3690 Book(s) Related to one mate and a rejection

She came with claws and fire, scent like sin; his wolf didn’t stand a chance. Neither did he.

•••

Brant Paxton has always been the wild one—gorgeous, untamed, and irresistible to everyone. But when Sable Knox returns, everything changes. She’s no longer the sweet girl he remembers. She’s fierce, sexy, and carries a scent that sets his wolf on edge. The heat between them is dangerous. Forbidden. But Brant can’t stay away.

Sable once called the Paxtons her family, but one tragic night tore it all apart. Now she’s back, stronger and smarter, ready to make them pay—especially Brant. But nothing prepares her for the fire that ignites when they’re close. Her wolf wants him. Craves him. And Sable doesn’t know if she’s falling into his arms or into a trap.
As old wounds reopen and passion burns hotter, Brant and Sable must choose: follow the rules or give in to the sin that could ruin them both.

Content Warning: This book contains sexual content and mature themes. Reader discretion is advised.

This is the anticipated sequel to… "ESCLAVE"

He came along and re-carved my fate… but he didn't make things better… he made things worse… for me. He became my master… my owner, my captor, my tormentor. My life didn't become easier… it turned out harder to live.

In one night… he gave everything I'd ever wanted… needed… desired… and just like that… he took it all back… on the very next morning. He showed me that I was broken… a deviant… like him… then left me alone to deal with the consequences… of selling my soul to the devil.

But who would have thought… there was still hope… for him… and me. We both were in for it… a truth to find… a surprise to unfold… a decision to make… that neither one of us had expected.

“No one had ever woken in the centuries that I’d been having my sex sessions.”

Mila Descoudres is a succubus, sex is the one thing she needs to survive. When she seeks out fresh meat for her daily fix, she does a daring thing and sneaks into an Alpha Kings bedroom. What she got was way more than a night of great mind-blowing sex. She got an addiction, an addiction that only can be tamed by the Alpha king himself.

Elias Woods is the Alpha King. Deliciously tanned body with a godly tempting V-cut. One night, he meets the ultimate beauty. Someone that takes his breath away, his once cold heart pound again. A sexy succubus who loves to fuck just as hard as he does. But what happens when the inexplicable attraction turns into something else? Can this sex demon handle the Alpha King? Or will she be too much for him?

The Out Of The Shadows Series: Book 1 and 2

Madam, your fetus is perfectly healthy, and all indicators are completely normal," Dr. Helena said with a smile as she looked at the image on the ultrasound machine.
"Really?" Emily slowly sat up on the hospital bed. She glanced down at her slightly swollen belly, gently placed her fingertips over it, and a look of worry crossed her face.
This was her second child. Her first pregnancy had also gone perfectly at every prenatal check-up, yet in the end…
"Everything is stable for now," Dr. Helena comforted her. "Rest assured, what happened last time was just an accident. Take good care of yourself this time, and come to the hospital right away if anything feels wrong."
The moment Emily thought of her first baby, a dull ache welled up in her heart.
It had been a baby boy.
Both of her children with her husband Watson were conceived through IVF.
When the first pregnancy succeeded, she had been overjoyed. She prepared the nursery, bought tiny baby clothes, and even started thinking of names.
But shortly after the baby was born, it passed away.

When I called my husband with trembling hands, clutching my cancer diagnosis, all I heard was his sweet laughter with his young, hot influencer girlfriend. Ten years of marriage, and when I needed him most, he chose betrayal.

In divorce court, I was painted as the "crazy ex-wife" while the entire internet mocked me. Everyone took their side. No one knew I was fighting for my life.

Until the day he finally learned the truth.

