she could stay by my side

I merely wiped the mud she had smeared on my trousers and let a filthy wet wipe drift onto her face

Some trash once you throw it out you never pick it up again

Ten years ago, Justin Ben watched helplessly as his mother was murdered before his eyes while the people responsible destroyed his family overnight. His little sister disappeared during the chaos and was left to survive alone on the streets, while Justin himself vanished from Boron City completely.

Everyone believed the frightened boy died long ago.

But they were wrong.

Ten years later, Justin finally returns, no longer as the weak teenager they once hunted, but as the legendary God of War whose name alone terrifies armies and powerful men alike.

Now, the people who betrayed his mother and stole everything from his family are about to face the nightmare they created.

This time, Justin is not returning for forgiveness.

He is returning for revenge.

The last thing Kael remembered was the knife in his back.
Not a metaphorical knife—an actual blade, six inches of obsidian steel, buried between his shoulder blades by the woman he was supposed to marry. Princess Elara of the Celestial Court. The Golden Rose of the Nine Heavens. The most beautiful woman in the realm, and the most treacherous.
He'd died on the steps of the Temple of Eternal Light, surrounded by cheering nobles who thought they were witnessing the execution of a demon spy. They weren't wrong, exactly. Kael was from the Underworld. But he wasn't a spy.
He was the Crown Prince.
And now, three hundred years later, he was back.

I thought my husband was cheating, so I followed him to catch him in the act, only to witness him kill someone on our wedding anniversary.

His hands were still covered in blood when he touched my red hair and asked me what was wrong.

Was he the legendary "Red Hair Reaper"?

When the police came knocking the next day, I told them everything.

But they would never know—even the murder I "witnessed" that night was nothing but a performance staged for them from beginning to end.

In my first life, blinded by greed, I claimed to be that mysterious woman. Silas glanced at my left shoulder and said coldly, "No butterfly tattoo." His bodyguards dragged me to the backyard and shattered my ribs with a baseball bat.
In my second life, Cleo learned from my mistake. She got the butterfly tattoo at an underground parlor. But Silas lifted her skirt and sneered, "No birthmark on her inner thigh." We were thrown into the frozen lake behind the mountain.
"Find her. She's in the West Wing." Silas Brennan's cold command echoed through the Brennan Estate again. Cleo and I locked eyes, terror gripping us.
We were the only maids in the West Wing.

After I retired, I was willing to do the dirtiest work at a small auto repair shop—just to give my sick daughter an ordinary childhood.
I endured my mother’s insults, my eldest brother’s wage cuts, my younger brother’s extortion.
But they actually joined forces to steal my daughter’s life-saving money for gambling, then sold me into an illegal mine to pay off their debts.
When the iron chain locked around my wrist, when my daughter cried in despair, the killing intent that had slept in my blood for three years finally woke up completely.
They had no idea I was once the iron-blooded God of War—commander of a million troops, the name that made enemy nations tremble.

Five years ago, my sister vanished the night before her wedding. She left behind a crying newborn in a crib and a mafia heir on the verge of losing control.

And I was forced into her place—the temporary bride, the contract wife, the whispered “replacement” in every gilded hallway.

I thought I only had to survive five years. Five years to earn what I was promised, and then walk away from this city of shadows and blood.

I clawed my way through bullets, politics, and betrayal. I earned respect. I gained power.
And somehow... I tasted a tenderness I was never meant to have.

Now, with only ten days left on our marriage contract, I thought everything was finally under control. I thought freedom and power were within reach.

Until she came back—wrapped in grace, dripping secrets, smiling as if she owned the world she abandoned.

She looked at me and said, “Little sister, give me back my life.”

My first love was Liam— a powerful Alpha who swore he would claim me when the Blood Moon rose. Beneath the sacred crimson light, I believed the Moon Goddess would bind our destinies together.
But the night that was meant to mark the beginning of my happiness turned into my ruin.
In front of the entire pack, Liam did not claim me.
He chose my stepsister.

