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  • My “Broke” Fake Boyfriend Is A Secret Hockey God novel by Escritor apalacio

    My

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    I spent the entire afternoon baking a chocolate lava cake to surprise my boyfriend of two years for his birthday.

    But when I quietly unlocked his apartment door, I found him tangled in the sheets with my inseparable best friend.

    They didn’t even scramble apart. Mason just glared at me with pure annoyance, treating me like an unwelcome intruder who had ruined their intimate moment.

    Kennedy shamelessly hid behind his back, wearing his shirt and whimpering that it “just happened.”

    I smashed the birthday cake directly into his cheating face, threw my apartment key at his feet, and ran out into the freezing night.

    Right then, my mom called, cheerfully urging me to hurry up with our wedding plans. Her words were like salt poured into my shattered heart. I had wasted two years of my life on two dogs.

    Crying behind the wheel, I nearly ran over a tall, arrogant stranger walking on the highway in the pouring rain. He was freezing and penniless, so I impulsively brought him back to my apartment for the night.

    The next morning, a frantic pounding echoed through my front door.

    “Harper! Open up! Mom’s here to see you!”

    My mom had made a surprise visit, and she thought I was still happily engaged to Mason.

    Desperate, I grabbed the handsome stranger’s arm.

    “Please, pretend you’re my boyfriend!”

    The penniless man looked at my panicked face and smirked.

    “Fine. But you owe me.”

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    My “Broke” Fake Boyfriend Is A Secret Hockey God Chapter 1

    HARPER’S POV:
    My hand trembled violently as I pushed the half-open bedroom door wide.
    The scene that met my eyes didn’t just break my heart; it shattered my entire reality into jagged, bleeding pieces.
    They were bathed in the soft glow of the bedside lamp. Mason was hovering over her, his broad, muscular back flexing as he moved. His hands—the hands I knew so well, the hands that had held mine just days ago—were gripping Kennedy’s hips with a desperate, hungry possession. Kennedy’s head was thrown back against the pillows, her fingers tangled in his dark hair, her lips swollen and parted as she pulled him down for a deep, lingering kiss. The raw, undeniable heat between them was suffocating.
    My boyfriend. And my best friend. The two people I trusted most in this world, destroying me together.
    A strangled, pathetic gasp escaped my throat.
    Kennedy shrieked, a sharp, panicked sound, violently shoving Mason off her and fumbling to drag the duvet over her bare chest.
    Mason’s head snapped toward me. The heavy-lidded passion on his face instantly curdled into shock. “Harper? What are you doing here?”
    A roaring sound filled my ears, drowning out the world. I stared at the man I had loved for two years, the man I thought I would marry. Then I looked at Kennedy—the girl who was like a sister to me, knew all my secrets.
    A wave of pure, acidic nausea churned in my gut. I couldn’t breathe.
    The walls felt like they were closing in on me. I turned on my heel without a word and stumbled blindly down the hallway.
    I made it to the kitchen, my movements stiff and robotic. My tear-filled eyes landed on the pristine white bakery box sitting on the kitchen island.
    Six hours.
    Just an hour ago, I had been so incredibly happy. I had spent six grueling hours in my kitchen, tossing out a burnt first batch and meticulously tempering dark chocolate for the second, all to create the perfect chocolate lava cake for Mason’s twenty-sixth birthday.
    He had canceled our last three dates, blaming exhausting hockey practices and endless team meetings. Captain’s duties, he had texted, brushing off my disappointment. But I had foolishly told myself today would be different. I just knew he’d carved out this one night for us.
    I had slid my spare key into his apartment door, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm of anticipation. I had slipped inside, quiet as a mouse, whispering a soft “Surprise” to the empty, dim living room.
    But instead of Mason’s boyish smile, I was greeted by an unfamiliar perfume—a rich, intoxicating blend of vanilla and sandalwood. Kennedy’s signature fragrance.
    Then I saw her familiar denim jacket tossed carelessly over the sofa.
    I had tried to rationalize it, telling myself she just dropped off a gift early.
    But then came the soft, breathless moans. The low, gravelly murmurs. The discarded clothes on the floor.
    I had walked into this apartment overflowing with love, only to be suffocated by the stench of their betrayal.
    “Harper, wait!”
    Mason’s voice, laced with panic, snapped me back to the agonizing present.
    He came running out into the kitchen, a towel wrapped hastily around his waist, his chest still heaving. “Harper, listen to me. It’s not what you think.”
    “Not what I think?” A bitter, jagged laugh tore from my throat, scraping my vocal cords. “What is it, then? Were you two practicing your hockey checking techniques in bed?”
    Kennedy appeared in the hallway behind him, clutching one of Mason’s oversized button-down shirts around her trembling frame. Tears streamed down her face, a pathetic picture of fake innocence. “Harper, please… it was an accident! We didn’t mean for this to happen. It just… it was a mistake!”
    “An accident?” I repeated, the sheer audacity of the word leaving a metallic taste of blood in my mouth. My sorrow instantly hardened into blinding, white-hot rage. “You accidentally stripped naked and fell into my boyfriend’s bed?”
    I looked down at the cake box again. Six hours of love, patience, and blind trust. Wasted on a lie.
    Without a second of hesitation, I opened the box, lifted the heavy, perfectly baked pastry, and smashed it directly into Mason’s face.
    Rich, dark chocolate and warm lava filling exploded across his stunned features, splattering onto his bare chest and the hardwood floor. Kennedy let out a horrified gasp, jumping back.
    “Happy birthday, Mason,” I said, my voice as cold and dead as the future I had just lost.
    “We’re done.”
    I didn’t look back. I wrenched the front door open and ran into the night.

    My “Broke” Fake Boyfriend Is A Secret Hockey God Chapter 2

    HARPER’S POV:
    The biting night air slapped my face, and only then did I realize hot tears were streaming down my cheeks.
    A yellow cab sped past. I waved my hand frantically, but it didn’t even slow down.
    “Harper!”
    Mason’s voice cut through the traffic noise. I turned to see him jogging toward me, wearing nothing but hastily zipped jeans, his bare chest exposed to the freezing wind.
    He reached me, his hand clamping down on my wrist with a tight, bruising grip. “Just let me explain!”
    “Don’t touch me!” I ripped my arm out of his grasp, my nails scraping hard against his skin. “You disgust me.”
    Kennedy hurried up behind him. She was wrapped tightly in that new denim jacket. She looked small, shivering, and utterly pathetic. “Harper, please don’t be like this. Mason, he…”
    “Shut your mouth,” I snarled, every ounce of my polite upbringing vanishing into the cold night. “You don’t get to say my name. Not anymore.”
    A few passersby slowed down, their eyes lingering on the spectacle we were making. I didn’t care. Let them look.
    Mason took a step closer, a flicker of genuine impatience crossing his handsome face. “Is it really necessary to make such a scene out here? We’re adults, Harper.”
    His words sliced into me, a fresh, agonizing wound. “Adults?” I let out a harsh, breathless laugh. “So adults get to screw their girlfriend’s best friend and feel completely justified about it?”
    Kennedy’s face crumpled, and she started to cry. “It was my fault,” she wailed, clutching the collar of the jacket. “I seduced him. Please, don’t blame him, Harper. Blame me.”
    I stared at her, the girl who had held my hair back when I was sick, the girl who knew my deepest fears. The betrayal crashed over me, heavy and suffocating. Her pathetic, self-sacrificing act was laughable. She wasn’t protecting him; she was marking her territory, showing me they were already a team.
    “Save the performance, Kennedy,” I spat, the irony tasting like ash in my mouth. “You two deserve each other.”
    I spun on my heel and walked briskly toward the subway station, desperate to escape the toxic air around them.
    Halfway down the block, my phone buzzed in my coat pocket. The screen glowed in the dim streetlights with a single word: Mom.
    My throat instantly tightened. I sank onto a nearby bus stop bench, taking a deep, shuddering breath before answering. I had to keep my voice steady.
    “Hi, Mom.”
    “Honey, are you with Mason?” her cheerful, oblivious voice chirped through the speaker.
    I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
    “I was just calling to ask how the wedding plans are coming along!” she continued. “Your Aunt Susan’s daughter is getting engaged next month, you know. You and Mason need to get a move on!”
    Each word was like coarse salt poured directly into my open, bleeding heart. Just this morning, I had been looking at flights, planning to finally bring Mason home for Thanksgiving to officially meet my parents. I had spent weeks imagining the proud look on my mom’s face when I introduced the man I was going to marry.
    Now, that beautiful future was nothing but a grotesque joke.
    I glanced down the street. Mason and Kennedy were still standing there, watching me from a distance like I was some tragic street-side entertainment.
    A sudden, fierce spark of anger ignited in my chest, burning away the tears. I wouldn’t let them see me break. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of watching me run away like a defeated victim.
    “Mom, I have to go,” I interrupted, my voice suddenly hard. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
    I hung up before she could reply.
    Instead of heading down into the subway, I turned around and marched right back to where they stood.
    Mason looked relieved for a split second, probably thinking I had come back to talk. But I didn’t look at his face. I dug my hand into my purse, my fingers wrapping around the cold metal of the spare key to his apartment—the one he had given me six months ago, calling it a “milestone.”
    I pulled it out and threw it hard at his feet. It bounced off his shoe and clattered onto the concrete.
    “That’s the last piece of you I’m carrying,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “Stay out of my life.”
    Mason stared down at the key, his jaw clenching, his face hardening into an unreadable mask.
    Kennedy opened her mouth, fresh tears welling in her eyes, but I silenced her with a single, icy glare that made her snap her mouth shut.
    I didn’t wait for a response. I turned my back on them for the final time, walked down the stairs into the subway station, and didn’t look back.
    Inside the rattling train car, I leaned my head against the cool, vibrating glass, watching the city lights blur into streaks of neon. I felt utterly, devastatingly alone.
    With trembling hands, I took out my phone.
    One by one, I deleted every photo of me and Mason. The vacations, the birthdays, the lazy Sunday mornings.
    Then, I went to my albums and deleted every photo of me and Kennedy. Two years of friendship, erased in a matter of minutes.
    When the screen finally showed No Photos, a hollow emptiness settled deep in my chest.
    Two years of my life. Wasted on two dogs.

    My “Broke” Fake Boyfriend Is A Secret Hockey God Chapter 3

    BECKETT’S POV:
    Rain lashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the study, the violent storm outside matching the suffocating tension inside.
    I stared at my father, Beckett Montgomery III. He sat behind his massive mahogany desk like a king on his throne, dictating the lives of his subjects.
    “I’ll say it one last time,” I said, my voice dangerously quiet, though my jaw was tight enough to crack my teeth. “I am not marrying Victoria Carlisle.”
    He slammed a thick, leather-bound file onto the desk. “This isn’t a request, Beckett. It’s an order! The Carlisle merger secures our controlling stake in the new arena. This is about the family’s future!”
    A surge of pure, unadulterated frustration boiled in my veins. I was so sick of being treated like a pawn in his corporate chess games. “The family’s future, or your business empire?” I shot back. “My marriage is not a bargaining chip for your board meetings.”
    “Everything you have, I gave you!” he roared, his face flushing purple as he pointed a trembling finger at me. “Your status, your contract, that damned ‘C’ on your jersey! Without my influence, you are nothing! You cross me on this, and I’ll make sure you never step foot on the ice again. You can kiss your hockey career goodbye!”
    That hit a nerve. The anger I’d been holding back finally snapped.
    “I earned that ‘C’ with my own blood, sweat, and broken bones!” I yelled, stepping closer to the desk. “You didn’t skate those grueling drills. You didn’t take those hits against the boards. Hockey is mine. You don’t own it, and you sure as hell don’t own me.”
    I met his furious gaze without flinching. “So go ahead. Take it all away.”
    For a second, genuine shock flickered in his cold eyes, quickly replaced by a deeper, vindictive rage. “You think I won’t?”
    He snatched the phone from its cradle and dialed a number. “It’s me. Freeze every credit card, bank account, and trust fund under the name Beckett Montgomery IV. Yes, all of them. Effective immediately.”
    He hung up and stared at me, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “As of now, you are disowned. Let’s see how long you survive in the real world without the Montgomery name.”
    I expected to feel panic. Instead, a heavy weight lifted off my chest. I felt no fear. Only a fierce, burning relief. “Suits me just fine.”
    I turned on my heel and walked out of the study, the heavy oak doors shutting behind me with a final thud.
    In the grand foyer, our longtime butler, Thomas, tried to stop me. He held out a set of keys, his eyes full of worry. “Mr. Beckett, please. It’s pouring outside. At least take the car…”
    I reached out instinctively, but then I stopped. A bitter, mocking laugh escaped my lips. “Oh, right. He bought the car, too.” I shook my head and tossed the keys back to Thomas. “Whatever. He can have it all back.”
    I shrugged off the suffocating, custom-tailored suit jacket I was wearing, letting it drop carelessly to the pristine marble floor. Dressed in just a thin white dress shirt and trousers, I pushed open the front doors and walked out into the raging storm.
    The freezing rain soaked me instantly, plastering my shirt to my skin, but as I walked down the long, winding driveway of the estate, leaving the golden cage behind, I felt freer than I had in years.
    I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t care. I just needed to put as much distance between me and that house as possible.
    I kept walking along the shoulder of the dark highway, the rain blurring my vision. Cars sped past, their tires splashing icy, muddy water onto my already freezing body.
    My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Gino, my teammate. I ignored it. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to walk.
    But after two miles, the adrenaline began to wear off. I was soaked to the bone, shivering violently, and my stomach growled with a hollow ache. A sharp sliver of regret pricked at my frozen skin. 
    Damn it. Maybe I should have kept the jacket. Or at least called an Uber before he cut off my phone plan. Pride was a warm concept, but it did absolutely nothing against a torrential downpour.
    Just as I was cursing my own impulsiveness, blinding headlights washed over me from behind.
    A piercing screech of tires on wet asphalt ripped through the night. The car fishtailed, sliding wildly before slamming to a halt mere inches from my legs. I could feel the aggressive heat radiating from its engine.
    Before I could even process how close I had just come to getting run over, the driver’s door flew open, and a woman stormed out into the pouring rain.
    “Are you insane?” she screamed, her voice cutting through the thunder. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
    I squinted, my eyes adjusting to the harsh glare of the headlights. Through the heavy downpour, I saw a small, furious figure marching toward me.

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  • The Jilted Heiress And Her Spectacular Comeback novel by Bian

    The Jilted Heiress And Her Spectacular Comeback novel by Bian featuring

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    I was double-checking the final payments for our upcoming wedding when I saw it.

    A $50,000 transfer from our joint account to a woman named Alyssia Stuart, labeled “living expenses and Connor’s tuition.”

    My fiancé, Jairo, the tech mogul I had spent ten years building from the ground up using my family’s hidden resources, was secretly sponsoring another family.

    I hacked into his laptop and found a hidden social media archive filled with photos of him, Alyssia, and a little boy with his exact eyes.

    “J says he’s going to give me a real home soon, make me his one and only wife.”

    Alyssia’s caption glared at me, posted the same week Jairo claimed to be on a business trip.

    He had even used the anonymous Ivy League scholarship fund I had secretly established for him to pay for his mistress’s degree.

    For a decade, I gave up my name and my powerful family to be his quiet, supportive partner, designing the very tech that made him a Wall Street wunderkind.

    And to this woman, I was just a “complication” to be handled.

    Instead of crying, I calmly took photos of every single screenshot and packed my bags.

    I dialed a number I hadn’t called in years.

    “Mom, we’re finished. Is that marriage arrangement with Culver Collins still on the table?”

    It was time to reclaim my identity as the Montgomery heiress and watch the empire I built for him burn to the ground.

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    The Jilted Heiress And Her Spectacular Comeback Chapter 1

    Denice’s fingers froze over the keyboard. She had been finalizing the pitch deck for Jairo’s roadshow, the logo for Slater Dynamics—her design.
    Suddenly, a notification silently popped up in the lower right corner of the screen, like a silent bomb exploding in the stillness of the study.
    A bank transfer.
    Fifty million dollars.
    She told herself it was a business expense. A corporate acquisition.
    But the recipient was a personal account: Alyssia Stuart.
    Alyssia. The woman who was the subject of so much gossip in the company, the one entangled with Jairo.
    Her heart skipped a beat, a painful, jarring thud in her chest. Her fingertips went cold. She clicked on the transaction details, her breath held tight in her lungs.
    The memo field contained a single word.
    “Gift.”
    Just then, the laptop screen lit up with an instant message. The sender ID was “Alyssia S.”
    “Darling, the money came through. You’re too good to me. Connor is asking when Daddy is coming home to see him.By the way… Connor asked when you’re coming home to see him. Come over as soon as you get a chance, and forget about that stupid woman of yours.”
    The air rushed out of Denice’s lungs.
    Connor?
    Daddy?
    It felt like all the blood in her body was flowing backward, a cold, sickening tide rising to her throat.
    Her hand trembled as she moved the mouse, clicking open the chat window that Jairo had carelessly left running in the background. It wasn’t just one message. It was years of them.
    Years of explicit flirtations, intimate promises, a secret life laid bare on the screen.
    She saw Jairo complaining that his engagement to her was a “business necessity.” He promised Alyssia that as soon as the company went public, he would break things off with Denice and marry her.
    Denice’s vision blurred. She bit down hard on her lip, the taste of blood a sharp counterpoint to the nausea churning in her stomach. The man she had loved for eight years, the man she had abandoned her family and birthright for, the man she had helped build from nothing… he had been using her as a tool.
    A new message from Alyssia appeared in the chat log. It was a photo. Alyssia, smiling softly against the backdrop of the Hamptons shoreline.
    That was where Jairo had been last week for his “business trip.”
    Denice’s fingers, stiff and numb, moved to the browser history. She found Alyssia’s social media profile. It was private, but the profile picture was a silhouette of a blonde woman holding a young boy.
    She logged in using Jairo’s saved credentials. His account followed Alyssia’s.
    Instantly, a flood of images and videos filled the screen.
    There was Alyssia wearing the limited-edition couture gown Jairo had supposedly bought as an investment. There she was, wearing the watch Denice had picked out for Jairo’s thirtieth birthday. Posing in restaurants Denice had booked for them. Vacationing in resorts Denice had researched.
    Each photo was a knife, twisting in her heart.
    She clicked on a pinned video. The location was unmistakable. It was this very apartment. This very study.
    In the video, Alyssia was perched on the edge of Jairo’s desk, wearing nothing but his white dress shirt, her legs swinging playfully. She smiled at the camera, a sweet, provocative smile.
    The camera panned down to a small boy playing with blocks on the floor. He looked to be about four or five years old.
    “Connor, do you miss Daddy?” Alyssia’s voice was syrupy sweet.
    The boy looked up, his face a blur as the camera shook, but his happy cry was perfectly clear. “Daddy! When is Daddy bringing me and Mommy home?”
    “Soon, baby,” Alyssia cooed, her voice filled with the certainty of a winner. “Soon, we’ll be a family.”
    Denice slammed the laptop shut.
    The loud crack echoed in the cavernous room.
    She scrambled from the chair, stumbling into the master bathroom. She fell to her knees on the cold marble floor, dry heaving. Nothing came up but the bitter taste of bile.
    She looked up, catching her reflection in the mirror. Her face was pale, streaked with tears she hadn’t realized she was crying. The last trace of love in her eyes was extinguished, replaced by an absolute, chilling cold.
    In a world she never knew existed, she was the villain standing in the way of their “true love.”
    Her phone buzzed on the bathroom counter. A text from Jairo.
    “Still working, baby? Get some rest. Love you.”
    The words “Love you” were so obscene, so disgusting, she felt another wave of nausea.
    She took a deep, shuddering breath, wiping the tears from her face. Her eyes were unnervingly calm now.
    She stood up, straightened her clothes, and walked back into the study.
    She didn’t delete a single file. She simply returned the laptop to its sleep state, as if nothing had happened.
    She reopened her laptop, her movements becoming precise and detached. She returned to Alyssia’s social media page, digging deeper, past the public facade. Inside a private photo album labeled “Family” — the password, absurdly, was Jairo’s birthday — she found it.
    A photo of Jairo holding the boy. Connor’s face was clearly visible. He was smiling, his eyes a deep, soulful brown, perfectly mirroring Jairo’s eyes.
    She found another scanned PDF file, from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. A DNA paternity test. She zoomed in on the results. Probability of paternity: 99.99%. Father: Jairo Slater. Child: Connor Stuart.
    She stared at the black text until it blurred. Her lungs finally expanded as she drew in a long, ragged breath. She closed her laptop.
    Jairo hadn’t just stolen her money. He had stolen her life. And now, she was going to destroy his.