"Abort her mutt. Liora is carrying my true pureblood heir."
My Alpha husband’s voice was ice-cold as I bled out on the delivery bed.
The woman he was protecting? My fiercely loyal best friend.
While I was screaming in pain, biting my lips bloody to birth his child, he was in the next room, making her moan.
He killed our baby.
When I returned from burying my grandmother in the freezing rain, his guards threw holy water in my face.
"Wash her," Lachlan ordered coldly. "The stench of death on her will harm Liora's pup."
I stared at the man who once took nine lashes of a barbed whip just to marry me.
He aborted my baby to save hers. He let my only family die.
He tossed me a bag of gold like a beggar and told me to stop causing drama.
So, I packed my bags, and vanished into his world.

I died once.

Spent seventy years as a housewife the first time around. Biggest regret? Never felt my heart race.

Met her in this life, and that's when I learned what being alive actually meant. In this world where assassins pay in gold coins and seek sanctuary at Continental hotels, we became a duo called "Swans," hunting down the man who destroyed her family. Every single day, dancing on a razor's edge.

Two years ago, the explosion killed Raven Hayes right in front of me.

To survive, I married a naive tech heir, slipped into silk dresses and started doing the charity gala circuit, tried to convince myself this was the peace I wanted.

Until that enemy became a High Table member and announced a hundred-million-dollar bounty on me to the world.

I used to be scared. Used to run. Used to ask why it had to be me.

But sitting at my vanity, staring at this stranger's face in the mirror, all done up like some socialite, I suddenly realized none of it mattered anymore.

I'm going to die eventually anyway. Might as well die looking like myself.

He hung up on me while the killer's knife plunged into my body.

Seventeen seconds. That was our final call after seven years of marriage.

He was at the hospital with my "depressed" stepsister, convinced I was just being dramatic again. He didn't even let me finish.

I died that rainy night, taking a secret with me he'll never know.

Three days later, my husband—the city's chief medical examiner—caught a brutal case: female victim, face destroyed by acid.

He worked the autopsy with his usual precision. Methodical. Clinical. Until the facial reconstruction software completed its rendering.

When he recognized my face on that screen, blood exploded from his mouth.

He hit the floor hard.

There are no unmated males in our pack.
Every she-wolf in Hollowfen is promised to someone when she turns eighteen. We just don't get to know who until we walk into the Choosing Hall.
Girls go in wearing white. They come out flushed, shaking, barely able to stand. Some laugh. Some cry. None of them talk about what happens inside.
My sister Thessaly turned eighteen this spring. Gran told her she couldn't attend the Choosing.
She went anyway. She came back on shaking legs, with blood between her thighs and a smile she couldn't wipe off her face.

On the day I died, Roland was rolling in the sheets with his adopted sister, Lavinia.
When the hospital called with my death notice, he scoffed. It was just drawing some blood, how could anyone die from that? He was certain I was just throwing a tantrum again, desperate for his attention.
The day he received my ashes, he personally smashed the wooden urn to the ground. His expensive leather shoes ground my ashes into the floor over and over as he coldly announced he was going to marry Lavinia and throw a grand wedding—the exact wedding I had begged for when I was alive but never got.
It wasn't until the day before their wedding that his assistant, Desmond, rushed in, trembling.
"Sir, it's bad... We pulled the security footage from the hospital, and... the madam's autopsy report."

At the Morello family’s Christmas dinner, I stood beside Vincent, waiting for him to announce our engagement.
Instead, in the very next second, he walked in holding a little boy and claimed him as his son.
And the woman he said he was going to marry? Scarlett Morello. The one he had always introduced as his “sister.”
The whole room erupted in applause. I stood there frozen, like a nail hammered into the floor.
Later, in his study, he took my hand and said, “Scarlett is dying. Late-stage breast cancer. She only has six months left. After she’s gone, I’ll marry you.”
But there was no guilt in his eyes. No love, either.
Then he told me to go to his villa that afternoon, to take care of the woman who was supposedly “dying.”
I opened the photo he sent me. Scarlett was lying in a hospital bed, pale-faced, an IV in the back of her hand.
A professional tennis player who had been playing in an exhibition match three weeks ago, and who had dropped three grand at Louis Vuitton on Fifth Avenue just five days ago.
But sure. She was “dying.”
At three in the morning, I was curled up by the front door of my apartment, crying so long I lost track of time.
Then my phone lit up. A text from an unknown number:
[Elena, I’m downstairs. When we were kids, you told me that once I controlled the docks on the East Coast, you’d marry me. The docks are mine now. Does that promise still stand?]
I pulled back the curtain and there he was. Ethan Vitale, my first love, leaning against the door of a black Cadillac, lifting a hand in a lazy wave.
Three years ago, when he left New York, he was only a Capo.
Now, he was the Don of the Vitale family.
He didn’t rush me. Didn’t pressure me to come downstairs.
He came for one reason only, to let me know he was back.
I wiped away my tears and texted back:
[It still stands.]
Because I wanted to see for myself just how long that woman could keep up her act.

