Female Growth

For two and a half years, I survived on my husband’s measly $480 monthly allowance, trapped in a gilded mansion as his invisible, unpaid housekeeper while he lavished wealth and attention on another woman.

When Ethan finally offered me $13.2 million to sign a divorce and disappear quietly, I agreed instantly.

I did not grieve the end of my marriage. I rejoiced at my freedom.

What he never knew ...

I didn’t come from money, so Julian’s friends decided I was a gold digger.

His best friend, Sloane, was the worst. She liked to say she used to be a gold digger herself, so she knew my type.

To prove her wrong, I spent three years with Julian without accepting a single expensive gift.

Sloane had an answer for that, too: “She says she doesn’t want anything, but she’s really waiting for him to of...

I spent six years trying to warm an emotionally distant husband and raising a son who learned to copy his coldness. On the day my civil assault case went to trial, they flew to Switzerland to comfort my husband's ex-girlfriend. When my five-year-old admitted he had deleted the strongest video evidence because he didn't want Vanessa to cry, the last bit of love in me went quiet. By the time they re...

"Priest, I'm requesting to transfer my registry to the Forbidden Lands. And I need the materials to forge a Moonshadow Puppet. In three days, it will stand in my place at the mating altar."

I spoke into the communication rune in my palm.

From the other end, the Moon Priest's voice spiked with warning. "Aria, do you have any idea what you're saying? The Forbidden Lands is an abyss of no ret...

Ten years into my marriage, I'd traded my paintbrush for a spatula and turned into Mrs. Holloway.

Ever since my sister Brooke moved in, my husband Bennett and my daughter Lucy had picked up a habit. Anytime Brooke and I disagreed, they put it to a vote.

On my birthday I wanted steak. Two hands went up for the salad bar Brooke liked. When I hadn't slept in weeks and wanted to see a therapist, the...

For eighteen years, Ethan Caldwell was the person I trusted most. Then, on the night meant to celebrate my future, he handed me another woman's hotel key and asked me to protect her reputation.

I gave him one final chance: meet me at the airport and choose our promised trip. Instead, he lied about a car accident while I watched him wrap a matching scarf around Vanessa Reed's neck.

By the time Et...

To celebrate his startup's funding, my boyfriend Liam forced me to eat a cake baked by his female best friend, Mia.

I immediately smelled peanuts. He knew I was deathly allergic, but he pressured me to take a bite anyway.

When the reaction hit—my throat closing, hives burning my skin—I reached for my EpiPen.

Mia snatched it first.

She turned my only lifeline into a party trick, tossing it in t...

For five years, my husband claimed he could not understand emotion.

I believed him, excused every broken promise, and taught myself to survive on scraps of attention.

Then I went to his office with news of our unborn child and heard him laughing with the woman who had helped him deceive me.

He had married me for a pureblood heir. Once the baby was born, he planned to throw me away.

He wanted...

The man on the other side of the frosted glass paid a hundred million dollars for my amnesia serum. I warned him there was no antidote. He laughed.
“If I can buy the poison,” he said, “I can buy the cure.”
He didn’t recognize my voice. Why would he? In five years of marriage, Rhett Calloway never once asked what I did before I became his wife.
Days later, he divorced me and pressed that same vial ...

I can see other people's net worth.

The day my boyfriend learned he was the long-lost son of the richest man in this city on the East Coast, he came home and lied to my face.

"The DNA test didn't match," Caleb Foster said with a sigh.

Above his head, his net worth climbed past $14 million.

I did not expose him. I only smiled and said, "Don't worry. As long as you can take hardship, there'll al...

I married the same Mafia Don nine times.

And nine times, he divorced me for the woman he believed had saved his life.

Taviano Ruscello ruled one of New York's most feared Mafia families. Yet whenever Isolde Carenza returned, his own Donna had to step aside.

"She risked her life for me, Vespera. I won't let anyone call her a homewrecker."

Nine weddings. Nine divorces.

Every time Isolde came ho...

On our wedding day, my fiancé gave the wedding dress I had made by hand to his sick sister—and let her marry into the DeLuca family in my place.
Everyone told me to give in because she was fragile, while I was strong enough to endure it.
That night, I walked away, revoked my access to the family, and left my mother’s atelier.
Later, his sister’s fake illness was exposed, and my fiancé got down on ...

On our seventh anniversary, my fiancé left me standing outside the courthouse so he could drive another woman to the hospital. It was the ninety-ninth time he'd called off our wedding for her.
That night, he booked the restaurant where we'd had our first date. He wore the tie I'd given him. For a few minutes, I let myself believe he finally understood.
Then he asked me to eat faster. She wanted de...

Three days before my wedding, I found a spreadsheet on my fiancé’s laptop.
It was called Operation Prank Nora.
Five years of my life, itemized and checked off. The fake terminal diagnosis. The fellowship I gave away. The condo I signed over to my best friend.
And one new row, still blinking: Fake wedding.
My fiancé. My best friend. My stepbrother. The doctor who told me I was dying. They’d built a...

"Mom, I only want to go to Paris with you, not Dad."

When my ten-year-old daughter said this with tears in her eyes, I thought she was expressing her love for me.

I was wrong.

In our Paris hotel, I accidentally overheard the phone call that changed everything—

"Don't worry, Lily will find a way to extend the trip. I promised to buy her that concert-grade piano."

"Having sex in your marital be...

My Sister-in-Law Smashed My $350,000 Agate Bracelet, So I Canceled Her Brother's $98 Million Deal

Vanessa Liang lifted my red agate bracelet above her head in front of the whole Hale family.

It hit the marble floor with a clean crack.

My mother-in-law kept cracking sunflower seeds. "Broken things ward off bad luck," Margaret Hale said, smiling as if she had just made a toast.

My father-in-law ...

I, Evelyn Stone, found the videos while clearing old files from my husband’s computer.

At first I thought I had opened the wrong folder. Then I recognized Martin Grant’s face. The woman beneath him was Claire Weston, my best friend.

I married Adrian Bennett to pay off my family's debt. The contract was simple enough to fit on one page and insane enough to ruin my life: give him a daughter, and every dollar I owed vanished. Give him a son, and the balance doubled.
 
I gave him a boy. Then another boy. The debt quadrupled.
 
When our third child finally arrived and the doctor announced she was a girl, Adrian-the coldest CEO in ...

Abandoned by her adoptive family, she saw through false affection and cut off all past ties without hesitation.
She is the long-lost heiress of the top wealthy family, with countless mysterious hidden identities.
The most powerful man falls in love with her at first sight, and offers endless love and exclusive favor.

“Even if your blood didn’t flow through my veins from our binding,” he began, his voice low and throaty as if his touch ignited something in him too. He licked his lip and her gaze tracked the movement. “Even if I weren’t of alpha blood with a powerful wolf…” His face lowered until he was only a hairsbreadth away from kissing her. “I would still be able to hear your heart from across the room and ...