    The Jilted Heiress And Her Spectacular Comeback Chapter 2

    Denice slumped into the leather chair in Jairo’s study.
    Her chest rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm. No tears. Crying was a physical response to pain, and at this moment, she felt none. Instead, she felt a cold, terrifying clarity.
    She took out her phone and connected it to the laptop.
    She dragged all the chat logs, photos, videos, bank transfer receipts, and the DNA report into her highly encrypted cloud drive. When the progress bar reached one hundred percent, she titled the folder: “Reckoning.” Then she unplugged the USB, cleared the system access logs, and shut the laptop.
    She took a deep breath, the air burning her lungs, and pressed the call button.
    The dial tone echoed in the dead-silent room, each ring a hammer blow solidifying her resolve.
    After three rings, a woman’s voice answered, elegant and imperious, with a sharp edge of impatience. “Denice? Do you have any idea what time it is?”
    It was her mother, Eleanor Montgomery, the true matriarch of the Montgomery family. Since Denice had walked out eight years ago for Jairo, their conversations had been brief and cold.
    Denice ignored the reprimand. “It’s over between Jairo Slater and me.”
    A long silence stretched from the other end of the line. Denice could picture her mother perfectly: one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised, assessing the information.
    Finally, Eleanor’s voice returned, laced with a faint, unmistakable thread of satisfaction. “A wise decision. Albeit eight years too late.”
    Denice didn’t argue. She cut straight to the point. “A few years ago, you mentioned a business arrangement… a marriage alliance with the Collins family. Is that offer still on the table?”
    Another silence, this one weighted with calculation. The Collins family. Kings among New York’s new money, their power was immense, enough to elevate the Montgomery’s old-money empire to new heights.
    “Culver Collins is not an easy man to handle,” Eleanor said slowly. “Are you sure you’re prepared for that?”
    A cold smile touched Denice’s lips. “I only need his name and his resources, Mother. As for affection, I no longer have a use for that sort of thing.”
    That seemed to please Eleanor. To her, emotion was the most useless commodity in the world of business. “Very well,” she replied briskly. “I’ll make the arrangements. Vincent Hayes, Mr. Collins’s executive assistant, will contact you tomorrow morning at ten.”
    The call ended. Denice lowered the phone, feeling a profound, hollowed-out exhaustion. Her relationship with her family was just another transaction.
    She turned back to Jairo’s computer, scrolling through Alyssia’s social media again.
    She noticed a post where Alyssia thanked an “anonymous Ivy League benefactor” for the scholarship that allowed her to finish her degree, accompanied by a photo of her and Jairo on the Yale campus.
    A flicker of confusion crossed Denice’s mind. She remembered Jairo taking a short course at Yale around the same time. She had even encouraged him to apply for an anonymous grant. A coincidence?
    She didn’t dwell on it, but a gut feeling told her something was wrong with this woman. She took a screenshot and saved it to a new, encrypted folder on her cloud drive. The folder was titled: “Reckoning.”
    She stood and walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows.
    She twisted the engagement ring off her finger. The diamond Jairo had given her, once her most treasured possession.
    She didn’t throw it. She didn’t smash it.
    She walked to the desk and casually tossed it into the back of a drawer, where it landed with a soft clink among discarded pens and paperclips.
    With that done, an unprecedented calm settled over her. She walked into the bedroom. Jairo was still fast asleep in the guest room.
    She opened her closet, filled with the muted, conservative clothes she’d bought to suit Jairo’s taste for a “low-key” partner.
    Her eyes scanned past them, landing on a garment bag tucked away in the very back. It was the only piece of couture she had brought with her when she left home, the last dress she had worn as a Montgomery heir.
    She unzipped the bag. A cascade of shimmering, dark blue silk, embroidered with crystals was revealed.
    She took out her phone and sent a text to her personal assistant. “Chloe, have all of my clothes and jewelry in storage sent over. Yes, all of it.”
    Then, she walked into the bathroom and began to remove her makeup.
    She turned on the shower, the hot water washing over her skin, as if it could cleanse her of eight years of foolishness and naivety.
    She closed her eyes. The faces of Jairo and Alyssia, and the boy named Connor, were seared into her mind.
    She would not let them have their happiness. She would make them pay the steepest price for what they had done.
    Outside the bathroom door, her phone lit up. A new email notification glowed on the screen.
    Subject: Meeting with Mr. Collins. From: Vincent Hayes.

    The Jilted Heiress And Her Spectacular Comeback Chapter 3

    Denice sat in the small, temporary office Jairo had set up for her at Slater Dynamics, a place for her to handle his “miscellaneous” tasks. She glanced down at the diamond on her finger—a ring she had fished out of the drawer this morning, not as a symbol of love, but as a weapon for the performance ahead. The employees who walked by cast glances at her, a mixture of pity and poorly concealed schadenfreude.
    They had all heard the rumors about Jairo and some woman named Alyssia. They all thought Denice was the poor, clueless fiancée.
    She ignored their stares. She opened the project management software on her desktop and located the file for a core project codenamed “Phoenix.”
    It was the company’s key to profitability for the next quarter, a plan she had spent countless sleepless nights perfecting. Jairo had staked his reputation on it.
    She moved the mouse. Without a flicker of hesitation, she clicked the “Terminate Project” button.
    In the reason-for-termination field, she typed: “Core design contains irreparable flaws.”
    A system prompt appeared, warning that the action was irreversible.
    She clicked “Confirm.”
    The entire project vanished from everyone’s worklist.
    Almost instantly, her phone began to scream, the screen flashing with Jairo’s name.
    She didn’t answer. She declined the call, switched her phone to silent, and tossed it onto the desk.
    The office was suddenly quiet. Everyone was stunned by what she had just done. Whispers erupted. “Is she crazy? That’s the Phoenix project!”
    Denice stood up, picked up her handbag, and prepared to leave. Her sole purpose for coming here today was complete.
    Just as she reached the main entrance, the elevator doors opened on her floor. Denice looked up and saw a figure step out of the elevator. She immediately recognized the face—Alyssia.
    Alicia also saw Denise, having seen her photo in Jairo’s phone before.Her eyes widening in shock, followed by a flash of ugly, naked jealousy. But she quickly masked it, flashing a sickly sweet, triumphant smile.She wore an ill-fitting, off-season Chanel tweed suit that screamed “nouveau riche trying too hard.” She gripped a gaudy designer handbag. When she saw Denice in her deep-blue silk gown, her eyes widened in shock, followed by a flash of ugly, naked envy. But she quickly masked it, putting on a sickly sweet, triumphant smile.
    She straightened her back and puffed out her chest. She walked straight up to Denice, her voice cloyingly saccharine, laced with feigned innocence and gloating. “Miss Montgomery, are you here for Jairo? He’s probably busy right now. An urgent meeting came up.”
    Denice looked at her coldly, as if observing a pathetic, show-off insect. “I’m just here to take out the trash.” Her gaze flicked meaningfully toward Alyssia. A flicker of irritation crossed Alyssia’s face.
    Then Alyssia strode past Denice, deliberately trying to bump her with her shoulder. At that moment, Denice sidestepped. Alyssia’s footing wavered, and she stumbled backward in her cheap high heels. She lost her balance and landed hard on the hallway carpet, her Chanel bag spilling open, lipstick and receipts scattering everywhere.
    Denice looked down at her, her eyes icy cold. Alyssia’s eyes were bloodshot with anger and humiliation; she struggled to get up but fell back again. She pointed at Denice, her voice sharp enough to pierce the air: “You’re nothing but a stand‑in! Jairo doesn’t love you at all! He gave me fifty million dollars yesterday, and he’s going to marry me next month!”
    Denice looked down at her, who was slumped on the floor. “That Chanel suit is a spring 2019 outdated style,” Denice said, her voice flat and bored. “If you’re going to steal fifty million dollars, at least buy something that fits.”
    Alyssia’s face went pale. Her mouth opened and closed like a dying fish.
    “Remember your place, Miss Stuart.” Denice’s voice was soft but carried an unmistakable authority. “As long as this engagement ring is on my finger, I am Jairo’s legally recognized fiancée. And you,” she paused, letting her gaze sweep contemptuously from head to toe over Alyssia, “are nothing.”
    Without another glance, Denice turned and walked toward the elevator, leaving Alyssia staring after her elegant, resolute back. As the elevator doors slowly closed, Denice saw Alyssia’s face contort with rage.
    The elevator descended smoothly. Only then did the cold mask on Denice’s face crack, revealing a hint of weariness.
    Jairo’s calls and texts kept flooding her phone. Without a single glance, she cleared them all.
    She knew he must be frantic. The Phoenix Project was his biggest promise to his investors. But she also knew that he wouldn’t dare break up with her now. Not now. Because without her, he couldn’t explain the core design of the project to anyone. He needed her. And that was her greatest leverage.
    Stepping out of the office building, the New York sunlight felt harsh. Denice put on her sunglasses, hiding her eyes and every ounce of emotion within them.
    She hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address of one of New York’s most exclusive private clubs. She was going to see Culver Collins, heir to the Collins family. She needed a new, more powerful ally.
    The taxi merged into the flow of traffic. Denice leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes.
    She was going to make Jairo understand that he had lost far more than just a project.

    👉 CONTINUE READING

  • Too Late, Mr. Billionaire: Watch Me Shine novel by Juline Walden

    Too Late, Mr. Billionaire: Watch Me Shine novel by Juline Walden

    👉 READ NOW

    I spent a whole year trying to melt my billionaire husband’s icy heart, carefully planning our grand wedding reception.

    Then a trending news alert popped up: Augustine was spotted at the airport, intimately holding his childhood sweetheart, Bianca.

    When I frantically called him, he declined it and sent a cold text.

    “Don’t call.”

    At the family estate, he didn’t even acknowledge my existence. Instead, he announced that our wedding reception was canceled.

    “Bianca and I discussed it,” he stated flatly, as if she were the real wife.

    His aristocratic family just sneered at me. His aunt called me a classless gold digger, and his grandmother demanded I endure the humiliation to protect their public image.

    They even moved Bianca into our penthouse, redecorating the suite for her while I was barred from his office.

    For a year, I gave up my career and dreams, desperately molding myself into the perfect Mrs. Rhodes.

    I thought my devotion would eventually earn his respect, but to them, I was just a pathetic, temporary replacement keeping the seat warm.

    When I saw he had completely blocked me on social media, erasing me with a single click, my heart finally died.

    I didn’t cry or beg for his affection anymore.

    I packed my bags, walked out of that suffocating gilded cage, and sent him a simple text.

    “Let’s get a divorce.”

    I am done playing the tragic clown. This time, I’m taking my life back.

    👉 READ NOW

    Too Late, Mr. Billionaire: Watch Me Shine Chapter 1

    “Mr. Rhodes’s family crest will be hand-carved by a Michelin three-star chef.”
    The wedding planner, Mr. Price, gestured toward an illustration of an elaborate ice sculpture. His voice was slick with a practiced reverence that made Eve’s stomach tighten.
    She sat alone at a long polished table in the Vera Wang VIP suite. Spread before her were blueprints for a life she was supposed to want: samples of “ocean heart” themed china, photos of white roses flown in from France, fabric swatches for tablecloths.
    Across from her, an empty velvet chair seemed to mock her. It was where Augustine was supposed to be.
    “It looks perfect,” Eve said, forcing a smile that felt brittle on her lips. “Let’s go with that plan.”
    Mr. Price glanced at the Patek Philippe on his wrist. “Will Mr. Rhodes be joining us today? There are a few seating arrangements for the guests that require his personal confirmation.”
    Eve’s fingers tightened around her porcelain coffee cup. The heat did nothing to warm them. “He has an international conference call. He couldn’t get away.”
    The lie was smooth, practiced.
    “I can decide on the seating,” she added, her voice quiet but firm.
    A flicker of understanding—and something like pity—crossed Mr. Price’s face before it was masked by a professional smile. “Of course. You are the lady of the house.”
    He said the words, but his hand subtly pushed a guest list marked “Top Priority” to the center of the table. The message was clear. Some decisions were above her pay grade.
    Eve’s gaze swept over the names. Vanderbilt. Rockefeller. The weight of centuries of old money pressed down on her. The air in the room felt thin.
    She took a slow breath and began. “The Astors will be at table three, with the Carnegies. They summer together.”
    She moved through the list, her memory sharp, her arrangements flawless. Mr. Price’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.
    Two hours later, every detail was finalized. Augustine’s phone had gone unanswered the entire time.
    Then, a text.
    I’m busy. You decide.
    The words were cold, efficient. A tiny, sharp pain pierced through the numbness in her chest.
    She typed out a reply: Okay. Rest early.
    Her thumb hovered over the send button. The sentence looked pathetic. Needy.
    She deleted it.
    OK.
    She hit send.
    Outside, the cool New York evening air was a welcome shock to her skin. She dismissed the driver, needing to walk, to feel the hard pavement under her feet.
    Fifth Avenue’s glittering windows showcased jewels and gowns, each one a silent testament to a fantasy she was failing to live.
    She ducked into a small café, the warmth a temporary comfort. Her phone buzzed. It was her best friend, Chloe Hayes.
    You okay, honey? Don’t wear yourself out.
    Eve typed back a smiling emoji. I’m fine. Everything’s going smoothly.
    She opened her news app, scrolling to the finance section. It was one of the few ways she tried to understand Augustine’s world.
    A push notification flashed across the top of her screen. An entertainment headline.
    Billionaire Augustine Rhodes, Wedding Imminent, Spotted with Mystery Blonde at Airport!
    Her breath caught. It had to be a mistake. Clickbait.
    She tapped the link.
    The air left her lungs. Her blood turned to ice.
    The photo was brutally clear. Augustine, in the VIP airport terminal, wearing the dark grey overcoat she had picked out for him that morning. But he wasn’t wearing the tie she’d matched with it.
    He was angled slightly, shielding a woman from the imagined press. His hand rested on the small of her back, a gesture of casual, confident possession.
    The woman, a cascade of brilliant blonde hair, wore sunglasses but her smile was radiant. She was pressed against his side, a perfect fit.
    Eve knew her instantly. Bianca Cherry.
    Augustine’s childhood sweetheart. The one the Rhodes family had always wanted for him. The one who had left for Paris three years ago.
    The caption beneath the photo read: A source reveals Ms. Cherry’s return may be to reclaim what was rightfully hers.
    The warm café air grew thin, suffocating. A wave of dizziness washed over her. The phone slipped from her grasp, clattering onto the small table.
    Heads turned. Eve didn’t notice. Her world had shrunk to that single, damning photograph and the words: reclaim what was rightfully hers.
    She scrambled to her feet, grabbing her purse and phone, and stumbled out of the café, desperate to escape the unseen eyes, the silent judgment.
    She dialed Augustine’s number.
    This time, it didn’t just ring.
    It was declined.
    A second later, a text from him appeared.
    Don’t call.
    Eve stood frozen on the bustling sidewalk, the city’s vibrant life a blur of noise and light. She was a clown in a tragedy only she was performing in.
    She remembered their wedding day, a year ago. The contract. “Our marriage is a business arrangement,” he had told her, his blue eyes as cold as a winter sky. “Don’t have any expectations of me.”
    She had been so naive, thinking she could melt the ice.
    Now she understood. The ice wasn’t meant to be melted. His spring just belonged to someone else.
    Her phone rang again. The caller ID read: Mrs. Davis. The housekeeper.
    Her hand trembled as she answered.
    “Ma’am?” Mrs. Davis’s voice was hesitant. “Will you be returning for dinner? Mr. Rhodes… he will not be coming home tonight either.”

    Too Late, Mr. Billionaire: Watch Me Shine Chapter 2

    The morning sun streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the silent air. Eve sat on the sprawling white sofa, a cashmere throw clutched around her shoulders. The coffee on the table in front of her was cold. She hadn’t slept.
    The penthouse was so quiet she could hear the ticking of the minimalist clock on the wall. The door to the master bedroom, his bedroom, remained closed. An unbreached fortress.
    She picked up her phone. The screen glowed with yesterday’s news. She mechanically refreshed the page.
    More photos had appeared. A video.
    Augustine and Bianca at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Bianca, laughing, reached across the table to adjust his tie. He didn’t pull away.
    The comments section was a viper’s nest.
    “OMG, they look so perfect together!”
    “Who is this Eve Clarke person? A temporary replacement?”
    “Poor girl. Just another casualty of a dynastic marriage.”
    The word “replacement” made her stomach clench. She shut off the phone, the screen going dark like a closing eye.
    She stood up and walked into the kitchen. Her body moved on autopilot, pulling out the ingredients for Augustine’s breakfast. Freshly squeezed orange juice. The specific brand of Irish oatmeal he preferred. It was a pathetic, ingrained habit, a ritual for a god who never showed up.
    Mrs. Davis entered the kitchen, her kind face etched with worry. “Ma’am, you…”
    “I’m fine, Mrs. Davis,” Eve said, her voice a hollow echo of itself. “Just a bad night’s sleep.” She packed the oatmeal into a thermal container. “If Mr. Rhodes comes back, please make sure he eats this.”
    The housekeeper’s eyes were filled with a deep, sorrowful pity. “Of course, ma’am.”
    Eve went to the walk-in closet to get dressed. Her clothes occupied one side, his the other. A stark, physical representation of their lives. Separate. Untouching.
    She decided to go to his office. It was something she had never done before, showing up unannounced. A violation of their unspoken rules.
    At the gleaming lobby of Rhodes Tower, the receptionist stopped her with a polite, impenetrable smile. “I’m sorry, Ms. Clarke. Without an appointment, I can’t let you up. Mr. Rhodes is in a very important meeting.”
    “I’m his wife,” Eve said, the words tasting like ash in her mouth.
    The receptionist’s smile didn’t waver. “We’re aware, but company policy is absolute.”
    It was the ultimate humiliation. His wife. Barred from entry like a common stranger.
    Just as she was about to turn away, defeated, Augustine’s executive assistant appeared. He was impeccably dressed, his expression neutral.
    “Ms. Clarke,” he said smoothly. “Mr. Rhodes asked me to convey a message. He said that all wedding matters are at your discretion. He has complete faith in your taste.”
    The words were a perfectly constructed wall, blocking any possibility of a real conversation. He was managing her. Handling her.
    Eve walked out of the building, the city’s noise a dull roar in her ears. She felt like a joke. The whole world knew her husband was with another woman, and she, the wife, couldn’t even get past his front desk.
    She sat in her car for a long time, the engine off. Her phone vibrated.
    The screen read: Eleanor Rhodes.
    Augustine’s grandmother. The matriarch.
    Eve took a deep, steadying breath and answered. “Grandmother.”
    Eleanor’s voice was warm, like aged whiskey. “Eve, my dear. I saw the news. Don’t you pay it any mind. Augustine has his moods, and men will be men. Your wedding is what’s important.”
    The words were meant to be soothing, but they felt like ice water. Eleanor wasn’t concerned about Eve’s pain. She was concerned about the wedding. The family’s image.
    “This weekend, I want you to come to the estate,” Eleanor continued, her tone shifting from gentle to commanding. “We’ll have a family meeting. Settle these details once and for all.”
    It wasn’t a request.
    “Yes, Grandmother,” Eve murmured.
    Hanging up, a profound sense of powerlessness washed over her. In this marriage, everyone cared about the title “Mrs. Rhodes.” No one cared about Eve.
    On the drive home, she passed a newsstand. The front page of a tabloid featured a large photo of Augustine and Bianca, side-by-side. The headline screamed: OLD FLAME RETURNS, WHERE IS THE NEW WIFE?
    Eve slammed on the brakes, pulling the car over to the curb. She rested her forehead against the steering wheel, her shoulders shaking with silent, wracking sobs.
    After a few minutes, her phone rang again.
    The name on the screen made her heart leap with a stupid, desperate hope.
    Augustine.
    She snatched it up. “Hello?”
    His voice was low and devoid of any emotion. “I heard you came to the office today.”
    Her lips parted. She wanted to scream, to ask about the photos, about Bianca, about where he was last night.
    But all that came out was a weak “I… I just wanted to talk to you.”
    “There’s nothing to talk about,” he cut in, his voice sharp with impatience. “Don’t do that again. It’s disruptive. I won’t be home tonight. Make your own arrangements.”
    The line went dead.
    Eve held the silent phone to her ear, staring blankly through the windshield. The last, flickering ember of hope had been extinguished.