“Do you, Alex Snow, take Jennifer Walker, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

Soon to be husband looks at me with the eyes of a beast, ready to rip me apart at any second as he says tightly “I do”

Although he just vowed to take me as his wife, to hold, love, and cherish, his ‘I do’ vowed something else entirely.

It was an oath to make me suffer horribly at his hands.

As soon as the words “I do” left my mouth I was certain, I just sealed my fate by marrying Alex Snow.

And my fate was crystal clear, death is coming for me sooner rather than later.

In a small town called “Snow”, known in all of Alaska for its huge illegal smuggling business on the border of America and Canada, Alex Snow; the new leader of the Snow clan that controls and dominates the smuggling territory, forces Jennifer Walker into marrying him against her will.

After his father gets murdered at the hands of Jenny’s father, Patrick Walker, the Snow clan vows to take their revenge on the whole Walker bloodline.

But killing the responsible man sends both families into a blood feud as both clans vow to make the other one pay.

The only way to stop that bloodbath from turning into a m******e, and claiming more innocent lives was a peace offering in the form of marriage from both families.

Jennifer’s world turns upside down as she turns out to be the one Alex Snow asked to marry specifically to stop that war.

Her only thought at that moment was “He is going to make my life a living hell”

The town Snow and everything it illegally represents is real inside the world I created in this book. It’s as real as you make it to be, but It doesn’t exist in real life

Blurb:

“Now honey, what was that about earlier?” Mom demands after a beat, her voice even. Controlled. Measured. Like she's always been.

I look at her. At her copperry red hair much like my own, conflicted. And my eyes water.

It's about how I can still feel Grayson's touch on my skin mum. How his tongue has done things to me. Things too unholy to describe.

About how the scent of him—the mere thought of him—makes me heady.

And now, you’re marrying his father?

Grayson's bad news for goddess’ sake!

I want to tell her all that, but I don't.

I Can't.

“You didn't even stop to think about it,” I say instead, not liking the crack in my voice at the end.

“Probably because there was nothing to think about,” mother shrugs, frowning in concern. “What is this really about Ginny?”

Ginny. The five letter syllable that somehow sounds so different—sinfully different—when he says it.

“You've been acting weird ever since I mentioned coming back.. Is there something I should know?” she probes.

And then..

Her face grows pale.


Ours is a story that was never meant to be written.

A broken symphony, A perfect imagery with cracks.

He was my living torment, I was his subject. His prey. His Forbidden fruit.

We weren't meant to love. To feel so deeply. To Burn.

But we did anyways.

And the inferno we created?

Blew out of proportion.

Destroying everything we once thought we knew.

Again, we weren't meant to love,

But our story was a destructive force of nature,

Bound by soul-ties that could not be denied.

When my Alpha told me a rogue faction was going to destroy our Pack, I volunteered as a hostage to keep him safe.
Three years in a cage. Branded with silver. Broken like a feral. Every rogue in that compound had me. The only thing that kept me alive was a toxic root that numbed the pain — and was slowly killing me from the inside.
Then my Alpha showed up and told me the truth.
There was never any threat. He'd staged the whole thing — hired the rogues, built the compound. Because I'd embarrassed his precious Cora in front of the Pack, and he needed me to "learn my place."
Now he wanted me back. Wanted to make me his Luna again.
But I wasn't the same woman who walked into that cage. And the truth about what happened to me there?
He didn't believe a word of it.
Not until I was already dead.