Blair Thompson thought her new job at Laurent Holdings would be the fresh start she desperately needed.
Instead, on her very first day, the company’s cold and unreadable CEO proves he already knows things about her he shouldn’t.
Her habits, Her apartment, Her past.
And when anonymous messages begin appearing on her phone moments after he watches her, Blair realizes something terrifying—
Someone has been following her long before she walked into that office.
But the deeper she digs into Alex Laurent’s world, the more dangerous the truth becomes.
Because Blair was never hired by accident.Her parents’ deaths were never accidents.
And the powerful men now hunting her. Trapped between a violent organization, buried family secrets, and a man whose obsession feels both protective and deadly, Blair must decide who to trust before the truth destroys her completely.
Because in Alex Laurent’s world, love and danger have always gone hand in hand.
And once he starts watching someone…
He never stops.

Four years ago, I left on a top-secret mission, and everyone assumed I was dead.

Four years later, I returned expecting a joyful homecoming, only to be struck by a devastating nightmare: three years ago, a local cartel hanged my wife from the rafters, and my ten-year-old son was locked in a cellar, suffering unimaginable abuse.

Right now, in a local dive bar, my enemies have a gun pressed to my head. They’re laughing, mocking me, thinking I'm just some washed-up, helpless veteran they can easily crush.

But what they don't know is that just ten minutes ago, I severed the only fiber-optic cable connecting this town to the outside world.

The hunt has officially begun...

"What kind of sick game are you playing?" my husband, Mark, snapped through the phone.
I stared at my heavy plaster cast and said nothing.
In my previous life, distant relatives brought a bag of cash to my clinic, begging me to bump my cousin up the surgery waitlist. I refused.
By morning, the money vanished.
Security footage showed someone in my scrubs, with my exact face, stealing it.
My colleague, Sarah, and my husband accused me of taking the bribe. They destroyed my career. My cousin died waiting.
Driven mad by grief, her parents ran me down with their truck.
Reborn, when I saw the new surveillance footage, I finally understood who she was.

Charlotte Pierce is used to surviving in motion. New towns, new schools, the same old house on the edge of nowhere, and the same rule that keeps her standing. Keep her twin brother, Charlie safe. Keep his hockey dream alive. Keep her own needs quiet. She works too much, sleeps too little, and saves the one thing that still feels like hers for the middle of the night, when she can lace up her worn skates and carve freedom into dangerous frozen ice. Charlotte and Charlie shifted once, years ago, and never understood what it meant. They had no pack, no guidance and no protection. Just two twins clinging to each other and pretending the voice in their heads was stress, imagination, or loneliness. Then they move to Wellington.
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)

Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.

Wale never expected the world he built to crumble. One drunken night with his staff, Maya, led to a scandal that forced him into a marriage he never wanted. Behind closed doors, he promised his true love, Kate, “I’ll get rid of her in a year.”
For a year, Maya tried to win Wale’s love, enduring his coldness and distance, but he remained emotionally locked away. Just as he was about to hand her divorce papers, she revealed a shocking secret—she was pregnant. Wale, torn but still set on leaving her, abandoned Maya on the day she went into labor to be with Kate. In a cruel twist, a devastating accident claimed their baby’s life.
Devastated and broken, Maya confronts Wale with a chilling finality, “Congratulations, Mr. Wale. My baby’s gone. I want a divorce. You’ve taken the last reason I had to stay.”
For the first time, Wale feels something he’s never experienced—fear. Fear of losing the woman he dismissed for so long. But now, as Maya walks away, he’s faced with the hardest question of all; is it too late to win back the woman he pushed away? And even if he tries, can Maya ever forgive him for the pain he’s caused?

Jenna, an exemplary daughter, lives alone with her father who raised her with a lot of love, discipline and responsibility. Mark Black, a very upright man who was widowed very young, but did not make another commitment to his daughter, to live happily. But life is like that, both contacted a blind date company, where they did not speak, wore masks that did not let recognize anything of each other's identity, without knowing it, they do something that would cause pain, regret, tears. Even so, there is an unrevealed truth that in the end will cause their lives to change in their totality.