    Too Late, Mr. Billionaire: Watch Me Shine Chapter 3

    The Rhodes family estate on Long Island was a monument of old stone and older money. When the butler led Eve into the grand drawing room, Augustine was already there, seated in a wingback chair, coolly flipping through a financial journal.
    He didn’t look up. He didn’t acknowledge her existence.
    The familiar sting of his indifference was dulled by a growing numbness. Eve sat on a sofa as far away from him as possible, her posture rigid.
    A moment later, Augustine’s aunt, Caroline Rhodes, descended the grand staircase. She was a severe woman in a Chanel suit, her face a mask of perpetual disapproval. Her eyes, sharp as a hawk’s, raked over Eve from head to toe, lingering on the simple, off-the-rack dress Eve wore. A faint, contemptuous smile touched her lips.
    Finally, Eleanor Rhodes entered, leaning lightly on a silver-handled cane. She took her seat at the head of the room, and an immediate, heavy silence fell.
    “I’ve had the public relations team handle the news,” Eleanor began, her gaze sweeping over Augustine and Eve. “Augustine, be more discreet in the future. The Rhodes family cannot afford any negative press before this wedding is finalized.”
    Her words were a reprimand for Augustine, but Eve heard the true emphasis: before the wedding is finalized. The act itself didn’t matter, only the timing.
    Augustine grunted in assent, his eyes still fixed on his journal.
    Caroline let out a sharp, derisive laugh. “You’re too soft, Grandmother. Some people are simply not fit to carry the Rhodes name. If she can’t even keep her own husband in line, what good is she?”
    Eve’s body went rigid. Her nails dug into the soft skin of her palms. She knew Caroline was talking about her.
    She said nothing, just lowered her gaze to her lap, where her hands were clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists.
    Her silence seemed to infuriate Caroline further. “Can’t even speak for herself. Utterly lacking in breeding.”
    “That’s enough,” Augustine said, finally lowering his journal. His brow was furrowed, not in defense of Eve, but in annoyance at the disruption.
    He turned his cold, blue eyes on Eve. His voice was flat, like a CEO announcing a corporate restructuring.
    “Bianca and I have discussed it. To prevent further media speculation, we’ve decided that the wedding reception… will be postponed indefinitely.”
    Indefinitely. A polite word for canceled.
    The reception she had spent months planning, the one that was supposed to celebrate their union, was being erased by a single sentence. A decision he had made with her.
    Eve’s mind went blank. She stared at him, her voice a disbelieving whisper. “You discussed it with who?”
    “Bianca,” he replied, his expression unreadable. “She is one of the parties involved in the media narrative. It was logical to get her input.”
    Caroline let out a triumphant little scoff. “Did you hear that? Auggie discusses his decisions with Bianca. They are a team. What are you?”
    The blood rushed to Eve’s head, then drained away, leaving her hands and feet icy cold. Her wedding. Her husband. Discussing its cancellation with another woman. The humiliation was a physical blow.
    She stood up, her legs trembling slightly. She looked directly at Augustine. “So, in your mind, she is your family, isn’t she?”
    A flicker of something—annoyance, perhaps—crossed his face. He looked away, refusing to answer.
    His silence was the most brutal confirmation of all.
    Eleanor tapped her cane on the thick Persian rug. “Enough. The matter is settled. A postponement is wise. It will prevent further complications.”
    Eve looked around the opulent room. The cold husband, the vicious aunt, the calculating grandmother. She was an intruder in their world, a laughable, temporary fixture.
    She didn’t say another word. She turned, straightened her spine, and walked out of the suffocating room.
    Behind her, she heard Caroline’s parting shot, “No manners at all.”
    The winter sun outside felt as cold as the drawing room. She got into her car, started the engine, and pressed the accelerator, fleeing the gilded cage.
    Only when she was on the highway did she realize her vision was blurred by tears.
    She pulled over onto the shoulder, dropped her head to the steering wheel, and finally let the sobs come. Months of quiet desperation, of forced smiles and swallowed pain, erupted in a raw, ragged storm.
    When the tears subsided, she looked at the diamond ring on her left hand. It was a beautiful, brilliant lie. It mocked her.
    With a choked cry of frustration, she yanked it off her finger. Her hand flew up, ready to hurl it out the window. But it stopped, trembling, halfway.
    Defeated, she unclenched her fist and shoved the ring deep into the pocket of her coat.
    After the storm of tears came a vast, hollow emptiness. She wiped her face, her eyes strangely calm. She started the car again.
    But she wasn’t driving back to the penthouse.
    She was driving to the one place she hadn’t been in a year. Her grandmother’s house.
    As she made the turn, a feeling she hadn’t experienced in a long time washed over her.
    Relief.

    👉 CONTINUE READING

  • He Chose Her, I Chose Myself novel by Xiu Luo

    He Chose Her, I Chose Myself novel by Xiu Luo

    👉 READ NOW

    Just a few weeks before my wedding to Hudson, his ex-girlfriend moved in next door to us.

    She constantly made a huge deal out of the fact that her father had sacrificed his life to save Hudson, and even destroyed my wedding dress, yet Hudson just stood by and comforted her.

    Just as I secretly found out I was pregnant, he publicly announced that he was going to hold a “fake wedding” with her, claiming it was for her psychological therapy.

    This news quickly went viral online, sparking the fury of netizens who even ganged up to attack me, causing me to fall to the ground and bleed heavily.

    I lost our child, and the doctor told me that my hopes of ever becoming a mother again were almost completely destroyed.

    As I lay in the hospital bed, my heart completely dead inside, Hudson appeared in the ward.

    “Please understand why I have to hold this fake wedding for her.”

    He begged me to support his fake wedding, and my heart was thoroughly shattered.

    After he left, I immediately packed my bags, contacted the wedding venue, and changed the groom’s name to the man who had always stood by me through thick and thin.

    When he found out about this, he actually went crazy trying to win me back at all costs!

    👉 READ NOW

    He Chose Her, I Chose Myself novel Chapter 1

    Caitlin’s POV
    Just a few weeks left until my wedding, but a wave of icy dread gripped me tightly. It all started the day Bella Peterson moved into our apartment building.
    Of course, I knew her name. My fiancé, Hudson Rice, had always harbored a deep sense of guilt toward her—her firefighter father had sacrificed his life to save Hudson years ago.
    That afternoon, I was walking my golden retriever in the apartment building’s private garden. Suddenly, it excitedly broke free from the leash, ran over to the rose bushes, and nudged out a shivering white stray cat with its nose.
    As I gently stroked its fur, I noticed a small silver tag on its collar. Engraved on the silver tag was the word, “Snowflake.”
    I flipped the tag over, and sure enough, there was a number engraved on the back, along with a brief message: “This is my kitty. If found, please contact me, thank you so much. —Bella.”
    My breath hitched. Bella? The name echoed in my mind, and I had a very bad premonition.
    “Snowflake!” A soft voice broke the tranquility of the garden.
    I looked up. A few yards away stood a woman with long, jet-black hair. She was younger than I had imagined, possessing an almost fragile quality.
    “Oh, Snowflake, my little baby!” She gathered the cat into her arms, hugging it tightly. The cat let out a loud purr, clearly enjoying the feeling of being back in its owner’s embrace.
    “Thank you, thank you! I was so worried. I just moved in here, and she ran out. I didn’t even know what to do.”
    “It’s nothing. She is a beautiful cat.”
    “I’m Bella Peterson.”
    “Caitlin Norris.” I wore an increasingly stiff smile, my mind in utter chaos.
    Bella Peterson. This couldn’t be a coincidence. This was Hudson’s ex-girlfriend, whose father had died saving him.
    “It’s nice to meet you, Caitlin,” Bella said, her eyes still fixed on the cat in her arms. “You are so kind.” She looked up, her gaze meeting mine. “Norris… that last name sounds a bit familiar. Do you live nearby?”
    “Yes, I live here.”
    We walked toward the apartment building entrance together, but the unease in my heart grew heavier.
    “I just moved back from abroad and rented a unit in this building.”
    “Rented an apartment in this building?” I asked, unable to stop myself from taking a sharp breath. This building was one of the most luxurious apartments in the whole city, and the rent was terrifyingly high.
    Bella smiled, a fragile smile that seemed to hide an unspeakable sorrow. “Yes. This building is beautiful. And… it’s close to my past.” She paused, her eyes dimming.
    “You wouldn’t happen to know Hudson, would you?” I tried to make my voice sound casual, but my curiosity was intense.
    Bella just offered a small, meaningful smile. “Yes, and Hudson has actually mentioned you to me, saying you are very understanding.”
    “Oh, really?” I forced a very strained smile.
    The elevator doors opened, and we both simultaneously pressed “15.”
    “Well, I’m here.” She walked toward the door of 1503, but just as she reached it, the door of 1502 opened.
    Hudson stood there, dressed in casual clothes, his hair slightly messy. He held a bag of groceries in his hand, a small smile on his face.
    He looked at me, and then his gaze landed on Bella.
    His smile vanished, and he was so surprised that the grocery bag almost slipped from his hand.
    Seeing Hudson, Bella froze in place. Snowflake, still in her arms, let out a soft meow.
    Bella’s eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip began to tremble.
    Time seemed to stretch out. I stood between them, feeling like a redundant outsider. The silence was suffocating.
    “Hudson,” I said, my voice flat. “You know Bella, right?”
    Hudson blinked, as if waking from a dream. He looked at me, then at Bella, a complex and conflicted expression surfacing on his face. “Bella, what are you doing here?”
    Bella nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek. “Yes, Hudson.”
    “I need to lie down for a bit,” I said, my hands trembling as I unlocked my apartment door. Shaking, I closed the door behind me, shutting out that oppressive scene.
    Through the thick door, I heard Bella go from soft sobbing to heart-wrenching, agonizing wailing.
    “Bella, shh, it’s okay now.” I heard Hudson’s voice, deep and gentle.
    The crying gradually subsided, turning into soft whispers. The hallway finally fell silent.
    I don’t know how much time passed before I gently cracked the door open. The hallway was empty, and the door to 1503 was shut tight. Hudson and Bella were inside, a lone man and a lone woman.
    The future I had so carefully planned completely collapsed in this very moment.

    He Chose Her, I Chose Myself novel Chapter 2

    Caitlin’s POV
    Despite the world outside turning upside down, I desperately tried to maintain a pathetic sense of dignity inside the apartment. The wedding was fast approaching, and my wedding dress was still waiting for my final fitting.
    I clung desperately to these anchors of the future, constantly brainwashing myself: Hudson is just acting out of survivor’s guilt. He won’t abandon me. As long as he helps Bella stabilize her emotions, we can get back on track.
    Late that night, Hudson finally returned to the apartment. I pretended to be asleep, listening to him tiptoe into bed, my body stiff and my breathing heavy.
    The next morning at the breakfast table, I decided to break the ice. “So, Bella moved in next door to us.”
    Hudson’s hand trembled, and he nearly spilled his coffee. He didn’t dare look at me, his face full of guilt. “Yeah, it’s… it’s complicated, Caitlin.”
    “Indeed. She cried terribly yesterday, and you were busy comforting her next door.” My tone was sharp.
    Hudson ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “She had an emotional breakdown yesterday, it was really serious! Her therapist suggested she move somewhere she feels safe. She had no idea we lived here.”
    “Her therapist suggested she move next door to the ex-boyfriend whose life her father saved?” I raised an eyebrow, the skepticism in my tone barely concealed.
    Hudson finally looked at me, his eyes full of pleading. “Caitlin, please. She’s not doing well, her mental state is very fragile. We can’t just abandon her. Her father… he sacrificed himself to save me. I owe her.”
    “You do owe her.” I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to maintain that “understanding” facade he had praised. “But what about our wedding? The final fitting for the wedding dress is next Tuesday. Are you still going?”
    He hesitated for a long second, a second so long it made my skin crawl. “Of course,” he finally promised. “Everything goes according to plan. Bella will get better, we just need to take care of her feelings a little bit.”
    I nodded, but my heart shattered piece by piece. That night, Hudson tossed and turned in his sleep, muttering a name under his breath. I couldn’t hear it clearly, but I knew for a fact it wasn’t “Caitlin.”
    Next Tuesday, I arrived at the bridal boutique with anxious anticipation. It was an ivory silk wedding dress designed specifically for me, with hand-sewn pearls and lace perfectly matched.
    The moment I put it on, I felt as if I saw the reflection of happiness once again.
    The boutique owner, Mrs. Albright, looked at me with absolute awe. “It’s too beautiful, Caitlin! Hudson is going to be head over heels for you.”
    Just as I was handing the dress back, my phone buzzed. A text from Hudson came in: “Going to be late. Bella had another episode, I have to rush over to her now.”
    My heart plunged into an ice cellar. Bella again. Always Bella.
    Then, Bella stood in the middle of the store. Her eyes were bloodshot, her gaze frantic, and in her hand, she tightly gripped a pair of sharp, heavy tailor’s scissors. Mannequins around her were knocked over, and high-end fabrics were scattered all over the floor.
    “She wants to destroy everything!” Bella screamed, her eyes locked onto the wedding dress hanging on the rack.
    The next second, her eyes ignited with the mad fire of jealousy. “What right do you have to have him! What right do you have to steal our life!”
    Before I could react, she lunged forward like a lunatic. The owner screamed and dodged out of the way, while I froze in place.
    The cold steel of the scissors flashed.
    Riiip—
    The silk was slashed, the lace was torn, and pearls bounced all over the floor. Bella frantically wielded the scissors, shredding the wedding dress of my dreams into pieces, cut by cut.
    “Stop!” I finally screamed at the top of my lungs, but it was too late.
    After the destruction was complete, the scissors clattered to the floor. She fell to her knees amidst the shredded fabric, trembling all over as she began to sob delicately.
    Bang! The door burst open, and Hudson rushed in, looking panicked. He surveyed the chaotic store, me standing with the shredded dress, and Bella kneeling on the floor.
    His gaze briefly met mine, revealing a fleeting trace of helpless apology.
    But that look vanished in an instant. His eyes immediately darted to Bella. “Bella! Are you okay?” He knelt beside her, pulled her into his arms, and comforted her.
    “We have to call the police,” the owner said, trembling.
    “No need.” I was surprisingly calm, my cold gaze locked on Hudson and Bella. He was still holding her, and Bella had buried her face in his shoulder, crying pitifully. He was heartbroken, but his heartbreak existed only for her.
    Customers around us gathered and whispered, and some even took out their phones to record. I had become the most pathetic clown in this farce.
    “Caitlin, I can rush to make you a new dress, or try my best to repair this one…” the owner suggested cautiously.
    “No need.” I cut her off decisively. What was destroyed wasn’t the dress, it was this damn marriage. “I will pay for all the damages, settle the bill for me.”
    Without any lingering attachment, I turned and walked out of the bridal boutique. The cold wind hit my face, and not only did it fail to blow away the pain in my chest, but it also made me completely sober.
    I didn’t return to that so-called home. I didn’t want to hear any of Hudson’s hypocritical apologies and excuses.
    I took a taxi straight to an unfamiliar private hospital.
    A nameless fear haunted my heart, making me instinctively place my hand over my still-flat lower abdomen.
    I had to confirm whether my child was still safe and sound.

    He Chose Her, I Chose Myself novel Chapter 3

    Caitlin’s POV
    The cold white fluorescent lights of the clinic buzzed overhead. I lay on the examination table, my heart pounding with anxiety. Dr. Evans finally straightened up, a gentle smile appearing on her face.
    “Caitlin, although it’s still very early, everything is completely normal.” She pointed to the blurry image on the screen. “Here is the heartbeat. It’s strong and steady.”
    A sense of profound relief brought tears to my eyes instantly. My child, this fragile little life, was still stubbornly surviving after experiencing the chaos, the betrayal, and the shredded wedding dress.
    “Thank you, Doctor,” I choked out. “Thank you so much.”
    Dr. Evans handed me a tissue. “Congratulations, this is wonderful news. Have you told the child’s father?”
    The smile on my face froze. Tell Hudson? Share this sacred joy with him? It felt like an absolute fantasy. All of his attention, sympathy, and his entire being had already been completely swallowed up by Bella.
    How could I dare entrust this precious secret to a man who couldn’t even protect my wedding dress or my dignity?
    “Not yet,” I said, my voice dropping. “Too much has happened, I’m not ready yet.”
    Dr. Evans nodded, her eyes showing understanding, but she also became more serious. “Take your time. But given your past medical history, you must avoid any stress or physical exertion. We will monitor your condition closely.”
    Her reminder awakened my deepest fears. Two heartbreaking miscarriage experiences. When I lost the first one, Hudson held me and cried for days; but the second, late-term miscarriage a few years later almost drained all of our energy.
    Since then, a layer of cautious distance had grown between us. I was afraid to embrace hope again, and perhaps he was afraid of facing loss again.
    Her reminder awakened my deepest fears, two heartbreaking miscarriage experiences. When I lost the first one, Hudson held me and cried for days; but the second, late-term miscarriage a few years later almost drained all of our energy. Since then, a layer of cautious distance had grown between us. I was afraid to embrace hope again, and perhaps he was afraid of facing loss again.
    And now, with a new life awakening inside me, I couldn’t bear another blow.
    Especially right now, with Hudson deeply entangled in Bella’s drama and completely ignoring me, it was highly likely he would treat this child as an unmanageable burden.
    Leaving the clinic and returning to the apartment building, I didn’t go upstairs. Instead, I hid in the lounge area. I needed time to digest all of this.
    My phone buzzed. It was a news push notification. Glancing at the screen, I started shaking with anger.
    My face—that face covered in tear stains and shock inside the bridal boutique—was glaringly displayed on the cover of a viral video.
    The video clearly captured the footage of Bella frantically shredding my wedding dress, and the most piercing scene of all: Hudson holding Bella tightly to comfort her, while I was left hanging to the side like a pathetic joke.
    The title was highly inflammatory: “Homewrecker Caitlin Finally Gets Her Just Desserts! Bella Fights Back to Reclaim True Love Hudson!”
    With stiff fingers, I scrolled through the comment section. The internet had thoroughly nailed me to the pillar of shame.
    “Oh my god, poor Bella! She’s been through so much. Caitlin is obviously a gold digger trying to steal Hudson away.”
    “Hudson and Bella are a match made in heaven. Caitlin should step aside.”
    “Look at Caitlin’s expression, she’s so damn cold. Bella is clearly heartbroken. This woman is simply a monster.”
    “Her father sacrificed himself to save Hudson! How can Caitlin be so cold-blooded?”
    The direction of public opinion was ruthless and twisted.
    Netizens quickly dug up Bella’s tragic background: the daughter of a hero firefighter, a genius artist deeply traumatized by her father’s sacrifice. Rumor had it she had received psychological treatment abroad and had now returned covered in scars, only to face the vicious woman who had stolen her high school sweetheart.
    Bella, the tragic hometown goddess. Hudson, the hero tortured by conflict, forced to bear a debt of gratitude he could never repay. And me, Caitlin Norris, the vicious homewrecker.
    The comments grew increasingly malicious, demanding that I leave, slapping all sorts of labels on me, and even starting to send threatening messages. An online campaign to support Bella had already begun.
    Late that night, Hudson finally came back. He saw me sitting alone in the unlit living room, the cold light of my laptop screen reflecting those vicious insults.
    Looking utterly exhausted, he sat down next to me. His hand hovered in mid-air, but ultimately, he didn’t touch me. “Caitlin, I’m sorry about today. Bella completely broke down. Her therapist just finished checking her into the hospital.”
    “So you were with her the whole time,” I stated coldly.
    He sighed. “She kept crying and calling my name, refusing to let go. This building is too triggering for her, and seeing you made her break down even more. She misunderstood everything, thinking you wanted to steal me away from her.”
    “Misunderstood?” I laughed out of pure anger. “She shredded the wedding dress we were going to use for our marriage! And you held her in your arms, leaving me alone to watch my future turn into a pile of rags!”
    Hudson rubbed his face in agony. “I know how bad this looks! But she’s sick, and she only feels safe when she’s by my side! I know this is unfair to you, but I’m begging you, can you please just endure this for a little longer? Once she stabilizes, I promise everything will go back to normal. We will get married, I swear.”
    Looking at this face full of guilt, my heart hardened bit by bit.
    “Alright, Hudson,” I said in a low voice, a cold tear quietly slipping down. “I will endure it.”
    He let out a long sigh of relief, hugged me tightly, and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “Thank you, Caitlin, you are the most understanding woman I have ever met.”
    I closed my eyes in his embrace, letting my tears soak his shirt.
    He was so immersed in his “great responsibility” that he didn’t notice my despair at all. As long as Bella remained his first choice, I would always be the dispensable one!

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  • The Ex Wife’s Revenge novel by NovaBlaq

    The Ex Wife's Revenge novel by NovaBlaq

    👉 READ NOW

    My ex-husband’s mother never hid her contempt for me.
    She thought money could erase my existence and paid me five million to walk away from her son.
    “You’re beneath my son. Take the money and leave him.”
    She had no idea I was already sick of her cruelty. And even sicker of her spineless son.
    I accepted the money. Utterly devastated, of course.
    ~~~
    A month later, she was furious because I was dating her brother.
    “Ten million. Leave my brother alone.”
    I refused, intentionally trying to provoke her.
    She offered me twenty million this time and I accepted her offer.
    But she had no idea what I had in store for her. She had no idea what she started.