The night before our engagement party, my fiancé gifted me a million-dollar yacht—with another woman's name carved on the hull.

Not mine. "Serena"—his first love, the one who got away.

Five years of patience. Five years of sacrifice. And this is what I get?

"Stop overreacting," Austin said without a hint of shame. "She's severely depressed. I'm just trying to comfort her."

Comfort her? What about me?

When Serena tried on what should've been my wedding dress, when Austin demanded I "be the bigger person" yet again—I finally snapped.

I threw the engagement ring. It cracked against his face.

Austin's hand shot up in fury.

The door exploded open.

Julian Cross—New York's most dangerous billionaire—stepped inside, his presence filling the room like a storm.

"You dare lay a hand on my woman?"

In the kingdom of the Alpha King, Janelle, a trusted servant, conceals a burning desire for revenge against her parents' killers. When she discovers her true mate is the prince, her world is thrown into turmoil. Torn between love and vengeance, Janelle's quest for justice takes a dangerous turn as secrets unravel and betrayal lurks at every corner. Will she choose love or succumb to the darkness of her past?

Nyla is an Omega who has been counting down the days to her eighteenth birthday, excited about finally being mated to her boyfriend, Zoran, and discovering her wolf. But just a day before the big day, Zoran breaks her heart, claiming he found someone better. Heartbroken, she cries herself to sleep but still manages to wake up and prepare for her birthday. However, things take an unexpected turn when she suddenly finds herself mated to the Alpha, who happens to be her best friend's dream man.

News broke that a classmate had fallen from a building. The forensic assessment said it was homicide. Someone claimed they’d seen the killer: a young girl in a red coat.
The police came to our home. My stepsister shoved me forward. Mom said, “My daughter owns a red coat and she wasn’t at home yesterday.”

"You have no house to go to, no money, no friends and no child to drain me of child support. Don't be stubborn. You know you'll die without me, I'm your only family left." Once again that proud tone was sneered at me.

"I worry for you." Devon’s eyes glimmered waiting for me to go on my knees and beg him.

I shake my head. "Worry about yourself Devon. Do you really think you'd go scott free after the shit you pulled today? You couldn't even let me mourn my baby in peace." I searched for his gaze, my eyes burrowing into his.

"I promise you, if not today, one-day Devon. I'll make you wish you were dead."


Corrie North gave Devon Remington everything.

Amazing sex? She gave him her body.

A devoted house-wife? She abandoned her career for him.

A fucking maid? She scrubbed every inch of his sprawling mansion.

A child? She nearly died bringing their son, Haven, into the world.

And how did he repay her?

Devon betrayed her.

He cheated with a younger woman, handed her divorce papers, and vanished on the day their son died in a mysterious accident.
Two months later, he finally showed up to Haven's funeral, with his pregnant mistress on his arm.
As if that wasn’t enough, he accused Corrie of murdering their child.

Devastated, Corrie vowed revenge. She vanished from Devon’s life, promising that everyone who played a part in Haven’s death would pay, including him.

Four years later she returns and Devon wants her back. He’ll do anything to make her his again.

But Corrie isn’t the same woman he left behind.
Will she make him pay for his betrayal , or will old flames pull her back into the arms of the man who destroyed her?

"Come see our wedding invitations!" I excitedly held up the document folder I'd grabbed from ,my fiancé, Lorenzo's study, showing it off to his men in his private safe house on the Upper East Side.

Lorenzo and I had been running ourselves ragged this month preparing for the wedding.

Lorenzo's guys raised their glasses, waiting to see our custom-designed invitations. I eagerly turned the folder upside down—

Marriage certificates, wedding photos, and a property transfer document came tumbling out onto the floor.