What will that revelation be? What truth will that be? Find out when you read this controversial novel.

Where they discover that sex takes place with who can be something for you, but neither knows anything about the other, since everything is done in silence and with masks, but there are also sayings such as.

"NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS".

Love will overcome very hard obstacles and its protagonists must have strength to cross them, because sometimes friendship and fidelity is something temporary, sometimes who you should take care of is the person you appreciate the most, not always friends are what they seem and say they love you.

Because sometimes friendship is camouflaged in your worst enemy.

Sienna Cole has the perfect life.

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

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

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

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

It is the worst decision she has ever made.

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

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

“Chen Lu Xian,” a brilliant surgeon, meets his end—
only to awaken as “Chen Lu,” a disfigured and worthless noble son.
When fate takes a dramatic turn,
his new goal becomes clear: vengeance
and rising again as a miracle physician of unmatched skill.
Lu Xian uses a restaurant as a front…
while secretly operating a hidden clinic behind the scenes.
He trains handmaidens in the healing arts,
alongside their practice in martial cultivation.
Fate entangles Lu Xian with the Fourth Prince,
a war-torn man bearing wounds from the battlefield.
That one act of healing… alters his life forever—
when he is forced into marriage!
From celestial physician to imperial consort of the Fourth Prince,
how will Chen Lu use his wits to survive the treacherous tides of court intrigue?
A path lined with schemes, love, and fierce battles lies ahead…

Zara Torres has three rules at Harlow University.
No drama. No distractions. And absolutely no hockey players.

She breaks all three before October ends when a journalism assignment lands her in Declan Mercer's orbit starting center, infuriatingly perceptive, and somehow always exactly where she isn't expecting him.

Zara tells herself it's professional. She's documenting the ice conflict between two programs sharing one rink. She's not falling for the guy who shows up at six AM with terrible coffee and the unsettling habit of telling her the truth.

She's definitely not thinking about the jump.

The quad Lutz she hasn't fully landed in two years. The fall that broke her wrist and quietly broke something else. The confidence she rebuilt around a gap she keeps pretending isn't there.

But when a journalism assignment becomes something larger, a testimony, an investigation, a story that reaches backward through thirty-three years and fifteen countries. Zara discovers that the thing she thought was a skating problem was never really about skating.

It was about learning who built the walls around the thing that was hers.

And deciding to tear them down anyway.

This story is a young adult sport romance about the cost of excellence, the courage of going first, and what it means to fight for the thing that was yours before anyone decided it was worth something.

The ice was hers first.

She just had to remember that.

"You stumbled drunk into my room and ruined my night. I'm the one who got the raw end of this deal."Damian sneered.
Elara shot back: "Fine! Do you want me to spend another night with you to pay off your supposed loss?"
Elara Green wakes up sore in an unfamiliar bed after getting wasted at her best friend's birthday bash, left with lingering proof of an impulsive one-night mistake with an unknown stranger.
Scared and flustered, she sneaks out before sunrise, determined to lock that messy night away from her real life for good.
Fate pulls them back together unexpectedly when painful discomfort forces her to visit a clinic. To her utter horror, the physician assigned to her checkup is none other than the mysterious man from that night—the reserved, wealthy Dr. Damian Blackwood.
He saw through her disguise from the very start and toyed with her relentlessly throughout their intimate examination.
Fed up with his relentless teasing and unreasonable accusations, Elara blurts out her reckless offer in a fit of rage, never expecting the stern doctor would take her words as a binding agreement. An unexpected mishap after their reunion locks their fates together, leaving her unable to slip away from his persistent advances.
The cold doctor, who has always kept all women at arm's length, gradually grows obsessed and plans to pursue her wholeheartedly. Right as he's ready to confess his feelings, he stumbles across hints that Elara already has a boyfriend.
Who is the mysterious man linked to Elara? Will the supposed boyfriend become the biggest obstacle tearing their budding romance apart? Can the gap between their disparate worlds put an end to their burning attraction?