    👉 READ NOW

    The Ex Wife’s Revenge novel Chapter 1

    Nadia’s POV:
    Today was my husband, Dorian’s twenty-third birthday.
    It should have been a happy day. But it wasn’t. Happy days didn’t really exist inside the Hargrove mansion… at least not for me, anyway.
    I woke up early. The morning sun came through the curtains and landed on my face, and for one single second, before I was fully awake, I thought: today might be different. Then I heard the voices outside my bedroom door and I remembered where I was and who I was married to and nothing was different at all.
    It was barely past seven when the stylists arrived.
    Vivienne had sent them. She always sent them before any Hargrove event, because she didn’t trust me to dress myself. I’m not sure she trusted me to do anything, if I’m honest. Except breathe, maybe. And even then she was probably watching to make sure I did it correctly.
    I was sitting at my vanity in my robe when the bedroom door opened without a knock. Three women walked in, carrying bags and cases. Vivienne walked in behind them. She was already dressed. She stopped in the center of the room and looked at me. She didn’t say good morning.
    She just looked at my hair.
    “Careful with her hair,” she said, to the stylist. “It’s a bit thin, isn’t it?” She tilted her head slightly, as if she were studying a problem that needed solving. “Add extensions. Lots of them. I won’t have her walking around today looking like a peasant. My son is turning twenty-three. This party matters. I won’t have guests thinking I let him marry a woman who can’t even grow a decent head of hair.”
    The stylist nodded. She didn’t argue. She just agreed, which was what everyone did around Vivienne.
    “Yes, Mrs. Hargrove. I see exactly what you mean. We’ll fix it.”
    I looked at my own reflection in the mirror and said nothing.
    What was there to say? I had learned, a long time ago, that saying anything only made it worse. Silence was my armor.
    I sat in that chair for four hours.
    My neck ached from holding still. My head felt heavy from all the pins and clips they were pressing into my scalp. Every time I opened my mouth to say anything… even something harmless, like asking for a glass of water… Vivienne found a way to cut me off.
    “Don’t move your mouth, Nadia,” she said at one point. “The lipstick needs to be set perfectly. If you keep moving, we’ll have to start over. And we don’t have time to start over.”
    Then she looked at my waist in the mirror. She pressed her lips together.
    “That dress,” she said. “Well. It’s the best we could do, given your figure. It’s a shame you haven’t managed to lose that extra weight I mentioned to you in August. The silk is pulling at the waist. It makes you look…” She paused, as if searching for a word that was just polite enough to say out loud. “…fat and desperate. But then, I suppose that’s always been your problem. You’ve always tried a little too hard to belong in spaces that weren’t built for you.”
    I stared at my reflection. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my figure.
    The woman looking back at me looked expensive. Her hair was thick and glossy, her makeup was flawless, her dress was simple but elegant. She looked like she belonged at an event like this.
    But her eyes were empty. She looked like a doll that had been dressed by someone else.
    I didn’t recognize her at all. I didn’t recognize myself anymore.
    ~~~
    The party began at noon.
    The Hargrove garden had been decorated beautifully. The tables were covered in white linen and flowers that probably cost more than most people’s monthly rent. Servers in white jackets moved between the guests, offering champagne and tiny food arranged on silver trays.
    It was beautiful. Everything about the Hargrove world was beautiful. That was the worst part of it.
    I moved through the crowd slowly, holding a small box wrapped in gold paper. Inside was a watch, a vintage one I had spent three weeks searching for. I heard Dorian mentioning it once, almost a year ago. I remembered because I always paid attention to him more than he ever paid attention to me. I had thought it would mean something to him. I had thought that maybe, on his birthday, he might actually pay attention to me a little bit.
    I found him near the fountain.
    He looked good. He always looked good. His tuxedo was perfectly fitted. I walked up to him and touched his arm.
    “Dorian,” I said. My voice came out quieter than I intended. “Happy birthday, honey. I got you something. I spent a long time finding it. I thought maybe we could find a quiet corner for a minute so you could open it?”
    He didn’t look at the box. He didn’t look at me. His eyes were scanning the crowd over my shoulder, searching for someone or something more important.
    “Not now, Nadia.” He said. “Don’t try making today all about you please.”
    “But it’s your birthday. I just…”
    “I said not now.” His voice was firm. “My mother is standing in the sun. She might get a headache. I need to bring her a drink before she asks me twice. Just put the gift on the table with the other ones.”
    I looked at him, and tried to keep my voice even.
    “Dorian, there are over fifteen people here in white jackets whose entire job tonight is to carry drinks. Can’t you stay here for one minute? It’s your birthday. I just want to give you your gift.”
    His face tightened.
    “Don’t be selfish,” he said. He lowered his voice, not because he was worried about hurting my feelings, but because he didn’t want to create a scene. “She’s my mother, Nadia. Now stop making this about yourself and move out of the way. You’re blocking the path.”
    He walked right past me.
    He didn’t even brush my shoulder. He just stepped around me like I was a potted plant.
    I stood there with the gold box in my hands, and I breathed. In, out. In, out. I had gotten very good at breathing through moments like this. It was either that or cry, and I refused to give this garden the satisfaction of seeing my tears.
    I turned around to go find somewhere to sit, and that’s when I saw her.
    Lena was standing about ten feet away, right where Dorian was heading. She was tall, with cheekbones. She had been introduced to Dorian by Vivienne a few months ago… a model from a good family, Vivienne had said, as if she were presenting a business proposal. I smiled at that introduction. Because I knew exactly what she was trying to do.
    Lena was laughing at something now, her head thrown back, her hand reaching out to touch Dorian’s arm. He was laughing back. He looked alive in a way I hadn’t seen in three years of being married to him.
    Something moved through my chest. And I walked over to them.
    I wasn’t going to stand in the shadows and watch my husband laugh with another woman at his birthday party. I wrapped my arm through Dorian’s and stepped in close. I made sure my wedding ring was visible.
    “There you are, honey,” I said. My voice was softer than I expected. “I was starting to wonder where you disappeared to.” I turned to look at Lena, still smiling. “Oh, hello, Lena right? I didn’t see you standing there. You look very… shiny today.”
    Lena looked at me like I was a bug on her shoe. Then she smiled and tilted her head.
    “Nadia. How sweet. I was just telling Dorian how great he looks.” She glanced at me from head to toe. “Some people just keep improving, don’t they? And others just… stay the same.”
    Before I could respond, a woman I didn’t know appeared at my elbow. She was older, elegantly dressed, and she was looking at my dress with a genuine smile.
    “Oh, my dear,” she said to me. “What a stunning color. That shade of blue is absolutely beautiful on you. Is it a designer piece?”
    I opened my mouth. But suddenly, Vivienne materialized from the left.
    I didn’t see her coming. She looked at my dress and then looked at the guest with a fake smile.
    “This old thing?” Vivienne said, touching the fabric of my sleeve with one finger, as though checking it for stains. “It’s a sweet little dress, isn’t it? We had it pulled together quickly. Nadia doesn’t really have a strong eye for fashion. She tends to gravitate toward things that look expensive but aren’t, if you know what I mean.” She laughed softly. “It’s difficult to teach taste to someone who didn’t grow up surrounded by it. Some women are just born with the instinct, and others have to try much harder and still don’t quite get there. Don’t you think, Lena?”
    Lena covered her mouth with her manicured hand. She made a sound that was supposed to be a polite laugh.
    “Absolutely,” Lena said. “Fashion is practically a language. You’re either fluent or you’re not.”
    The woman who had complimented me looked slightly uncomfortable. She glanced between me and Vivienne and said nothing else.
    I felt heat rise in my face, then I looked at Dorian.
    I waited for him to say something. To tell his mother to stop. To defend me, even once. To say: that’s my wife you’re talking about.
    Instead , he looked at the ground. Like he had nothing to say.
    I took a sip of my wine. “Actually, Vivienne,” I said. My voice was calm. I kept my smile exactly where it was. “Dorian chose this dress for me. He picked it himself. He told me it was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in years.” I looked at her steadily. “So if you think the dress has no taste, perhaps the conversation you need to have is with your son. He might be the one with the fashion problem.”
    The silence that followed was deafening.
    The guest looked down at her champagne. Lena’s mouth fell open. Vivienne’s expression didn’t change exactly, but something in her eyes shifted. She went very still.
    Then I felt a hand on my arm.
    Dorian.
    He grabbed me just above the elbow, his fingers pressing hard into my arm. He didn’t pull me away properly because that would have been too visible. He just gripped me and leaned in, his face still arranged into a pleasant expression for anyone watching from a distance.
    “What is wrong with you?” he said against my ear. His voice was low and firm. “Do not talk to my mother like that. Do you understand me? This is her event. These are her guests. You do not embarrass her in front of them. Not tonight. Not ever.”
    I kept my eyes forward. I kept my smile in place.
    “She basically called me a peasant this morning, Dorian,” I said, very quietly. “In front of the stylists. She said the dress makes me look fat and desperate. I have been sitting and smiling through this all day.”
    “She’s trying to help you.”
    “That’s not helping.” My voice was still quiet but my jaw was tight. “She is cruel. And you stand next to her every time and say nothing. You have never once…”
    “Because she’s right!” he snapped. The words were out before he could take them back. He pressed his lips together. “She knows how this world works. You don’t. And instead of being grateful that she tries to show you, you stand here and make scenes and make me look like I can’t control my own household. Now you will smile, you will say nothing else, and at the end of the night you will apologize to her. Are we clear?”
    He let go of my arm.
    I looked down. There were red marks where his fingers had been.
    I didn’t say anything because I didn’t trust my voice.
    From across the garden, I heard my father in law, Richard’s voice cut through the music and the crowd noise.
    He was standing near the oak trees, at the head of a large table surrounded by men in dark suits. Richard himself was tall and broad, he was the kind of man who had never once in his life needed to raise his voice to be heard.
    He raised his glass.
    “A toast,” he said. “To my son, Dorian. Twenty-three years ago he arrived in this world, and I’m pleased to know that he’s become such a fine young man.” He smiled. “He has a great deal still to learn, about business and about life. But he is a Hargrove. And that means he will always have the best of everything.”
    The garden erupted.
    “To Dorian!”
    Everyone cheered. Everyone raised their glasses. I raised mine too, because I was very good at doing what was expected of me.
    Richard didn’t join the cheering, he didn’t immediately sit back down also. He stood for a moment, the glass still in his hand, and his eyes moved across the garden like he was searching for something.
    They moved past Past the fountain and the people who had come to celebrate his son.
    They landed on me.
    It lasted less than two seconds. He didn’t look at me with hate, or with contempt like the others did. His eyes were warm. It was the only warmth I had felt all day. Then, just as quickly as it happened, he moved his gaze away and went back to his business partners, raising his glass again to the men at his table.
    I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
    ~~~
    I walked to the gift table.
    I set the gold box down at the end of the row. It landed among the huge, perfectly wrapped gifts from jewelers and designers and the kinds of people who bought presents as statements. My box looked small and lonely. Just like me.
    Nobody would know that it was from me. Nobody would care.
    “I’m sick of this,” I said quietly, to nobody. My voice was barely a whisper. “I am so sick of all of you.”
    I turned around and looked at the party. I looked at Vivienne, who was standing with Lena’s mother now, deep in a conversation, probably planning a wedding that didn’t include me. I looked at Lena, who was at Dorian’s side again, her hand on his arm, her laugh rising above the music.
    Then I looked at Dorian.
    He was laughing. He was having, by all appearances, a wonderful birthday.
    I had given him three years. Three years of my life. I had given up the one thing I loved doing because his mother said it was beneath the family name. I had given up the friends who made me feel like myself because they didn’t fit the Hargrove social calendar. I had given up the person I was before I walked into this garden for the first time, on Dorian’s arm, believing that love was enough to make a life.
    It wasn’t enough. It had never been enough. It wasn’t even love anymore, if I was honest. I had no idea what we were doing anymore.
    I took a fresh glass of wine from a passing server.
    I didn’t care if Vivienne saw me drinking. I didn’t care if Dorian decided to grip my arm again. I stood in the middle of the beautiful, glittering Hargrove garden and I drank my wine and I watched the trees.
    They were beautiful. Everything here was beautiful. But it was so easy to mistake beautiful for good. It was so easy to look at marble and crystal and think: this must be a place where people are happy.
    I looked at Richard one more time. He was deep in conversation with one of his business partners, gesturing with his champagne glass. He didn’t look my way again.
    But he was the only one who had looked at me like I was a person.
    “Happy birthday, Dorian,” I said, under my breath.
    The party was supposed to run until 4pm. It was barely three o’clock.
    I had one more hour of standing up straight and holding my glass correctly and laughing at the right moments.
    I could do it for one hour.
    I had done it for three years. What’s one hour compared to that?

    The Ex Wife’s Revenge novel Chapter 2

    Nadia’s POV:
    The party ended around 4pm. The last of the expensive cars drifted down the long driveway and disappeared through the gates. The garden was suddenly quiet… just the sound of the catering staff collecting glasses and folding linens. I watched it all from the edge of the terrace, my heels in my hand because my feet ached too much to keep them on.
    My head was heavy. The extensions Vivienne had forced on me that morning were still pinned into my scalp, and the weight of them had been pressing down on me all day. I wanted nothing more than to reach my bedroom, pull every single pin out, and cry into a pillow until there was nothing left.
    I was already on my way there. I had made it to the end of the hallway, when I noticed the library door was open.
    I should have kept walking. But something made me stop and look.
    Vivienne was sitting behind the desk.
    She wasn’t doing anything. She was just sitting there, very still, with her hands folded in front of her. She looked directly at the door. And sat up when she saw me, like she had been waiting for me.
    “Nadia,” she said. “Come in. Close the door behind you. We are long overdue for a real conversation.”
    I walked in. The heavy wood door clicked shut behind me. The library smelled like old books and cigar smoke left behind by the men who had occupied it earlier. I stood in front of the desk, my heels still in my hand, my feet sore on the cold floor.
    Vivienne stood up. She walked around the desk slowly and stopped a few feet in front of me.
    “I have had enough,” she began. Her voice was still controlled. “I have been tolerant with you, Nadia. More tolerant than most women in my position would have been. But tonight at the party, you crossed a line that I cannot overlook. You spoke back to me in front of our guests. You implied that my son has no taste.” She tilted her head slightly. “Do you have any idea how much work goes into maintaining the reputation of this family? And in thirty seconds, you open your mouth and ruin it with your low-class attitude.”
    Something shifted in my chest. I felt my heart beating fast. Usually, I would just look at the floor and say sorry, but today something was different. Maybe it was the wine, or maybe I was just broken.
    “With all due respect, Vivienne,” I said, and I was surprised by how steady my voice sounded, “I am not the one who started that conversation tonight. You are the one who walked up to a guest complimenting my dress and told her I have no taste. You called me cheap. This morning, in front of three strangers you hired, you told me my hair was thin and called me desperate. You have been doing things like this since the day I moved into this house, and I have never once said anything back to you.” I paused. I made myself hold her gaze. “Today I said one thing. One sentence. And now I am standing in this library being told I have crossed a line. I have lived in this house for three years. And in those years, you have told me I am fat, or I am ugly, or I am poor, and I have no family. You treat me like I am a dog you found on the street. No, you treat your dogs better than me. but you make me feel like I shouldn’t even breathe the same air as you. I am the one who has been putting up with the disrespect, not the other way around. I am your son’s wife, but you treat me like a maid who isn’t even good at cleaning.”
    Vivienne looked at me for a long moment. There was no emotion on her face. “You have lived in this house for three years,” she said. “In those three years, I have housed you, clothed you, given you access to a life that a girl from your background could never have reached on her own. And you stand here and tell me that I have been disrespecting you?” She let out a short, clipped sound… not quite a laugh. “You are not his wife in any way that matters to this family, Nadia. You were a phase. A little experiment my son tried because he wanted to rebel against me. But even children eventually outgrow their toys.”
    I opened my mouth to respond but no words came out.
    The library door opened and Dorian walked in. His tie was undone and his jacket was gone. He stopped when he saw us, his eyes moving from me to his mother and back again.
    “What is going on?” he said. “I could hear voices from the hallway.”
    “Dorian…” I started.
    “What did you do now, Nadia?” He cut me off, and the ease with which he did it… the automatic assumption that I was the problem, before he had heard a word of it… was like a slap. “After what I told you at the fountain? I thought I told you clearly to watch your mouth around my mother. And now you are still in here trying to pick a fight with her? You are just… you are being impossible tonight.”
    “She is not fighting,” Vivienne said, calmly, from behind me. “She is speaking. Apparently she has quite a lot she has been holding inside.”
    “She has been saying horrible things to me all day, Dorian,” I said, turning to face him fully. “She has been mean to me for the last three years. I know you know that. I know you have heard it. And I am asking you, right now, in front of her, Don’t you care? Don’t you love me enough to tell her to stop? Even tonight?”
    Dorian looked at me. Then he looked at his mother, and looked at the floor.
    The clock on the wall ticked very loudly in the silence.
    “She is only telling the truth, Nadia,” he said. “You don’t fit in here. You never have. And instead of trying to adapt, you just push back and make everything harder.”
    “You are unbelievable!” I yelled.
    “Keep your voice down.”
    “You are standing right here listening to your mother call me a toy and all you can tell me is to keep my voice down?”
    “Because you love making a scene and this is not the time…”
    “Dorian.” Vivienne’s voice cut across both of us like a blade. She had moved back behind the desk, then she opened the top drawer and removed something I couldn’t yet see. She uncapped a pen and wrote. Then she slid a piece of paper across the surface of the desk and left it there, facing me.
    I looked down.
    A check. The numbers were printed in clean, precise figures. I counted the zeros once. Then again, because the first count didn’t seem possible.
    Five million dollars.
    “Take it,” Vivienne said. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, and her expression was the expression of a woman who had just laid down the winning card and was waiting for the other player to accept it. “Take the check, Nadia. You’re beneath my son. Take it and get out of my son’s life right now. Before Richard comes home, I want you packed and gone before the sun comes up. Five million dollars is more money than your whole family will ever see in ten lifetimes. It is a very generous offer for a girl who brought nothing to this marriage but a few suitcases of cheap clothes. And it is the only one I am making.”
    I could not breathe. I stood there looking at the check and I could not breathe.
    I looked at Dorian.
    “Dorian,” I said. My voice came out barely above a whisper. “Look at what she is doing. She is trying to buy me out of your life. Tell her no. Tell her that our marriage means something. Tell her…”
    “Nad.” He said my name like he was tired of saying it. “Maybe… maybe it’s for the best.”
    I heard the words. But it still took several seconds for their meaning to arrive.
    “What?” I said.
    “I said maybe it’s for the best.” He shifted his weight. He still wasn’t looking at me properly. “Look at us, Nadia. Look at what we are. We argue constantly. My mother is always stressed because of the tension in this house. It’s not working. It hasn’t been working for a long time, and I think somewhere you know that too.”
    “I know that we have problems,” I said. “Every marriage has problems. That is not a reason to…”
    “It’s more than a problem,” he said.
    The certainty in his voice was a different kind of blow. 
    “Then tell me what it is,” I said. “The real reason. Not the version your mother rehearsed with you. Tell me yourself.”
    He was quiet.
    “Tell me, Dorian.”
    He looked up. His jaw tightened.
    “I don’t love you anymore,” he said. “I haven’t for a while. And I have met someone else. Someone who actually belongs in this world. Someone who makes me feel like myself instead of making me feel like I’m always doing something wrong.”
    There it was. All of it. Laid out clean and simple in the library of his father’s house.
    “It’s Lena,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
    Dorian said nothing. He just looked at the wall.