Dead silence.

"Oh, these aren't our invitations..." I was still grinning foolishly. "Must be the wrong folder."

"Let me see which lucky lady is about to become a happy bride."

I looked down at the wedding photo. A beautiful brunette woman in an elaborate white gown smiled from the center of the picture, looking so blissful, so content.

When my eyes shifted to the groom beside her, my world collapsed.

It was Lorenzo. He wore a perfect black tuxedo, but he was tenderly embracing a woman I'd never seen before.

She never wanted to be a Breeder--but her parents sold her anyway.

The Alpha King is looking for an heir in the most unorthodox way. Whoever can impregnate the Breeder first will get to be king, which means Rose finds herself in a castle where she must submit to four men or disappoint her entire pack. Though she's nervous at first, it's easier than she would've thought once she meets the four Alphas.
Mark is intelligent.
Eli is sweet.
Reece is debonair.
And Tristan is a horny goofball.
Rose wants to stay with all four Alphas forever, and they seem to love her, too. But things aren't always what they seem, especially when the king's cousin, Emily, announces she will be the next Luna.
Will Rose and her men have a chance at true love?

Blood pooled beneath Eloise's head just moments after she discovered the truth about her husband. The man she built her world around wanted nothing more than to destroy her. He stole everything, her company, her pride, her future, and left her to die. But as the darkness closed in on her, fate offered a second chance.

**

Now she is back, with bloodstained memories and a thirst for revenge. Desperate and broken, she made a deal with the devil, a man powerful enough to hand her the weapons.

But his help comes at a price.

To be owned by him. For four months. A strict deal with no strings or feelings attached. But nothing about him is simple. He's infuriating, intoxicating, and every second with him chips away at her control.

What starts as business quickly spirals into a dangerous game of possession, secrets, and desire. And when hearts get involved, the real cost becomes something more than she bargained for.

He’s the last man she should trust… and the only one who makes her lose control.

"Love doesn't hurt, Adrian. You did. I'm leaving to become someone you can't destroy. And when I return, you will learn what it means to lose everything."
Five years ago, Arabella Sterling disappeared without a trace, carrying disgrace, heartbreak, and the label of a billionaire's hidden scandal. What no one knew was that she was also his wife. The woman he once claimed to love. The one he abandoned when it mattered most.
Now she is back.
No longer the fragile woman he betrayed, Arabella has reinvented herself as The Reformer, a world-renowned business strategist known for reviving collapsing empires. Powerful, untouchable, and unstoppable.
Her next target is The Sterling Group. His empire.
Adrian Sterling has spent years trying to bury his past mistakes, but nothing prepares him for the moment Arabella walks into his boardroom. Colder. Stronger. Completely out of reach.
He wants redemption. She wants revenge.
Because this time, Arabella is not here to save him.
She is here to make him lose everything.

The Dragon's Stolen Bride: A Heart Between Two Worlds
GENRE
Fantasy Romance, Dragon Shifter Romance, Mistaken Identity, Royal Romance

"You are like a father to me, I can't marry you."
"If you can't, then I guess you prefer to be an orphan if your mother dies."
Juliet Jones, was torned in between saving her mother's precious life, and getting into a contract marriage with her father's closest friend, George Watson.
And when she was left with no better choice, and the time is ticking faster on her mother, she got married to Mr George, to save her mother's life.
But unfortunately it was too late, and her mother died, after she had already signed a contract agreement with Mr George.

"Mark today's date, the 24th of November. On this day, I, Ivy Moore promise you that you will regret everything that happened today!"

Ivy Moore gave up everything for love—her freedom, her future, even her identity—only to be betrayed in the most brutal way. After her husband killed her son and divorced her because she is poor, Ivy becomes the richest woman in the country but kept her identity a secret so that she'll make her husband pay for all the pains she caused her!

"Marry me," my billionaire CEO demanded, trapping me in his office, completely unaware that my father was the man who murdered his parents.