On my anniversary flight to New York, fate sat my cheating husband's mistress right beside me.

Alice spent the entire trip gushing about "her Daniel" while wearing the sapphire ring he'd called "too vulgar" for his wife—me.

"She's so pathetic," Alice laughed, describing how Daniel planned to dump his "clingy" spouse. "Good riddance!"

If only she knew his "pathetic" wife was the billionaire secretly bankrolling his success.

At JFK, Daniel threw money at my feet and told me to disappear.

I smiled, dialed my investment firm, and watched his face crumble.

"Hello, darling. Your sugar mama just quit."

At last season's Grand Olfactory Gala, Vivienne Harrow presented my formula before I could reach the stage.
I confronted her. She asked where my proof was.
I had nothing. The formula had never left my head — no notes, no records, nothing. I didn't know how she'd gotten it.
I died not knowing.
Then I opened my eyes, and she was already reaching for me.
"Not this time."
I stepped back.

In my past life, I ripped the alien parasite from my brother’s chest to save him. Instead, my family accused me of being jealous of his "god-tier" awakening. They shattered my legs and threw me to a tyrant's mutant hounds.

Reborn on the exact day he fused with that crystal core, I faced my parents who wanted to drain my spinal fluid to "power up" my brother. This time, I just sneered and backed off.

You thought sacrificing me would earn you a god’s blessing? You thought shoving me into the deadly radiation mines would be my end? When I claw my way back to the surface clad in supreme battle armor, I will quietly watch as that monster you worshipped as a god bursts from his chest and chews you all into a bloody pulp, bite by bite!

For a whole year, Aurora waited for a cornea transplant. Her husband, Oliver, stole it at the last second for his mistress, Claire. Twelve unanswered calls later, Aurora caught him at the hospital, tenderly accompanying Claire to her prenatal checkup.

Aurora begged him to stay, however, Oliver merely threw the divorce papers right into her face. She signed in ten seconds flat and walked away. When her toxic sister-in-law came to mock her, Aurora ripped her to shreds.

Everyone expected Aurora to crawl back crying. Instead, she listed her wedding ring on a pawn site, packed her bags, and vanished.

She left without a backward glance. So why is the man who signed those papers in a furious rage suddenly turning back?

"Everyone in Cedar Hollow can tell you exactly what I did. I just can't."

Twelve years ago, Vanessa Dalton walked out of Larkspur Quarry alone, covered in her best friend Jo Calloway's blood. Jo's body was never found. Vanessa never remembered what happened. The evidence disappeared with the storm, but the town reached its own verdict long ago: she was guilty.

Now a renowned forensic genealogist who solves decades-old cold cases using DNA, Vanessa is forced to return home when her dying mother leaves her no choice. She's spent years helping strangers uncover the truth, while refusing to investigate the one mystery that destroyed her own life.

Sheriff Scott Bradley wants her gone. His father ruined his career trying to prove Vanessa murdered Jo, and Scott inherited both the badge and the hatred. But when someone steals a hidden box of evidence from the Calloway case, and Vanessa begins remembering fragments that contradict everything Cedar Hollow believes, a second car at the quarry, another voice calling her name, and Jo alive long after the moment she was supposed to have died, they're forced into an uneasy alliance.

As Vanessa and Scott reopen the town's darkest secret, every new clue exposes another lie. Someone has spent twelve years protecting the truth, and they'll kill to keep it buried.

Because Jo Calloway wasn't the only person who disappeared that night.

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

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

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

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

Until that night.

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

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

My "mute" husband of three years.

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

Three years of sacrifice.

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

The day I found out Quinn Prescott had pulled strings to give away my Ivy League recommendation to some transfer student, I packed up everything he'd ever given me and dumped it on his doorstep.
The next day, I found that same box in the dumpster outside my building.
Quinn's face was twisted with irritation.
"Drop it. So what if we don't go to the same college? You can get a full ride anywhere on your own, but Paula can't even afford tuition without that recommendation letter."
He let out a cold laugh. "And if this actually blows up, I promise you—it won't be me walking away with regrets."
I pressed the UCL acceptance letter tighter against my back, looking at him one last time with perfect calm.
He looked exactly like he always did when he knew he'd already won—like the outcome wasn't even a question.
But Quinn, I don't need you either.
My one-way ticket to London was already booked. We never had to see each other again.