    The Ex Wife’s Revenge novel Chapter 3

    Nadia’s POV:
    His silence was the only answer I needed.
    “You are leaving me,” I said, slowly, “for a woman your mother selected for you. You are ending our marriage because Vivienne decided she wants someone different in this house, and you don’t have the backbone to tell her no.” I looked at him. “Three years, Dorian. Three years I was your wife. And this is what I get in return.”
    “It’s not like that…”
    “Then tell me what it’s like,” I said. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks exactly like that.”
    Vivienne picked up the check and held it toward me again. 
    “Does it matter what it’s like?” she said. “He doesn’t want you. That is the only thing that matters. And if you stay and choose to fight this, I want you to understand very clearly what that will look like. If you fight us, I will make sure the story that comes out is not kind to you. I can tell the press you were unfaithful. I can tell them you were stealing. I can tell them anything I like, and I can make people believe it, and when it is all over you will walk away with nothing except a reputation that will follow you for the rest of your life.” She held the check a little higher. “Or you can take this money. Take it and go quietly, and I will say nothing about you to anyone.”
    I looked at Dorian one last time.
    “You are going to let her threaten me,” I said. “After everything. You are just going to stand there.”
    He put his hands in his pockets.
    “Take the money, Nadia,” he said. “Please. It’s a lot of money. You can start over somewhere. Find a nice place, find someone new. Just…” He exhaled. He sounded genuinely exhausted. “Just go. I don’t want tonight to get any uglier than it already is. It’s been a long day.”
    I looked at the check in Vivienne’s outstretched hand, and I took the check from her hand.
    Vivienne’s expression didn’t change. But I saw it… just for a fraction of a second, there was a flicker of surprise. She must have expected resistance. She must have been ready for tears, and begging.
    But I gave her none of that.
    “Good,” she said, recovering. She opened the drawer again and produced a document already prepared. A divorce agreement. “Sign this before anything else. I want everything settled before Richard comes home. He doesn’t need to be involved in this.”
    I looked at the papers, then at Dorian, who was staring at the window.
    I picked up the pen. Before I put it to the paper I looked up at Vivienne one last time.
    “The money first,” I said. “Not a check. A transfer. I want it confirmed in my account before I sign anything.”
    Vivienne’s eyes narrowed. Just slightly.
    “You are in no position…”
    “I am in exactly the position I need to be in,” I said. “You want me to go quietly. I want a confirmed transfer. Those are my terms. I’m sure a woman with your resources can arrange it in a few minutes.”
    The silence stretched between us.
    Then Vivienne reached for her phone.
    It took eleven minutes. When the notification arrived on my phone, I put the pen to the signature line without another word. I signed cleanly. Then I placed the pen back on the desk.
    Vivienne picked up the document and checked the signature thoroughly. Then she set it down, and a very satisfied smile moved across her face.
    I did not give her a reaction. I turned and walked out of the library.
    ~~~
    The staircase felt longer than usual.
    I went up the big stairs to our… no, his… bedroom. I found my suitcase under the bed. I started throwing my jeans and my t-shirts into it. I changed into a hoodie and sweatpants and left the silk dresses on the hangers. I left the expensive shoes in the closet. 
    I took off my wedding ring.
    I held it for a moment. It was beautiful. He had good taste in rings, at least. I set it on the nightstand next to the lamp and I did not look at it again.
    I zipped the suitcase and picked it up.
    I took one last look at the room. The expensive curtains and the artwork I had never been allowed to change and the bed where I had laid awake more nights than I could count, listening to a marriage slowly come apart.
    “Goodbye,” I said. I wasn’t sure who I was talking to.
    I walked downstairs.
    They were waiting in the hallway. Of course they were. Vivienne stood with her hands clasped, watching the bottom of the stairs. Dorian stood a step behind her, his jacket still off, his expression somewhere between guilt and relief. 
    I crossed the hallway toward the front door.
    At the door I stopped.
    I looked at Dorian.
    “I hope she makes you happy,” I said. My voice was even. “But if she isn’t… and she won’t, because no one is happy in a cage your mother built for them… I want you to remember standing here and letting her do this to us because I really did love you, Dorian. But you don’t deserve my love.”
    Dorian opened his mouth.
    Vivienne put her hand on his arm. She shook her head once and he closed his mouth.
    That was, in the end, the most honest image I would carry of my marriage. Dorian, with something to say, chooses his mother’s happiness instead.
    I opened the front door.
    The air was cool and clean, I breathed it in for a moment at the top of the steps. Then I walked down.
    There was a car waiting at the bottom of the drive. I loaded my suitcase and got in. The driver asked where I was going, and I told him the hotel near the park, and he nodded and pulled out through the gates without another word.
    I watched the mansion through the rear window as we drove away. 
    I put my hand in my hoodie pocket and felt the check.
    Vivienne thought she was paying me to disappear. She was proud of herself. I could see it in the set of her shoulders and the small satisfaction behind her eyes when I walked out. 
    She was wrong about what the money was.
    It was three years of silence and humiliation. 
    This was less than what they owed me. She could have written me a check ten times this size and still owed me something.
    But it was only the beginning.
    I had expected to be devastated. I had braced myself for it. But what was actually sitting in my chest as we drove through the dark was not grief. It was anger… the kind that didn’t make you cry or scream. The quiet kind. 
    “Enjoy it, Vivienne,” I thought, watching the city through the window. “Enjoy thinking you have won. Because this is not the end. This is not even close to the end.”

    👉 CONTINUE READING

  • From Brokenness to Bliss: My Peaceful Choice novel by Kinship

    From Brokenness to Bliss: My Peaceful Choice novel by Kinship

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    On the night before my wedding, I opened an anonymous message card, only to find out that my fiancé had been cheating on me with my maid of honor for four years.
    The engagement ring on my hand was actually a cheap reject that she didn’t want; her so-called “emergency business trip” was actually to cover up the fact that she had just given birth to his child last week.
    What sent the worst chills down my spine was that his entire family knew about this perfectly well, yet they still happily watched me meticulously prepare for this scam of a wedding.
    When I canceled the wedding and confronted them, his mother actually slapped me across the face.
    “You’re nothing but a poor girl clinging to my son. Camilla is the one he truly loves.”
    And my fiancé didn’t even defend me. Instead, he pushed me to the ground, causing me to hit my head, all just to comfort his crying mistress.
    I spent eight years by his side, accompanying him from having nothing to where he is now, only to realize I was nothing but a convenient placeholder.
    I took off that discarded ring, blocked all of them, and bought a one-way ticket to Oregon, USA.
    This time, I decided to leave forever and never look back.
    But now, he’s going crazy begging for my forgiveness!

    👉 READ NOW

    From Brokenness to Bliss: My Peaceful Choice novel Chapter 1

    Isla Simmons’s POV
    The moment I read that anonymous card, my life instantly collapsed. It brought not wedding blessings, but Harding’s lies.
    It was the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding. My bridesmaids and close friends were sitting around the table. My fiancé, Harding, the man I had loved for eight years, was at another table discussing business with his parents.
    As for my maid of honor, Camilla, she was supposedly unable to attend due to a sudden business trip.
    “Alright, Madam Bride!” bridesmaid Sarah excitedly held up a beautifully decorated box. “Everyone wrote a blessing card for you. Let’s see what advice they have to pass on!”
    Smiling, I reached into the box and pulled out a thick white card. I thought it would be sweet words, but as my eyes swept over the text, my smile instantly froze.
    “He and she have been secretly sleeping around behind your back for four years.”
    Right below it was a line: “Your maid of honor.”
    Camilla.
    That was my childhood best friend, the “sister” I had entrusted my life to.
    A freezing terror seeped into my bones. This had to be a prank. With sweating palms, I eagerly pulled out a second, light blue card.
    “The engagement ring he gave you? He actually bought it for Camilla first. But four years ago, she rejected him, saying she wasn’t ready for marriage. You are just his backup.”
    I instinctively touched my left ring finger. It turned out Harding had taken the ring Camilla didn’t want and pretended to carefully select it for me.
    I hurriedly pulled out a third, cream-colored card, trying to find evidence to refute this.
    “Remember your anniversary trip in college? You found suspicious texts on Harding’s phone and cried in the bathroom for hours. He wasn’t chatting with a client then; he was in the hotel room right next to yours, celebrating his one-month anniversary with Camilla.”
    The shame and pain of the past surged over me. That night, he comforted me as I cried, making me believe it was a misunderstanding.
    With trembling hands, I pulled out the last card, a thick, dark green one.
    “Camilla isn’t on a business trip. She is at the ‘Serenity Postpartum Retreat Center.’ She just gave birth to Harding’s child a week ago. They want to wait until your wedding is over to go public. Surprise.”
    My world completely overturned. They even had a child behind my back!
    I felt like I had fallen into an ice cave. I stared at the handwriting on the green card; it was Harding’s mother, Karen Frank. His entire family was involved in this scam.
    Eight years of dedication and compromise were nothing but a carefully woven joke. I took off that piece of trash that belonged to Camilla and threw it hard onto the table. The diamond hit a wine glass with a sharp clink.
    The surrounding conversations stopped. Everyone looked over in shock. Harding looked up, a smile still hanging on his face.
    I walked toward him. “Harding, what is Camilla Gillespie to you?”
    His smile instantly vanished. He glanced at his mother, then at me. “Isla, what are you talking about?”
    I held up the green card. “I’m talking about your child, Harding. The one born just last week.”
    The air froze. Harding’s face turned deathly pale, and Karen gasped. The relatives who were just laughing a moment ago now mostly stood with their mouths hanging open, and some even wore knowing smirks.
    I immediately shouted, “I announce that this wedding is canceled!”
    Harding walked over to the table, picked up the ring, and spoke in a low voice, “Isla, don’t be so dramatic. We can postpone the wedding and solve this problem. Don’t make a scene here.”
    “Solve what?” I sneered. “Solve you cheating with my best friend for four years, or your whole family helping you hide the truth?”
    He finally looked at me. There was no remorse in his eyes, only shrewd calculation. “It’s complicated. Camilla is very fragile right now; she needs my support.”
    “She’s fragile?” I raised my voice. “What about me? What about my eight years, my dignity!”
    “You’re strong, Isla. But Camilla has been through a lot, having a baby, keeping secrets…” He defended her casually.
    My hand swung out before my brain could process it. With a loud, crisp slap, Harding’s face was violently thrown to the side, a red mark surfacing.
    He didn’t fight back, but his eyes turned dark. “You think getting physical changes anything? Camilla is pregnant with my child. And you… are just you.”
    My rage was instantly replaced by despair. In his eyes, I was just a convenient alternative.
    “We are done.” I turned and walked away.
    “Isla, please, we can talk about this!” he shouted from behind, his tone still carrying that self-righteous desire for control.
    I ignored him. Walking past the flowers and tables I had spent months meticulously arranging, every detail now felt like a cruel joke.
    As I reached the door, my phone vibrated. It was a text from Camilla:
    “Isla, I’m so sorry! My business trip got suddenly extended. So sad I can’t attend your big day! I’ll contact you when I’m back!”
    I stared at the screen and typed a reply:
    “Enjoy your postpartum confinement. I hope the baby is healthy. Harding will be by your side to support you; he’s really good at that.”
    Hitting send, I blocked Camilla, Harding, Karen—blocked all of them, completely.

    From Brokenness to Bliss: My Peaceful Choice novel Chapter 2

    Isla Simmons’s POV
    My phone vibrated all night long. I didn’t answer any calls, just stared numbly at the ceiling. The first rays of dawn spilled in. Today was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, but right now, there was only coldness.
    Urgent knocking came from the door. Then, the sound of a key turning in the lock.
    Harding pushed the door open, leading a team of florists and makeup artists. He was wearing a brand-new white shirt, acting as if nothing had happened last night.
    “Isla, what are you doing?” he asked impatiently. “The makeup artist will be here any second, you need to get ready.”
    I slowly sat up from the bed. “Harding, I told you last night. The wedding is canceled.”
    He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “Stop messing around! You can’t break the contract a few hours before the wedding. You have to think about the guests, the expenses, and our reputation!”
    “Your reputation?” I scoffed. “Didn’t you lose your reputation when you cheated with my best friend for four years and had a baby with her?”
    “That’s not fair! It’s complicated. Camilla is in poor health, and she just had a baby.” He raised his volume.
    “So I should just pretend nothing happened, marry you, and fulfill this ridiculous fairy tale?”
    “We will fix this! You’re just too emotional right now.” He took a step forward, stubbornly insisting.
    Just then, the main door was pushed open violently. Camilla stood there panting, pale-faced, hair messy, wearing loose casual clothes. Her eyes were red and swollen, and a frantic desperation filled her gaze.
    “Isla!” She rushed over, trying to grab my hand. “Please listen to me, it’s not what you think!”
    I dodged her touch with disgust. “Then what is it? You slept with my fiancé and had his child. What else am I supposed to think?”
    “No! It was a terrible mistake!” she cried and begged.
    “A four-year mistake? Camilla, is that newborn baby at the ‘Serenity Postpartum Care Center’ a mistake too?”
    She jerked her head up, shocked that I knew such specific details, while Harding stood to the side, looking guilty.
    “How long have you been lying to me? Was there ever a single ounce of truth in our friendship?”
    She couldn’t make a sound, only shaking her head through her tears.
    At that moment, I caught sight of the gold bracelet on her wrist. It was exactly the same as the one Harding gave me for our fifth anniversary—he had sworn it was a one-of-a-kind design.
    I suddenly remembered two years ago, when Harding lost the leather bracelet I gave him and replaced it with a new one. Right now, on his other hand, he was wearing the matching couple’s bracelet to Camilla’s.
    It turned out he had already built a parallel reality for them long ago, and I was nothing but the smokescreen.
    Camilla was sobbing and trembling all over. Harding immediately walked over and pulled her into his arms, gently stroking her hair. He didn’t dare look at me, but his eyes were full of heartache for her.
    My gaze fell on the expensive limited-edition diaper bag on Camilla’s shoulder.
    “Harding, how much money have you spent on this secret life?” My voice was freezing, almost broken. “Am I just the cheap spare tire you kept around for stability?”
    “Enough, Isla!” Harding finally roared at me. “You’re going too far! Camilla is very fragile right now, and you’re agitating her!”
    “I’m agitating her?” I laughed out of sheer anger. “You two betrayed me, and somehow I’ve become the villain?”
    I stood up, forcing my trembling legs to walk toward the door. I had to leave this suffocating room.
    Just as I reached the entryway, the door was pushed open again. Karen Frank stood there in an elegant suit. She glared at me sternly. “What is going on here? The wedding cars will be here any minute, why aren’t you dressed yet?”
    “There won’t be any wedding cars, Karen. The wedding is canceled.”
    Karen’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Did you just say you canceled the wedding? Do you have any idea how much of a scandal this will cause for Harding?”
    As soon as the words left her mouth, she finally noticed Camilla, who was sobbing and trembling, curled up in Harding’s arms, looking weak and in pain.
    Karen’s anger vanished instantly. She walked right past me, her eyes full of concern for Camilla.
    “Camilla, sweetheart! Why aren’t you resting at the retreat center?” Karen exclaimed, then turned to scold Harding. “Why is she so heartbroken? What did Isla do to her now?”
    Watching this utterly absurd scene, my heart turned completely cold. Harding, Camilla, his mother—they were all accomplices.

    From Brokenness to Bliss: My Peaceful Choice novel Chapter 3

    Isla Simmons’s POV
    Karen Frank didn’t even look me in the eye. She pushed right past me, grabbed Camilla’s hand, her face full of artificial concern.
    “Sweetheart, why did you come running over here?” she chided hypocritically. “You just had a baby, you should be resting well. Harding, how could you let her run out?”
    Camilla whimpered softly, burying her face into Harding’s shoulder, but she quickly stole a glance at me, her eyes full of provocation.
    “Isla, what exactly did you do?” Karen spun around and interrogated me, her voice shrill. “What right do you have to upset her? She just gave birth!”
    “Whose child?” I asked coldly. “Isn’t it your son’s? Isn’t it the child your whole family knew perfectly well about, yet kept treating me like a fool while I planned a wedding?”
    Karen sneered with utter contempt. “Don’t play the saint. You’re nothing but a poor girl after money, latching onto my son. Camilla comes from a prominent family; she is the one truly worthy of Harding.”
    “I latched onto him?” I raised my voice in disbelief. “When he had nothing, I worked two jobs to help pay the rent for his rundown apartment! And now you’re telling me I latched onto him?”
    “You were never good enough for him.” Karen became even more vicious. “We only tolerated you back then because Harding found you somewhat novel. Camilla is the one who can give him a future, not some penniless girl from a single-parent home like you.”
    Her insult toward my mother stabbed me deeply.
    “He loves her, yet he wanted to marry me?” I retorted, suppressing my rage. “Loved her enough to let her secretly give birth outside while making me plan the wedding? That’s not love, that’s shameless!”
    Before I could finish speaking, a loud smack rang out. Karen slapped me hard across the face. My cheek burned with pain.
    “How dare you speak about my son that way!” she shrieked.
    “Mom, don’t do that,” Harding finally spoke up, though his tone was weak and powerless.
    “Mind your own business!” Karen snapped at him. “This is what happens when you let lower-class girls like this through the door—absolutely no breeding. Camilla is a true socialite; she would never cause a scene like this.”
    Camilla was still sobbing. She pulled back slightly from Harding’s embrace, looking at Karen with teary eyes. “Karen, please don’t. It’s not Isla’s fault. I… I made a mistake too.” Her voice was so low it could barely be heard, performing her frailty perfectly.
    Karen’s tone instantly softened. “Sweetheart, you’re just too kindhearted, that’s why you get bullied by this woman.”
    Camilla turned to me again, reaching out a hand, her voice perfectly mimicking fragile remorse. “Isla, I am truly, from the bottom of my heart, sorry. I never thought it would turn out like this.”
    I stared at this hand that had once promised me a lifelong friendship.
    “Are you sorry for getting caught, or are you sorry for destroying my life?” I asked coldly.
    She flinched. “I… I just wanted to be loved. Harding was too good to me.”
    “Now you’ve gotten what you wanted—him, and his child. Are you satisfied?”
    She shook her head, tears raining down. “No! I never wanted to hurt you!”
    I could no longer bear to watch this nauseating performance. I turned and walked toward the door.
    “Isla, wait!” Harding chased after me and grabbed my arm. “Don’t go. We need to fix this.”
    “Fix what?” I violently shook off his hand. “Your mother just hit me, humiliated me, and you stood there like a piece of garbage. We are done.”
    “She was just overly emotional!” he pleaded desperately. “She just wants what’s best for me.”
    “And who cared about me?” I fired back sharply. “When have you ever stood up to protect me?”
    He stared at the floor, speechless.
    “I spent eight years giving you everything. I trusted you, supported you. And what I got in return was betrayal, and a family that looked down on me from the very beginning.”
    I walked out the door without looking back, leaving Harding’s shouts, Karen’s roaring, and Camilla’s fake sobbing far behind me, completely walking out of those absurd eight years of my life.

    👉 CONTINUE READING

  • When Love Becomes A Monstrous Joke novel by Kora

    When Love Becomes A Monstrous Joke by Kora

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    I spent three years, drained all my savings, and gave up my career as an architect, all just to help my husband Caden pay off his debts.
    Yet, at his residency appointment ceremony, I watched with my own eyes as he publicly thanked his “beautiful fiancée”-a wealthy heiress named Brianna.
    While I wore old clothes bought from thrift stores and survived on instant noodles just to barely cover his rent, he used my hard-earned money to buy her a brand-new BMW and gifted her a set of antique Cartier jewelry.
    Even the Montblanc pen I carefully selected and had engraved became a gift he gave to her.
    He kept our marriage a secret from the world, treating me like a nameless ATM, while using her family’s hospital connections to climb step by step to the peak of his career.
    The most ironic part was when one day, Brianna unknowingly took out that very pen of mine to show me.
    “These kinds of men are just leeches. They will drain everything from you and then throw you away, shattered.”
    Everything from my past three years had actually become an absurd joke.
    I blocked his number, tossed that cheap pawnshop wedding ring into the trash, and left this city to build a kingdom of my own.
    Later, Brianna also discovered his true colors, and together, we made sure he received the punishment he deserved.
    To think he actually ended up crying and screaming, kneeling down to beg for our forgiveness!