I stared at John Alexander Blackwood, a man who evaluated people like stock options. He was cold, calculated, and terrifying. "A contract marriage," he said with dead eyes. "Three years. In exchange, your family's financial ruin disappears." I should have screamed no and ran out of that top-floor office. But I signed the papers, binding myself to a man I barely knew.

Moving into his sterile, expensive penthouse felt like walking into a beautiful prison. We lived like ghosts, avoiding each other in the hallways. But the ice between us started to crack. Late-night encounters in the kitchen turned into shared whiskey, and his dark, calculating eyes began tracking my every move with a burning intensity. Behind his cold armor, I found a broken man still grieving the parents he lost in a tragic car crash twenty-six years ago. I was falling for him. Hard.

But then, the anonymous envelope arrived.

My hands shook as I tore open the seal, staring at the faded contract inside. Fifty thousand dollars. That’s what my father was paid to sabotage the brakes on the Blackwood family car. The crash wasn't an accident. It was a cold-blooded assassination ordered by John's own grandfather, and my father pulled the trigger.

I was sleeping under the same roof as the man whose life my family had destroyed. If John found out, he wouldn't just divorce me—he would obliterate me.

Was I my father's daughter enough to pack my bags and run, or was I reckless enough to stay and let the truth burn us both to ashes?

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?

“I refuse to stay here with you.” Analina said with anger. “I don’t care you are my wife now, so accept your fate this is your destiny.” Draven said to her confidently. As he told her about his feelings on the matter he went up to her grabbing by the waist and throwing her onto the bed. Getting on top of her he rips of her dress and panties as he does the same with his clothes. “You are my wife, and we are going to consummate our marriage every morning, day and night. Wherever I want and any time I want.” He told her. “NO DON’T TOUCH ME!!!” “I would stop fighting it if I were you, it will be a lot worst if you do.” “I AM NOT YOUR WIFE, THIS IS ILLEGAL, YOU FORCCED ME.”.
Flashback To That Night
“Let us get started, shall we? Do you Draven Chavez take Analina Stratton to be your lawfully wedded wife, to love to hold through good times and bad, sickness and in health and to cherish till death you part?” “I do.” Analina, do you take Draven Chavez to be your lawfully wedded husband to love and hold through good times and bad, sickness and health and cherish her till death do you part?” “N…OOO.” Something metal shoved into my back, and it could only be one thing. “Y…...S…...I…...O…” I studder out scared to death of what may happen if I don’t. “I now pronounce you husband and wife you may kiss the bride. “Finally.” Draven says as he pulls me to him and kisses me on the lips with passion that I didn’t know that he had.

AN AGE GAP, FORCED PROXIMITY, BLACK FLAG ROMANCE

Vincenzo Valentini is a man who sees the world as a business counter and human beings as merchandise.

The owner of an empire built upon corpses and submission, he is the reflection of pure perversity.

When fate places Andrew Thompson, the son of his greatest rival, into his hands, the plan was simple: use him, break him, and discard him like a toy that has lost its appeal.

What Vincenzo did not expect was that, beneath the youthful skin and the appearance of innocence, Andrew hid the same abyss as he did.

Vincenzo never wanted redemption. He never wanted someone to save him from his own darkness. He was seeking a mirror. And in Andrew, he found the partner who, upon seeing his blood-stained hands, does not recoil in terror, but trembles with desire.

In this perverse game, the "little toy" proves to be the perfect executioner. The mafia leader found someone who not only accepts his cruel side but cultivates it, feeding the monster Vincenzo has always been.

Where there should have been fear, lust emerged. Where there should have been hatred, a perverse loyalty was born. Andrew Thompson is the dark reflection of Vincenzo, the soldier the underworld did not see coming, and the man who proved that, for some, paradise only makes sense if it is in the middle of chaos.

Vincenzo opened the doors to his empire, but Andrew was the only one capable of invading his heart.

They are not heroes. They are hell on earth.