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

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

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

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

The call died right as the flames swallowed me whole.

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

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

A past generations’ wrongful case makes Julian mistake innocent Sienna for his foe’s daughter. Exploiting her crush, he ruins her Cambridge dream on graduation night, destroying her family. For five years, Sienna works in a sleazy club to fund her sick mother’s care.
Their unexpected reunion leaves Julian torn between disgust and secret affection. When the truth surfaces, consumed by regret, he cancels his wedding and spends all his wealth to atone. Yet Sienna’s love is long gone. After settling her family with his money, she leaves forever.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When my family went bankrupt, my fiancé teamed up with my best friend and sold me to an underground club to pay off their debts.
To secure an investment, that scumbag handed me over to the most powerful kingmaker on Wall Street.
But the moment the call connected, I froze.
The big shot my cheating ex was groveling to was actually my first love—the man I dumped five years ago because he was poor.
Looking at the smug jerk who still had no idea who he was dealing with, I let out a cold laugh.
A deadly revenge game had just begun.

On the day Evelyn thought Liam would propose, he shocked her by getting down on one knee—for her stepsister, Samantha. As if that betrayal wasn’t enough, Evelyn learned the cruel truth: her parents had already decided to sell one daughter’s future to a dangerous man: the infamous War God Alpha Alexander, who was rumored to be scarred and crippled after a recent accident. And the bride could’t be their precious daughter Samantha. However, when the "ugly and crippled" Alpha revealed his true self—an impossibly handsome billionaire with no trace of injury—Samantha had a change of heart. She was ready to dump Liam and take Evelyn's place as the family daughter who should marry Alexander.
Yet Alexander made his decision clear to the world: “Evelyn is the only woman I will ever marry.”

Having an accident after catching her lover cheating and waking up in a strange place filled with robots. Alexa Ivvona never expected to become a hero in a war in the robot world, and fall in love with a robot troop commander. However, can Alexa return to her world or is she trapped there with all the secrets of why Alexa is in the robot world?

I’m a retired Special Forces soldier. After I got out, I handled problems people didn’t want on paper, and I’ve seen enough dirty work to last a lifetime.

When I finally retired for real, I wanted a normal life.

So I came back to the orphanage where I grew up, planning to adopt a quiet seven-year-old boy I’d kept in touch with for years.

But the moment I arrived, I was told he’d already been “adopted.”

I called the family to make sure he was safe. On the line he said, “I’m fine.”
Then I heard it—fingernails tapping in a pattern: three short, three long, three short.

The distress signal I had taught him.

I stormed into the director’s office and forced the truth out: the adoption papers were fake. He wasn’t taken into a home. He was sold.

They think I’m just a returning orphanage worker.
They have no idea what I’ve done out there—and no idea I’m very good at cleaning up this kind of mess.

I was Ethan Blake's perfect mistress for five years, adhering faithfully to his rules of secrecy and obedience.

I knew his coffee preferences, his pre-meeting anxieties, yet it wasn't until his arranged-marriage partner returned that I understood I was merely a replaceable 'item' in his life plan.

When my mother passed and the pressure of medical bills vanished, I realized for the first time — that contract with its monthly transfers had bought not just my time, but my very right to say 'no' to him.

And now, when I no longer need his money...

This transaction, forged in the name of bondage, will be terminated by me.

He was Ares, the supreme, undefeated God of War, betrayed by his fellow deities during the Great Cosmic Eclipse and left to turn to ash. But death could not hold a god. His divine soul transmigrated into the mortal realm, waking up in the body of Ares Vane—the frail, broken, and universally despised bastard son of New York’s most ruthless corporate dynasty.