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    When Love Becomes A Monstrous Joke Chapter 1

    Alyssa’s POV:
    Caden Barry’s chief resident pinning ceremony became the moment my world collapsed. For the past three years, I paid off his medical school debts and supported his life. Now, I watched helplessly as he stood on stage, affectionately thanking his “beautiful fiancée,” Brianna Vega.
    The auditorium lights dimmed, and my husband Caden stepped onto the stage, looking radiant in a custom suit. I sat in the corner of the fifth row, filled with pride. The hospital director passionately praised his outstanding talent and bright future.
    I clapped hard, my hands turning red. For today, I endured countless late nights doing architectural design side gigs, skipped meals, and sent every penny to him. All of this was for us.
    Caden walked up to the podium, his voice steady and magnetic. After thanking his mentors and colleagues, he paused, his gaze sweeping over the audience. My heart raced; our secrets and sacrifices were finally about to be witnessed.
    “Finally,” his voice was gentle, “I want to thank the most important person in my life. She is my pillar, my future.”
    I held my breath, anticipating the subtle nod that belonged to me.
    “My beautiful fiancée,” Caden continued, “Brianna Vega.”
    A stunning woman in the front row, wearing a haute couture gown, stood up. Brianna Vega. Caden flashed her a brilliant smile—a smile that in the past, only belonged to me when we were alone. Amidst the thunderous applause, Brianna happily blew him a kiss. A bone-chilling cold instantly submerged me.
    As soon as the ceremony ended, I immediately pushed through the crowd to head out. Fiancée? What on earth was going on?
    “Excuse me, I saw you clapping so enthusiastically for Caden just now. Are you his colleague too?”
    I turned around. It was Brianna. Her eyes were bright and friendly, and the massive solitaire ring on her left hand stung my eyes under the lights. I forced a smile.
    “Something like that,” I answered with difficulty.
    Brianna smiled brightly and extended her hand. “I’m Brianna, Caden’s fiancée. It’s so nice to meet friends who appreciate him.”
    I held her warm hand, though my own was freezing stiff. “Alyssa. Yes, Caden is indeed very talented.”
    “He’s truly amazing!” Brianna’s eyes were full of pride. “These past three years of residency have been so hard. I tried my best to support him, making sure he ate well and helping him manage his schedule. Plus, my father is the director here, so he helped us quite a bit with interpersonal connections at the hospital.”
    My brain buzzed. Three years, connections, director father. I knew Caden had been actively socializing, and this was clearly a calculated climb.
    “You are so sweet,” my voice was flat. Yet in my mind, the image of my three years staying up late drawing plans surfaced—the three years of exhausting all my savings to pay his rent and bills.
    “Oh, you can’t even imagine.” Brianna chuckled lightly. “My dad even helped us find a new apartment in Beacon Hill. Caden also bought me a new model BMW to make my commute easier.” She pulled out a set of keys flashing the BMW logo.
    That was the car Caden had dreamed of months ago. He said that once he finished, we would save up to buy it together. But now, my savings were already depleted.
    “A new BMW, what a nice gift.” My mouth was full of bitterness.
    “Right? He always says, ‘My career is our future.’ I even helped him handle some spatial planning for a few architectural projects, just some basic ideas. He really values details.”
    Spatial planning. The chill struck again. Caden once said that was his personal research project, that he paid someone to help, and rejected my professional involvement, claiming he didn’t want my opinions to influence his “vision.”
    “So, you’re not a doctor?” I asked, suppressing my emotions.
    “Oh, not at all! I majored in art history.” Brianna waved her hand casually. “I mostly manage my family’s investments. But Caden really values my aesthetic opinions. By the way—” She tilted her head to look at me. “You look a bit… unkempt, I hope you don’t mind me saying. Are you a student?”
    Her words felt like a slap to my face. I was wearing clothes from a thrift store, ate instant noodles most nights, and invested everything I had into Caden.
    “I am a designer.”
    Brianna’s eyes lit up. “That’s awesome! Caden did mention a designer was helping him with conceptual designs. He said she was very ‘practical.’ Is that you? He never mentioned your name, though.”
    His evaluation of me, his legal wife, was “very practical,” without even a name. I was just a tool.
    Just then, a video celebrating Caden’s promotion played on the screen in the hall. “Without the relentless support of my brilliant fiancée Brianna, I couldn’t have achieved any of this,” his voice sounded sincere from the screen.
    I wasn’t on the screen. I was invisible.
    Brianna clapped lightly, her face glowing with happiness. “He is so sweet, isn’t he? We’re both so excited. Once his residency ends, we’ll sign the legal papers. We had a commitment ceremony in Cabo last year, it was a dream come true. All white flowers, a live band, hundreds of guests. My dad arranged everything. It was so beautiful.”
    Cabo, a commitment ceremony, hundreds of guests. Just waiting for legal papers. A bitter laugh caught in my throat.
    Three years ago, rushing to get our marriage license at the courthouse, I wore a cheap dress, with only us and two strangers as witnesses. Caden insisted on keeping it a secret, saying that if people knew he got married during his busy surgical residency, it would “affect his career prospects.” He promised to make it up to me with a “real” wedding, a grand and beautiful one, once his career stabilized. That promise now sounded like a cruel joke.
    Brianna continued, “Sometimes I really worry about Caden. He’s so focused on his career that he easily attracts people who want to use him. Alyssa, you look like a very kind girl. Don’t let a man like that play you. If he doesn’t put a ring on it, if he doesn’t invest in you, then he isn’t worth your effort. Some men just take, take, and take.”
    She pointed at her diamond ring, reminding me of my own thin silver band, bought from a pawnshop because Caden said we needed to “cut expenses.”
    “You’re right,” I answered, surprisingly calm. “Some men are just like blood-sucking leeches.”
    Brianna nodded in deep agreement. “Exactly! I have a friend who used to date a surgeon, and the guy practically drained her dry and gave her nothing. Always talking about his ‘grand plans,’ but never delivering anything tangible. Always asking for money, favors, and connections. Disgusting.”
    I felt a profound sense of absurdity. With my money and time, I built a luxurious life for him and another woman.
    And this woman was now oblivious, accusing him of his parasitic nature right in front of me.
    The knot in my stomach suddenly dissipated, replaced by an ultimate clarity. I was going to end this.
    “I have to go.”
    “Oh, you look a little pale.” Brianna dug through her designer bag and pulled out a pen. “Take this. Caden gave it to me, but I already have one. Keep it as a lucky charm.”
    It was a Montblanc pen. Engraved on it were the intertwined initials “C.B.” and a caduceus symbol—the painstaking result of my frugality, custom-made to celebrate his graduation from medical school.
    He gave my gift to her. A cold smirk crept onto my lips.
    Brianna thought I was pleased. “Pretty, right? Caden said he personally picked the engraving style. He’s really thoughtful.”
    “Yes,” I took the pen, my fingers gripping it tightly like a weapon. “Truly… priceless. Thank you for the advice, Brianna. I wish you both long-lasting happiness.”
    The lie dripped with venom, while she remained completely unaware in her naive bliss.
    I turned and walked toward the exit, my steps firm. The sacrifices and love of the past three years were nothing but a sick game, and now, I would end it with my own hands.

    When Love Becomes A Monstrous Joke Chapter 2

    Alyssa’s POV:
    I was heading toward the lobby exit when my phone screen suddenly lit up. It was a text from Caden.
    Caden: “Don’t forget, I need you to attend the hospital’s charity gala tonight. Dress decently, and don’t talk to anyone important. Just smile and look pretty.”
    My blood instantly ran cold. “Don’t talk to anyone important.” He only cared that I stood next to him like a quiet accessory, never stealing the spotlight.
    Just then, a familiar voice came from an alcove nearby: “Honey, I’m almost there. Just dealing with something.” Caden had his back to me, talking on the phone.
    Brianna walked around the corner, her smile radiant: “Caden! I just met a lovely lady, Alyssa.”
    Caden turned around, and his eyes briefly met mine. A trace of impatience flashed across his face, but it was quickly replaced by a gentle smile. He pulled Brianna close and kissed her forehead.
    “My beautiful Brianna,” he whispered, then lifted his phone. “It’s fine, Mom. I’m with Brianna, and we’re about to enjoy a romantic dinner. No, of course I’m not going to the gala. I have to accompany my fiancée.”
    He wasn’t going to the gala. The very gala he had just texted me to “dress decently” for.
    I remembered our third wedding anniversary last year. I cooked his favorite meal, wore a blue dress I usually saved for special occasions, and bought a bottle of cheap sparkling wine to pretend it was champagne. Caden came home late at night and didn’t even glance at the dining table.
    “Don’t you know I have an important presentation tomorrow? I don’t have time to play these boring games with you.” He waved his hand and knocked over the wine glass. Cheap liquor and glass shards scattered across the floor, and he walked into the study without looking back.
    Such a contrast shattered my heart into pieces.
    Brianna took out an exquisite jewelry box from her tote bag: “Look at the gift Caden gave me today! As a thank you for helping him plan the proposal. It’s an antique Cartier bracelet, very expensive.”
    The fine gold chain sparkled under the light. I stared blankly at that bracelet. I had seen it on a top-tier antique jewelry website; it cost a fortune. And I knew exactly where that money came from.
    How disgusting!
    Two months ago, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars was transferred out of my savings account. Caden said it was to buy “emergency research equipment” and that he would pay me back once his funding was approved.
    He had sworn to me, “This is for our future, Alyssa.”
    That was my blood, sweat, and tears! Now it was all worn on the wrist of another woman.
    Brianna noticed my silence and tilted her head. “Are you still thinking about that man who doesn’t cherish you? My grandma used to say, where a man spends his money is where his heart is. If he’s not willing to spend money on you, just tell him to get lost.”
    My phone buzzed again. Another text message.
    Caden: “Make sure you transfer the rent tomorrow. Also, my dry-cleaning bill went over budget, remember to send a bit extra.”
    I stared at the screen, astounded by his shamelessness. While planning a romantic dinner and showing off a gift bought with my money, he was still limitlessly demanding more from me.
    Brianna caught a glimpse of my screen. “Is it him? Still asking you for money? He’s just a pathetic parasite, absolutely disgusting. Cut ties with him clean and just block him!”
    This was advice for a stranger, yet it accurately pronounced the verdict on my reality. Cut ties clean, block him.
    “You’re right,” I said, my voice not trembling in the slightest. “Thank you, Brianna. Thank you for making me see everything clearly.”
    I turned and left, no longer looking at the “engaged couple” immersed in their sweetness. My legs, which were weak just minutes ago, were now filled with strength.
    I strode out of the dazzling lobby, thoroughly leaving Caden’s lies behind me, and walked toward my own future.

    When Love Becomes A Monstrous Joke Chapter 3

    Alyssa’s POV:
    I was almost at the exit, my heart beating a steady, resolute rhythm in my chest.
    A hand suddenly touched my arm. I whipped around. It was Brianna, who had chased after me again, panting slightly, holding a small package in her hands.
    “Alyssa, wait!” Her voice was bright and rushed. “I almost forgot, this is something Caden made for me last week. He’s always so busy, but he still wanted to make a special gift. A little leather pouch for my paintbrushes.”
    She smiled as she opened the package, her laughter full of affection. “Even though the stitching is clumsy, he made it with so much heart.”
    Inside was a rough leather pouch sewn with thick thread. The dark brown leather was incredibly soft, yet it made my heart feel indescribably cold.
    “He said he made this from some old scrap leather he had lying around,” Brianna said, handing the pouch to me. “Although it’s not perfect, the thought is what counts.”
    I took the leather pouch, tracing the crooked stitches. This wasn’t some “old scrap leather lying around.” This was the leather from my late grandfather’s cherished old armchair!
    After my grandfather passed away, I cut a piece of leather from it as a keepsake. Caden knew perfectly well how precious this was to me. He was the one who helped me cut it back then, promising he would make a memory box for me out of it.
    Yet months later, he nonchalantly claimed he “lost it” when we moved, even scolding me for being “too sentimental” over a piece of old furniture. And now, my grandfather’s relic, my grief, had all become his “sweet gift” to please Brianna.
    “This is truly… precious.” My voice was tight as I handed the pouch back to her.
    Brianna tucked it away, unbothered. “Precious? Maybe it was just something he bought for a few bucks at a flea market. What matters is the intention.”
    Next, she pulled out her phone and showed me a photo. “Look at this! Last month, Caden took me to a special charity gala. The board members from my dad’s hospital were all there. Everyone said we were the perfect couple. He’s especially good at mingling with everyone, really charming. All the ladies absolutely loved him.”
    In the photo, Caden was holding Brianna’s arm, laughing radiantly among a crowd of VIPs. This was his glamorous life—the world he desperately hid and kept me out of.
    His countless warnings echoed in my head: “Alyssa, we can’t be seen together in public. A married resident will make people think I’m not focused enough. Once my career is stable, we’ll go public.”
    Her phone suddenly rang, and a sweet smile bloomed on her face: “It’s Caden!” She answered the call, her voice light. “Honey? I’m almost there. I know you miss me, see you in five minutes!” After hanging up, her cheeks were slightly flushed. “He just gets so anxious whenever I’m not around. Always worrying over nothing.”
    Yet I had never received a call like that from him. When my grandmother was hospitalized, he told me to “handle it quietly” and not disturb his studying; when I was bedridden with a high fever, he only texted me to get well soon because no one was there to do his laundry. He never cared if I lived or died, only whether I could continue to serve him.
    “Really, Alyssa,” Brianna said earnestly, “don’t waste any more time on that man who is just using you. You deserve true happiness.”
    Her words were like the final push I needed to make up my mind. Looking at the text from Caden demanding money still on my screen, I calmly pulled up his contact and decisively hit “Block.”
    His needs, his lies, vanished in an instant. Next, I switched my phone to airplane mode.
    “You’re right.” A smile of sheer relief surfaced on my lips. “From now on, I won’t waste any more time.”
    “That’s the spirit! Don’t let anyone step all over you ever again.” Brianna checked her watch and waved goodbye. “Caden is waiting for me, I have to go!”
    I watched her jog briskly toward the entrance, running straight into the trap Caden had meticulously designed for her.
    Gripping that Montblanc pen tightly, I turned and walked toward the subway station. The cold wind brushed my face, but it made my mind clearer than it had ever been before.

    👉 CONTINUE READING

  • Trapped In The Billionaire Uncle’s Embrace by Miaomiao

    Trapped In The Billionaire Uncle's Embrace by Miaomiao

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    Hollis stumbled into her family mansion, soaked in rain and wearing a strange man’s oversized shirt after a traumatizing night.
    But instead of offering comfort, her stepmother and stepsister ambushed her.
    They framed her for offending a powerful billionaire, demanding she pay a massive settlement.
    When her fiancé Aris arrived, Hollis thought she finally had an ally.
    Instead, he looked at her with pure disgust.
    “We’re over. I’m marrying Kyla now,” he sneered, wrapping his arm around her stepsister.
    To force her submission, her stepmother canceled her college admission and threatened to leak degrading photos of her to the press.
    That night, they even spiked her dinner and handed her over to thugs to be delivered to the old billionaire’s bed.
    Betrayed, humiliated, and stripped of everything, a white-hot rage burned through Hollis’s despair.
    Why did the people she lived with want to destroy her so ruthlessly?
    Using her last ounce of strength, she escaped the thugs and stumbled into a random hotel room.
    The next day, Hollis crashed Aris and Kyla’s lavish engagement party, holding the arm of a mysterious, imposing man.
    “Everyone, I’d like you to meet my new fiancé,” she announced with a victorious smile.
    Aris stared at the man, his face draining of all color as a terrified whisper escaped his throat.
    “Uncle Alaric?”

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    Trapped In The Billionaire Uncle’s Embrace Chapter 1

    The key trembled in Hollis’s hand.
    It took three tries before it finally slid into the lock. The heavy oak door of the Buchanan mansion swung inward, spilling golden light onto the porch.
    She stumbled across the threshold, her body a wreck of trembling limbs. A man’s white dress shirt, far too large for her, was the only thing she wore. Its hem barely grazed her upper thighs, and the collar carried the unfamiliar, sharp scent of tobacco.
    The living room was brightly lit.
    Her stepmother, Beverley, and stepsister, Kyla, were seated on the velvet sofa. They looked as if they had been waiting for her.
    Kyla’s lips twitched, a flicker of triumph she couldn’t quite hide as she took in Hollis’s disheveled state.
    Beverley set her porcelain teacup down on its saucer. The sharp clink echoed in the silent room. Her eyes, cold and sharp as splintered glass, raked over Hollis’s body.
    “Look who’s finally home.”
    Her voice was smooth, but laced with ice. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back tonight.”
    Kyla rose from the sofa, her face a mask of false concern. She moved toward Hollis, reaching out as if to help.
    “Hollis, what happened to you? That shirt… Aris will be so upset.”
    The mention of her fiancé’s name was a deliberate twist of the knife.
    Hollis flinched away from Kyla’s touch, a wave of nausea rolling through her. The dull ache in her body and the fractured, nightmarish images in her head made her stomach churn. She braced herself against the wall of the foyer, fighting to stay upright.
    Her gaze locked onto Beverley.
    A bitter laugh escaped her raw throat. “My drink,” she rasped, her voice hoarse with hatred. “You tampered with my drink, didn’t you?”
    A flash of panic crossed Beverley’s perfectly made-up face before it was replaced by practiced indignation. She elegantly crossed her legs.
    “Hollis, what nonsense are you talking about? I think you partied a little too hard and your brain has gone to mush.”
    Kyla chimed in, her voice dripping with saccharine sweetness. “Sister, how can you say that about Mom? She was just worried you’d drink too much and embarrass yourself at the party.”
    Hollis ignored Kyla. Her eyes remained fixed on Beverley, a predator stalking its prey. She pushed herself off the wall and took a shaky step forward.
    “Worried about me? Was sending me to an old man’s bed also for my own good?”
    The accusation hung in the air, thick and poisonous. Beverley’s composure finally cracked. Her eyes darted away for a second, a telltale sign of her guilt.
    She raised her voice to cover her unease. “If you say one more slanderous word, I swear I will tell your father!”
    Just then, a phone vibrated violently on the coffee table. The screen lit up, displaying the caller ID: Clay Thorne.
    Beverley’s face went white.
    Her hand shot out, a reflexive move to silence the call, but it was too late. She snatched the phone, trying to move away to answer it privately.
    Hollis lunged.
    With a burst of adrenaline, she closed the distance and slammed her finger down on the speakerphone button just as Beverley answered.
    A greasy, furious man’s voice erupted from the phone’s speaker.
    “Beverley! What the hell are you playing at? I waited all night! Where’s the girl you promised me? Are you screwing with me? Do you still want that investment or not!”
    A dead silence fell over the living room.
    Kyla’s face was a mask of chalky horror. She stared at her mother, her mouth agape.
    Beverley froze, looking like a strangled duck, the blood draining from her face.
    Hollis’s heart plummeted. A tidal wave of grief and rage washed over her. The proof was there, undeniable. But as the man’s grating voice echoed in her memory, a more terrifying thought surfaced.
    The hazy figure from her nightmares—tall, powerful, with an oppressive presence—did not match the voice on the phone. Not at all.
    Beverley’s plan had failed.
    She had been sent to the wrong room.
    Delivered to the wrong man.
    Looking at her stepmother’s panicked face, Hollis felt no thrill of victory. Only a profound, chilling emptiness and a terrifying confusion.
    Beverley finally snapped back to reality. She shrieked, lunging for the phone. Hollis stepped back, letting it fall onto the plush rug.
    Frantically, Beverley jabbed at the screen to end the call. She then glared at Hollis, her eyes filled with pure venom, like a cornered animal.
    “You ruined it! You ruined everything!” Beverley’s voice was distorted with fury.
    Hollis pressed her fingers to her temple, a fresh wave of dizziness washing over her. The drugs hadn’t fully worn off.
    She didn’t want to speak to them, didn’t want to even look at them. She turned to go to her room.
    Beverley’s hand shot out and clamped around her wrist. Her nails dug into Hollis’s skin.
    “Where do you think you’re going? You think this is over?” Beverley hissed through clenched teeth.
    Hollis tried to pull away, but her body was too weak. She couldn’t break the grip.
    Kyla stood by, her expression a complex mix of shock and something else, something unreadable. She made no move to help.
    A grotesque smile spread across Beverley’s face. “Hollis, since you refuse to be obedient, you can’t blame me for what comes next.”