"Run, mi amor, run, while I watch."
"I feel his eyes everywhere, always watching!"
Ever heard of a hunter becoming the hunted?
That is what happened to Victoria Alexander.
After years of getting betrayed by her husband and best friend, Victoria returns to the city, stronger and more determined to ruin his seemingly happy home.
But things turns out sour for her as her mission for revenge turns into a game in a serial murder case.
While hunting her ex-husband's happiness and an unknown serial killer, Victoria suddenly becomes the hunted.
The thrilling part is that she isn't hunted by just anyone but a powerful shadow, hidden in the dark, watching. Always watching with nothing but a single phrase that leaves chills in her.

Five years ago, Emma Holloway made the cruelest choice of her life—breaking the heart of the only man who ever truly loved her. She let him walk away without knowing the truth. Now? She’s broke, desperate, and hiding behind a fake name just to land a job.

Only it’s not just any job. It’s at Harrington Enterprises.

And her new boss?
Cole Harrington. The man she pushed away. The man who built an empire… and never forgot the woman who betrayed him.

Cole is colder now. Powerful, unreadable, and engaged to someone else. But when he sees her again—“Emily Grace,” as she now calls herself—he plays along. Smiling in public. Testing her in private. Pushing boundaries she’s too vulnerable to defend.

She needs the paycheck. He wants answers.
But neither of them are prepared for what happens when secrets start unraveling, and emotions long buried come roaring back.

Because Cole isn’t just back for business.

He’s back for closure.
Or revenge.
And maybe... her heart.

Nora Williams was a fake celebrity influencer who built her reputation by wearing fake designer items online.

She was a minor celebrity in real life but a major one on the internet. Everyone believed she was a wealthy and privileged heiress; however, in reality, she struggled to make ends meet, barely able to pay her rent.

One fateful night, she encountered a powerful man, Leon Carruso, who saw through her fake image. Instead of exposing her, he offered to turn her fictional life into reality. "This perfect life that you want it so badly... I could make it happen in the blink of an eye, but there is one condition – you must marry me in return, Nora…”

“This life you promised me; why didn’t you warn me about it? Why didn’t you tell me it was you from back then? You tricked me into marrying you!”

“Well, let me explain…”

When the zombie apocalypse hit, my elder brother shoved me into a horde of the undead. Now, I've been reborn exactly five days before the end of the world, and he's trying to scam me out of my winning lottery ticket with a beat-up old ring. What he doesn't know is that this ring is a genuine pocket dimension artifact. He thinks he's pulling the ultimate con, completely unaware that I'm going to use this very relic to forge my own post-apocalyptic empire. This time, I'm going to make them pay back every last thing they owe me.

I was cruising leisurely down a desert highway when three Harley motorcycles pulled up behind me, claiming one of their crew was injured.

I pulled over to help — and they stole my truck.

I called the police — and the cops arrested me as an accomplice.

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.

After being reborn, the first thing my sister and I did was swap our grooms.
In our past life, my gentle sister Elara married Felix Hawthorne, the mafia godfather of Marconi City. Surrounded by a domineering sister-in-law and a scheming, manipulative other woman, she was slowly driven into a corner and died of a broken heart.
Meanwhile, I married the polite, illegitimate son of the Graves family. He was a perfect gentleman, but he just didn't love me. Our marriage lasted three years, and we were separated for two and a half of them.
Then one day, Elara and I woke up at the exact same moment—we had been reborn, back to the very morning we were supposed to sign our marriage agreements...

I was the undefeated queen of the underground octagon—a body held together by broken bones and spilled blood, all to build Dorian's fighting empire from the ground up.
But when he'd made it to the top in his tailored suits and polished shoes, suddenly my scars made me too crude, too ugly to stand beside him.
He ordered me to throw my title defense—told me to take a dive for some rich girl whose daddy bought her a spot in the cage. And when that woman shattered both my legs with an illegal knee strike, he just stood there and watched.
I clawed my way out of that wreckage—barely breathing. Left him a blood-stained divorce decree and vanished.
While he mourned over what he thought were my ashes, I was already training alongside the legendary king of the octagon, rebuilding myself from the ground up.
Now I'm back—stronger than ever.
This time, I'm going to break that princess's pretty face and crush his pathetic ego underfoot.