Left for dead by his half-brothers and forced into a sham contract marriage with the city’s coldest corporate heiress, the original Ares Vane was a stepping stone. But the God of War plays by the laws of the jungle, not the laws of men. Armed with a reviving "War God System" fueled by absolute conflict, he begins a ruthless campaign to reclaim his apex status.

From blood-soaked underground mafia arenas to the high-stakes battlegrounds of Wall Street boardrooms, he crushes everyone who stands in his path. The arrogant young masters will kneel. The hidden supernatural syndicates will beg for mercy. And the powerful, dangerous women who rule New York's shadow factions will realize that the ultimate alpha has arrived to claim his empire.

"If you leave, you won’t survive a day without me. You need me," he said, gripping my hands tightly.

"Before you, I was surviving, and my life was a hell of a lot better than it is now," I snapped, yanking free. I knew he was right, but I walked away anyway, leaving him behind. Let the worst happen now.

Amelia thought her life was already a mess—working two jobs to scrape by, hacking, stripping, and juggling part-time college classes, all while desperately saving for her mother’s medical bills. But things spiraled out of control when she crossed paths with Kai Alessandro, one of the most dangerous mafia bosses in the world.

After scamming Kai out of $5,000, she found herself cornered into a deal she couldn’t refuse—working for him as his hacker to pay off her debt. The fiery clash between their worlds quickly became a storm of hatred, tension, and undeniable attraction.

What happens when romantic feelings begin to intertwine with their shared hatred? And when Amelia discovers that Kai’s dark past is far more darker than she could have ever imagined, she realizes they were never meant to cross paths because of what was bound to happen, still, she found herself stuck with him and unable to leave. Kai also found himself in a position where he is unable to let her go despite knowing that her live was at threat by merely being with him.

That wedding in Rome was the last time I ever saw him as his “stepsister.”
I was the Roxie family’s only daughter. After my father remarried, my mother and I moved into the Corleone estate, and from that day on, Elias became my stepbrother—also the one obsession I should never have touched.
Out in public, he was always calm and controlled. At home, though, one line from him “Don’t call me brother” made my heart race.
Until the day he held Sophia’s hand in front of a priest and announced he was going to marry her.
I was outside the venue, bending down to pick up empty bottles because I needed dialysis money. He crushed them under his shoe in front of everyone, humiliated me, and forced me to trade my dignity for cash, like he was nailing the word “step-siblings” onto a pillar of shame.
He hated me. He said I’d “gotten back at him” in the filthiest way. I just smiled and never explained.
Because he would never know the truth: back then, the reason I shoved him away with everything I had was only because I wanted him to live a little cleaner.
That night, he locked me in a pitch-dark storage room. Outside the door was wedding music. Inside was my blood and the suffocating despair.
When he finally opened the door… I was already dead.

Spring is the season I dread the most.

Because every spring, my mere existence becomes a lethal weapon against my own son.

Theron told me he suffers from a highly rare condition: Maternal Stress Rejection Syndrome.

If I so much as get near Flynn during the spring months, it triggers severe asthma attacks and terrifying asphyxiation.

To keep our boy alive, Theron takes him away to an isolated treatment center for three months, every single year.

And I stay behind, swallowing antidepressants by the handful just to survive the crushing guilt.

That is, until I found a photo hidden in Theron's burner phone.

In the picture, my husband and my son are tightly embracing another woman.

The so-called Maternal Stress Rejection Syndrome was nothing but a sick lie—a meticulously crafted excuse so my husband could spend the season playing "happy family" with his first love.

......

I had just arrived abroad for a legal conference when my best friend sent me a video.
An unfamiliar woman was chatting while pushing Dexter’s mother, Jenny, around the neighborhood, claiming to be Dexter’s wife.
My hand, holding the phone, froze.
If she’s Dexter’s wife… then who am I?
I immediately called my husband and asked,
“Did you change family doctors?”
He paused for a second, then replied with a laugh, “Yes. Mom didn’t like the old one, so we switched. I haven’t had a chance to tell you yet. Why do you ask?”
I forced a casual chuckle. “No reason. I just missed you.”
After hanging up, I rushed home overnight.