    Trapped In The Billionaire Uncle’s Embrace Chapter 2

    Beverley’s fingers were like a vise around Hollis’s wrist. She leaned in close, her voice a venomous whisper meant only for Hollis’s ears.
    “Clay Thorne’s suite is 803. You’re going to go up there right now and ‘apologize’ properly. Otherwise, you can prepare to find five hundred thousand dollars to compensate me for my loss.”
    Hollis stared at her, stunned. The audacity was breathtaking. Five hundred thousand dollars? She was a student. She didn’t have that kind of money.
    With a sudden surge of strength—more a frantic reflex than real power—she ripped her arm free and stumbled back, putting distance between them.
    “You’re insane! I’m not going!”
    Beverley smoothed down her expensive silk robe, a cold smile playing on her lips. “No money? What about the trust fund your dear mother left you? You’re almost old enough to access it. Or, you could always call the police. Let’s see who they believe—a disgraced Buchanan girl with a ruined reputation, or me, a respected philanthropist.”
    Hollis’s body trembled with rage. She pulled out her phone, her thumb hovering over the 9-1-1 icon. It was her only weapon.
    Seeing the motion, Kyla shrieked. “Sister, don’t do something stupid! Think of the family’s reputation!”
    Just then, the butler’s voice echoed from the foyer. “Ma’am, Miss, Mr. Baird is here.”
    The name Aris Baird struck the room like a bolt of lightning. The three women froze. Hollis’s finger remained suspended over her phone screen.
    Aris. Her fiancé. What was he doing here at this hour?
    A cold dread washed over her as she saw the matching, triumphant expressions on Beverley’s and Kyla’s faces. She understood instantly. This was part of their plan.
    Aris Baird strode in, tall and impeccably dressed in an Armani suit. His handsome face was a blank mask, his deep blue eyes sweeping across the room before they landed on Hollis.
    When his gaze fell on the wrinkled man’s shirt she wore, her messy hair, and her pale, bruised face, his expression curdled into one of pure, undisguised disgust.
    Hollis’s heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand. The comfort and protection she had desperately hoped for were not there. Only judgment. Contempt.
    He walked past her as if she were invisible, settling his attention instead on the two women who stood waiting—Beverley with her practiced smile, Kyla already drifting toward him with a familiar ease that made Hollis’s stomach turn.
    Beverley’s voice cut through the air, smooth and deliberate. “Aris, dear, I’m so sorry you had to see this… unpleasantness. Some things are better left unseen.”
    Hollis watched them—the way Kyla’s hand found its way to Aris’s arm, the way Beverley positioned herself as the matriarch of a scene she had written herself. The three of them stood together, a closed circle that had no room for her.
    Aris’s gaze finally landed on her—cold, dismissive, as if she were a piece of trash he had just noticed on the floor.
    Aris’s looking down at her from his great height.
    He reached into his suit pocket, pulling out a checkbook and a Montblanc pen. With a few swift strokes, he wrote, tore out the check, and tossed it down in front of her.
    It fluttered to a stop near her feet.
    “Take it. It’s a breakup fee,” Aris said, his voice devoid of any warmth. “We’re over.”
    Hollis slowly lifted her head. Her bloodshot eyes stared at the man she had loved for three years.
    She didn’t look at the check. She just asked, “Why?”
    Aris let out a cold laugh, as if she’d just told the world’s most pathetic joke. “Why? Hollis, you have the nerve to ask me why? The future wife of a Baird cannot be a shameless woman who fools around with strange men.”
    “I wasn’t!” Hollis scrambled to her feet, her voice rising with desperation. “I was set up!”
    Kyla immediately shrank behind Aris, feigning fear. “Aris, she’s scaring me…”
    Aris shielded Kyla, his expression hardening with even more revulsion. “Shut up. Stop acting. It only makes me sicker. You’re not a virgin anymore, are you? That’s a fact!”
    The cruel words struck Hollis’s deepest wound, the raw, secret shame she was still grappling with.
    “So”—Aris paused, delivering the final blow—”I’ve decided to cancel our engagement. My fiancée… will be Kyla.”
    The world stopped. Hollis stared at Aris, then at the triumphant, hypocritical face of her sister peeking out from behind his arm.

    Trapped In The Billionaire Uncle’s Embrace Chapter 3

    The world stopped. Hollis stared at Aris, then at Kyla’s triumphant, hypocritical face peeking out from behind his arm.
    Aris’s words hung in the air like a death sentence. The silence in the room was absolute.
    But then, something flickered in Hollis’s chest. Not grief. Not more shock. A tiny, sharp spark of disbelief that refused to be extinguished.
    She looked at Aris again—really looked. Not at the handsome face she had loved, but at the man standing before her, the man who had just pronounced her “used goods” and replaced her with her sister in the space of a single breath.
    And she heard it.
    Not what he had said—but how he had said it.
    “You’re not a virgin anymore, are you?”
    Not “Did you sleep with someone else?” Not “What happened to you?” Not even “Who was that man?”
    He had stated it as fact. As if he already knew the outcome. As if he had expected it.
    Hollis’s blood turned cold.
    Her voice came out slow, barely more than a whisper. “How did you know?”
    Aris frowned. “Know what?”
    “That I wasn’t a virgin anymore.” She held his gaze. “I never told you that. I never said a word about what happened last night. You walked in, saw the shirt, and you didn’t ask—you just knew. How?”
    A flash of something crossed his face—too quick to read, but it was there. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
    “It’s obvious,” he said, but his voice had lost some of its edge. “You’re wearing a strange man’s clothes. Your hair is a mess. You look like—”
    “Like someone who was drugged and dragged to a hotel room,” Hollis cut him off. Her voice was rising now, a tremor running through it, but not from weakness. “Like someone who doesn’t remember half of what happened because her drink was tampered with. Like a victim, Aris. Not a cheater.”
    She stepped closer to him. He did not step back, but his eyes darted away for a fraction of a second.
    “You didn’t ask me what happened. You didn’t give me a chance to explain. You just pronounced me guilty. Because—”
    She stopped. The words formed in her mind like ice crystallizing.
    Because you already knew what was supposed to happen.
    The phone call. The wrong room. Clay Thorne’s furious voice demanding the girl he was promised.
    And Aris, her fiancé, standing here in the early morning, acting as if he had been waiting for this exact moment.
    “You knew,” Hollis said. Her voice was flat now. Empty. “You knew about the drink. You knew about the plan. You knew they were going to send me to someone else’s bed—and you let it happen.”
    Kyla’s face went pale behind Aris’s shoulder. “That’s ridiculous—”
    “Shut up,” Hollis snapped, her eyes never leaving Aris. “I’m talking to him.”
    Aris’s composure cracked. Just a hairline fracture, barely visible—but she saw it. The way his lips pressed together. The way his hand, the one not holding Kyla’s, curled into a fist at his side.
    “You’re hysterical,” he said, but it came out too fast. “You have no proof of anything.”
    “I have you,” Hollis said, and her voice was ice. “I have the way you just answered me. You didn’t say ‘I didn’t know.’ You said ‘You have no proof.’ That’s not a denial, Aris. That’s an admission.”
    He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
    And in that silence, everything clicked into place.
    Her stepmother’s scheme. Her sister’s eager complicity. And her fiancé—the man who had kissed her goodnight a hundred times, who had promised to love her forever—standing here, waiting for her to fall so he could catch Kyla instead.
    He had not been betrayed by her.
    He had been waiting to betray her.
    Hollis let out a breath. It came out shaky, but she did not break.
    She reached into her pocket and pulled out the check he had thrown at her. She had picked it up without thinking, an instinct to not leave anything of his lying on her family’s floor.
    She unfolded it slowly, looked at the number, and then let it fall from her fingers.
    It drifted down and landed at his feet.
    “That,” Hollis said, her voice as cold as a tombstone, “was for my dead love.”
    “Keep your filthy money,” she spat. “Buy your new fiancée some candy.”
    She threw the confetti of paper into their faces, then turned and ran out of the house without a backward glance.
    Hollis ran blindly through the New York streets. The cold wind whipped at her face, but it couldn’t cool the fire of rage and despair in her heart. She was homeless.
    The next day, exhausted and numb, she made her way back to her dorm at New York University, seeking a moment of peace.
    She was stopped by her academic advisor before she even reached the building entrance. The advisor’s face was etched with pity and discomfort.
    She was told that her stepmother, Beverley, had come to the university that morning. Acting as Hollis’s “guardian,” she had filed the paperwork for a mandatory withdrawal.
    The news hit Hollis like a physical blow. NYU was her escape. The one thing she had earned all by herself.
    She ran to the registrar’s office, but the answer was the same. The withdrawal was processed. It could not be reversed without her guardian’s consent.
    Hollis called Beverley. Her stepmother’s voice was smug and victorious on the other end of the line.
    “I gave you a chance, Hollis. Now, you only have one path left.”
    The threat was clear.
    “Eight o’clock tonight. The St. Regis, suite 803. Mr. Clay Thorne is waiting for you. If you’re not there, photos of you with your ‘wild man’ will be on the front page of every gossip magazine tomorrow morning.”
    Beverley hung up.
    Hollis listened to the dead tone, feeling as if the entire world had gone dark.

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  • The Hideous Wife Is A Billion-Dollar Princess by Star Dust

    The Hideous Wife Is A Billion-Dollar Princess by Star Dust

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    Leyla sacrificed her face to save Kristopher, only to endure three years of humiliation in a loveless marriage.

    Her last hope died when she learned the “vitamins” he gave her were contraceptives-and watched him lavish money on his returning first love.

    She demanded a divorce and walked away with nothing. Then her true identity stunned everyone: she was the cherished daughter of a royal-level dynasty, backed by three powerful brothers.

    On the very first day of her divorce, a limo picked her up. her second brother had worked his magic-her scarred face was restored to its former radiance. And at the first banquet she attended, she made such a stunning entrance that jaws dropped across the room.

    As for her ex-husband-the one who’d never given her a second glance-he was completely blindsided. For the first time in his life, Kristopher felt the sharp bite of regret. Now, he was desperate to win her back.

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    The Hideous Wife Is A Billion-Dollar Princess Chapter 1 Betrayal

    At the hospital, Leyla Thorpe tightly clutched her test results as she handed them to the doctor. “Am I pregnant?” she asked, her voice tinged with hope.

    The doctor scanned the report, his brows knitting together. “Of course you’re not. You’ve been taking birth control regularly. There is no way you could get pregnant.”

    A wave of cold swept through Leyla.

    Birth control?

    Every month after they slept together, her husband, Kristopher Gordon, would give her what he claimed was a multivitamin pill.

    He would always say, “You’re too fragile. You need to take better care of your health.”

    For three years, she had been touched by his thoughtfulness.

    Only now did she realize the truth—he had been giving her contraceptive pills.

    An invisible hand seemed to squeeze the air from Leyla’s lungs, making it hard for her to breathe. Trembling, she pulled out her phone and called Kristopher.

    The call went unanswered.

    Just then, a breaking news notification popped up on her screen.

    The bold headline read, “The Gordon Group CEO Kristopher Gordon Spends 100 Million on ‘Angel’s Heart,’ Winning It at an Auction for His Girlfriend!”

    Leyla stared blankly at the words, her pupils contracting.

    Beneath the headline was a photo taken at the auction.

    Dressed in a tailored black suit, Kristopher sat in the front row. His sharp features and composed expression gave him an air of effortless elegance.

    He was looking at the woman seated beside him, his attention fixed entirely on her.

    She wore a pale yellow evening gown, her long hair flowing over her shoulders, while a faint smile softened her delicate profile.

    It was Phoebe Brooks—Kristopher’s friend since childhood.

    She had gone overseas to study three years ago and, according to rumors, had only recently returned.

    Leyla blinked against the burning sensation in her eyes, yet there were no tears in them.

    A hollow laugh escaped her lips.

    She found the situation ridiculous.

    Phoebe was the woman Kristopher truly cherished, while she was nothing more than the wife he had hidden away from the world.

    Three years ago, when Kristopher had been in danger, she hadn’t hesitated to shield him.

    She had taken a knife meant for him, getting her face ruined in the process.

    Even as the blade sliced through her skin, she never cried out in pain.

    Afterward, he had promised to marry her and take care of her for the rest of her life.

    True to his word, they had become husband and wife.

    Yet throughout their marriage, he remained consumed by the heartbreak of Phoebe leaving the country.

    For three long years, she devoted herself to being the perfect wife, believing that one day, he would finally notice her devotion, understand her suffering, and perhaps even come to love her.

    She had foolishly believed that having a child might finally bring them closer.

    Instead, he had quietly made sure she would never have that opportunity.

    Now, watching him openly shower another woman with affection, she finally accepted the truth. His heart had always belonged to someone else.

    There had never been a place for her in it.

    The realization tore through Layla bit by bit, each moment more agonizing than the last.

    She made up her mind. She was going to divorce him.

    ***

    Leyla returned to Prime Estate, her home with Kristopher.

    The moment she walked through the front door, the housekeeper, Helen Miller, approached her with a frosty expression. “Mrs. Gordon, you’re becoming quite impossible. You’ve stayed out for so long.”

    Though she was only the housekeeper, she had taken care of Kristopher since he was young and had always considered herself above the rest of the household staff.

    Leyla knew exactly why Helen dared to speak to her so disrespectfully; Kristopher allowed it.

    In the past, desperate to win Kristopher’s affection, she had gone out of her way to please everyone around him.

    But not anymore.

    Leyla’s palm struck Helen’s face with a sharp slap, her voice as cold as ice. “You’re nothing more than a servant. What gives you the right to speak to me that way?”

    Helen covered her burning cheek, staring at Leyla in stunned disbelief. “H-how dare you hit me? I practically raised Mr. Gordon, you know! You should show me some respect!”

    “I am his wife,” Leyla shot back, every word crisp and unwavering. “Whatever your history with him may be, you’re still a paid employee of this household.”

    Helen shook with fury but didn’t dare utter another word.

    Without sparing her another glance, Leyla turned and headed upstairs.

    Behind her, Helen muttered venomously, “What’s there to be so proud of? Now that Miss Brooks is back, it won’t be long before she becomes Mr. Gordon’s wife.”

    Leyla paused for the briefest moment when she heard that.

    Even the housekeeper knew who truly held Kristopher’s heart.

    It seemed everyone knew except her.

    For the past three years, she had been the only fool deceiving herself.

    But none of that mattered anymore.

    She was the one choosing to leave Kristopher now.

    Back in her bedroom, Leyla opened the wardrobe and pulled out a small suitcase she had prepared long ago.

    After three years of marriage, everything she owned fit inside this single suitcase.

    Her gaze swept across the room.

    She had personally decorated every inch of it, yet not a single thing truly belonged to her.

    Pressing her lips into a thin line, she scrolled to a phone number she hadn’t called in years. She tapped the call button and lifted the phone to her ear.

    “I want to go home now.”

    The Hideous Wife Is A Billion-Dollar Princess Chapter 2 Let’s Get A Divorce

    A faint sound from the entryway shattered the stillness of the night.

    Leyla had just stepped out of the bathroom, droplets of water clinging to her damp hair. Looking toward the door, she said softly, “You’re back.”

    Kristopher stood in the doorway with his sleeves rolled up to his forearms, his expression as cold and unreadable as ever.

    Instinctively, Leyla gripped the sleeve of her nightgown. “I need to talk to you about something—”

    Before she could finish, Kristopher strode over and seized her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.

    The scar that ran from her left eyebrow to her cheek caught the light, its jagged edges standing in stark contrast to the delicate beauty she had once possessed.

    “You want to talk?” Kristopher’s voice was quiet, but every word carried a chilling edge. “Leyla, since when did you learn to play these little games with me?”

    “I wasn’t…” Leyla tried to explain.

    She never got the chance to finish. Kristopher caught her wrist and pulled her toward him. She lost her balance and slammed into his chest.

    With his free hand, Kristopher grabbed the collar of her nightgown and tore it open. Buttons flew in every direction, bouncing across the polished floor.

    Startled, Leyla shoved against him with all her strength. “What are you doing? Stop!”

    “Enough with the performance.” Kristopher’s lips curled in disdain as he looked at her as if she were beneath him.

    “Why else would you insist on me coming home tonight? Isn’t this exactly what you’ve been after? One night with me every month—that’s what you’ve asked for, isn’t it?”

    Leyla froze.

    So, that was what the matter meant to him. Just another monthly obligation.

    Three years of swallowing her pride and sacrificing everything, yet she had never earned even the smallest trace of his affection.

    If this was all their marriage amounted to, there was no reason to keep holding on.

    “Kristopher,” Leyla said quietly, her eyes meeting his, “let’s get a divorce.”

    Kristopher’s movements stilled for a second. A faint crease formed between his brows. “What did you just say?”

    Without wavering, Leyla repeated, “Let’s get a divorce.”

    Kristopher tugged impatiently at his tie, annoyance flashing across his face. “A divorce?” His voice was emotionless, almost mocking. “Leyla, what ridiculous stunt are you pulling this time?”

    “I’m being serious.” Leyla’s tone remained calm and unwavering. “The woman you truly love is back. I’m giving you your freedom. You can be together with her.”

    Kristopher’s expression darkened instantly, his eyes turning dangerously cold. “Stop pretending. You don’t even have the courage to walk out of this house. If we divorce, where exactly can you go?”

    His words struck with brutal precision.

    To everyone else, she was nothing more than the scarred woman he kept hidden from the public—someone locked inside a gilded cage.

    She had no career, no social life, no financial independence.

    She didn’t deserve to be with him at all.

    Leyla lowered her gaze before answering evenly, “That’s my concern, not yours.”

    Kristopher narrowed his eyes.

    For three years, she had always been gentle and obedient.

    This composed, distant version of her was completely unfamiliar to him.

    “Leyla,” Kristopher warned, his tone growing colder, “this little game of playing hard to get has gone on long enough.”

    Leyla didn’t reply.

    Just then, the sharp ring of a phone cut through the suffocating silence.

    Kristopher glanced at his phone screen. The frost in his eyes melted away in an instant. He answered the call immediately. “Phoebe? What happened?”

    The concern in his voice was unmistakable. As he listened, his expression softened even further. “Don’t be scared,” he said gently. “I’ll be there right away.”

    The call then ended. Without sparing Leyla so much as another glance, Kristopher turned and walked out of the room.

    He was convinced Leyla would never leave him.

    After all, for the past three years, she never had.

    The bedroom door slammed shut behind him, leaving Leyla alone in the space.

    She sat motionless on the edge of the bed, staring into the emptiness for what felt like an eternity.

    Then, her phone suddenly vibrated.

    A message from an unknown number lit up her screen.

    “He came to see me again.”

    Attached was a candid photo of Kristopher.

    A gentle smile curved his lips, and his eyes brimmed with warmth—a tenderness Leyla had never once seen directed at her.

    Before Leyla could process it, another message popped up.

    “I told him there might be reporters outside, and he rushed over without a second thought. He was so worried about me. Oh, and he bought me ‘Angel’s Heart’ at today’s auction. I even suggested he pick out something for you, but he said there was no need. I suppose he is right. Only beautiful women should wear jewelry. With a face like yours, it would only go to waste. Leyla, he only married you because he had no choice. I’ve always been the one he truly loves.”

    Leyla stared at the message, and a cold laugh escaped her lips.

    Every sentence was another knife twisting in her wounds. It finally dawned on her that the man who had treated her with indifference for three long years could be so gentle and attentive to another woman.

    Without the slightest hesitation, Leyla typed a reply.

    “You want Kristopher? A used man like him suits you perfectly. The two of you deserve each other—two shameless people cut from the same cloth. Do everyone a favor and stay together forever, so neither of you gets the chance to ruin anyone else’s life.”

    She sent it, then immediately blocked the number.

    “Kristopher…” she murmured with a bitter smile. “From now on, we are even.”

    The next day.

    Leyla placed the signed divorce agreement on the bedside table.

    She wasn’t taking anything from Kristopher. All she wanted was a clean end to their marriage.

    With nothing but a small suitcase in hand, she walked out of Prime Estate.

    Three years had passed, yet she had never managed to earn Kristopher’s love.

    It was time to stop trying.

    The moment she stepped through the estate’s front gate, a limited-edition extended Rolls-Royce glided to a stop before her.

    The rear door swung open, and a tall figure stepped out.

    The instant Leyla saw her eldest brother, Damien Holden, tears rushed uncontrollably into her eyes. “Damien…” Her voice trembled. “I’ve signed the divorce papers.”

    For three years, she had buried every grievance, every humiliation, forcing herself to endure a loveless marriage. But the moment she saw her brother, all her emotions came crashing down.

    “Leyla, congratulations on getting your freedom.” Damien wrapped her in a warm embrace, his voice filled with concern. “It’s time to be yourself again.”

    He gently stroked her hair before smiling. “Welcome home.”

    In truth, Leyla was the youngest daughter of the prestigious Holden family, one of Wrafham’s most wealthy and influential households. Since childhood, she had carried her mother’s surname.

    Now that she had left the divorce papers for Kristopher, she was finally returning home.

    Before leaving, she had already hacked into the Gordon family’s surveillance system and erased every trace of her existence from their records.

    From this day forward, the so-called “Mrs. Gordon” no longer existed. Only Leyla Thorpe, the cherished daughter of the Holden couple, remained.

    The Hideous Wife Is A Billion-Dollar Princess Chapter 3 Returning Home At Last

    Kristopher stayed away the entire night.

    By the time he finally returned to Prime Estate, it was already noon the following day.

    The moment he entered the bedroom, his gaze settled on the divorce agreement left atop the nightstand.

    One clause stated, “The wife voluntarily relinquishes all claims to the couple’s joint assets and will leave the marriage without receiving anything.”

    Kristopher’s fingers curled around the pages until his knuckles whitened.

    Pulling out his phone, he called Leyla.

    Her phone had been switched off.

    He tried once more.

    The result was the same.

    “Helen!” Kristopher barked, his voice sharp with fury.

    Helen came hurrying over from the kitchen. “Mr. Gordon, you’re home.”

    “Where’s Leyla?” Kristopher asked.

    Helen faltered beneath his stare. “She… she left first thing this morning with a suitcase. A luxury car worth tens of millions picked her up… The man inside the car was incredibly handsome. He looked very rich, too.”