On the eve of the apocalypse, I awakened a survival system: send me $5,000, and the sender can unlock a safehouse and awaken a life-saving ability.
The first person I told was Chloe, my girlfriend of three years. In return, she humiliated me in public and cheated on me without a shred of remorse.
That was the moment I finally gave up. The "nice guy" she had drained dry was dead for good.
One month later, the zombie horde arrived right on schedule. For old times' sake, I saved her one last time. And she repaid me by shoving me straight into the jaws of the mutated dead so she could save herself.
What she didn't know... was that I wasn't the only one who had awakened powers.

irectly in front of me.
Only the night before, she’d been curled up in my arms, her warm fingertips brushing my collarbone, our bodies tangled in tender, loving intimacy.
Yet the toe tag fastened around her ankle was etched with cold, unflinching words: Su Wan, Female, 22. Cause of death: fatal fall from height. Time in morgue custody: 365 days.
She had been dead for an entire year.
Just what in the hell was the woman who’d gasped beneath me night after night, who’d lived beside me day in and day out for six whole months—the woman I’d called my girlfriend?

At my boss's mother's funeral, I couldn't hold back my laughter, and as a result, I was treated as a lunatic, stuffed into a garbage cannon, and launched naked into an apocalyptic forest full of zombies. Everyone thought I was doomed, but they didn't know—I had been reborn 1,001 times. Unarmed and surrounded by the zombie horde, about to be torn to shreds, in desperation I clung to the last clue... When I finally uncovered the truth that could overturn everything, I laughed from the bottom of my heart. This time, I would personally end this greatest lie.

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

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

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

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

My mind instantly went blank.

Dad?

A woman walked over.

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

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

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

The sharp sting made my breath hitch in my throat.

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

A sudden, agonizing cramp seized my lower abdomen.

It was an old wound from six centuries ago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suffocation gripped my throat. I turned and fled.

To end two years of a long-distance marriage with my husband, Sutton Brennan, I quit my job and moved halfway across the state to join his top-tier medical center.
But from the moment I clocked in on day one, a nightmare awaited me.
IV pain pumps violently popped open in my hands, medication cabinets rejected my fingerprints, coffee machines sprayed me with boiling water, microwaves exploded in public, and the employee lockers locked me out entirely.
My colleagues laughed at me, calling me a walking disaster. The head nurse publicly berated me for being incompetent. And my husband, the man I trusted most, simply smiled his gentle smile and said, "You're just tense. Give it a few more days."
In my past life, I believed him. I gritted my teeth and held on until the bitter end—and ultimately died inside this very hospital.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on my first day of work.

To give my daughter, Lily, a childhood connected to nature, I put on worn-out overalls and carved out a small vegetable patch at the edge of the estate.
That was until today, when a vicious dog lunged without warning, sinking its teeth into Lily's calf. Blood instantly stained the dirt.
I threw myself over my daughter like a madwoman to protect her, only to be viciously whipped across the face with a diamond-studded leash.
"Where did this lowly gardener come from! You hurt my dog—can your two worthless lives afford to pay for it?"
A young woman in a haute couture white dress, her pregnant belly protruding, sneered and waved her hand. "Where is security? Beat this crazy, pathetic woman and her little thief of a bastard to death, and throw them out of the estate!"
Holding my convulsing daughter, I said, "Beat us to death? Have you asked the master of the estate?"
The woman giggled coquettishly.
"My boyfriend is the master of this estate! With just one word from him, he could crush you like an ant!"
What a coincidence.
The "masters of the estate" she spoke of... I know them both.
One is my husband.
And the other... is my son.