    A layer of frost seemed to settle over Kristopher’s expression when he heard that.

    He strode back into the bedroom and called his assistant, Derek Carter. “Track Leyla down. I want to know her whereabouts before the end of the day.”

    After ending the call, he stopped before the window as a pulse hammered at his temple.

    So, Leyla had truly dared to leave him.

    He had assumed her demand the previous night was nothing more than a fit of temper.

    For the past three years, she had relied on him for every part of her life.

    How long could she possibly survive in the city without him?

    It would only be a matter of days before she came back in defeat.

    Drawing in a sharp breath, Kristopher crushed the divorce agreement in his fist and tossed the wad of paper into the trash can.

    There was no chance he would sign it.

    It wasn’t that he was unwilling to lose her; it was just that no one had ever dared walk out on him like that.

    Leyla had demanded a divorce the previous night, then left in a luxury car that morning. Clearly, she had planned everything in advance.

    She had never loved him. Otherwise, how could she have left so resolutely with another man?

    Kristopher let out a humorless chuckle. His jaw clenched as he muttered, “Leyla, you’ve really got some nerve!”

    ***

    A Rolls-Royce eased onto the grounds of Holden Manor.

    Looking out the car window, Leyla took in scenery that felt both familiar and strange. For reasons she couldn’t explain, her pulse began to race.

    After three long years, she had finally returned.

    Her parents, Gregg Holden and Jayde Thorpe, were already waiting for her at the entrance.

    The car door swung open.

    “Leyla!” Jayde ran forward and gathered her daughter into her arms. Tears spilled down her face as she said, “You’re finally home. We’ve waited so long for you to come back.”

    Leyla rubbed her mother’s back in gentle strokes. “Mom, Dad, I’m sorry I put you through so much worry.”

    Even Gregg, a formidable titan of industry, felt his vision blur. His voice came out rough with emotion. “Having you home safe is all that matters.”

    Jayde finally loosened her embrace and brushed the tears from her cheeks, only to go rigid when her gaze landed on the scar marring Leyla’s face.

    “Leyla, your face…” A flash of concern crossed her features.

    She had spent all those years believing her daughter was happy.

    Leyla had rarely gone outside, and every phone call with her parents carried the same assurances. She spoke only of the good and concealed every hardship.

    Yet this was what had truly become of her?

    Leyla had gotten her face ruined to save Kristopher, hidden her privileged identity, and taken care of him for three years. But in return, he had held another woman at an auction and spent recklessly just to please her, completely ignoring Leyla’s feelings.

    Damien moved closer. “Mom, don’t worry. Collin is one of the best reconstructive surgeons in the world. He’ll be able to erase Leyla’s scar.”

    A spark of hope brightened Leyla’s gaze as she nodded. “Yeah.”

    Collin Holden, her second brother, was an exceptional surgeon.

    Her third brother, Felix Holden, had built a celebrated career as a jewelry designer.

    “Mom, Dad, I’m all right. It’s all in the past.” Leyla’s voice softened as she tried to reassure them. “From now on, I’ll stay right here with you, always.”

    Only now did she realize that being with Kristopher had been a huge mistake. Loving him had brought her a disaster.

    Gregg sighed heavily. Thinking of his daughter’s past choices left him torn between anger and heartache.

    “Take a few days to rest,” he told Leyla. “The Pearl Charity Gala is coming up next week. You’ll attend with Damien.”

    Gregg knew his family had made one critical mistake in the past.

    They had kept such a low profile that ignorant fools believed they could mistreat his daughter without facing any consequences.

    Gregg’s words stirred complicated feelings within Leyla.

    The Pearl Charity Gala ranked among the most exclusive gatherings in Wrafham.

    Despite being Kristopher’s wife for three years, she had never attended the event. She had not been considered worthy of an invitation.

    Gregg continued, “Since you’ve chosen to reclaim your true identity, it’s time to let everyone know that you are my daughter.”

    Leyla was silent for a moment before giving a firm nod.

    Three years ago, she had defied her parents and concealed her identity to marry Kristopher. Her decision had enraged them so deeply that they had nearly cut ties with her.

    Now, she owed it to them to make amends.

    “Okay,” she replied.

    “Now that’s my daughter,” Gregg said with approval.

    He then extended a sleek black card edged in gold toward her. “The card has no spending limit. The Holden family has more than enough money, so you can buy anything that catches your eye.”

    Leyla studied the black card, and a faint smile touched her lips.

    Only minutes earlier, she had been completely penniless. Did this mean she had suddenly become wealthy?

    👉 CONTINUE READING

  • The Forbidden Mate: Claimed By My Ex’s Alpha Uncle by Amigo

    The Forbidden Mate: Claimed By My Ex's Alpha Uncle by Amigo
    👉 READ NOW

    After four years of playing the perfect girlfriend, my wealthy boyfriend publicly humiliated me for a rich heiress.

    He sneered that I was just a poor Omega who couldn’t survive without his money.

    “You’re not going anywhere without my permission.”

    I didn’t cry or beg. I simply packed my single suitcase, blocked his number, and walked out into the night to reclaim my life.

    That same evening, I ended up saving a dangerously handsome stranger bleeding out in a dive bar restroom.

    I thought I had finally escaped that toxic world to focus on my career as a top heart surgeon.

    But a week later, my ex’s grandmother suffered a massive heart attack, and his desperate family dragged me back to the hospital to save her.

    After the grueling surgery, my ex’s mother tried to force us back together, while my ex glared at me with pure contempt.

    I was about to reject them all when the terrifying Alpha King-my ex’s ruthless uncle-stepped out of the shadows.

    My blood ran cold. His piercing blue eyes were unmistakable. He was the bleeding stranger from the bar.

    I thought he would simply thank me and let me walk away.

    “From this moment on, Dr. Freeman will reside at the Manor.”

    He didn’t ask. He commanded it in front of the entire family, completely ignoring my ex’s shock.

    Before I could even protest, his men were already at my new apartment, packing up my life.

    I had just escaped my ex’s gilded cage, only to be trapped by the King himself.

    👉 READ NOW

    The Forbidden Mate: Claimed By My Ex’s Alpha Uncle Chapter 1

    Colette POV:

    “Colette, Alpha Colten is hurt. Get to the pack’s club, now.”

    That frantic phone call from one of Colten’s enforcers had sent me running.

    I had just finished an exhausting eight-hour surgery at the pack hospital.

    My legs ached, and I hadn’t even had a sip of water before sprinting all the way to the VIP lounge.

    Pushing the heavy oak door open, the sickly sweet scent of a strange she-wolf hit me before the visual did.

    Colten was lounging on the plush leather sofa.

    A young woman named Hanna was sitting sideways on his lap, with her pale, slender legs draped intimately over his thighs.

    Her eyes were red-rimmed, and unshed tears clung to her long lashes.

    Seeing me walk in, Colten frowned impatiently. “Colette, Hanna hurt her right ankle. Check it quickly.”

    Hanna looked at me with wide, tearful doe eyes. “Sorry to trouble you, Colette.”

    The frantic worry that had kept me running on empty lungs instantly turned into a bucket of ice water poured over my head.

    He wasn’t hurt.

    He had his men lie to me just to tend to his new fling’s minor sprain.

    A sharp, stinging ache gripped my heart.

    I had loved him for so long, always putting him first, yet to him, my exhaustion and devotion meant absolutely nothing.

    He didn’t even care to ask why I was still in my scrubs, or why my face was so pale.

    I stared at her foot resting on the sofa.

    Swallowing the bitter lump of grievance in my throat and forcing down the trembling in my legs, I slowly crouched down.

    I reached out.

    My fingers were still an inch away from her skin, not even brushing her ankle, when—

    “Ouch! It hurts so much!” Hanna shrieked in agony, burying her face into Colten’s chest like a frightened pup.

    “Colette! Do you even know how to treat a patient?” Colten roared, his heavy Alpha aura flaring with sudden anger, pressing down on me.

    “I haven’t even touched her yet,” I explained calmly, looking up.

    His brows knitted together in deep annoyance. “If you didn’t touch her, why is she crying in pain?”

    As he spoke, his large hand gently patted Hanna’s back, soothing her.

    I had always known he could be gentle to other females.

    But seeing this tender, affectionate side of him directed at someone else today made me realize how pathetic I was.

    The stark contrast felt like a silver blade twisting deeply into my chest.

    I had been his official girlfriend for four years, but our history spanned nearly two decades.

    We grew up going to school together.

    During the holidays, I meticulously took care of his daily life.

    When he was struck by wolfsbane fever, I stayed awake for three days straight to keep his temperature down.

    He had known this girl in his arms for barely four days.

    Yet, Colten chose to believe a four-day fling over me.

    I slowly stood up, forcing my spine straight. “I’m sorry. I can’t treat this.”

    “Can’t treat it?” Colten sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. “Our pack took you in, fed you for years, and paid for your medical degree, and you can’t even treat a minor sprain?”

    I finally heard the underlying contempt in his voice.

    I recognized his dissatisfaction with me and our relationship.

    Above all, I recognized that my status in his heart had never changed.

    I was just a servant to him.

    Standing tall, I lowered my eyes and took one last, careful look at the man I had loved for so many years.

    Then, I forced the words out. “Alpha Colten, I cannot treat this lady’s injury.” I paused, taking a steady breath to stop my voice from trembling. “Also, I apologize for occupying the position of your girlfriend for the past few years. It won’t happen anymore.”

    Colten lifted his dark eyes, a mocking smirk playing on his lips. “Are you throwing a tantrum and breaking up with me? Perfect. I wanted to give Hanna a proper title anyway.”

    His tone was so relaxed.

    Light.

    It was as if… he had been waiting for me to say those exact words.

    “Enjoy your night, Alpha. I’ll take my leave.” I turned on my heel and walked away.

    Before I even stepped out of the lounge, the mocking voices of Colten’s enforcers leaked into the hallway.

    “Whoa, do you think she’s actually serious this time?”

    “Please. If his father hadn’t pressured him, would an orphaned Omega ever get to sit in that position? She’s just bluffing.”

    “She won’t leave. Give it a day. One call from him and she’ll come running back like a good little pet.”

    I quickened my pace, practically fleeing the club.

    The moment I stepped out of that room, a tidal wave of suffocating grief crashed over me.

    My mother was a servant for the Alpha’s family.

    Twenty years ago, she died protecting the packhouse during a rogue attack.

    My cowardly father took the compensation money and fled the pack.

    Out of pity, the Norton family took me in.

    They let me attend school alongside Colten, tasking me with serving him.

    I had no family; all my childhood memories were tethered to him.

    Later, we got together.

    He once announced to the entire pack at the annual mating gala that I was his.

    He once bought me a diamond ring, saying he wanted to mark and marry me.

    The memories violently clashed with what had just happened.

    It felt like an invisible hand was crushing my heart, hurting so much I couldn’t breathe.

    It wasn’t until passing pack members cast strange looks my way that I realized tears were uncontrollably streaming down my face.

    I turned and rushed into the club’s women’s restroom, locking myself in the furthest stall before breaking down, sobbing silently.

    I let the tears wash away two decades of a foolish illusion.

    When I finally purged all the sorrow from my system, ready to step out and embrace a new life…

    I unlatched the door.

    Before I could open it fully, a massive, towering figure shoved his way inside.

    Terrified, I opened my mouth to scream, but a large, rough hand clamped over my lips.

    The overwhelming scent of blood and terrifying, raw Alpha power filled the tiny space, completely paralyzing my wolf.

    He pinned me against the corner wall, lowering his voice into a dangerous, gravelly warning.

    “Keep quiet and cooperate if you want to live.”

    The Forbidden Mate: Claimed By My Ex’s Alpha Uncle Chapter 2

    Colette POV:

    The man’s voice was heavy, strained with a clear suppression of agony.

    The moment he leaned in, an overwhelming stench of metallic blood engulfed me.

    The large hand clamped over my mouth and nose was slick with fresh blood.

    My doctor’s instinct kicked in.

    Sensing he was severely wounded, my initial thrashing immediately ceased.

    Hearing chaotic footsteps outside, the man turned to lock the stall door, only to find the latch was completely broken.

    He cursed under his breath.

    “Where the fuck did he go?” a rough voice barked from the hallway.

    “Shit, you think he ducked into the restrooms?” another replied.

    “You guard the exit. I’ll check the women’s restroom! When I find him, I’m breaking his legs with this silver-laced baton. Let’s see him run then!”

    The man leaned heavily against the tiled wall.

    Even in the dim light, I could see his face was deathly pale, the entire left sleeve of his dark dress shirt soaked in blood.

    My eyes fell on his face.

    There was something strikingly familiar about those cold, piercing blue eyes.

    It was as if… I had seen them somewhere before.

    Heavy boots stomped into the women’s restroom.

    The chaser was kicking the stall doors open one by one.

    I didn’t know what possessed me—maybe it was the adrenaline, or the reckless courage born from having my heart shattered tonight—but I grabbed the man’s leather belt and threw his exact warning back at him in a fierce whisper.

    “Keep quiet and cooperate if you want to live.”

    Treating him like a patient who needed immediate emergency intervention, I swiftly unbuckled his belt, yanked his expensive tailored trousers down, and kicked them toward the gap under the stall door.

    Then, I ripped open the buttons of his blood-soaked shirt.

    Listening to the chaser checking the stalls closer and closer, I grabbed the bottle of highly concentrated medical rubbing alcohol from my bag—a habit I kept for emergencies—and sprayed it everywhere, overpowering the metallic tang of blood.

    At the same time, a surge of adrenaline spiked my own sweet Omega scent, mixing with the alcohol to create a heavy, intoxicating illusion of a couple in the middle of a heated mating frenzy.

    Just as the door to our stall was yanked open, I made a split-second decision.

    I pulled my T-shirt over my head, tossing it aside, leaving me in only my lacy bra.

    Without hesitation, I cupped the stranger’s face and smashed my lips against his.

    The man stiffened for a fraction of a second.

    But then, an instinctual, primal reaction took over.

    His large hand gripped my bare waist, pulling me flush against his hard, burning chest.

    A strange, electric jolt sparked the moment our lips met, sending a shiver straight to my core.

    He turned my desperate cover-up into a deep, dominating kiss that left me breathless.

    I tore my lips away just enough to snap my head toward the intruder, screaming with feigned rage, “What the hell are you looking at? Go watch your own mate!”

    Male shifters were predictable creatures driven by their primal urges.

    Seeing my bare, pale back and the man’s trousers discarded on the floor, the rogue’s aggressive posture instantly relaxed into a sleazy smirk.

    He even let out a low whistle.

    “Got a couple of wild ones having a quickie in the stall,” the rogue yelled back to his partner at the door, chuckling. “You wanna come watch?”

    That single scream had drained every ounce of courage I had.

    I bit my lower lip hard, my hands tightly gripping the stranger’s bloody shirt, not even daring to breathe.

    “You idiot! Stop watching a live show and keep looking!” the voice from the hallway snapped.

    The heavy boots finally retreated, and the restroom door swung shut.

    It wasn’t until the room fell into complete, dead silence that I let out a long, shaky exhale.

    I turned to face the wall and quickly pulled my T-shirt back on.

    Behind me, the man calmly bent down, pulled up his trousers, and fastened his belt.

    He adjusted his collar, preparing to leave…

    I grabbed his arm, pulling him back, and pointed at the closed toilet lid. “Sit.”

    I completely ignored the flash of surprise in his piercing blue eyes.

    Bending down to dig through my bag, I said in my stern, clinical voice, “If I were someone with a severed artery, I’d listen to the doctor.”

    He glanced at the medical supplies in my hand, then at the lingering scent of alcohol I had sprayed.

    A faint, amused smirk ghosted over his lips, and he actually sat down.

    I noticed the edges of the wound on his arm were blackened and sizzling faintly.

    Silver and wolfsbane.

    No wonder a powerful Alpha like him couldn’t heal.

    I took a silk scarf from my bag, tied it above the wound, and then used a pen to twist it into a makeshift tourniquet.

    “If you can’t get to a pack healer immediately, remember to loosen this every forty minutes for about five minutes to let the blood flow, then tighten it again,” I instructed, expertly securing the pen.

    When I finally finished and stepped back, I realized he hadn’t buttoned his shirt yet.

    In the dim, flickering light, his abdominal muscles were sharply defined, his broad, hard chest rising and falling rhythmically with his heavy breathing.

    But what caught my eye was a savage, jagged scar on his shoulder that extended all the way down his back.

    It was an old wound, fully healed, but it would never fade.

    A mark of countless life-and-death battles.

    Besides that, there were several lighter scars crisscrossing his torso.

    Before I could pull my gaze away, the man stood up.

    He casually pulled his ruined shirt together, using his blood-stained fingers to selectively fasten just two buttons, leaving his chest dangerously exposed.

    Then, he reached out and grabbed my hand just as I was about to pick up my bag.

    “What are you doing?” I gasped, looking up into his dark, fathomless eyes.

    My palm felt heavy.

    A small, cold metal object was pressed into my hand.

    The man’s thumb, rough with calluses, gently folded my fingers over it.

    The overwhelming aura of a supreme predator washed over me as he leaned in, his voice a low, gravelly purr that sent shivers down my spine.

    “Dr. Colette… until we meet again.”

    Then, he turned, opened the stall door, and walked out into the shadows with the grace of a lethal king.

    The Forbidden Mate: Claimed By My Ex’s Alpha Uncle Chapter 3

    Colette POV:

    I stared at the heavy platinum cufflink in my palm, my heart suddenly skipping a beat.

    Wait.

    He had just called me “Dr. Colette.”

    He knew my name!

    He knew who I was!

    I clutched my bag and sprinted out of the restroom, but the dimly lit hallway was completely empty.

    The only proof that the dangerous stranger had been there was the lingering scent of metallic blood and cold cedar in the air.

    Taking a deep breath, I walked out of the club and immediately dialed my best friend, Brooke.

    Then, I hailed a cab straight back to Colten’s villa.

    I had to pack my things before that bastard returned.

    The massive villa was filled with expensive designer goods.

    The walk-in closet on the second floor was stuffed with luxurious dresses and custom heels.

    But those were all Colten’s props.

    The things that truly belonged to me were pitifully few.

    A few pairs of worn-out scrubs, some basic skincare products, and my heavy stacks of medical textbooks.

    It took me less than an hour to pack up my entire four-year relationship into one battered suitcase and a cardboard box.

    I left the designer clothes untouched and restored the bedroom to its immaculate state, erasing any trace of my scent and existence.

    By the time I dragged my belongings to the front gates of the villa, Brooke had just pulled up in her car.

    She stepped out, staring at the heavy box of medical books in shock.

    “Are you… planning to give Colten the silent treatment for half a year?”

    “No,” I said calmly, loading the books into her trunk. “I broke up with him. For good.”

    Brooke knew me well.

    I had never once uttered the words “break up” in the past four years.

    Seeing the absolute deadness in my eyes, she knew I was serious.

    “Good riddance!” She helped me lift the suitcase. “I fully support you!”

    Colten POV:

    The next morning, I was jolted awake by my blaring alarm.

    My head pounded from a massive hangover.

    I rubbed my temples and walked straight into the walk-in closet.

    Instantly, my eyes fell on the two perfectly matched suits hanging at the front, carefully selected for my meetings today.

    Colette had prepared them.

    I never had to worry about the trivial details of my life.

    For years, Colette had meticulously coordinated my outfits based on my schedule.

    To me, regardless of how many other she-wolves I played around with, Colette was the perfect, obedient choice for a mate.

    Her Omega wolf was weak and submissive.

    She was bluffing, I thought with a smirk.

    She threw a tantrum about breaking up last night, but she still crawled back to lay out my clothes.

    Feeling smug, I changed and walked downstairs.

    “Alpha Colten, breakfast is ready,” Eleanor, the head housekeeper, said as she stepped out of the kitchen.

    I frowned, looking around. “Where is Colette?”

    “She sent me a message past midnight, asking me to prepare your meals from now on,” Eleanor hesitated, her voice dropping. “She moved out last night, Alpha. She said she won’t be returning.”

    My arrogant expression instantly darkened. “Moved out? Did she take the jewelry and dresses I bought her?”

    “No, sir. Just one old suitcase and her books.”

    A brief silence fell over the dining room.

    Then, a cold, mocking sneer escaped my lips.

    She really thinks this little stunt will make me beg?

    I raised my arm, glancing at my expensive watch.

    It was 8:30 AM.

    “I’ll give her until eight o’clock tonight,” I commanded, my voice dripping with contempt. “If she doesn’t come crawling back to beg for my forgiveness by 8 PM, clear out her remaining scent. Let Hanna move in permanently. It’s time this villa had a new mistress anyway. I don’t have the patience to play these childish games with a mere servant’s daughter.”

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